he already possessed, and not to tempt fate, nor to allow it to bear him up to a dizzy height, from which the stormy winds of adversity might the more easily prostrate him.
Bonaparte listened to her with a smile, and generally in silence. Once only he replied to her: “Has not your prophetess in Martinique told you that one day you would be more than a queen?”
“And the prophecy is already realized,” exclaimed Josephine. “The wife of the consul for life is more than a queen, for her husband is the elect of thirty millions of hearts!” Bonaparte laughed, and said nothing.
Another time Josephine asked him–“Now, Bonaparte, when are you going to make me Empress of the Gauls?”
He shrugged his shoulders. “What an idea,” said he; “the little Josephine an empress!”
Josephine answered him with the words of Corneille–“‘Le premier qui fut roi fut un soldat heureux'” (the first king was a successful soldier); and she added, “The wife of this fortunate soldier shares his rank.”
He placed his small, white hand, adorned with rings, under her chin, and gazed at her with a deep, strange look.
“Now, Josephine,” said he, after a short pause, “your successful soldier is only, for the present, consul for life, and you are sharing his rank. Be careful, then, that the wife of the first consul surrounds herself with all the brilliancy and the pomp which beseem her dignity. No more economy, no more modest simplicity! The industry of France is at a low ebb–we must make it rise. We must give receptions; we must prove to France that the court of a consul can be as splendid as that of a king. You understand what pomp is– none better than you! Now show yourself brilliant, magnificent, so that the other ladies may imitate you. But, no foreign stuffs! Silk and velvet from the fabrics of Lyons!”
“Yes,” said Josephine, with charming tenderness, “and when afterward my bills become due, you cut them down–you find them too high.”
“I only cut down what is too exorbitant,” said Bonaparte, laughing. “I have no objection for you to give to the manufacturers any amount of work and profit, but I do not wish them to cheat you.” [Footnote: Abrantes, “Memoires” vol. iv.]
Henceforth, the consulate began gradually to exhibit a splendor and pomp which were behind no princely court, and which relegated, amid the dark legends of the fabulous past, the fraternity and the equality of the republic. The absence of pretension, and the simplicity of Malmaison, were now done away with; everywhere the consul for life was followed by the splendors of his dignity, and everywhere Josephine was accompanied by her court.
For now she had a court, and an anteroom, with all its intrigues and flatteries; and its conspiracies already wove their chains around the consul and his wife. It was not suddenly, it was not spontaneously, that this court of the first consul was formed; two years were required for its organization–two years of unceasing labor on the new code of regulations, which etiquette dictated from the remembrances of the past to the palace-officers of the Consul Bonaparte. “How was this in times past? What was the practice?” Such were the constant questions in the interior of the Tuileries, and for the answers they appealed to Madame de Montesson, to the old courtiers, the servants and adherents of royalty. Instead of creating every thing new, they turned by degrees to the usages and manners of the past. Always and in all countries have there been seen at courts caricatures and persons of ill-mannered awkwardness; at the opening of the court of the first consul it is probable that these existed, and appeared still more strange to those who had been used to the manners, traditions, and language of the ancient court of Versailles. Their awkwardness, however, was soon overcome; and Josephine understood so well the rare art of presiding at a court establishment–she was such an accomplished mistress of refined manners and of noble deportment–she united to the perfect manners of the old nobility the most exquisite adroitness, and she knew so well how to adapt all these advantages to every new circumstance– that soon every one bowed to her sovereignty and submitted to her laws.
From the glittering halls of the Tuileries there soon disappeared the sword and the uniform, to be replaced by the gold-embroidered dress, the silk stockings, and the chapeau bras; and on the glassy floors of the Tuileries generals and marshals appeared as fine cavaliers, who, submitting to the rules of etiquette, left behind with their regiments the coarse language of the camp. Many of these young generals and heroes had married the beautiful but impoverished daughters of the aristocrats of old monarchical France. These young women, who were the representatives of the ancient noblesse, brought to the Tuileries the traditions of their mothers, and distinguished themselves by the ease of their courtly deportment and their graceful manners; and they thus unconsciously became the teachers of the other young women, who, like their husbands, owed their aristocratic name only to the sword and to their fresh laurels, and not to ancient escutcheons.
In the Tuileries and in St. Cloud there were reception-days, audience-days, and great and small levees, at which were assembled all that France possessed of rank, name, and fame, and where the ambassadors of all the powers accredited at the court of the consul, where all the higher clergy and the pope’s nuncio, appeared in full dress.
Bonaparte ventured to remove still further from the landmarks of the revolution, and from its so-called conquests. He restored to France the church; he reopened the temples of religion, and he also gave back to the people their priests.
Just as in the days of old monarchical France, every Sunday, and at every festival, a solemn mass was said at St. Cloud; and in the glass gallery on the way to the chapel, Bonaparte received petitions and granted short audiences. France, with the instinct of its old inclinations and habits, readily returned to this new order of things; and even those who once had with enthusiasm saluted the Goddess of Reason, went now, with hands joined in prayer and eyes bent low, to Notre Dame, to offer again their supplications to the God of Love.
Every thing seemed to return to the old track, every thing was as in the days preceding the revolution–the re-establishment of the throne, the national, willing approbation that the republic had become a monarchy, was, however, still wanting.
Finally, on the 18th of May, 1804, France spoke out the decisive word, and, by the voice of its representatives the senators, it offered to Bonaparte the crown, and requested him to ascend as emperor the throne of France.
Napoleon acceded to these wishes, and, as the senate, in a ceremonious procession, marshalled by Cambaceres, came to St. Cloud to communicate to Bonaparte the wish of France, and to offer to him and to Josephine the dignities of an empire, he accepted it without surprise, and apparently without joy, and allowed himself to be proclaimed NAPOLEON, THE FIRST EMPEROR OF THE FRENCH.
On this memorable day, after Cambaceres, in the name of the senate and of France, had addressed the first consul as the actual emperor, he turned to Josephine, who, with that unparalleled admixture of grandeur, grace, and tender womanly beauty, which were all so especially her own, was present at this audience at Napoleon’s side.
“Madame,” said Cambaceres, “there remains yet to the senate a pleasant duty to perform: to bring to your imperial majesty the homage of its respect and the expression of gratitude of the French people. Yes, madame, the public sentiment acknowledges the good which you are ever performing; that you are always accessible to the unfortunate; that you use your influence with the chief magistrate only to diminish evil, and to procure a hearing to those who seek it; and that your majesty with this well-doing combines the most amiable tenderness, rendering thankfulness a pleasant duty. These noble qualities of your majesty foretell that the name of the Empress Josephine will be a watchword of trust and hope; and, as the virtues of Napoleon will ever be to his followers an example to teach them the difficult art of government, so also, the lively remembrance of your goodness will teach to their honorable wives that to strive to dry the tear is the surest means of ruling the heart. The senate deems itself happy in being the first to congratulate your imperial majesty, and he who has the honor of addressing you these sentiments in the name of the senate, dares trust that you will ever number him among your most faithful servants.”
It was, then, decided! France had accepted her master, and Cambaceres in his solemn address had already marked out the situation of France and of her rulers. Bonaparte and Josephine were now their imperial majesties, the senators were their most faithful servants. What remained to the people but to call themselves “faithful subjects?”
The people, however, had made known their wishes only through the voice of the senate; it was the senators who had converted Bonaparte into the Emperor Napoleon; but the people were also to make their will known in a solemn manner; they were, through a universal public suffrage, to decide whether the imperial dignity should be given only for life to Napoleon the First, Emperor of the French, or whether it should be hereditary in his family.
France, wearied with storms and divisions, decided with her five millions of votes for the hereditary imperial dignity in Bonaparte’s family, and thus the people of France created their fourth dynasty.
Meanwhile Josephine received this new decision of the nation, not with that disquietude and care which she had formerly experienced. Bonaparte had given her the deepest and strongest proof of his love and faithfulness. He had not only withstood the pressure of his whole family, which had conjured him before his election to the empire to be divorced from his childless wife, but he had in the generosity of his love appointed his heirs and successors, and these were to be the sons of Hortense. The senate had decreed that the imperial dignity should be transmitted as a heritage to Napoleon’s two brothers Joseph and Louis, and moreover they had given to Napoleon the right to choose his successors and heirs from the families of the two brothers.
Napoleon had given to Josephine the strongest proof of affection–he had declared the son of her daughter Hortense and of his brother Louis, the little Napoleon Louis, to be his successor and heir, and the idea of a divorce no longer caused apprehensions before which Josephine need tremble.
Bonaparte had appointed the sons of his brother and of Josephine’s daughter as his heirs, and the heir of the new imperial throne was already born. Hortense’s youth made it hopeful that she would add to the new branch of the Napoleonic dynasty new leaves and new boughs.
Josephine could now rejoice in her happiness and her glory; she could abandon herself to the new splendors of her life with all the enjoyment of her sensitive and excitable nature. She could now receive with smiles and with affable condescension the homage of France, for she was not only empress by a nation’s vote, but she was also empress by the choice of Napoleon her husband.
The brilliancy of this new and glorious horizon was soon overhung by a sombre cloud. The execution of the Duke d’Enghien threw its dark shadows from the last days of the consulate upon the truly royalist heart of Josephine; and now that heart was to receive fresh wounds through the royalists, to whom she had remained true with all the memories of youth, and in whose behalf she had so often, so zealously, and so warmly interceded with her husband.
A new conspiracy against Napoleon’s life was discovered, and this time it was the men of the highest ranks of the old aristocracy who were implicated in it. George Cadoudal, the unwearied conspirator, had, while in England, planned with the leaders of the monarchical party residing in France, or who were away from it, a new conspiracy, whose object was to destroy Bonaparte and to re- establish the monarchy.
But Fate was again on the side of the hero of Arcola. His good star still protected him. The conspiracy was discovered, and all those concerned in it were arrested. Among them were the Generals Pichegru and Moreau, the Counts de Polignac, Riviere, Saint Coster, Charles d’Hozier, and many others of the leading and most distinguished royalists. They were now under the avenging sword of justice, and the tribunal had condemned twenty of the accused to death, among whom were the above named. The emperor alone had the power to save them and to extend mercy. But he was this time determined to exhibit a merciless severity, so as to put an end to the royalists, and to prove to them that he was the ruler of France, and that the people without a murmur had given him the power to punish, as guilty of high-treason, those who dared touch their emperor.
Josephine’s heart, however, remained true to her memories and her piety; and, according to her judgment, those who, with so much heroic loyalty, remained true to the exiled monarchy, were criminals only as they had imperilled her husband’s life, but criminals who, since their plans were destroyed, deserved pardon, because they had sinned through devotion to sacred principles.
