MALMAISON.]

Josephine’s interest in her garden and flowers and animals was beyond

that of the mere prodigal who buys for the sake of buying and loses his

interest in possessing. One of the delights of her life at Malmaison was

visiting daily her animals, in each of which she took the liveliest

interest. Her flowers she watched carefully, and she took great delight

in distributing them. Many gardens in France to-day contain plants and

trees which are said to be grown from cuttings sent to some

dead-and-gone ancestor by Josephine.

During the first two years of the Consulate, in spite of all the changes

going on, Malmaison was the source of much brilliant life. Here when the

news of Marengo reached Paris, Josephine had tents spread, and gave a

great fête in honor of the victory; here gathered all the artists and

writers and musicians of the day; here eminent travellers came. There

was great simplicity in all entertaining, and when only the private

circle of the Consul was present, there was much went on which looked

like romping, Bonaparte and Josephine leading in the games.

The favorite amusement was private theatricals. Bonaparte was very fond

of the drama, had studied it carefully for many years, and he gave much

attention to the performances at Malmaison. The little company there was

very good, Hortense de Beauharnais and Bourrienne, Bonaparte’s

secretary, being actors of more than ordinary ability. Something of the

care that was given to the preparation of an entertainment is indicated

by the fact that Talma himself used to come to the rehearsals to

criticise. Theatricals took such a place in the life at Malmaison that

finally a little theatre was built. It would seat perhaps 200 persons,

and was connected with the salons of the chateau by a long gallery.

At the Tuileries, the Bonapartes were in a Government House; at

Malmaison they were at home, and they never anywhere were so gay, so

busy, and so happy together. Certainly in these two years Josephine

succeeded admirably in her purpose of repairing the mischief she had

done by her past indiscretions. It was not alone her tact in society and

its value to him which had won Napoleon. It was that she had been to him

an incessant delight and comfort. She yielded to his will

unquestioningly and willingly, and this pliability was the more welcome

because his own family were in incessant opposition to his wishes. She

was always on hand, ready to walk, to drive, to go with him where he

would. She was tireless in her efforts to please the people he wanted

pleased, to carry off successfully the burdensome functions of official

life, to provide the entertainment he liked. She studied his tastes and

foresaw his wants. She tried to please him in the least detail. Napoleon

loved to see her in white, hence she wore no other kind of gown so

often. He liked to hear her read, and no matter how tired she was she

would sit at his bedside by the hour, if he wished, and read

uncomplainingly. Little wonder that as the weeks went Josephine grew

dearer and dearer to Napoleon or that she, seeing her hold, watched

carefully that nothing loosen it.

CHAPTER V

THE QUESTION OF SUCCESSION—MARRIAGE OF HORTENSE—JOSEPHINE EMPRESS OF THE

FRENCH PEOPLE—THE CORONATION

The first real threat to Josephine’s position came in a political

question. In order to give an appearance of stability to the new

government, it was proposed to give the First Consul the right to

appoint a successor. But if Napoleon had this right, would he not wish

for a son upon whom to confer it, would he not desire to establish a

hereditary office? Josephine had given him no children. He was only

thirty-one; might he not, in spite of all his affection, divorce her for

the sake of this succession, which, he declared, was essential to the

future of the Consulate. Josephine turned all her power of cajoling upon

Napoleon. “Do not make yourself king,” she begged; and when he laughed

at her, and told her that securing to himself the right to appoint a

successor in the Consulate was nothing of that sort—only a device to

prevent the overthrow of the government in case of his absence at the

head of the army, or in case of his sudden death, she was not convinced.

She began, indeed, to talk of the advisability of bringing back the

Bourbons, and called herself a royalist.

Napoleon’s decision was taken, however. He must appoint a successor, and

it should be one of his own family. But which one? Joseph had no head

for affairs. With Lucien he had quarreled. But there was Louis, who had

none of his brothers’ faults and all of their good qualities. Louis it

should be. The knowledge that Napoleon undoubtedly favored Louis as his

successor determined Josephine to arrange a marriage between him and her

daughter Hortense.

At this time, 1800, Hortense was seventeen years old, though the

exceptional experiences of her childhood had given her a thoughtfulness

quite superior to her years. She had been but ten when her mother, lest

a suspicion of her patriotism might be roused because she brought up her

children in idleness, had apprenticed her to a dressmaker. She was but

eleven years old when her parents were imprisoned, and when in the

costumes of laborers’ children she and Eugène had made frequent visits

to les Carmes and had gone together more than once to beg of persons in

authority for the lives of their father and mother. After the

Revolution, Hortense had been placed in Mme. Campan’s school at St.

Germain—a school established to give the young girls of the better class

whose parents had been scattered or guillotined in the Revolution, an

opportunity to learn the ways and the graces of that society which for

so long the patriots had been trying to uproot. At Mme. Campan’s,

Hortense had distinguished herself by her gentleness and her goodness,

by the quickness with which she learned everything taught, and by her

enthusiasm and ideals. She had left the school a thoroughly charming and

accomplished girl, to join her mother, now the wife of the First Consul.

She had all of Josephine’s charms of person, her grace and suppleness,

her beautiful form, her interesting and mobile face; but she was more

vivacious than Josephine and more intelligent. As for her

accomplishments, they were many. She played the piano and the harp, and

sang well. Her drawing and embroidery were not bad, as many specimens

still preserved show. She danced with exquisite grace; she, even at this

time, had literary aspirations, and she was the star of the company

which put on so many pieces at the little theatre at Malmaison.

Hortense was a favorite of Napoleon. He had loved her first because she

was Josephine’s daughter. After she left school and was constantly of

the household, he grew more and more attached to her, more and more

anxious for her happiness. Hortense, though she never ceased to fear

Napoleon, loved him with the enthusiasm of a young girl for a conquering

hero. She seems never to have questioned his will—never to have doubted

his affection for her.

Hortense’s marriage was, of course, an important question with the

Bonapartes, and various suitors had been considered. The girl herself

was not ambitious. Neither wealth nor station obscured her judgment. She

wanted to marry for love, she declared. At one time she had a strong

feeling for Duroc, and Napoleon favored the marriage strongly. Duroc was

of good family and a brave soldier, and Hortense loved him; what better?

