ABSTRACT
In the autumn of 1794, Madame Bonaparte and her daughters had returned to Marseilles. During their stay at Nice, Letizia had not been unmindful of her girls’ future, and had made a valiant attempt to secure a rich soap-boiler named Rabassin—the Bonapartes appear to have been rather partial to soap-boilers and their offspring at this period—for Élisa. M. Rabassin, however, evaded her, and, in after years, is said to have had the bad taste to boast in public of the discernment he had displayed on this occasion. Nor did any better fortune attend her pursuit of a certain M. de Lasalcette, a gentleman of Dauphiné, at that time residing at Marseilles, whom she had marked down as a suitable husband for Pauline. M. de Lasalcette greatly admired Pauline, but he had the good sense to perceive that “beauty unaccompanied by solid moral principles is scarcely a guarantee of 119happiness for a husband,” and decided to wait until he could find both combined in the same person.