Josephine, therefore, opposed Bonaparte’s anger, and begged for pardon for the son of the former friend of Queen Marie Antoinette, the Count Jules de Polignac. Bonaparte, however, remained inexorable; he repelled Josephine with vehemence, reproaching her for asking for the life of those who threatened his. But she would not be deterred; since Bonaparte had turned her away with her petitions and prayers, she wanted at least to give to the wife of the Count de Polignac an opportunity to ask pardon for her condemned husband. Despite Bonaparte’s wrath, Josephine led the Countess de Polignac into a corridor through which the emperor had to pass, when he went from the council-room into his cabinet, and by this means the countess was fortunate enough, by her tears and prayers, to save her husband’s life. The Count de Polignac was pardoned; and now that Bonaparte’s heart had once been opened to mercy, he also granted to Josephine the lives of Count Riviere and of General Lajolais, in behalf of whom Hortense had appealed to the emperor. More than twenty of the conspirators were accused and sentenced, some to death and some to severe punishment, but one-half of the accused were, thanks to the prayers of Josephine and of her daughter, pardoned; a few were put to death, and the rest transported. Pichegru committed suicide in prison; Moreau received permission to emigrate to America; George Cadoudal perished on the scaffold.
After this last fruitless attempt to re-establish in France the throne of the Bourbons, the royalists, wearied and terrified, had at least for a time to withdraw into obscurity and solitude, and the newly-established empire appeared in still more striking magnificence. The monarchy by God’s grace had been conquered by the empire by the people’s grace, and Napoleon wanted now to show himself to astonished Europe in all the glory of his new dignity. He therefore undertook a journey with his wife through the conquered German provinces; he went to Aix-la-Chapelle, to the city of coronation of the ancient German emperors, and which now belonged to imperial France; he went to Mayence, the golden Mayence of the old Roman days, and which now, after so many streams of bloodshed, had been transferred to France.
This journey of the emperor and empress was one uninterrupted triumphal procession; the population of the old German city applauded, in dishonorable faithlessness, the new foreign ruler; ail the clergy received their imperial majesties at the door of the cathedral, where Germany’s first emperor, Charlemagne, was buried; and, to flatter the Empress Josephine, the clergy caused a miracle to be performed by her hand. There existed in the sacred treasury of the cathedral a casket of gold, containing the most precious relics, but which was never opened to the eyes of mortals, and whose lock no key fitted. Only once a year was this precious, sacred casket of relics shown to the worshipping crowd, and then locked up in the holy shrine. But for Josephine this treasury was condescendingly opened, and to the empress was presented this casket of relics, and behold, the miracle took place! At the touch of the empress the lid of the casket sprang up, and in it were seen the most precious jewels of royalty, amongst which was the seal-ring of Charlemagne. [Footnote: Constant, “Memoires,” vol. iii.] No one was more surprised at this miracle than the clergy!
The neighboring German princes came to ancient Mayence to do homage to Josephine, and to win the favor of the sovereign of France toward their little principalities, and to assure him of their devotedness. Bonaparte already understood how to receive the humble, flattering German princes with the mien of a gracious protector, and to look upon them with the eye of an emperor, to whom not only the nations but also the princes must bow; and Josephine also excited the admiration of genuine princes and legitimate princesses, by the graciousness and grandeur, by the unaffected dignity and ease with which she knew how to represent the sovereign and the empress.
CHAPTER XXXIX.
THE POPE IN PARIS.
Fate had reserved another triumph for the ruler of France, the Emperor Napoleon–the triumph that the empire by the people’s grace should be converted and exalted into the empire by God’s grace. Pope Pius VII., full of thankfulness that Napoleon had re-established the Church in France, and restored to the clergy their rights, had consented to come to Paris for the sake of giving to the empire, created by the will of the French people, the benediction of the Church, and in solemn coronation to place the imperial crown on the head anointed by the hands of God’s vice-gerent.
Bonaparte received this news with the lofty composure of an emperor who finds it quite natural that the whole world should bow to his wishes, and Josephine received it with the modesty and joyous humility of a pious Christian. She desired above all things the blessing of God and of the Church to rest upon this crown, whose possession had seemed to her until now a spoliation, a sacrilege, and about which her conscience so often reproached her. But when God’s vicegerent, when the Holy Father of Christendom should himself have blessed her husband’s crown, and should have made fast on Josephine’s brow the imperial diadem, then all blame was removed, then the empress could hope that Heaven’s blessing would accompany the new emperor and his wife!
But was it really Napoleon’s wish that Josephine should take part in this grand ceremony of coronation? Did he wish that, like him, she should receive from the hands of the pope the consecrated crown?
Such was the deep, important question which occupied, at the approaching arrival of the pope, the young imperial court; a question, too, which occupied Josephine’s mind, and also the whole family, and more especially the sisters of Bonaparte.
Josephine naturally desired that it should be so, for this solemn coronation would be a new bond uniting her to her husband, a new guaranty against the evil which the empress’s foreboding spirit still dreaded. But for the very same reasons her enemies prepared their weapons to prevent Josephine from obtaining this new consecration and this new glory, and harsh and bitter conflicts took place within the inner circles of the imperial family on account of it, which on both sides were carried on with the deepest animosity and obstinacy, but finally to a complete triumph for Josephine.
Thiers, in his “History of the Consulate and of the Empire,” relates the last scenes in this family quarrel:
“Napoleon vacillated between his affection for his wife and the secret presentiments of his policy, when an occurrence took place which nearly caused the sudden ruin of the unfortunate Josephine. Every one was in a state of agitation about the new monarch– brothers, sisters, and allies! In the solemnity which seemed to give to each a blessing, all desired to perform parts adequate to their actual pretensions, and to their hopes of the future. At the sight of this restlessness, and witnessing the pretensions and claims to which Napoleon was exposed from one of his sisters, Josephine, carried away by anxiety and jealousy, gave utterance to an insulting suspicion against his sister and against Napoleon, a suspicion which agreed with the most bitter calumnies of the royalist emigrants. Napoleon grew violently angry, and, as his wrath mastered his better feelings, he declared to Josephine that he wanted to be divorced from her; that he would have to be, sooner or later, and that it was therefore better to announce it on the spot, before other bonds should unite them still closer together. He sent for his two adopted children, communicated to them this decision, and thus produced on them a most painful impression. Hortense and Eugene de Beauharnais declared with a sad but unwavering determination that they would follow their mother into the exile which was being prepared for her. Josephine manifested a resigned and dignified sorrow. The contrast of their sorrow with the satisfaction which the other portion of the imperial family manifested, deeply lacerated Napoleon’s heart, and he relented; for he could not consent to see the companion of his youth and her children, who had been the objects of his deserved affection, made so unhappy by being forced into exile. He took Josephine in his arms, told her with emotion that he could never have the strength to part from her, even if policy itself should dictate it; and he then promised her that she should be crowned with him, and at his side should receive from the pope the divine blessing.” [Footnote: Thiers, “Histoire du Consulat et de l’Empire.” vol. v., p. 249.]
Josephine, therefore, had won a victory over the hostile sisters, but this defeat made them still more embittered, and though they were now compelled to recognize Josephine as the imperial wife of their brother, yet they would retreat only step by step, and at “least secure a place near the imperial throne, and not be compelled by the empress to stand behind. Yet this was exactly what was to take place according to the programme, which prescribed for the festivity in Notre Dame that on the day of coronation the brothers of the emperor should carry the trail of his mantle, and that his sisters should at the same time carry the trail of the empress’s mantle. But the sisters of Napoleon decidedly opposed this arrangement.
“The emperor, tired of these constant wranglings and domestic strifes, decided as judge, and declared he would no longer listen to these unheard-of and unjustifiable pretensions.
“‘Truly,’ said he, to the beautiful Pauline, who, as Princess Borghese, considered herself justified in making opposition, ‘truly, one would think, after listening to you, that I have despoiled you of the inheritance of the most blessed king our father.'” [Footnote: “Histoire du Consulat,” vol. v., p. 251.]
The ambitious sisters, kept within bounds by the angry voice of their brother, who now for the first time showed himself their ruling emperor, had to fall into their places, and abide by the regulations of the ceremony.
Nothing was wanted now to perfect the sacred celebration which was to crown all the triumphs and victories of Napoleon, nothing but the arrival of the pope: the whole imperial family, as well as France, awaited his advent with impatience.
At last the couriers brought the news that the pope had touched the French soil, and that the people were streaming toward him to manifest their respect, and to implore his blessing on their knees; the same people who precisely ten years before had closed the churches, driven the priests into exile, and consecrated their bacchanalian worship to the Goddess of Reason!
At last, on the 25th day of November, the pope entered Fontainebleau, where the emperor and the empress had hastened to receive him. No sooner was the pope’s approach announced, than Napoleon mounted his horse and rode to meet him some distance on the way. In the centre of the road took place the first interview between the representative of Christendom and the youngest son of the Church, a son who now sat on the throne of those who in former times had enjoyed the privilege of being called the elder sons of the Church.
The pope alighted from his carriage as soon as the emperor was in sight; Napoleon dismounted and hastened to meet and embrace tenderly his holiness, and then to ascend with him the carriage, the question of precedence remaining undecided, as the pope and the emperor entered the carriage at the same time from opposite sides.
Josephine, surrounded by the official dignitaries, the ministers of state, and all the generals, received the pope under the peristyle of the palace of Fontainebleau; and then, after Napoleon had led him into his room, Josephine, accompanied by her ladies, went to welcome Pius, not as empress, but as an humble, devout daughter of the Church, who wished to implore a blessing from the Holy Father of Christendom. Josephine was deeply moved; her whole being was agitated and exalted at once by this greatest of all the privileges which destiny had reserved for her, and by this consecration which she was to receive at the hands of the vicar of Christ.
As the pope, agreeably affected by this respect and emotion of the empress, offered her his hand with a genial smile, Josephine, humble as a little girl, sank down on her knees before him, kissed his hand, and with streaming eyes implored his benediction. Pius, in his soft, winning manner, promised to love her as a daughter, and that she should ever find in him a father.
The empress, deeply moved by this affectionate condescension of the pope, and impressed by the importance and solemnity of the moment, bade her ladies withdraw, whilst she, in solitude and silence, as a confessing child before the priest, should unveil her innermost heart to the Holy Father. She then sank down upon her knees, and, stammering, ashamed, with her voice broken by her sobs, acknowledged to the pope that her marriage to Napoleon had never received, the consecration of the Church; that, contracted amid the stormy days of the revolution, it still lacked the blessing hand of the priest, and that her own husband was to be blamed for this neglect. In vain had she often besought him that, since he had restored the Church to Prance, he should himself give to the world a striking example of his own return by having his marriage blessed by it. But Napoleon refused, although he had been the cause of Cardinal Caprera giving to the marriage of his sister Caroline Murat, long after it had been contracted, the blessing of the Church.