Josephine opposed it. She had set her heart on Louis Bonaparte, in spite

of the fact that Hortense felt something like an antipathy to the young

man. Louis himself did not take to the marriage at first. He had imbibed

from his mother and brothers the idea that the Beauharnais were the

natural enemies of the Bonapartes, and a marriage with Hortense they all

declared, would be disloyal. However, in September, 1801, when Louis

returned to Paris after several months absence and saw Hortense at a

ball, he was so impressed by her charm that he yielded at once to

Josephine’s wishes, and asked for her hand. Napoleon consented with a

little regret; Hortense obeyed as a matter of duty, urged to it as she

was both by her mother and Mme. Campan. The marriage took place early in

January, 1802. It was a victory for Josephine over the Bonapartes, so

her friends said, and so the Bonapartes felt bitterly. But, alas, it was

a victory for which Hortense paid the price. Before the end of the year,

it was evident that Mme. Louis Bonaparte was very unhappy; her husband

was jealous and exacting, and constantly tried to turn her against her

mother in the family feud. Not even the birth of a son, in October,

silenced his grievances for long, though to Napoleon and to Josephine

the coming of the little Napoleon-Charles, as he was named, was an

inexpressible joy. To Josephine the child was a new support to her

position, a new reason why a succession could be established without

divorcing her and re-marrying. It was a succession through her, too,

since this was her daughter’s child.

Napoleon himself soon became more devoted to the child than its father

ever was. In a way, his own ardent desire for fatherhood was satisfied

by the presence of the baby, which he kept by him as much as he could,

riding it on his back, trotting it on his foot, rolling with it on the

floor, lying beside it at night until it slept—a touching proof of this

extraordinary man’s passion to possess a love which was faithful and

disinterested. As time went on and the question of the succession came

into the senate, the struggle between the brothers as to how the

heredity should be regulated reached its climax. Napoleon determined to

adopt Hortense’s child and make him his heir. Joseph, Lucien, and Louis

himself refused to resign what they called their rights, and each had

important supporters in his position. Lucien, in the struggle, broke

entirely with Napoleon.

But if the succession was to be settled to Josephine’s satisfaction,

there were other matters which worried her at the beginning of the life

Consulate. Chief among these was that Napoleon insisted upon leaving

Malmaison for St. Cloud. Josephine’s interest in the former place was so

great, her life there had been so happy, that she was violently opposed

to any change. St. Cloud was too large; it smacked too much of royalty,

the idea of which was awaking such vague alarms in her mind; its

associations were too sad. But her opposition availed nothing whatever.

Bonaparte felt that a larger residence was necessary. Malmaison was a

private home, St. Cloud belonged to the State, and he, as the head of

the State, wished to occupy its palaces. They had no sooner taken St.

Cloud than their whole mode of life changed; the simple, informal ways

of Malmaison were laid aside, and a rigid etiquette adopted. There is a

governor of the palace, there are prefects of the palace, there are

ladies of the palace. Josephine and Napoleon no longer receive everybody

of the household at their table, but eat alone, inviting, two or three

times a week, those persons whom they may care particularly to

distinguish. The ladies and gentlemen belonging to the palace have

tables of their own quite apart. There is a military household annexed

to St. Cloud, with four generals and a large guard, an elaborate suite

which accompanies the First Consul when he goes forth. Every Sunday, a

great crowd of dignitaries—senators, cardinals, bishops, ambassadors,

everybody of note in Paris—flock to the First Consul’s receptions. After

paying their respects to him, they pass into the apartment of Madame

Bonaparte. It is the former apartment of Marie Antoinette, and that

Queen herself did not receive in more state than the wife of the First

Consul. It is the same at the services in the chapel, which are held

every Sunday, and which Bonaparte insists everybody shall attend. At the

theatre of the palace, where the little plays which they so much enjoyed

at Malmaison are still repeated, there is the same increase of

etiquette. Josephine and Bonaparte no longer are seated with their

friends, but occupy a loge apart; and when they enter, the whole

assembly rises and salutes. People are there by invitation, too, and no

one pretends to applaud unless the signal is given by the First Consul.

Day by day Josephine bemoaned this new departure; and as hostile

criticisms and sneers reached her, she set her face against the changes.

Her protests were useless: “Josephine, you are tiresome—you know nothing

about these things,” Napoleon finally told her, and Fouché, her friend,

finally silenced her by his cynical advice. “Be quiet, Madame; you annoy

your husband uselessly. He will be Consul for life, King or Emperor, all

that he can be. Your fears disturb him; your advice would wound him.

Keep your proper place, and let the events which neither you nor I know

how to prevent work out.”

She did accept, and took her part. If it was true that Napoleon was

going to make himself Emperor, she must, before all, so conduct herself

that he would prefer her on the throne at his side to all the world. As

the weeks went on and it became evident that an Empire would soon be

proclaimed, Josephine had increasing need of discretion. The Bonaparte

family had set themselves again to prevent the succession going to a

Beauharnais. Josephine should be divorced, they said; Eugène, to whom

Napoleon was greatly attached, should be sent off with his mother. As

for his adopting little Napoleon-Charles, the child of Hortense, neither

Joseph nor Louis, the father, would hear to it. “Why should I give up to

my son a part of your succession?” said Louis to his brother. “What have

I done that I should be disinherited? What will be my place when this

child has become yours and finds himself in a position far superior to

mine, independent of me, outranking me, looking upon me with suspicion

and perhaps with contempt? No, I will never consent to it, and rather

than consent to bow my head before my son I will leave France; I will

take Napoleon away with me, and we will see if you will dare to steal a

child from his father.”

Napoleon’s sisters, particularly Caroline, Mme. Murat, were no less

determined than the brothers to secure all the advantages possible from

his glory. In their eagerness, they showed such envy and bitterness that

Napoleon was deeply disgusted, and gave them no satisfaction as to his

intentions. He even took some pains to tease them. One day when the

family were together and he was playing with little Napoleon, he said,

“Do you know, little one, that you are in danger of being King one of

these days?”

