“My courtiers could not long conceal from me the occupation of the
capital. I found myself almost in the sad condition of the family
of Darius. Should I await the orders of my husband’s conquerors, or
should I go and implore their generosity? The melancholy state to which
Bonaparte was reduced wholly engrossed my feelings and my thoughts. I
was resolved to share his death, or to follow him into exile.”
“Noble-hearted woman! What a contrast does this feeling present to that
which actuated his second wife, who abandoned him as readily and with
as little compunction or concern, as though her child had been the son
of a German boor, and not of one as great as Cæsar or Alexander!”
While Josephine was at Navarre, and anxiously awaiting the next news
from the captured city, she received word from the minister Talleyrand,
inviting her to return to Malmaison, to meet there the Emperor
Alexander and the king of Prussia, who had expressed a wish to see
the queen of that palace of enchantments. Of her interview with these
sovereigns, Josephine says:—
“I thanked those magnanimous princes for having had the generosity
to honor with their presence the forsaken wife of Bonaparte; I
recommended to their kind consideration that brave army which had long
displayed such prodigies of valor; I pleaded the cause of those brave
soldiers who still formed a bulwark around the hero of Austerlitz;
and I claimed, earnestly claimed, the liberty of the man whom I still
loved. I forgot all his wrongs towards me, and thought only of his
misfortunes.”
The Emperor Alexander of Russia said to Josephine: “I congratulate
you on having reigned over the French, a nation so worthy to be well
governed; I congratulate you on having known how to make friends
while on the throne, friends who have followed you into retirement.
’Tis to you, madame, that France is in a great measure indebted for
the tranquillity she enjoyed during the first years of your husband’s
reign. Had Napoleon continued to listen to your advice, he would
probably now have reigned over a great and generous people. All the
sovereigns in Europe, and myself the first, would ultimately have
applauded the wisdom of his institutions and the strength of his
government.”
When Napoleon returned from Elba to Paris, and was once more receiving
the acclamations of his adherents at the Tuileries, he is said to have
fallen into a “melting mood,” a few nights after his return thither,
and he sent for M. Horan, one of the physicians who had attended
Josephine in her last illness. After talking about his former wife with
much feeling, to whom he certainly was attached even when he so cruelly
abandoned her, he said to the physician:—
“So, Monsieur Horan, you did not leave the empress during her malady?”
“No, sire.”
“What was the cause of that malady?”
“Uneasiness of mind—grief.”
“You believe that?” and Napoleon laid a strong emphasis on the word
_believe_, looking steadfastly in the doctor’s face. He then asked,
“Was she long ill? Did she suffer much?”
“She was ill a week, sire; her Majesty suffered little pain.”
“Did she see that she was dying? Did she show courage?”
“A sign her Majesty made when she could no longer express herself,
leaves me no doubt that she felt her end approaching; she seemed to
contemplate it without fear.”
“Well!—well!” and then Napoleon, much affected, drew close to M. Horan,
and added, “You say that she was in grief; from what did that arise?”
“From passing events, sire, from your Majesty’s position last year.”
“Ah! she used to speak of me, then?”
“Often; very often.”
Here Napoleon drew his hand across his eyes, which were filled with
tears. He then said:—
“Good woman! My excellent Josephine! She loved me truly, did she not?
Ah! she was a Frenchwoman!”
“Oh yes, sire! she loved you, and she would have proved it, had it not
been for dread of displeasing you; she had conceived an idea.”
“How? What would she have done?”
“She one day said that as empress of the French she would drive through
Paris, with eight horses to her coach, and all her household in gala
livery, to go and rejoin you at Fontainebleau, and never quit you more.”
“She would have done it! She was capable of doing it!” exclaimed
Napoleon, with deep emotion and eyes full of tears; and then he asked
the physician the most minute questions about the last hours of
Josephine: the nature of her disease, the friends and attendants who
were around her at the hour of her death, and the conduct of her two
children Eugène and Hortense.
How different was Josephine’s fidelity to the man who had even cut her
to the heart by his cruel desertion when he was at the height of his
glory, but whom in his dire misfortunes she did not cease to love and
desire to aid, from the cold apathy of the woman who had taken her
rightful place!
After the fall of the emperor, and his departure to the island of
Elba, Josephine fell into a profound melancholy. For several days she
preferred to remain alone. Her ladies noticed that she often perused a
letter which the emperor had written to her from Brienne, in which he
said:—
“Josephine, while revisiting the spot where I passed my early
childhood, and comparing the peaceful hours I then enjoyed with the
agitations which I now experience, I am constrained to say to myself,
I fear death no longer—to me it would this day be a blessing,—_but I
would once more see Josephine_.”