Pius heard this confession of his imperial penitent with holy resentment, and he promised her his aid and protection, assuring her he would refuse the act of coronation if the ecclesiastical marriage did not precede it.
No sooner had Josephine left him, than the pope asked for an interview with the emperor, to whom he declared, with all the zeal of a true servant of the Church, and the conviction of a devout, God-fearing man, that he was willing to crown him, and to grant him the blessing of the Church, for the state of the conscience of emperors had never been examined before their anointment; but if his wife was to be crowned with him, he must refuse his co-operation, because in crowning Josephine he dare not grant the divine sanction to concubinage.
Napoleon, though inwardly much irritated at Josephine, who, as he at once supposed, had made this confession to the pope in her own interest, was still willing to abide by the circumstances. He did not wish to irritate the pope, who as was well known was unyielding in all matters pertaining to faith; moreover, he could not change any thing in the already published ceremonial of the day, and thus he consented to have the ecclesiastical marriage. After this conversation with the pope, Napoleon went at once to Josephine, and the whole strength of his anger was spent in violent reproaches against her untimely indiscretion.
Josephine endured these silently, and full of inward satisfaction; she did not listen to Napoleon’s angry words; she only heard that he was decided to have his marriage sanctioned by the Church, and now she would be his wife before God, as she had been before men for the last ten years. Now at last her fate was decided, and her marriage made irrevocable; now she would no longer dread that Napoleon would punish her childlessness by a divorce.
During the night which preceded the day of the coronation, the night of the 1st of December, the ecclesiastical marriage of Napoleon and Josephine took place in the chapel of the Tuileries. The only witnesses were Talleyrand and Berthier, from both of whom the emperor had exacted an oath of profound silence. Cardinal Fesch, the emperor’s uncle, performed the ceremony, and pronounced the benediction of the Church over this marriage, which Bonaparte’s love for Josephine had induced him to consent to, and which her love endeavored to make indissoluble.
This marriage, which she desired both as a loving woman and as a devout Christian, was the most glorious triumph which Josephine had ever obtained over the enmity of her husband’s sisters, for it was a new proof of the love and faithfulness of this man, whom neither expediency, nor family, nor state reasons, could remove from her, and who, with the hand of love, had guided her away from all the dangers which had surrounded her.
CHAPTER XL.
THE CORONATION.
At last, on the 2d of December, came the day which Napoleon had during many years past longed for within the recesses of his heart; the day which his ambition had hoped for, the day of his solemn coronation. And now the victorious soldier was to see all his laurels woven into an imperial crown–that which Julius Caesar had tried to win, and for which the republic punished him with death.
But now the republicans were silent: before this new Julius Caesar they dare not lift up their swords, for the power belonged to him, and that he knew how to punish had been seen by trembling France not long ago at the execution of George Cadoudal and his associates, the people sanctioning those executions.
There was no Brutus there to plunge the dagger into the breast of the new Cassar. His was the victory, the throne, the crown; and all France was in joyous excitement at this new triumph, that the pope himself should come from Rome to Paris so as to place the crown on the head of an emperor by the grace of the people, and to make of the elect of the people an elect of God.
The day had scarcely begun to dawn when all the streets of Paris through which the imperial as well as the papal procession had to move toward Notre Dame were filled with wave-like masses of human beings, who soon occupied not only the streets but all the windows and all the roofs of the houses. Those who were fortunate enough to be provided with cards of admission into Notre Dame, went at six o’clock in the morning to the cathedral, for whose adorning during the last fourteen days more than a thousand workmen had been busy, and who had not yet quite finished their work, retiring only when the approach of the pope and of his suite was announced. In the interior of the Tuileries began from the commencement of the day, on three different sides, a lively movement.
Here, in the apartments which the pope occupied, gathered together the cardinals, the clergy, and all the church dignitaries who in the pope’s suite were to proceed to Notre Dame.
There, in the apartments of the emperor, a host of courtiers and officers waited from early dawn for the moment when the toilet of the emperor should be completed, and he should go to the great throne-room, where the empress and the imperial family would await him.
The greatest excitement, however, naturally prevailed in the apartments of the empress, whose toilet occupied a host of chambermaids and ladies of the court, and which had already been for months the subject of thought, labor, and art, for painter and embroiderer, and for all manner of professions, as well as for the master of ceremonies. For this imperial toilet-ceremonial was to be in accordance with the traditions of ancient France, but was not, at the same time, to be a mere imitation of the coronation-toilet of the Bourbons, whom the revolution had dethroned, the same revolution which had opened for Napoleon the way to the throne.
For this important ceremony, therefore, special costumes, somewhat resembling those of former centuries, had been found. The painter Ingres had furnished the designs for these costumes, and also plans for the procession and for the groupings in Notre Dame; he had prepared all this in pictures of great effect for the emperor’s inspection. But in order to show to advantage the several costumes, as well as the train of personages, and the subdivisions of the different groups of the imperial dignitaries, Ingres had caused small puppets to be dressed in similar costumes, and arrayed in the order of the procession according to the prescribed ceremonies for that day; and for weeks the imperial court had been studying these costumes, and every one’s duty had been to impress on his mind the position assigned to him for the day of coronation. [Footnote: Constant, “Memoires,” vol. iii., p. 111.]
The pope’s toilet was the first completed; and at nine o’clock, all dressed in white, he entered a carriage drawn by eight grays; over it in gilt bronze were the tiara and the attributes of papacy. In front of the carriage rode one of his chamberlains upon a white ass, bearing a large silver cross before God’s vicegerent. Behind it in new carriages came the cardinals, the prelates, and the Italian officers of the pope’s palace.
While the papal train was moving slowly on the quays of the Seine toward the cathedral, amid the sounds of bells, and the unceasing, joyful shouts of the people, all was yet in motion within the apartments of the emperor and empress. On all sides hurried along the dignitaries and officers who were to form a part of the imperial procession.
For this day, Napoleon had been obliged to cast off his plain uniform and substitute the splendid theatrical costume of imperial magnificence. The stockings were of silk, wrought with gold, embroidered round the edge with imperial crowns; the shoes were of white velvet, worked and embroidered with gold; short breeches of white velvet, embroidered with gold at the hips, and with buttons and buckles of diamonds in the shape of garters; the vest also was of white velvet, embroidered with gold and having diamond buttons; the coat was of crimson velvet, with facings of white velvet along all the seams above and around, and sparkling with gold; the half- mantle was also crimson, lined with white satin, and hanging over the left shoulder, while on the right shoulder and upon the breast it was fastened with a pair of diamond clasps. Sleeves of the most costly lace fell about the arms; the cravat was of Indian muslin, the collar likewise of lace; the cap, of black velvet, was adorned with two plumes and surrounded by a coronet of diamonds, which “the regent” used as a clasp. Such was the costume which the emperor wore in the procession from the Tuileries to Notre Dame. In the vestry of the cathedral he put on the ample state-robes, that is to say, the robe and mantle of emperor. [Footnote: Constant, “Memoires,” vol. ii., p. 212.]
The toilet of the empress was no less splendid and brilliant. It consisted of an elaborate robe with a long train; this robe was of silver brocade, with gold bees scattered all over; in front it was embroidered into a maze of gold-leaves; at the lower edge was a gold fringe; the shoulders alone were bare; long armlets of wrought gold, and adorned at the upper part with diamonds, enclosed the arm and covered one-half of the hand. It required all the art and grace of Josephine to carry this robe, it being without any waist, and, according to the fashion of the times, extremely narrow, and yet in wearing it to lose naught of her elegance or condescending dignity. At the upper part of the dress rose a collar a la Medicis of lace worked in with gold, and which Josephine had been constrained to wear, so as at least, through some historic details, to make her toilet correspond to the costume of the renaissance worn by Napoleon. A gold girdle, adorned with thirty-nine diamond rosettes, fastened under the breast her tunic-like dress. In her fondness for the antique, Josephine, instead of diamonds and pearls, had preferred for bracelets, ear-rings, and necklace, some choice stones of rare workmanship. Her beautiful thick hair was encircled and held together by a splendid diadem, a masterpiece of modern art. This toilet was to be completed, like that of Napoleon, before the solemn entrance into the cathedral, by putting on the imperial mantle, which was fastened on the shoulders with gold buckles and diamond clasps.
At last the imperial toilets were completed; all the dignitaries, as well as the imperial family, gathered together in the throne-room, ready for the procession. Holding Josephine by the hand, her countenance expressing deep emotion, and her eye obscured by the tears shed as a price for the solemn marriage of that night, Napoleon appeared in the midst of his brilliant courtiers, and received the impressive, heart-felt wishes of his family, his brothers and sisters, who pressed around him and the empress, and who at this moment, forgetting all envy and jealousy, had only words of thankfulness and assurances of love, devotedness, and loyalty.
Napoleon replied to them all in the short, comprehensive words which he addressed to his brother Joseph, whilst with his naming eyes he examined his brothers and sisters in the brilliant costumes of their dignity and glory:
“Joseph,” said he, “could our father see us now!” [Footnote: Meneval, “Souvenirs,” vol. i., p. 204.]
From the pomp and solemnity of this important moment the thoughts of the emperor, for whom the pope was waiting in Notre Dame, wandered far away to the gloomy, quiet death-bed of his father, whose last hour was embittered by the tormenting thought of leaving his family unprotected and with but little means.
The thundering roar of cannon and the chimes of bells proclaimed that the emperor and empress, with their train, were now leaving the palace to ascend into the wonderful carriage made of gold and glass, and which was waiting for them at the Pavilion de l’Horloge to proceed toward the cathedral.
This carriage, prepared expressly for this day’s celebration, was of enormous size and breadth, with windows on all sides, and entirely alike in its front and back seats. It therefore happened that their imperial majesties, on entering the carriage, not thinking of the direction to be taken, sat down on the front instead of the back seat.
The empress noticed the mistake, and when she laughingly called the emperor’s attention to it, they both took the back seat without a suspicion that this little error was a bad omen.
Another little mishap occurred before they entered Notre Dame, which threw a gloom of sad forebodings and fear over the heart of the empress.
Whilst alighting out of the carriage, the empress, whose hand was occupied in the holding and carrying her robe and mantle, let slip from her fingers the imperial ring which the pope had brought her for a present, and which before the coronation he was to bless, according to the accustomed ceremonial, and then place it on her finger as a token of remembrance of the holy consecration. This made Josephine tremble, and her cheeks turned pale, especially as the ring could nowhere be found. It had rolled a considerable distance from the carriage, and only after some minutes did Eugene Beauharnais find it and bring it to his mother, to her great delight and satisfaction. [Footnote: Aubenas, “Histoire de l’Imperatrice Josephine,” vol. ii., p. 283.]