“And Achille?” Murat exclaimed, referring to his own son.

“Oh, Achille will make a good soldier,” answered Napoleon laughing, and

when he saw the black looks of both Caroline and Murat, he added: “At

all events, my poor little one, I advise you, if you want to live, to

accept no meals that your cousins offer you.”

In spite of all the plotting and protesting of the Bonapartes, Josephine

was proclaimed Empress, and the law of succession was passed as it

pleased Napoleon:—“The French people desire the inheritance of the

Imperial dignity in the direct natural or _adoptive_ line of descent

from Napoleon Bonaparte and in the direct natural, legitimate line of

descent from Joseph Bonaparte and from Louis Bonaparte.” Napoleon was

free to adopt either Eugène or Napoleon-Charles and make him his heir.

The law mentioned neither Joseph nor Louis as heir. Josephine’s victory

in this instance was as much due to the fact that she had made no

protests about the succession and had asked nothing, as to anything

else. Her seeming confidence (as a matter of fact, she feared the worst

for herself) and her generous pleasure in the satisfaction those about

took in their new honors offered such a contrast to the jealousy and

faultfinding of the Bonapartes that Napoleon felt more and more, as he

had often said to her in family quarrels: “You are my only comfort,

Josephine.” Not only Josephine, but Hortense and Eugène showed

themselves in all this period wise and generous. The two latter

apparently felt sincerely that Napoleon did more for them than they had

a right to expect. The gratitude and disinterestedness they showed was

indeed one of the few real satisfactions of Napoleon’s life, for he

seems to have believed always that they were genuine, something he never

felt about the expressions of his own family.

Not only was the law of succession fixed to Josephine’s satisfaction;

but to her unspeakable joy, Napoleon finally told her that she was to be

crowned at the same time as he. In the new government she had no

political rights, but in this supreme ceremony she should share. Here

again it may have been as much family opposition as love for Josephine

and desire to associate her with himself in this greatest of royal

spectacles that finally led Napoleon to this decision. Just as before

the proclamation of the Empire the Bonapartes quarreled about the

succession, now they tormented the Emperor about their positions and

their privileges. “One would think,” he said testily one day to

Caroline, when she was upbraiding him for not according to his sisters

the honors due them, “that I had robbed you of the inheritance of the

late King, our father.” Joseph did not hesitate to say sarcastic things,

even in official gatherings, about the impropriety of crowning a woman

who had given her husband no successor. Napoleon stood it for some time,

and finally in a violent outburst of passion silenced him at least for

the time. The announcement that Josephine was to be crowned, and that

her sisters-in-law were to carry the train of her robe, caused still

further heart-burnings, but the fiat had gone forth and everybody

finally submitted.

However, the new court was too busy in the summer and fall of 1804 to

give overmuch time to quarreling. The mere matter of familiarizing

themselves with the new code of etiquette sufficiently well not to incur

the ridicule of those who had been brought up to court usages, was

serious enough to absorb most of their time and energies. They succeeded

fairly well, though the aristocrats of the Faubourg St. Germain told

endless tales of the blunders they made, stories which were circulated

industriously in the courts of Europe. Their failure was not for lack of

effort, however. Josephine and her ladies took up the code with

energy—it was a new amusement, and for weeks they studied their parts

and went through their rehearsals as if they were preparing a play for

the stage. Before the time of the coronation they had become fairly at

home with court usages and were ready to take up the rehearsals for that

ceremony with fresh energy.

Indeed, for a month at least, all Paris was absorbed in preparations for

the coronation. Fontainebleau was to be put in order to receive the

Pope. Notre Dame, where the ceremony was to take place, was to be

superbly decorated. Magnificent carriages and trappings for horses and

livery were to be provided. Robes and uniforms were to be made ready for

the actors. All of the decorators, jewelers, costume-makers, merchants

of all sorts in the city were busy night and day. As for the court

itself, there one heard nothing talked but the coming spectacle. Under

the direction of the Grand Master, the ceremonies had been planned down

to the most trivial detail, and everybody was busy learning and

practicing his part.

[Illustration:

THE EMPRESS JOSEPHINE.

From a pencil sketch made by David in the Cathedral of Notre Dame at

the time of Josephine’s coronation, and presented to his son. The

original is now in the Museum of Versailles.]

By the time the Pope arrived at Fontainebleau, on November 25,

everything was practically ready. The court had gone to Fontainebleau to

meet His Holiness, and in the few days it remained there before going to

Paris, Josephine achieved a victory which completed her happiness for

the time. No religious marriage between her and Napoleon had ever been

celebrated, and although it had been a part of Napoleon’s policy since

he came into power to restore the church, and although he had insisted

on an observation of all its ceremonies, he had always refused

Josephine’s request for a religious marriage. Now, however, she obtained

a powerful advocate—the Pope—to whom, at confession, she told her

trouble. He declared he could not officiate at the coronation unless a

religious marriage was performed. The night before the coronation,

Napoleon gave his consent, and the service was held at the Tuileries in

profound secrecy, only two witnesses being present.

December 2nd had been set for the coronation. The Tuileries, from which

the royal party was to go to Notre Dame, was astir very early, for the

Pope was to leave the palace at nine; the Emperor and Empress an hour

later. The morning was given to dressing—a long task in Josephine’s

case, but one which justified the labor and thought which had been given

to her costume. Never had she looked more beautiful than when she joined

the Emperor and her ladies. Napoleon was delighted at her appearance,

and Mme. de Remusat declared that she did not look over twenty-five.

Josephine’s coronation gown was of white satin, elaborately embroidered

in silver and gold; it hung from the shoulders, and was confined by a

girdle set with gems. A train of white velvet embroidered in gold and

silver was fastened to this gown. The neck was low and square, and the

sleeves were long. A ruff, stiff with gold, was set into the top of the

sleeves, and rose high behind her head. The narrow corsage and the top

of the sleeves were decorated with diamonds. She wore a magnificent

necklace of sculptured stones surrounded with diamonds, and on her head

was a diadem of pearls and diamonds. Her shoes were of white velvet,

embroidered in gold; on her hands she wore white gloves, embroidered in

gold. The cost of the pieces of this costume are interesting—the gown is

estimated to have cost $2,000; the velvet train, $1,400; the shoes,

$130.

