The book "The Bonpartes on Arenenberg" says about Hortense (it was how the duchess ofAbrantès (Madame junot) saw her: "She had everything, which made a woman attractive: The features of her face were not the most beautiful, but so adorable in their expression that it made everyone forget about the irregularities of certain parts of her face like her mouth and her nose. Even the bad teeth were forgiven to the adorable face. She had wonderful ash blonde hair, which fell like a coat around her, the huge, tenderly looking eyes were like a vile, the rosy teint gave her an unique, innocent expression(...)
She had a pretty and charming figure, petite hands and feet. From her mother Josephine she had inheritated the creolic body, even when she was a bit taller than her mother. Her moving was ductile and easy. When she danced - and she loved dancing- all eyes on her. Her limbs presented a wonderfully harmonic combination of grace and beauty. She had a tender health, but loved the life und its pleasures, was not only a lovely dancer, but also good in playing comedies, so that she would have been a great protagonist for the arena. Maybe one can critisize that she behaved too comedian like in different situations of her life.
Like queen Hortense was from the outside, she was from the inside, as well. She was gentle, gallantly, devoting, and very agreeable. The two most important points of her character were cheerfulness and love of life. Even when she was sometimes funny and sneering, it never defended other people around her. Always was the female sensitivity the most important, which came through. She was always for the good things and contemned the bad. Sometimes she could be hardheaded, if she felt herself not understood in a correct way. She was sometimes superstitious, evidently also a bit coquettish, and loved to show her fantasy and her mooth very openly. She had all talents, which were important for a noble woman at that time: She could sing, paint and draw. She had taken lessons with the famous painter Isabey, and others had given her lessons in the "Institute Campan". There exist a lot of art works by her, which show how good she was: Not only a wonderful self portrait in the garden of Malmaison. She played the harpe and the fortepiano, and was very knowing in literature and poetry. She wrote romances and composed the music for it. She did hand works as well. Like her mother she dressed herself very good , but without any extravagance. Her taste was wonderful and sometimes the emperor´s sisters were jealous of that (...)
In general she was the pure contrary of her husband, who was close- mouthed, distrustful, cantankerous, and horribly jealous, so the marriage was not happy, but rather some kind of torture for both sides (...)