At last the procession entered Notre Dame, and the brilliant solemnity began. It is not our purpose to describe here again the ceremony which has been in all its details portrayed in so many works, and to repeat the solemn addresses and the different events of this great and memorable day. It is with Josephine we have to do, and with what concerns her individual destiny–that alone claims our attentive consideration.
One event, however, is to be mentioned. At the moment the emperor took from the altar the so-called crown of Charles the Great, and with firm hand placed it on his head–at the moment when he assumed the place of the ancient Kings of France, a small stone, which had detached itself from the cupola, fell down, touched his head, leaped on his shoulder, slipped down his imperial mantle, and rolled over the altar-steps near to the pope’s throne, where it remained still until an Italian priest picked it up. [Footnote: Abrantes. “Memoires,” vol. vii., p. 258.]
At the moment of his loftiest grandeur the destiny of his future aimed its first stone at him, and marked him as the one upon whom its anger was to fall.
This was the third evil omen of the day; but fortunately Josephine had not noticed it. Her whole soul was absorbed in the sacred rites; and, after the emperor had crowned himself, her heart trembled with deep emotion and agitation, for now the moment had come when she was to take her part in the solemnity.
The Duchess d’Abrantes, who was quite near Josephine, and an immediate witness of the whole celebration, depicts the next scene in the following words: “The moment when the greatest number of eyes were fixed upon the altar-steps where the emperor stood, was when Josephine was crowned by him, and was solemnly consecrated Empress of the French. What a moment! … what a homage! What a proof of love manifested to her from him who so much loved her!
“David’s painting, and many other pictures taken during the coronation, at the very spot and time, have well represented the empress at the feet of Napoleon, who crowns her; then the pope, the priests, and even persons who were four hundred miles away–as, for instance, the emperor’s mother, who was then in Rome, but whom David nevertheless brings into his picture. But nothing, however, can give us a true description, or even an approximate idea, of this alike touching and lofty scene, where a great man by his own efforts ascends a throne, for on this occasion he was full of gratitude and emotion.
“When the moment had come for Josephine to take her part in the great drama, the empress rose from the throne and approached the altar, where the emperor was waiting for her; she was followed by the ladies of the palace and by her whole court, while the Princesses Caroline, Julie (the wife of Joseph), the Princess Elise, and Louis Bonaparte, carried the trail of her robe. One of the most admirable features in the beauty of the Empress Josephine was not her fine, graceful figure, but the bearing of her head–the gracious and noble manner in which she moved and walked. I have had the honor to be introduced to many ‘real princesses,’ as they are termed, in the Faubourg St. Germain, and I can in all sincerity say that I have never seen one who appeared to me so imposing as the Empress Josephine. In her, grace and majesty were blended. When she put on the grand imperial robes there was no woman whose appearance could be more royal in demeanor, and, in reality, none who understood the art of occupying a throne as well as she, though she never had been instructed in it.
“I read all that I have now said in the eyes of Napoleon. He watched with delight the empress as she moved toward him; and as she knelt before him, … as the tears she could not restrain streamed down her folded hands, which were lifted up to him more than to God, at that moment, when Napoleon, or, much more, when Bonaparte was for her the real and visible Providence, there passed over these two beings one of those fugitive minutes, unique in its kind, and never to be recalled in a whole life, and which fills to overflowing the void of many long years. The emperor performed with an unexcelled grace the most minute details of every part of the subsequent ceremony, especially when the moment came to crown the empress.
“This ceremony was to be performed by the emperor himself, who, after he had received the small closed crown surmounted by a cross, placed it first on his own head, and then afterward on the head of the empress. He performed these two movements with a most exquisite slowness, which was indeed admirable. But at the moment when he was to crown her who was for him, according to a prophecy, ‘the star of happiness,’ he made himself, if I dare use the expression, coquettish. He arranged this little crown which was to stand over her coronet of diamonds, and placed it on her head, then lifted it up to replace it in another way, as if to promise her that this crown would be light and pleasant to her.” [Footnote: Abrantes, “Memoires.”]
After this twofold crowning performed by Napoleon himself, the pope, surrounded by cardinals and prelates, approached the throne, and arriving upon the platform pronounced in a loud voice, spreading his hands over their imperial majesties, the ancient Latin formula of enthronization: “In hoc solio confirme vos Deus, et in regno aeterno secum regnare faciat Christus.” (God establish you on this throne, and Christ make you reign with Him in His everlasting kingdom.) He then kissed the emperor on the cheeks, and turning himself to the audience, cried with a loud voice: “Vivat imperator in aeternum!”
The immense cathedral resounded with one glad shout of thousands of voices: “Long live the emperor! long live the empress!” Napoleon, calm and reserved, answered this acclamation with a friendly motion of the head. Josephine stood near him, pale, deeply moved, her eyes, full of tears, fixed on the emperor, as if she would pray to him, and not to God, for the prosperity and blessing of the future.
Meanwhile the pope had descended from his throne, and while he approached the altar, the bands played “Long live the emperor,” which the Abbe Kose had composed for this solemnity. Then the pope, standing before the altar, intoned the Te Deum, which was at once executed by four choirs and two orchestras, and which completed the ecclesiastical part of the ceremony.
This was followed by a secular one. The emperor took, on the Bible which Cardinal Fesch presented to him, the oath prescribed in the constitution, and whereby he pledged himself solemnly to maintain “the most wise results of the revolution, to defend the integrity of the territory, and to rule only in the interest of the happiness and glory of the French people.” After he had taken this oath, a herald approached the edge of the platform, and, according to ancient custom, cried out in a loud voice: “The most mighty and glorious Emperor Napoleon, Emperor of the French, is crowned and enthroned! Long live the emperor!”
A tremendous, prolonged shout of joy followed this proclamation: “Long live the emperor! Long live the empress!” and then an artillery salute thundered forth from behind the cathedral, and a similar salute responded from the Tuileries, and from the Invalides, and proclaimed to all Paris that France had again found a ruler, that a new dynasty had been lifted up above the French people.
At this moment from the Place de Carrousel ascended an enormous air balloon surmounted by an ornamental, gigantic crown, and which, on the wings of the wind, was to announce to France the same tidings proclaimed to Paris by bell and cannon: “The republic of France is converted into an empire! The free republicans are now the subjects of the Emperor Napoleon I.!”
The gigantic balloon arose amid the joyous shouts of the crowd, and soon disappeared from the gaze of the spectators. It flew, as a trophy of victory of Napoleon I., all over France. Thousands saw it and understood its silent and yet eloquent meaning, but no one could tell where it had fallen, finally, after many weeks, the emperor, who had often asked after the balloon’s fate, received the wished- for answer. The balloon had fallen in Rome, upon Nero’s grave!
Napoleon remained silent a moment at this news: a shadow passed over his countenance; then his brow brightened again, and he exclaimed: “Well, I would sooner see it there, than in the dust of the streets!”
CHAPTER XLI.
DAYS OF HAPPINESS.
The prophecy of the old woman in Martinique had now been fulfilled: Josephine was more than a queen, she was an empress! She stood on life’s summit, and a world lay at her feet. Before the husband who stood at her side, the princes and the people of Europe bowed in the dust, and paid him homage–the hero who by new victories had won ever-increasing fame and fresh laurels, who had defeated Austria, Prussia, and Russia, and who had engraven on the rolls of French glory the mighty victories of Austerlitz, Jena, and Eylau!
Josephine stood on the pinnacle of life; she saw the princes of foreign states come to France as conquered, as captives, and as allies, to bring to her husband and to herself the homage of subjects; she saw devoted courtiers and flatterers; pomp and splendor surrounded her on every side.
Amid this glory she remained simple and modest–she never gave up her cheerful gentleness and mildness; she never forgot the days which had been; she never allowed herself to be exalted by the brilliancy of the moment to an ambitious pride or to a lofty self- conceit. The friends of the widow Josephine de Beauharnais always found in the empress Josephine a thankful, obliging friend, ever ready to appeal to her husband, and intercede with him in their behalf. To the royalists, when weary of their long exile, though poor and helpless still loyal to the royal family–when they returned to France with bleeding feet and wounded hearts, to implore from the Emperor of the French the privilege of dying in their native country–to them all Josephine was a counsellor, a helper, a compassionate protectress. With deep interest she inquired from them how it fared with the Count de Lille, whom her heart yet named as the King of France, though her lips dared not utter it. All the assistance she gave to the royalists, and the protection she afforded them, oftentimes despite Napoleon’s anger, all the loyalty, the generosity, and self-denial she manifested, were the quiet sacrifice which she offered to God for her own happiness, and with which she sought to propitiate the revengeful spirit of the old monarchy, loitering perchance in the Tuileries, where she now, in the place of the wife of the Count de Lille, was enthroned as sovereign.
Josephine’s heart was unwearied and inexhaustible in well-doing and in liberality; if Napoleon was truly the emperor and the father of the army and of the soldiers, Josephine was equally the empress and the mother of the poor and unfortunate.
But she was also, in the true sense of the word, the empress of the happy. No one understood so well as she did how to be the leader at festivals, to preside at a joyous company, to give new attractions by her gracious womanly sweetness and amiableness, or to receive homage with such beaming eyes, and to make others happy while she herself seemed to be made happy by them.
Amid this life full of splendor and grandeur there were sad hours, when the sun was shadowed by clouds, and the eyes of the Empress of the French filled with such bitter tears as only the wife and the widow of General Beauharnais could shed.
Three things especially contributed to draw these tears from the eyes of the Empress Josephine: her jealousy, her extravagance, and, lastly, her childlessness. Josephine was jealous, for she not only loved Napoleon, she worshipped him as her providence, her future, her happiness. Her heart was yet so full of passion, and so young, that it hoped for much happiness, and could not submit to that resignation which is satisfied to give more love than it receives, and instead of the warm, intoxicating cup of love, to receive the cool, sober beverage of friendship. Josephine wanted not merely to be the friend, but to remain Napoleon’s beloved one; and she looked upon all these beautiful women who adorned the imperial court of the Tuileries as enemies who came to dispute with her the love of her husband.
And, alas! she had too often to acknowledge herself defeated in this struggle, to see her rivals triumph, and for weeks to retreat into the background before the victorious one who may have succeeded in enchaining the inconstant heart of Napoleon, and to make the proud Caesar bow to her love. But afterward, when love’s short dream had vanished, Napoleon, penitent, would come back with renewed love to his Josephine, whom he still called “the star of his happiness;” and oftentimes, touched by her tears, he sacrificed to her anxiety and jealousy a love-caprice, and became more affectionate, more agreeable even, than when he had forsaken her; for then, to prove to her how unreserved was his confidence, he often told her of his new love-adventures, and was even indiscreet enough at times to betray all his gallantries to her.