The pontifical procession had been gone from the Palace over an hour

when Napoleon and Josephine, accompanied by Joseph and Louis Bonaparte,

descended, and entered the gorgeous state carriage drawn by eight horses

in rich harness. As the sides of the vehicle were entirely of glass, the

spectators could look easily upon the magnificence of the party inside.

From the Tuileries, the party proceeded slowly to the Archbishop’s

palace, along streets crowded with people and decorated with every

device which skill and money could provide. During the entire

procession, salvos of artillery at intervals greeted the Emperor. At the

palace of the Archbishop, the party entered, and here Napoleon put on

his coronation robe and Josephine finished her costume by changing her

diadem for one of amethysts and by fastening to her left shoulder a

royal mantle of red velvet, embroidered in golden bees and in the

imperial N surrounded by garlands, and bordered and lined with ermine.

This mantle fell from the shoulders, and trailed for fully two yards on

the floor.

These changes of toilet made, the cortège started—pages, _cuirassiers_

and heralds, the Grand Master of Ceremonies and his aides,—a marshal

bearing a cushion on which was placed the ring for the Empress, another

marshal carrying the crown on a cushion. Following the Empress and her

attendants, came the cortège of the Emperor; first the marshals bearing

the crown, sceptre, and sword of Charlemagne, and the ring and globe

belonging to Napoleon; then the Emperor, crowned with a wreath of gold

laurel leaves, the sceptre in one hand, and in the other a baton—emblem

of justice, his heavy royal mantle carried by several princes, a guard

of richly dressed ornamental personages following.

On entering the cathedral, both the Emperor and the Empress were

presented with holy water, and then began their slow journey up the

aisle of the cathedral to the high altar, where the service took place.

The sceptre, crown, sword, ring and globe of the Emperor were placed

upon the altar, and beside them were placed the crown, ring, and mantle

of the Empress. The Pope then anointed the Emperor’s head and hands with

oil, and the same service was used immediately after in anointing

Josephine. The mass followed, during which the Pope blessed the imperial

ornaments of both Napoleon and Josephine.

At the close of this service, the Emperor mounted the steps to the

altar, on which the imperial crown was placed, lifted it, and put it

himself on his head; then taking the crown of the Empress in his hands,

he descended the steps to the place where Josephine was kneeling. With a

gesture at once so gentle and so proud that it impressed the whole

splendid audience, he put the crown upon her head, while the Pope

pronounced the orison: “May God crown you with the crown of glory and

justice; may He give you strength and courage that, through this

benediction, and by your own faith and the multiplied fruits of your

good works, you may attain the crown of the eternal kingdom, through the

grace of Him whose reign and empire extends from age to age.”

[Illustration:

THE EMPEROR NAPOLEON I. BESTOWING THE CROWN ON THE EMPRESS JOSEPHINE,

DECEMBER 2, 1804.]

As the last words of the prayer died away the cortège turned from the

high altar and proceeded slowly down the nave to the point where the

throne had been placed. At the top of a staircase of some twenty-nine

steps was a large platform, on which a sumptuous arm-chair, richly

decorated with embroideries and golden symbols, had been placed for

Napoleon. To the right of this seat, and one step lower, was a smaller

chair, with similar decorations, for Josephine. The Emperor and Empress

mounted the steps and seated themselves. They were followed by the Pope,

who blessed them, and then, kissing the Emperor on the cheek, turned to

the assembly, and pronounced the words, “_Vivat imperator in æternum._”

The _Te Deum_, the prayers, the reading of the Scriptures, the offering,

followed; and then, the mass finished, the oath taken, Napoleon and

Josephine descended and attended by their suites, left the cathedral,

and entered their carriage. The ceremony, from the time of leaving the

Tuileries, had taken five hours. It was three and a half hours more

before the long procession was ended and they were back again in the

palace.

That night Napoleon and Josephine dined alone, the Empress wearing her

crown, at her husband’s request, so pleased was he with the grace and

dignity with which she carried it.

CHAPTER VI

ETIQUETTE REGULATING JOSEPHINE’S LIFE—ROYAL JOURNEYS—TACT OF THE

EMPRESS—EXTRAVAGANCE IN DRESS.

Consecrated by the Pope, crowned by Napoleon, Josephine’s position

seemed impregnable in the eyes of all the world. It was one of dazzling

splendor. The little creole whose youth had been spent in a sugar-house,

who had passed months in a prison cell, who many a time had borrowed

money to pay her rent, now had become the mistress, not of a palace, but

of palaces—of Fontainebleau, the Tuileries, Versailles, Rambouillet. She

who for so many years had begged favors at the doors of others, was now

the center of a great machine, called a “Household,” devoted to serving

her. There were a First Almoner, a Maid of Honor, a Lady of the

Bedchamber, numbers of Ladies of the Palace, a First Chamberlain, a

First Equery, a Private Secretary, a Chief Steward—all of them having

their respective attendants; and there were, besides these, valets,

footmen, pages, and servants of all grades. Her life, so long one of

unthinking freedom, was now regulated to the last detail. The apartments

in the palace devoted to her own uses were two—the apartment of honor

and the private apartment. Before the door of the ante-chamber of the

apartment of honor stood, day and night, a door-keeper; within were four

valets, two _huissiers_, two pages (to do errands), from twelve to

twenty-six footmen, ready to do honor to the incoming and outgoing

guests. In the salons, where visitors waited, were other decorative

footmen and pages—a retinue ten times larger than actual service

required, but none too large to the eye accustomed to court etiquette.

