Jerome Bonaparte: King of Westphalia

In October 1812, Napoleon, conqueror of an empty and fire-blackened Moscow, pondered retreat. In Cassel, his youngest brother Jerome, King of Westphalia, had problems too. His three mistresses—two German and one Polish—complicated his life immensely, though his faithful Queen, Catherine of Württemberg, sedulously avoided noticing her “Frifi’s” adventures.

Jerome’s court had been a source of scandal since his arrival in 1807. “A Roman circus!” wrote Goethe. Of his palaces, the King best loved Wilhelmshöhe, the “Hessian Versailles,” built a hundred years before by the Landgraf Karl. With its chateau, cascades, gardens sprinkled with statues of mythological figures in erotic poses, it seemed to have been waiting for Jerome, and he made full use of it.

At his masked balls hundreds of guests played at identifying the King, who gleefully changed costume, wig, and make-up a half-dozen times. Between balls there were spectacles, musicales, and rounds of drinking, feasting, dancing, and hunting which went on for days. At the theatre and opera Jerome occupied well curtained boxes and was invariably accompanied by a “royal guard” of pretty young women.