The second object of the constant solicitude and trials of the empress was her extravagance. She did not understand how to economize; her indolent creole nature found it impossible to calculate, to bring numbers into columns, or to question tedious figures, to see if debt and purse agreed–if her generous heart must be prevented from giving to the poor–from rendering assistance to the helpless, or from spending handfuls for the suffering; to see if her taste for the arts was no longer to be gratified with pictures, paintings, statues, cameos, and other objects of vertu, which filled her with so much joy and admiration; if her elegant manners and fondness for finery and dress were to be denied all that was costly, all that was fashionable, and which seemed to have been expressly invented for the adorning of an empress. And when, in some of those grave, melancholy hours of internal anxiety, the cruel phantoms of the future reckonings arose before her and warned her to stop purchasing, Josephine comforted herself with the idea that it was Napoleon himself who had requested her to be to all the ladies of his court a pattern of elegance, and to be distinguished above all by the most brilliant, the choicest, the costliest toilet.
The emperor would often come into the cabinet of the empress, and to the great astonishment of her ladies-in-waiting would enter into the most minute details of her dress, and designate the robes and ornaments which he desired her to wear on some special festivity. It even happened in Aix-la-Chapelle that Napoleon, who had come into the toilet-room of the empress and found that she had put on a robe which did not please him, poured ink on the costly dress of silver brocade, so as to compel her to put on another. [Footnote: Avrillon, “Memoires,” vol. i., p. 98; and Constant, “Memoires,” vol. iii., p. 103.]
And then how was it possible to resist the temptation of purchasing all those beautiful things which were constantly brought to her for inspection? Josephine loved what was beautiful, tasteful, and artistic; all works of art which she admired must be purchased, whatever price was asked; and when the merchants came to offer to the empress their superb and splendid articles of luxury, how could she have the cruel courage to repel them? How often did she purchase objects of extraordinary value for which she had no need, simply to please herself and the merchant! Every thing that was beautiful and tasteful pleased her, and she must possess it. No one had a more remarkably fine taste than Josephine, but the artists, the manufacturers, the merchants, also had fine taste, and they came to the empress with the best they had; it was therefore natural that she should purchase from them But unfortunately the happy moment of the purchase was followed by the unhappy one of the payment, and the outlay was constantly beyond the income of the empress, whose treasury, besides, was so often emptied in charities, pensions, and presents. Then when the merchants urged payment, and the purse was empty, Josephine had recourse to the emperor, and had to entreat him to meet her expenses, and then came violent scenes, reproaches, and bitter words. The emperor was angry, Josephine wept, and payment and reconciliation followed these scenes. Josephine promised to the emperor and to herself to be more economical in the future, and no longer to purchase what she could not pay for, but ever came the temptation, with all its inviting treasures, and being no saintly Anthony, she would fall a prey to the temptation.
The third and thickest cloud which often darkened the serene sky of her happiness after her marriage was, as already said, Josephine’s childlessness. This was the bitter drop which was mixed in the golden cup of her joy–this was the sting which, however deeply hid under the roses, still reached her heart and wounded it painfully. She had no children who could call Napoleon father, no offspring to prolong the future of the new dynasty. And therefore the firmer the emperor’s power became, the higher he stood above all other princes, the more distressing and the more anxious were the emotions which filled the heart of Josephine, the louder was the warning voice which ceased not to whisper to her heart, and which she forgot only now and then under the glow of Napoleon’s assurances of love, or amid the noise of festivities. This voice whispered: “You must give place to another. Napoleon will reject you, to marry a wife of princely birth, who will give an heir to his empire!”
How Josephine strove to silence these agonizing whisperings of her heart! With what restlessness of sorrow she rushed into the gayeties and amusements of a court life! How she sought, in charitable occupations, in the joys of society, in every thing which was congruous to the life of a woman, of an empress, to obtain the forgetfulness of her torments! With what envious attention she listened to the whispers of courtiers, scrutinized their features, read their looks, to find out if they still believed in the existence of an empress in the wife of Napoleon! With what jealous solicitude she observed all the families on European thrones, and considered what princesses among them were marriageable, and whether Napoleon’s relations with the fathers of such princesses were more intimate than those with the other princes!
And then she ever sought to deafen this vigilant, warning voice, by comforting herself with the thought that the emperor had adopted his brother’s son, the son of Hortense, and that he had made him his heir, and consequently the throne and the dynasty were secure in a successor.
But alas! Fate would not leave this last comfort to the unfortunate empress. In May of the year 1807, Prince Napoleon, the crown prince of Holland, Napoleon’s adopted son and successor, died of a child’s disease, which in a few days tore him away from the arms of his despairing mother.
Josephine’s anguish was boundless, and in the first hours of this misfortune, which with such annihilating force fell upon her, the empress, as if in a state of hallucination, gazed into the future, and, with prophetic voice, exclaimed: “Now I am lost! Now is divorce certain!”
Yes, she was lost! She felt it, she knew it! Nothing the emperor did to pacify her anguish–the numerous expressions of his love, of his sympathy, of his winning affection–nothing could any longer deceive Josephine. The voices which had so long whispered in her breast now cried aloud: “You must give place to another! Napoleon will reject you, so as to have a son!”
But the emperor seemed still to try to dispel these fears, and, to give to his Josephine a new proof of his love and faithfulness, he chose Eugene de Beauharnais, the son of Josephine, for his adopted heir, and named him Vice-King of Italy, and gave him in marriage the daughter of the King of Bavaria; he thus afforded to Europe the proof that he still considered Josephine as his wife, and that he desired to be shown to her all the respect due to her dignity, for he travelled to Munich in company with her in order to be present at the nuptials.
This journey to attend her son’s marriage was the last pleasure of Josephine–her last days of honors and happiness. Once more she saw herself surrounded by all the splendor and the pomp of her rank; once more she was publicly honored and admired as the wife of the first and greatest ruler of the world, the wife of the Emperor Napoleon.
Perhaps Josephine, in these hours of happiness, when as empress, wife, and mother, she enjoyed the purest and most sacred pleasure, forgot the sad forebodings and fears of her soul. Perhaps she now believed that, since Napoleon had adopted her Eugene as his son, and had given to this son a wife of royal extraction, Fate would be propitious to her; that the emperor would be satisfied with the son of his choice, and that the future scions of the royal princess would be the heirs of his throne.
But one word of Napoleon frightened her out of this ephemeral security into which happiness had lulled her.
Josephine wept as she bade farewell to her son; she was comfortless when with his young wife Eugene left for Italy. She complained to Napoleon, in justification of her tears, that she should seldom see her son, that now he was lost to his mother’s heart.
The emperor, who at first had endeavored to comfort her felt at last wounded by her sorrow.
“You weep, Josephine,” said he, hastily, “but you have no reasonable motives to do so; you weep simply because you are separated from your son. If already the absence of your children causes you so much sorrow, think then what I must endure! The tenderness which you feel for your children makes me cruelly experience how unhappy it is for me to have none.” [Footnote: Avrillon, “Memoires sur l’Imperatrice Josephine,” vol. i., p. 202.]
Josephine trembled, and her tears ceased flowing in the presence of the emperor, but only to fall more abundantly as soon as he had left her. Now she wept no longer at her separation from her son; her tears were still more bitter and painful–she grieved over the coming future; she wept because those voices which happiness for a moment had deafened, now spoke more loudly–more fearfully and menacingly shouted: “Napoleon will reject you! He will choose for himself a wife of royal birth, who will give an heir to his throne and his empire.”
CHAPTER XLII.
DIVORCE.
It was at last decided! The storm which had so long and so fearfully rolled over Josephine’s head was to burst, and with one single flash destroy her earthly happiness, her love, her future!
The peace of Vienna had been ratified on the 13th of October, 1809. Napoleon passed the three long months of peace negotiations in Vienna and in Schonbrunn, while Josephine, solitary and full of sad misgivings, lived quietly in the retreat of Malmaison.
Now that peace was signed, Napoleon returned to France with fresh laurels and new crowns of victory. But not, as usual after so long an absence, did he greet Josephine with the tenderness and joy of a home-returning husband. He approached her with clouded brow; with a proud, cold demeanor; with the mien of a ruling master, before whom all must bow, even his wife, even his own heart.
At Fontainebleau, whither the emperor in a few, short, commanding words–in a letter of three lines–had invited the empress, did the first interview of Josephine and Napoleon take place. She hastened to meet her husband with a cheerful face and beaming eyes. He, however, received her coldly, and endeavored to hide his feelings of uneasiness and shame under a repulsive, domineering manner.
He returned to his home victorious; the whole world lay conquered at his feet; he was triumphant. He had so deeply humiliated the pride of Austria that she not only accepted his harsh terms of peace, but, as once men had appeased the Minotaur by the sacrifice of the most amiable and most beautiful maiden, so Austria had asked in a low voice whether the daughter of the emperor, Maria Louisa. might not give to the alliance of Austria and France the consecration of love. Napoleon eagerly entered into the scheme; and while Josephine, as his married wife before God and man, stood yet at his side, he already had begun negotiations, the object of which was to make the daughter of the Austrian emperor his wife, and before Napoleon returned to France those negotiations had been brought to a satisfactory result.
The ambitious Maria Louisa was to be the wife of the Emperor of the French. Nothing more was wanted but that Napoleon should reject his legitimate wife, whom the pope had anointed! He had but to disenthrone her who for fifteen years, with true and tender love, had shared his existence. He had only to be divorced publicly and solemnly, so as immediately to possess a bride, the daughter of an emperor!
Napoleon came to Fontainebleau to accomplish this cruel task, to break at once his marriage with Josephine and her heart. He knew what terrible sufferings he was preparing for her; he himself quailed under the anguish she was to endure; his heart was full of sorrow and woe, and yet his resolution was irrevocable. Policy had controlled his heart, ambition had conquered his love, and the man was determined to sacrifice his wife to the emperor.
Josephine felt this at the first word he addressed her, at the first look he gave her, after so long a separation, and her heart shrank within itself in bitter anguish, while a stream of tears started from her eyes.
But Napoleon asked not for the cause of these tears; he had not the courage to wage an open war with this brave, loving heart, and to subdue her love and despair with the two-edged sword of his state policy and craftiness. He did not wish to utter the word; he wanted to make her feel what an abyss was now open between them; all confidential and social intercourse was to be avoided, so that the empress might become conscious that love and fellowship of hearts had ceased also.
On the evening after the first interview the empress found that the door of communication between her apartments and those of the emperor had been closed. Napoleon did not, as had been his wont, bid her good-night with a cordial and friendly kiss, but, in the presence of her ladies, he dismissed her with a cold salutation. The next day the emperor expressly avoided her society; and when at rare moments he was with her, he was so taciturn, so morose and cold, that the empress had not the courage to ask for an explanation, or to reproach him, but, trembling and afraid, she bowed under the iron pressure of his severe, angry looks.