It was through this hedge of attendants that the supplicant, flatterer

or friend who would see Josephine now must work his way—a slow way,

often only to be made by fair address, strong relations, and judicious

gifts. Josephine by nature the most accessible of mortals, was now

obliged to turn away old friends because they did not please His

Majesty, the Emperor. That he was oftentimes quite right, the following

frank little letter of hers shows:—

“I am sorry, my dear friend, that my wishes cannot be fulfilled, as you

and my other old friends imagine they can. You seem to think that if I

do not see you it is because I have forgotten you. Alas! no, on the

contrary, my memory is more tenacious than I wish. The more I think of

what I am, the more I am mortified at not being able to obey the

dictates of my heart. The Empress of France is the veriest slave in the

Empire, and she cannot acquit the debt which Madame de Beauharnais owes.

This makes me miserable, and it will explain why you are not near me;

why I do not see Madame Tallien; why, in short, many of my former

friends would be forgotten by me, but that my memory is faithful.

“The Emperor, displeased at the prevailing laxity of morals, and anxious

to check its progress, wishes that his palace should present an example

of virtuous and religious conduct. Anxious to consolidate the religion

which he has restored, and having no power to alter laws to which he has

given his assent, he has determined to exclude from Court all persons

who have taken advantage of the law of divorce. He has given this

promise to the Pope, and he cannot break it. This reason alone has

obliged him to refuse the favor I solicited of having you about me. His

refusal afflicts me, but it is too positive to admit of any hope of its

being retracted.”

The apartment of honor was devoted to receiving, and Josephine’s

movements there were prescribed in detail. The costume she should wear,

the chair in which she should sit, the rank of the person who should be

allowed in the room when she received, who should announce, who carry a

note, who bring a glass of water, all of this was ordered and performed

precisely. In her private apartment there was greater appearance of

freedom, though it was arranged by the code at what hour she should take

her morning cup of tea and by whose hand it should be presented, who

should admit her pet dog, what should be her costume for the morning,

and who should arrange it.

When the Empress left the palace, the forms were multiplied. Attended by

her ladies of waiting, she passed over a carpet spread for her passage,

through the file of liveried servants which decorated all the

apartments. Before her marched the younger of the two pretty pages

always waiting in the outer salon, while the elder bore the train of her

robe. At the door, the magnificent _portier d’appartement_ struck the

floor with his halberd as she passed. One of the dozen carriages in her

stables drawn usually by eight horses awaited her. Before, beside, and

behind as she drove were servants in gorgeous livery, mounted or afoot;

a brilliant spectacle for the passer-by, but a wearisome one for poor

Josephine.

It was no better when she travelled, as she did a great deal, especially

in the first two years after the coronation. Thus in the spring of 1805,

she accompanied Napoleon to Milan, where he was to be crowned King of

Italy. The journey was a long series of brilliant functions—at Lyons, a

triumphal arch, a reception by the Empress, an entertainment at the

theater; at Turin, flattering ceremonies; on the field of Marengo, mimic

manœuvres of the battle, led by Murat, Lannes, and Bessières, and

watched by Napoleon and Josephine from a throne, and after the

manœuvres, the laying of a corner-stone to those who lost their lives on

the field; at Milan, on May 26, the coronation of Napoleon, which

Josephine watched from the gallery of the cathedral, followed by

splendid public fêtes lasting for days; a mimic representation on the

battle-field of Castiglione; visits to Bologna, Modena, Parma, Geneva,

Turin, all attended by the most extravagant festivities. This journey

lasted from April 4th to July 18th, the date of their return to St.

Cloud, and through it all Josephine was scarcely free for an hour from

the fatiguing duties of a great sovereign.

Napoleon returned to Paris from Italy to prepare for war with Austria,

and in September he set out on the campaign. Josephine went with him as

far as Strasburg, where she transferred her household to the Imperial

Palace which had been established there for Napoleon’s use. For two

months she remained at Strasburg, while Napoleon dazzled Europe by the

campaign which, on Dec. 2nd, culminated at Austerlitz. Alone she

conducted her court as she would have done in Paris, as magnificently

and as brilliantly. In November, she left Strasburg to go to Munich—a

triumphal march, really, for everywhere she received royal honors. Her

approach to every city through which she was to pass _en route_ was

announced by the ringing of bells and salvos of artillery; great

processions of dignitaries went out to meet her; arches of triumph were

erected for her; beautiful gifts were presented; there were

illuminations, balls, and state performances of all sorts. She reached

Munich on December 5th, and here remained until after January 14th, on

which day another great ceremony, her son’s marriage with Princess

Augusta of Baden, was celebrated.

From the manner of its arrangement one might have expected nothing but

misery from this alliance. The young princess was violently opposed to

it, and only consented at her father’s entreaty—“a sacrifice to father,

family and country,” she said. Eugène knew nothing of the proposed

marriage until he arrived, at Napoleon’s order, in Munich. The two young

people never saw each other until four days before the wedding.

Fortunately they fell in love at once, and their married life was one of

exceptional devotion and happiness. Napoleon was so pleased with the

course things took that he adopted Eugène at the time of the celebration

of the marriage—a great blow to the Bonapartes and a new happiness for

Josephine.

The fatiguing duties attendant upon official journeys in foreign

countries and upon holding a court in a strange city were repeated again

in 1806. In January, after Eugène’s marriage, Josephine came back to

Paris with the Emperor; but in September he left for the campaign

against Prussia and Russia, and she went to Mayence to establish her

court. This time the journey was not according to the code, for Napoleon

had wished the Empress to remain in Paris during his absence, and it was

only at the last moment that, overcome by her grief, he consented that

she go with him in his carriage. Only a single maid accompanied her—the

royal household not being able to start its cumbersome self for several

days. At Mayence Josephine remained until January. Hortense, now Queen

of Holland (Louis had been made King in 1806), was with her, with her

two little sons, and in many ways the court was agreeable; but Josephine

wished to join the Emperor, and it was only when he commanded her to go

to Paris, that she consented to return and open her court there.

The tact and good sense with which Josephine conducted herself in her

exacting and slavish position—the grace and patience with which she wore

her royal harness, are as pathetic as they are marvelous. To rule her

household, with all the jealousies and meannesses natural to such a

combination of women, so that there would be no scandals, and that the

members would respect and love her, was a delicate task; but she never

failed in it. She kept their love, and she kept her supremacy—even the

supremacy of beauty. There were many of the young women received by the

First Consul who were glad enough to try to outshine Josephine; but she

almost always outwitted them. An amusing example of her skill is an

encounter that occurred between her and her sister-in-law, Pauline.