Speaking of Napoleon at this time, she is reported to have said: “I
am the only one to whom he intrusted all his secrets—all except the
one which has caused his ruin; and had he communicated that to me in
season, I should still have enjoyed his presence; and by means of my
counsels he would perhaps have escaped these new calamities.”
Among the last words uttered by the faithful Josephine, were these,
regarding Napoleon, whose loved portrait she then gazed upon: “Banished
to an island under a foreign sky, torn from France, from a wife and a
beloved son, from all his friends; fallen from the palaces of kings,
among the hills of Elba, overcome by cares and fatigues, sad and
melancholy, alone amidst the dwellers upon that island, there still
remains to him one faithful Pylades, and a few warriors who have
voluntarily shared his exile. Bonaparte can never find consolation in
his deep misfortunes, except in the reflection that there still remains
to him one true friend who hath never ceased to watch over his precious
life. But, alas! she is lost for him.”
“Josephine, Bonaparte’s last friend; Josephine, the first object of
his ambition, and the only woman whom he truly loved. Bonaparte was
fortunate while her lot was connected with his. His after-life was less
miserable while she survived. Dying, she still wished to press his
hand; his name was the last word she uttered, and her last tear fell
upon his portrait.”
Time destroys great reputations, but that of Napoleon’s first wife will
be deathless while woman’s self-sacrificing love remains.
“At least,” said Josephine, with dying breath; “at least I shall carry
with me some regrets. I have aimed at the good of the French people; I
have done all in my power to promote it, and I may say with truth to
all who attend me in my last moments, that never, no, never, did the
first wife of Napoleon Bonaparte cause a tear to flow.”
Beautiful May had already clothed the gardens of Malmaison with verdure
and adorned them with radiant flowers. The sunset tints crimsoned the
western horizon, and tipped the white clouds with purple and gold.
The birds in the groves were softly carolling their vesper songs, and
the gentle breeze, swaying the delicate leaves, fanned with caressing
touch the fevered cheek of the dying Josephine, who, with eyes fast
dimming in death, gazed once more through the open window upon the
loved beauties of her favorite Malmaison, which on this 29th of May,
1814, seemed to have put on new loveliness to comfort the gentle
spirit so soon to take a fond and last farewell. As the shadows of
twilight deepened, and the dying empress looked once more on the
portrait of her idolized husband, the emperor, she exclaimed, “_L’isle
d’Elbe——Napoleon!_” and closed her eyes on earth, and passed beyond the
portals of mortal life.
“The death of Josephine threw all France into tears, and even strangers
shared in the general sorrow. They witnessed the universal regrets her
death occasioned, and it may be truly said, to the praise of both the
friends and foes of Bonaparte, that, on this mournful occasion, all
united to scatter flowers upon the tomb of the woman who had adorned
the happy days of the illustrious exile.”
On the 2d of June, the funeral honors were paid to the mortal remains
of the Empress Josephine, in the parish church at Ruel. Commissioners
from the sovereigns of Russia and Prussia headed the procession, which
proceeded from Malmaison to Ruel. Many foreign princes, marshals,
generals, and officers of the French and allied armies escorted the
renowned remains.
The military consisted of Russian Hussars and the National Guards of
France. The chief mourners were Prince Eugène, the Grand Duke of Baden,
Marquis de Beauharnais (brother-in-law), Count de Tascher (nephew),
Count de Beauharnais (cousin), and the grandchildren of the deceased
empress.
The funeral oration was pronounced by the Archbishop of Tours, while
the bishops of Evreux and Versailles assisted in the religious
ceremonies. The body of the empress was enclosed in a leaden coffin,
which was afterwards placed in one of sycamore wood covered with black
cloth. The casket was deposited in a vault in the church at Ruel, over
which was raised a _chapelle ardente_ formed of funeral hangings; the
altar, richly decorated in the form of a tomb, and the altar-piece,
representing a cross, were surmounted by a canopy. On the right was
placed a statue of Immortality, on the left that of Religion. A
sepulchral lamp was suspended in the middle of the _chapelle ardente_.
Queen Hortense, who had been conveyed to the church before the funeral
obsequies, knelt for a long time beside the tomb, with her brother,
after the other mourners had left the church.
The spot is now marked by a monument of white marble, representing the
empress kneeling in her coronation robes, and bears this simple and
touching inscription:—