To prevent their being with each other alone, and to avoid this horrible solitude, dreaded alike by Napoleon and Josephine, the emperor sent the next day for all the princes and princesses of his family to come to Fontainebleau. His sisters, no longer kept in control by the domineering will of the emperor, made Josephine feel their malice and enmity; they found pleasure in letting the empress see their own ascendency, their secure position, and in treating her with coldness and disrespect. The emperor, instead of guarding Josephine against these humiliations, had the cruel courage to increase them; for, without reserve or modesty, and in the very presence of Josephine, he offered the most familiar and positive attentions to two ladies of his court–ladies whom he honored with special favor. [Footnote: Thiers, “Histoire du Consulat et de l’Empire,” vol. xi., p. 323.]
It was death-like agony which Josephine suffered in those days of Fontainebleau; it was a cruel martyrdom, which she, however, endured with all the gentleness of her nature, with the devotedness and uncomplaining anguish of true and genuine love.
Napoleon could not endure this. The sight of this yet beloved pale face, with its sweet, angelic smile, lacerated his heart and tortured him with reproaches. He wanted to have festivities and amusements, so as not to witness this quiet, devoted anguish, so as not to read every day in the sorrowful, red eyes of Josephine, the story of nights passed in tears.
The court returned to Paris, there to celebrate the new victorious peace with brilliant feasts. Napoleon, so as to be delivered from the tearful companionship of Josephine, made the journey on horseback, and never once rode near her carriage.
In Paris had begun at once a series of festivities, at which German princes, the Kings of Saxony, of Bavaria, and of Wurtemberg, were present, to congratulate Napoleon on his victories in Germany. The Empress Josephine, by virtue of her rank, had to appear at these receptions; she had, although in the deepest despondency, to wear a smile on her lip, to appear as empress at the side of the man who met her with coldness and estrangement, and whom she yet loved with the true love of a wife! She had to see the courtiers, with the keen instinct of their race, desert her, leaving around her person an insulting void and vacancy. Her heart was tortured with anguish and woe, and yet she could not uproot her love from it; she did not have the courage to speak the decisive word, and to desire the divorce which she knew hung over her, and which at any moment might agonize her heart!
Josephine did not possess the cowardice to commit suicide; she was ready to receive the fatal blow, but she could not plunge the dagger into her own heart.
Napoleon, unable to endure these tortures, longed to bring them to an end. He secretly made all the necessary arrangements, and communicated to the first chancellor, Cambaceres, his irrevocable resolution to be divorced from the empress. He, however, notified him that he wanted this act of separation to be accomplished in the most respectful and honorable form for Josephine, and he therefore, with Cambaceres, prepared and decided upon all the details of this public divorce.
It only remained now to find some one who would announce to Josephine her fate, who would communicate to her the emperor’s determination. Napoleon had not the courage to do it himself, and he wanted to confide this duty to the Vice-King Eugene, whom for this purpose he had invited to Paris.
But Eugene declined to become a messenger of evil tidings to his mother; and when Napoleon turned to Hortense, she refused to give to her mother’s heart the mortal stroke. The emperor, deeply touched by the sorrow manifested by the children of Josephine, was not able to repress his tears. He wept with them over their blasted happiness– their betrayed love. But his tears could not make him swerve from his resolution.
“The nation has done so much for me,” said he, “that I owe it the sacrifice of my dearest inclinations. The peace of France demands that I choose a new companion. Since, for many months, the empress has lived in the torments of uncertainty, and every thing is now ready for a new marriage, we must therefore come to a final explanation.” [Footnote: Lavalette, “Memoires,” vol. ii., p. 44.]
But as none could be found to carry this fatal news to Josephine, Napoleon had to take upon himself the unwelcome task.
Wearied with the tears of the slighted empress, with the reproaches of his own conscience and with his own sufferings, Napoleon suddenly broke the sad, gloomy silence which had been so long maintained between him and his wife; in answer to her tears and reproaches, he told her that it was full time now to arrive at a final conclusion; that he had resolved to form new ties; that the interest of the state demanded from them both an enormous sacrifice; that he reckoned on her courage and devotedness to consent to a divorce, to which he himself acceded only with the greatest reluctance. [Footnote: Thiers, “Histoire du Consulat,” vol. xi., p. 340.]
But Josephine did not hear the last words. At the word divorce she swooned with a death-like shriek; and Napoleon, alarmed at the sight of her insensibility, called out to the officers in waiting to help him to carry the empress into her rooms upon her bed.
Such hours of despair, of bitter pain, of writhing, agonized love did Josephine now endure! How courageous, yet how difficult, the struggle against the wretchedness of a rejected love! How angrily and scornfully she would rise up against her cruel fate! How lovingly, humbly, gently she would acquiesce in it, as to a long- expected, inevitable fatality!
These were long days of pain and distress; but Josephine was not alone in her sufferings, for the emperor’s heart was also touched with her quiet endurance, and her deep agony at this separation.
At last the empress came out victorious from these conflicts of heart and soul, and she repressed her tears with the firm will of a noble, loving woman! She bade her son Eugene announce to the emperor that she assented to the divorce on two conditions: first, that her own offspring should not be exiled or rejected, but that they should still remain Napoleon’s adopted children, and maintain their rank and position at his court; secondly, that she should be allowed to remain in France, and, if possible, in the vicinity of Paris, so that, as she said with a sweet smile, she might be near the emperor, and still hope in the pleasure of seeing him.
Napoleon’s countenance manifested violent agitation when Eugene communicated to him his mother’s conditions; for a long time he paced the room to and fro, his hands behind his back, and unable to gather strength enough to return an answer. Then, with a trembling voice, he said that he not only granted all these conditions, but that they corresponded entirely with the wishes of his heart, and that he would add to them a third condition, namely, that Josephine should still be honored and treated by him and by the world as empress, and that she should still be surrounded with all the honors belonging to that rank.
There was yet wanting, for the full offering of the sacrifice, the public and solemn act of divorcement; but before that could take place it was necessary to make the requisite preparations, to arrange the future household of the divorced empress, and to prepare every thing for Josephine’s reception in Malmaison, whither she desired to retire from the world. The mournful solemnity was put off until the 15th of December, and until then Josephine, according to the rules of etiquette, was to appear before the world as the ruling empress, the wife of Napoleon. Twice it was necessary to perform the painful duty of appearing publicly in all the pomp of her imperial dignity, and to wear the heavy burden of that crown which already had fallen from her head. On the morning of the 3d of December she had to be present at the chanting of the Te Deum in Notre Dame, in thanksgiving for the peace of Vienna, and to appear at the ball which the city of Paris that same evening gave to the emperor and empress.
This ball was the last festivity which Josephine attended as empress, but even then she received not all the honors which were due to her as such. Napoleon himself had given orders that the ladies of Paris, gathered in the Hotel de Ville, with the wife of the governor of the capital, and the Duchess d’Abrantes at their head, should not, as usual, meet the empress at the foot of the stairs, but that they should quietly await her approach in the throne-room, while the marshal of ceremonies would alone accompany her up the stairs.
The Duchess d’Abrantes, deeply affected by this order of the emperor, which at once revealed the sad secret of the approaching future, had reluctantly to submit to this arrangement, which so cruelly broke the established etiquette. She has herself, in her memoirs, given full particulars of this evening, and her words are so touching and so full of sentiment that we cannot refuse to make them known here:
“We, therefore,” says she, [Footnote: Abrantes, “Memoires.” vol. xii., p. 289.] “ascended the throne-room, and were no sooner seated, than the drums began to beat, and the empress entered. I shall never forget that figure, in the costume which so marvellously suited her… never will this gentle face, now wrapped in mourning crape, fade away from my memory. It was evident that she was not prepared for the solitude which she had found on the grand staircase; and yet Junot, in spite of the risk of being blamed by the emperor, went to receive her, and he had even managed that the empress should meet on the stairs a few ladies who, it is true, did not very well know how they came and what they had to do there. The empress, however, was not deceived; as she entered the grand hall and approached the throne on which, in the presence of the public of the capital, she was to sit probably for the last time….her feet trembled and her eyes filled with tears. ….I tried to catch her eyes; I would willingly have sunk at her feet and told her how much I suffered….She understood me, and looked at me with the most agonizing gaze which perhaps was ever in her eyes since that now blighted crown had been placed on her head. That look spoke of agony–it revealed depths of sorrow!….What must she have suffered on this awful day!….She felt wretched, dying, and yet she smiled! Oh, what a torture was that crown!….Junot stood by her.
“‘You were not afraid of Jupiter’s wrath,’ said I to him afterward.
“‘No,’ said he, with a gloomy look, ‘no, I fear him not, when he is wrong….’
“The drums beat a second time; they announced the emperor’s approach…. A few minutes after he came in, walking rapidly, and accompanied by the Queen of Naples and the King of Westphalia. The heat was extraordinary, though it was cold out of doors. The Queen of Naples, whose gracious, charming smile seemed to demand from the Parisians the salutation, ‘Welcome to Paris,’ spoke to every one, and with the expression of uncommon goodness. Napoleon, also, who wished to appear friendly, walked up and down the room, talking and questioning, followed by Berthier, who fairly skipped at his side, fulfilling more the duties of a chamberlain than those of a connetable. A trifling circumstance in reference to Berthier struck me. The emperor, who for some time had been seated on his arm-chair near the empress, descended the steps of the throne to go once more around the hall; at the moment he rose I saw him bend down toward the empress, probably to tell her that she was to accompany him. He rose up first; Berthier, who had stood behind him, rushed on to follow his master; the empress was already standing up, when his feet caught in the train of her mantle, and he nearly fell down, causing the empress almost to fall. However, he disentangled himself, and, without one word of excuse to the empress, he followed the emperor. Certainly Berthier had not the intention to be wanting in respect to the empress; but he knew the secret–he knew the whole drama soon to be performed…. and assuredly he would not have so acted one year ago as he did to-day….. The empress had remained standing with a marvellous dignity; she smiled as if the accident was the result of mere awkward-ness…. but her eyes were full of tears, and her lips trembled….”
At last the 15th of December had come; the day on which Josephine was to endure the most cruel agony of her life, the day on which she was solemnly to descend from the throne and bid farewell to her whole brilliant past, and commence a despised, lonely, gloomy future.
In the large cabinet of ceremonies were gathered on this day, at noon, the emperor, the Empress Josephine, the emperor’s mother, the King and Queen of Holland, the King and Queen of Westphalia, the King and Queen of Naples, the Vice-king Eugene, the Princess Pauline Borghese, the high-chancellor Cambaceres, and the secretary of civil affairs, St. Jean d’Angely. Josephine was pale and trembling; her children were agitated, and hiding their tears under an appearance of quietude, so as to instil courage into their mother.