Pauline, who was young, vivacious, and very pretty, always resented a

little the charm that Josephine exercised, and she took no small

pleasure in trying to outdo her. In 1803, she was married to the Prince

Borghese, at the chateau of Joseph Bonaparte, Mortefontaine. A few days

after her marriage, she appeared in Paris, where she was presented

officially at St. Cloud. It was natural enough that Pauline should

desire to outshine everybody at this presentation, but Josephine desired

particularly that she herself should not be so thrown into the shadow

that Napoleon would notice it. She did a very clever thing. Although it

was winter, she put on a light robe of white Indian muslin, the garment

which always became her best and in which Napoleon delighted to see her.

The gown was made very simply, and her only ornaments were enamelled

lion’s heads which caught up the sleeves on her shoulder and which

formed a buckle to her girdle. Her arms and neck were bare, and her hair

was done on the top of her head. She made an altogether charming

picture; and when the First Consul saw her, he said, “Why, Josephine,

what does this mean? I am jealous, you have gotten yourself up for

somebody. What makes you so beautiful to-day?” Even after they were in

the salon, his compliments continued. The Princess Borghese was a little

late in arriving. When she did appear, she was resplendent; her dress

was a bright green velvet, embroidered with diamonds; at her side was a

great bouquet of brilliants; on her head, a diadem of emeralds and

diamonds. Josephine in her simple robe stood at the end of the salon

waiting exactly as if she had been a sovereign, to let her sister-in-law

come to her. Pauline was obliged to go the length of the salon to salute

her. After the presentation, she said to Madame Junot, who tells the

story, “My sister-in-law thought she would be disagreeable when she made

me cross the salon; in fact, she delighted me, because otherwise the

train of my gown could not have been seen.” Presently, however, Pauline

was thrown into despair. She had forgotten entirely that the grand salon

where they were received was furnished in blue, and that while it made a

charming background for Josephine’s white muslin, for her green velvet

it was something deplorable. Josephine, of course, could not be accused

of having planned this; it was Pauline’s own forgetfulness which had

wrought her confusion. The white gown and the regal manner were a

favorite device of Josephine when she suspected that some young and

fascinating woman was preparing to outshine her.

One very difficult task for Josephine in her court was holding her own

with the women of noble birth who were gradually being admitted, but she

did it by a combination of graciousness, deference, and majesty which

was not to be analyzed, and which only an all but infinite tact explain.

It was tact born of good will—a good will which everybody about her

admitted. “No one ever denied the exquisite goodness of Madame

Bonaparte,” Mlle. Avrillon says. “She was extremely affable with

everybody about her. I do not believe that there ever was a woman who

made her companions feel their dependence less than she.” Madame de

Remusat says that to goodness she joined a remarkably even disposition,

and the faculty of forgetting any evil that any one had done to her.

Another member of her household has said of her goodness, that it was as

inseparable from her character as grace from her person; “she was good

to excess, sensitive beyond all expression, generous to prodigality; she

tried to make everybody happy about her, and no woman was ever more

loved by those who served her and merited it more.... As she had known

unhappiness, she knew how to sympathize with the troubles of others. Her

temper was always sweet, always even, as obliging for her enemies as for

her friends; she made peace wherever there was trouble or discord.”

Josephine was no less happy when on her journeys than at home. She won

everybody. No one was presented who did not go away feeling that in some

way the Empress had especially distinguished him. As a matter of fact,

she prepared herself carefully for her meetings with foreigners by

employing an instructor who informed her about their families, their

deeds, their books, their diplomatic victories. She mastered this

instruction so thoroughly that she always had some flattering reference

at her tongue’s end. The diligence and energy she showed in preparing

herself for official functions is the more surprising when one remembers

her natural indolence.

Josephine had few resources in which she could find relief from her

burden of etiquette. She cared little for books—out-of-door sports

wearied her, and the hunt, on which she often accompanied the Emperor,

was a sore trial. She was afraid, to begin with, and she never failed to

cry over a wounded beast. She was a poor musician. She embroidered, to

be sure, but not because she cared for it, she did like cards, and

played tric-trac whenever etiquette allowed it. She played a good hand

of whist, too; and she was very fond of telling her own fortune with

cards—hardly a day passed, indeed, that she did not try to read the

future from cards.

[Illustration:

JOSEPHINE, EMPRESS OF THE FRENCH AND QUEEN OF ITALY. 1805.

Designed by Buguet.]

The one real pleasure in her life was undoubtedly her toilet. She had

always been extravagantly fond of personal decoration—she loved

brilliant stones, gay silks, fine laces, soft cashmeres; and when she

found herself an Empress, with every reason and every opportunity for

indulging her love of finery, she abandoned herself to the pleasure

until her wardrobe became the chief amusement of her life.

Almost every day men and women, bearing stuffs of all sorts—jewels,

models, laces, everything, in short, that French fancy could devise for

a woman’s toilet—found their way to Josephine’s private apartments.

Before these wily tradespeople she had no self-restraint—one should say,

perhaps, no self-respect,—for almost invariably she allowed herself to

be wheedled into buying. The numbers of pieces added to her wardrobe

each year indicates a startling prodigality. Thus, in one year, she

bought one hundred and thirty-six dresses, twenty cashmere shawls,

seventy-three corsets, forty-eight pieces of elegant stuffs,

eighty-seven hats, seventy-one pairs of silk stockings, nine hundred and

eighty pairs of gloves, five hundred and twenty pairs of shoes. If this

had been an unusual purchase, it might be explained; but it was not.