Napoleon, standing upright, his hand in that of the empress, read with tremulous voice:
“My cousin, prince state-chancellor, I have dispatched you an order to summon you hither into my cabinet for the purpose of communicating to you the resolution which I and the empress, my much-beloved wife, have taken. I am rejoiced that the kings, queens, and princesses, my brothers and sisters, my brothers-in-law and sisters-in-law, my daughter-in-law and my son-in-law, who also is my adopted son, as well as my mother, are here present to hear what I have to say.
“The policy of my empire, the interest and wants of my people, direct all my actions, and now demand that I should leave children heirs of the love I have for my people, and heirs of this throne to which Providence has exalted me. However, for many years past, I have lost the hope of having children through the marriage of my beloved wife, the Empress Josephine; and this obliges me to sacrifice the sweetest inclinations of my heart, so as to consult only the welfare of the state, and for that cause to desire the dissolution of my marriage.
“Already advanced to my fortieth year, I still may hope to live long enough to bring up in my sentiments and thoughts the children whom it may please Providence to give me. God knows how much this resolution has cost my heart; but there is no sacrifice too great for my courage if it can be shown to me that such a sacrifice is necessary to the welfare of France.
“It is necessary for me to add that, far from having any cause of complaint, I have, contrariwise, but to praise the devotedness and affection of my much-beloved wife; she has embellished fifteen years of my life; the remembrance of these years will therefore ever remain engraven on my heart. She has been crowned at my hands; it is my will that she retain the rank and title of empress, and especially that she never doubt my sentiments, and that she ever hold me as her best and dearest friend.”
When he came to the words “she has embellished fifteen years of my life,” tears started to Napoleon’s eyes, and, with a voice trembling through emotion, he read the concluding words.
It was now Josephine’s turn. She began to read the paper which had been prepared for her:
“With the permission of our mighty and dear husband, I must declare that, whereas I can no longer cherish the hope of having children to meet the wants of his policy and the wants of France, I am ready to give the highest proof of affection and devotedness which was ever given upon earth….”
Josephine could proceed no further; sobs choked her voice. She tried to continue, but her trembling lips could no more utter a word. She handed to Count St. Jean d’Angely the paper, who, with tremulous voice, read as follows:
“I have obtained every thing from his goodness; his hand has crowned me, and on the exaltation of this throne I have received only proofs of the sympathy and love of the French people.
“I believe it is but manifesting my gratitude for these sentiments when I consent to the dissolution of a marriage which is an obstacle to the welfare of France, since it deprives her of the happiness of being one day ruled by the posterity of a great man, whom Providence has so manifestly favored, as through him to bring to an end the horrors of a terrible revolution, and to re-establish the altar, the throne, and social order. The dissolution of my marriage will not, however, alter the sentiments of my heart; the emperor will always find in me his most devoted friend. I know how much this action, made incumbent upon him by policy and by the great interests in view, has troubled his heart; but we, the one and the other, are proud of the sacrifice which we offer to the welfare of our country.”
When he had finished, Napoleon, visibly affected, embraced Josephine, took her hand, and led her back to her apartments, where he soon left her insensible in the arms of her children. [Footnote: Thiers, “Histoire du Consulat,” etc., vol. xi., p. 349.]
Napoleon himself, sad and silent, returned to his cabinet, where, in a state of complete exhaustion, he fell into an easy-chair.
On the evening of the same day he again visited Josephine, to pass a few hours with her in quiet, undisturbed communion; to speak in tenderness and love of the future, to weep with her, and, full of deepest emotion and sincerity, to assure her of his undying gratitude for the past, and of his abiding friendship for the future.
Josephine passed the night in tears, struggling with her heart, sometimes breaking into bitter complaints and reproaches, which she immediately repressed with that gentleness and mildness so much her own, and with that love which never for a moment departed from her breast.
There remained yet to perform the last, the most painful scene of this great, tearful drama. Josephine had to leave the Tuileries; she had forever to retire from the place which she so long had occupied at her husband’s side; she had to descend into the open grave of her mournful abandonment; as a widow, to part with the corpse of her love and of the past, and to put on mourning apparel for a husband who was not yet dead, but who only rejected her to give his hand and his heart to another woman.
The next day at two o’clock, the moment had come for Josephine to leave the Tuileries, to make room for the yet unknown wife of the future. Napoleon wanted to leave Paris at the same moment, and pass a few days of quiet and solitude in Trianon.
The carriages of the emperor and empress were both ready; the last farewell of husband and wife, now to part forever, had yet to be said. M. de Meneval, who was the sole witness of those sad moments, gives of them a most affecting description, which bears upon its face the merit of truth and impartiality.
“When it was announced to the emperor that the carriage was ready, he stood up, took his hat, and said: ‘Meneval, come with me.’
“I followed him through the narrow winding stairs which led from his room into that of the empress. She was alone, and seemed absorbed in the saddest thoughts, At the noise we made in entering she rose up and eagerly threw herself, sobbing, upon the neck of the emperor, who drew her to his breast and embraced her several times; but Josephine, overcome by excitement, had fainted. I hastened to ring for assistance. The emperor, to avoid the renewal of a painful scene, which it was not in his power to prevent, placed the empress in my arms as soon as he perceived her senses return, and ordered me not to leave her, and then he hurried away through the halls of the first story, at whose gate his carriage was waiting. Josephine became immediately conscious of the emperor’s absence; her tears and sobs redoubled. Her women, who had now entered, laid her on a sofa, and busied themselves with tender solicitude to bring her relief. In her bewilderment she had seized my hands, and urgently entreated me to tell the emperor not to forget her, and to assure him of her devotedness, which would outlast every trial. I had to promise her that at my arrival in Trianon I would wait upon the emperor and see that he would write to her. It caused her pain to see me leave, as if my departure tore away the last bond which united her to the emperor. I left her, deeply affected by so true a sorrow and by so sincere a devotion. During the whole journey I was deeply moved, and could not but bewail the merciless political considerations which tore violently apart the bonds of so faithful an affection for the sake of contracting a new union, which, after all, contained but uncertain chances.
“In Trianon I told the emperor all that had happened since his departure, and I conveyed to him the message intrusted to me by the empress. The emperor was still suffering from the emotions caused by this farewell scene. He spoke warmly of Josephine’s qualities, of the depth and sincerity of the sentiments she cherished for him; he looked upon her as a devoted friend, and, in fact, he has ever maintained for her a heart-felt affection. The very same evening he sent her a letter to console her in her solitude. When he learned that she was sad and wept much, he wrote to her again, complained tenderly of her want of courage, and told her how deeply this troubled him.” [Footnote: Meneval, “Napoleon et Marie Louise.– Souvenirs Historiques,” vol. i., pp. 230-232.]
It is true Josephine’s sorrow was bitter, and the first night of solitude in Malmaison was especially distressing and horrible. But even in these hours of painful struggle the empress maintained her gentleness and mildness of character. Mademoiselle d’Avrillon, one of the ladies in waiting, has given her testimony to that effect:
“I was with the empress during the greater part of the night,” writes she; “sleep was impossible, and time passed away in conversation. The empress was moved to the very depth of her heart; it is true, she complained of her fate, but in expressions so gentle, in so resigned a manner, that tears would come to her eyes. There was no bitterness in her words, not even during this first night when the blow which destroyed her, had fallen upon her; she spoke of the emperor with the same love, with the same respect, as she had always done. Her grief was most acute: she suffered as a wife, as a mother, and with all the wounded sensitiveness of a woman, but she endured her affliction with courage, and remained unchanged in gentleness, love, and goodness.” [Footnote: Avrillon, “Memoires,” vol. ii., p. 166.]
CHAPTER XLIII.
THE DIVORCED.
Josephine had accepted her fate, and, descending from the imperial throne whose ornament she had long been, retired into the solitude and quietness of private life.
But the love and admiration of the French nation followed the empress to Malmaison, where she had retreated from the world, and where the regard and friendship, if not the love of Napoleon himself, endeavored to alleviate the sufferings of her solitude. During the first days after her divorce, the road from Paris to Malmaison presented as animated a scene of equipages as in days gone by, when the emperor resided there with his wife. All those whose position justified it, hastened to Malmaison to pay their respects to Josephine, and through the expressions of their sympathy to soften the asperities of her sorrow. Doubtless many came also through curiosity, to observe how the empress, once so much honored, endured the humiliation of her present situation. Others, believing they would exhibit their devotedness to the emperor if they should follow their master’s example, abandoned the empress, as he had done, and took no further notice of her.
But the emperor soon undeceived the latter, manifesting his dissatisfaction by his cold demeanor and repelling indifference toward them, whilst he loudly praised all those who had exercised their gratitude by visiting Malmaison, and in expressing their devotedness to the empress.
He himself went beyond his whole court in showing attention and respect to Josephine. The very next day after their separation, the emperor went to Malmaison to visit her, and to take with her a long walk through the park. During the following days he came again, and once invited her and the ladies of her new court to a dinner in Trianon.
Josephine might have imagined that nothing had been altered in her situation, and that she was still Napoleon’s wife. But there were wanting in their intercourse those little, inexpressible shades of confidence which her exquisite tact and her instinctive feelings felt yet more deeply than the more important and visible changes.
When Napoleon came or went, he no longer embraced her, but merely pressed her hand in a friendly manner, and often called her “madame” and “you;” he was more formal, more polite to her than he had ever been before.
And then his daily visits ceased; in their place came his letters, it is true, but they were only the letters of a friend, who tried to comfort her in her misfortune, but took no sympathetic interest in her distress.
Soon these letters became more rare, and when they did come they were shorter. The emperor had to busy himself with other matters than with the solitary, rejected woman in Malmaison; he had now to occupy his thoughts with his young and beautiful bride–with Maria Louisa, the daughter of the Emperor of Austria, who was soon to enter Paris as the wife of Napoleon, the Emperor of France.
Bitter and painful indeed were those first days of resignation for Josephine; harsh and unsparing were the conflicts she had to fight with her own heart, before its wounds could be closed, and its pains and its humiliations cease to torment her!
But Josephine had a brave heart, a strong will, and a resolute determination to control herself. She conquered herself into rest and resignation; she did not wish that the emperor, the happy bridegroom, should ever hear of her red, weeping eyes, of her lamentations and sighs; she did not wish that, in the golden cup which the husband of the emperor’s young daughter was drinking in the full joyousness of a conqueror, her tears should commingle therein as drops of gall.
She controlled herself so far as to be able with smiling calmness to have related to her how Paris was celebrating the new marriage festivities, how the new Empress of the French was everywhere received with enthusiasm. She was even able to inquire, with an expression of friendly sympathy, after Maria Louisa, the young wife of sixteen, who had taken the place of the woman of forty-eight, and from whom Josephine, in the sincerity of her love, required but one thing, namely, to make Napoleon happy.
When she was told that Napoleon loved Maria Louisa with all the passion of a fiery lover, Josephine conquered herself so as to smile and thank God that she had accepted her sacrifice and thus secured Napoleon’s happiness.
But the emperor, however much he might be enamored of his young wife, never forgot the bride of the past, the beloved one of his youth, of whom he had been not only captivated, but whom he had loved from the very depths of his soul. He surrounded her, though from a distance, with attentions and tokens of affection; he would often write to her; and at times, when his heart was burdened and full of cares, he would come to Malmaison, and visit this woman who understood how to read in his face the thoughts of his heart, this woman whose soft, gracious, and amiable disposition–even as a tranquillizing and invigorating breeze after a sultry day–could quiet his excited soul; to this woman he came for refreshment, for a little repose, and sweet communion.
It is true those visits of the emperor to his divorced wife were made secretly and privately, for his second wife was jealous of the affection which Napoleon still retained for Josephine; she listened with gloomy attention to the descriptions which were made to her of the amiableness, of the unwithered beauty of Josephine; and one day, after hearing that the emperor had visited her in Malmaison, Maria Louisa broke out into tears, and complained bitterly of this mortification caused by her husband.
Napoleon had to spare this jealous disposition of his young wife, for Maria Louisa was now in that situation which France and its emperor had expected and hoped from this marriage; she was approaching the time when the object for which Napoleon had married her was to be accomplished, when she was to give to France and the Bonaparte dynasty a legitimate heir. It was necessary, therefore, to be cautious with the young empress, and, on account of her interesting situation, it was expedient to avoid the gloomy sulkiness of jealousy.
By the emperor’s orders, and under pain of the punishment of his wrath, no one dared speak to Maria Louisa of the divorced empress, and Napoleon avoided designedly to give her an occasion of complaint. He went no longer to Malmaison; he even ceased corresponding with his former wife.
Only once during this period he had not been able to resist the longing of visiting Josephine, who, as he had heard, was sick. The emperor, accompanied only by one horseman, rode from Trianon to Malmaison. At the back gate of the garden he dismounted from his horse, and, without being announced, walked through the park to the castle. No one had seen him, and he was about passing from the front-room into the cabinet of the empress by a side-door, when the folding-doors leading from this front-room into the cabinet opened, and Spontini walked out.
Napoleon, agitated and vexed at having been surprised, advanced with imperious mien toward the renowned maestro, who was quietly approaching him.
“What are you doing here, sir?” cried Napoleon, with choleric impatience.
Spontini, however, returned the emperor’s haughty look, and, measuring him with a deep, flaming glance, asked, With a lofty assurance: “Sire, what are you doing here?”
The emperor answered not–a terrible glance fell upon the bold maestro, without, however, annihilating him: then Napoleon entered into Josephine’s cabinet, and Spontini walked away slowly and with uplifted head.
Spontini, the famous composer of the “Vestals,” whose score he had dedicated to the Empress Josephine, remained after her divorce a true and devoted admirer of the empress; and in Malmaison, as well as in the castle of Navarra, he showed himself as faithful, as ready to serve, as submissive, as he had once been in the Tuileries, or at St. Cloud, in the days of Josephine’s glory. He often passed whole weeks in Navarra, and even undertook to teach the ladies and gentlemen of the court the choruses of the “Vestals,” which the empress so much liked.
Josephine had, therefore, for the renowned maestro a heart-felt friendship, and she took pleasure in boasting of the gratitude and loyalty of Spontini, in contrast with the sad experiences she had made of man’s ingratitude. [Footnote: Memoires sur l’Imperatrice Josephine,” par Mlle. Ducrest,” vol. i., p. 287.]
The emperor, as already said, avoided to trouble his young wife by exciting her jealousy; and though he did not visit Malmaison, though for a time he did not write to Josephine, yet he was acquainted with the most minute details of her life, and with all the little events of her home; and he took care that around her every thing was done according to the strictest rules of etiquette, and that she was surrounded by the same splendor and the same ceremonies as when she was empress.
At last the moment had come which was to give to Josephine her most sacred and glorious reward. The cannon of the Invalides, with their one hundred and one thunders, announced that Maria Louisa had given birth to a son, and Prince Eugene was the first who brought this news to his mother in Navarra.
Josephine’s countenance beamed with satisfaction and joy when she learned from the lips of her son this news of the birth of the King of Rome; she called her whole court together to communicate herself this news to the ladies and gentlemen, and to have them listen to the descriptions which Eugene, with all heartiness, was making of the scenes which had taken place in the imperial family circle during the mysterious hours of suspense and expectation.
But when Eugene repeated the words of Napoleon’s message which he sent through him to Josephine, her countenance was illumined with joy and satisfaction, and tears started from her eyes–tears of purest joy, of most sacred love!
Napoleon had said: “Eugene, go to your mother; tell her that I am convinced no one will be more pleased with my happiness than she. I would have written to her, but I should have had to give up the pleasure of gazing at my son. I part from him only to attend to inexorable duties. But this evening I will accomplish the most agreeable of all duties–I will write to Josephine.” [Footnote: Ducrest, vol. i., p. 236.]
The emperor kept his word. The same evening there came to Malmaison an imperial page, with an autograph letter from Napoleon to Josephine. The empress rewarded this messenger of glad tidings with a costly diamond-pin, and then she called her ladies together, to show them the letter which had brought so much happiness to her heart, and which also had obscured her eyes with tears.
It was an autograph letter of Napoleon; it contained six or eight lines, written with a rapid hand; the pen, too hastily filled, had dropped large blots of ink on the paper. In these lines Napoleon announced to Josephine the birth of the King of Rome, and concluded with these words: “This child, in concert with our Eugene, will secure the happiness of France, and mine also.”
These last words were to Josephine full of delight. “Is it, then, possible,” exclaimed she, joyously, “to be more amiable and more tender, thus to sweeten what this moment might have of bitterness if I did not love the emperor so much? To place my son alongside of his is an act worthy of the man who, when he will, can be the most enchanting of men.” [Footnote: Ducrest, vol. i., p. 238.]
And this child, for which so much suffering had been endured, for which she had offered her own life in sacrifice, was by Josephine loved even as if it were her own. She was always asking news from the little King of Rome, and no deeper joy could be brought to her heart than to speak to her of the amiableness, the beauty, the liveliness of this little prince, who appeared to her as the visible reward of the sacrifice which she had made to God and to the emperor.
One intense, craving wish did Josephine cherish during all these years–she longed to see Napoleon’s son; she longed to press to her heart this child who was making her former husband so happy, and on which rested all the hopes of France.
Finally Napoleon granted her desire. Privately, and in all secrecy, for Maria Louisa’s jealousy was ever on the watch, and she would never have consented to allow her son to go to her rival; without pomp, without suite, the emperor took a drive with the little three- year-old King of Rome to the pleasure-castle of Bagatelle, whither he had invited the Empress Josephine through his trusty chamberlain Constant.
Josephine herself has described her interview with the little King of Rome in a very touching and affecting letter which she addressed the next day to the emperor, and which contains full and interesting details of the brief interview she had with the son of Maria Louisa. We cannot, therefore, abridge this letter, nor deny ourselves the pleasure of transcribing it:
“Sire, although deeply moved by our interview of yesterday, and preoccupied with the beautiful and lovely child you brought me, penetrated with gratitude for the step taken by you for my sake, and whose unpleasant consequences, I may well imagine, could fall only upon you; I felt the most pressing desire to converse with you, to assure you of my joy, which was too great to be at once exhibited in a suitable manner. You, who to meet my wishes exposed yourself to the danger of having your peace disturbed, will fully understand why I thus long to acknowledge to you all the happiness your inestimable favor has produced within me.
“Truly, it was not out of mere curiosity that I wished to see the King of Rome; his face was not unknown to me, for I had seen striking portraits of him. Sire, I wanted to examine the expression of his features, listen to the tone of his voice, which is so much like yours; I wanted to see you–how you would caress the child, and then I longed also to return to him the caresses which my son Eugene received from you. If I recall to your remembrance how deaf my son was once to you, it is that you should not be surprised at the partiality which I cherish for the son of another, for it is your son, and you will find neither insincerity nor exaggeration in feelings which you fully appreciate, since you yourself have nurtured similar ones.
“The moment I saw you enter with the little Napoleon in your hand was undoubtedly one of the happiest of my eventful life. That moment surpassed all the preceding ones, for never have I received from you a stronger proof of your affection to me. It was no passionate love which induced you to fulfil my wishes, but it was a sincere esteem and affection, and these feelings are unchangeable, and this thought completes my happiness.
“It was not without trembling that I thought of the dissolution of our marriage-ties, for it was reasonable for me to apprehend that a young, beautiful wife, endowed also with the most enviable gifts, would soon make you forget one who lacks all these advantages, and who then would be far away from you. When I called to mind all the amiable qualities possessed by Maria Louisa, I could not but tremble at the thought that I should soon be indifferent to you, but surely I was then ignoring the loftiness and generosity of your soul, which still preserves the memory of its extraordinary devotedness, and of its tenderness toward me, a devotedness and tenderness whose superabundance was proportioned to those eminent qualities which have surprised Europe, and which cause you to be admired by all those who come near you, and which even constrain your enemies to render you justice!
“Yes, I acknowledge to you, sire, you have once more found the means of astonishing me, and to fill me with admiration, accustomed as I am to admire you; and your whole conduct, so well suited to my position, the solicitude with which you surround me, and finally the step you took yesterday in my behalf, prove to me that you have far surpassed all the favorable and charming impressions which I have ever cherished for you.
“With what fondness I pressed the young prince to my heart! How his face, radiant with health, filled me with delight, and how happy I was to see him so amused and so contented as he watched us both! In fact, I entirely forgot I was a stranger to this child; I forgot that I was not his mother while partaking his sweet caresses. I then envied no man’s happiness; mine seemed far above all bliss granted to poor mortals here below. And when the time came to part from him, when I had to tear myself from this little being whom I had barely learned to know, I felt in me a deep anguish, as deep as if all the sorrows of humanity had pierced me through.
“Have yon, as I did, closely noticed the little commanding tone of your son when he made known to me his wish that he wanted me to be in the Tuileries with him? And then his little pouting mien when I answered that this could not be?
“‘Why,’ exclaimed he, in his own way, ‘why, since papa and I wish it?’
“Yes, this already reveals that he will understand how to command, and I heartily rejoice to discern traits of character which, in a private individual, might be pregnant with evil consequences, but which are becoming to a prince who is destined to rule in a time that is so near a long and terrible revolution. For after the downfall of all order, such as we have outlived, a sovereign cannot hope to maintain peace in his kingdom merely through mildness and goodness. The nation over which he rules, and which yet stands on