With every season there was the same thoughtless buying of all that

struck her fancy. It was out of the question for her to wear all she

bought, for Josephine was not one who prided herself on never appearing

twice in the same costume. Many of the things she bought she never put

on at all; and when her wardrobes were overburdened, she made a little

fête of the task of lightening them, giving away piece after piece of

uncut lace, pattern after pattern of velvet, silk or muslin, rich gowns,

hats, stockings, shoes. Anything and everything was scattered in the

same reckless fashion in which it had been acquired. Not that her giving

of personal articles was confined to this occasional clearing out of

stock; she gave as one of her royal prerogatives, whenever it pleased

her to do so. Often she took from her shoulders a delicate scarf or

superb cashmere shawl to throw about some one of her ladies whom she

heard admiring it, and not infrequently she sent a gown to one who had

complimented her on its beauty. Mlle. Ducrest says that one day she

heard a gentleman of the household, in admiring a cashmere gown which

the Empress wore, remark that the pattern would do very well for a

waistcoat. Josephine picked up a pair of scissors, and cutting the skirt

of her dress into three pieces, gave one to each of the three gentlemen

in the room.

Josephine’s prodigality caused great confusion in her budget. She was

allowed, at the beginning of her reign, $72,000 a year for her toilet,

and later this was increased to $90,000. But there was never a year

during the time that she did not far over-reach her allowance and oblige

the Emperor to come to her relief. According to the estimate Masson has

made, Josephine spent on an average $220,000 yearly on her toilet during

her reign. It is only by going over her wardrobe article by article and

noting the cost and number of each piece that one can realize how a

woman could spend this amount. Take the simple item of her hose—which

were almost always white silk, often richly embroidered or in open work.

She kept 150 or more pairs on hand, and they cost from $4.00 to $8.00 a

pair. She employed two hair-dressers—one for every day, at $1,200 a

year; the other for great occasions, at $2,000 a year; and she paid them

each from one thousand to two thousand dollars a year for furnishings.

It was the same for all the smaller items of her toilet.

Coming to gowns, the sums they cost were enormous. Her simple muslin

gowns, of which her wardrobe always contained two hundred and more, cost

from one hundred to four hundred dollars apiece. Her cashmere and velvet

gowns were much more costly, ornamented as many of them were with ermine

and with buckles, buttons, and girdles set with precious stones. One of

her great extravagances was cashmere shawls. She never had enough of

them—it is true she gave away many—and she rarely appeared without one

within reach. Her collection of shawls is said to have been the most

valuable ever seen in Europe. Many of them were made after patterns

which she sent herself to the Orient. They were of every delicate shade

of color, and in texture they were like gossamer. Her coquetry with

these beautiful drapes was like the coquetry of the Spanish signora with

a fan. She said everything with them.

A large lump of Josephine’s yearly allowance for dress went into jewels.

Her extravagance in this particular was less justifiable than in any

other, because she already owned a large quantity of precious stones of

all sorts when she became Empress, many of them gifts to her in Italy,

and because as Empress she had at her command the magnificent crown

jewels—$1,000,000 worth of gems, in fact, were hers when she wished.

Nevertheless, she bought—evidently for the mere pleasure of buying and

laying away—innumerable ornaments of every description, scores of which

she probably never put on; rings, bracelets, necklaces, girdles,

buckles, all by the hundreds. No stone known to commerce but was

represented in her collection. No form into which gold and silver can be

fashioned which was not found there. She had specimens of the ornaments

of all ages and all countries, and of the novelties of the times she

bought by the score. She not only added incessantly, but she exchanged,

reset, recut, carried on, in fact, a trade. To the end of her life she

kept her interest in her jewels, and loved to show them to her

companions, to play with them, to decorate herself with them. They were

kept together for many years after her death, but were finally sold by

Hortense. When experts came to value them, it was found that according

to the prices they set—fully one-third below the cost price—the large

pieces alone, such as her diadem of diamonds and her splendid pearl

necklace, were worth nearly a million dollars; and as for the small

pieces—the innumerable trinkets of every size and kind and style—their

value was never computed.

The effect on the Emperor of Josephine’s prodigality can be imagined. He

appreciated as she never could the lack of dignity in her reckless

spending, and did his utmost to persuade her to keep her accounts in

order. He even resorted to severe measures, turning out of the palace

tradespeople who he knew hung about her apartments watching an

opportunity to show her a novelty in modes or in ornamentation, a rare

jewel or a rich shawl. He ordered that her expenses be regulated by a

person especially appointed for that purpose and that Josephine herself

be not allowed to buy anything without supervision. None of these means

effected anything. Annually there was a great debt run up by her, and

when the settlement could be put off no longer, Josephine would confess.

She always put the amount far below what it actually was, and only after

much badgering could Napoleon get at the real state of things. Then

there was a scene, ending always in tears from Josephine. Invariably

they conquered Napoleon. “Come, come, pet, dry your tears,” he would

beg, “don’t worry;” and he paid the debts, and raised her income. In

twelve months the scene was repeated.

CHAPTER VII

JOSEPHINE NOT ALLOWED TO GO TO POLAND—FEAR OF DIVORCE—THE RECONCILIATION

OF 1807–1808—THE CAMPAIGN OF 1809 AND ITS EFFECT ON NAPOLEON.

For two years after she mounted the throne, Josephine felt tolerably

secure in its possession. It was not until the winter of 1806–1807, when

Napoleon was busy with war against Russia and Prussia, that the spectre

which had alarmed her at the beginning of the Life Consulate and again

at the proclamation of the Empire, arose again. Her first alarm came

from the fact that when she wanted to go to the Emperor from Mayence,

whither she had taken her household, he put her off. Sometimes he even

rebuked her for her persistence in clinging to the idea. “Talleyrand

comes, and tells me that you do nothing but cry,” he wrote her on

November 1st. “But what do you want? You have your daughter, your

grandchildren, and good news; certainly you have the materials for

happiness and contentment.” More often he flattered and petted, as when,

on November 28th, he wrote from Warsaw: “All the Polish women are

Frenchwomen, but there is only one woman for me. Do you know her? I

could draw her portrait for you; but I should have to flatter it too

much for you to recognize it; nevertheless, to tell the truth, my heart

would have only good things to tell you.” And again, a few days later:

“I have your letter of November 26th. I notice two things: you say, ‘I

don’t read your letters’; that is unjust. I am sorry for your bad

opinion. You tell me you are not jealous. I have long observed that

people who are angry always say that they are not angry, that people who

are afraid say they are not afraid; so you are convicted of jealousy; I

am delighted! Besides, you are mistaken, and in the deserts of fair

Poland one thinks but little about pretty women. Yesterday I was at a

ball of the nobility of the province; rather pretty women, rather rich,

rather ill dressed, although in the Paris fashion.” He continued all

through December to try to dissuade her. “I have your letter of November

27th, and I see that your little head is much excited. I remember the

line: ‘A woman’s wish is a devouring flame,’ and I must calm you. I

wrote to you that I was in Poland, that when we should have got into

winter quarters you might come; so you must wait a few days. The greater

one becomes, the less will one must have; one depends on events and

circumstances. You may go to Frankfurt or Darmstadt. I hope to summon

you in a few days, but events must decide. The warmth of your letter

convinces me that you pretty women take no account of obstacles; what

you want must be; but I must say that I am the greatest slave that

lives; my master has no heart, and this master is the nature of things.”

Josephine would not give up her plan, however, and in Napoleon’s

arguments that the trip from Mayence to Warsaw was too long—the roads

too bad, the weather too cold, for her to venture it, that she was

needed in Paris, she saw only a desire to be free from her presence; and

when finally he ordered her to “go back to Paris to be happy and

contented there,” she obeyed with tears and lamentations. Josephine’s

jealousy at this time was more than justifiable. For many months, in

fact, she had known beyond question of Napoleon’s various infidelities,

and she suspected that the real reason he refused her request to be

allowed to go to him was that he had found a new mistress. Or might it

not be, she asked herself, that he was planning a divorce and

re-marriage. The first supposition was true. It was Madame Walewski who

was the chief obstacle to Josephine going to Warsaw, although the

reasons Napoleon gave—the danger of the journey and the need of

Josephine in Paris—were plausible enough at the moment.

It was not until July, 1807, that the Emperor took up the subject of a

divorce, as a political necessity, with his counsellors. While at Tilsit

with the Emperor of Russia and the King of Prussia, the divorce was

discussed, and Napoleon ordered that a list of the marriageable

princesses of Europe be made out for him. No doubt vague rumors of the

transactions at Tilsit reached Josephine. She took them the more to

heart because in May of that year (1807) Hortense’s eldest son,

Napoleon-Charles, had died. The death of the boy destroyed one of her

chief hopes. It removed the child whom she knew Napoleon so loved that

he would have been well satisfied to have made him his successor.

Hortense had a second child, Napoleon Louis; but the Emperor did not

have the same feeling for him.

When Napoleon returned to Paris after the meeting at Tilsit, Josephine

was prepared to do all that was possible to reconquer the place in her

husband’s heart, which many months’ absence had certainly weakened. She

even had Hortense’s little son Louis with her, a constant reminder to

the Empire that here was an heir of Bonaparte and Beauharnais blood. Her

hopes were soon shattered by Fouché, who made an appeal to her. For the

sake of the country, the dynasty, Napoleon, would she not herself

voluntarily offer to withdraw. Panicstricken, yet not daring to go

directly to her husband to know if this was his will, Josephine could

only weep. Napoleon saw her sorrow, but had not the courage to talk with

her. Finally Talleyrand, taking the case in hand, persuaded Josephine to

speak first to Napoleon. Overcome completely, the Emperor feigned

amazement, stormed at the baseness of Fouché, wept over Josephine, swore

he could not leave her; but he did not deceive her—or himself. Josephine

took a clever course—she told him she would consent to his will quietly

for love of him and for the sake of the throne—if he commanded her. But

that Napoleon could not do. He ordered that the question of divorce be

dropped, gave Fouché such treatment as perhaps a man never before

received for carrying out his superior’s will, and for a time bestowed

upon Josephine lover-like attentions so marked that the whole court

looked on and wondered.

[Illustration:

EMPRESS JOSEPHINE.

Fragment from the picture of the marriage of Jerome Bonaparte and the

Princess Catherine.]

The fall of 1807 the Emperor strove to make very gay, and during the

sojourns at Rambouillet for the hunt and the month at Fontainebleau the

Empress was really at the height of her power. He could not give her up,

could not, in spite of his dynasty, in spite of Mme. Walewski, the woman

who had sacrificed herself to him for the sake of Poland, and for whom

he had a great respect as well as ardent passion. Josephine was

necessary to him. It was a tenderness born of association—of all of the

thousand sweet ties which twelve years of life together had wrought.

What matter if she was growing old; what matter that he might have a

royal princess for his wife—that his heart was with Mme. Walewski, it

was Josephine, and no one ever had aroused such a wealth of tenderness

as she—no one could again. The court could only look on and wonder to

see the weakness of the tyrant before this woman. They even noted how

jealous he was of her that fall, when the young German prince of

Mecklenburg-Schwerin fell in love with her and did not hesitate to show

it. Josephine herself laughed at the young man’s ardor, but Napoleon

looked askance and doubled his tenderness.

The winter of 1807 and 1808 was spent in Paris, and the shadow was not

large. It was true that Mme. Walewski was now in the city; but if

Josephine knew anything of this _liaison_, she ignored it completely. So

long as she was Empress infidelities had little effect on her. Mme. de

Remusat says that not only did Josephine shut her eyes to them, but she

“pushed her complacency to the point of granting particular favors to

some of his mistresses.” In the spring and summer her hold on the

Emperor seemed to herself and to those about her to have been

strengthened by the four and a half months which the two spent with only

a small suite at Bayonne, where the Emperor’s presence was necessary to

direct the affairs with Spain. Napoleon had preceded the Empress, who

waited in Bordeaux for news of Hortense, to whom a third son was born on

April 20, 1808. The news brought great joy to Josephine, and no doubt

had something to do with her happiness in the next few months. It

provided a second heir, and made divorce seem less imperative.

In spite of the sinister events of the sojourn at Bayonne—it was here

that the King of Spain, Charles IV., and his heir, Ferdinand, abdicated

their rights and that Joseph Bonaparte was made King of Spain—there was

much gaiety around Josephine. There were dinners and fêtes and drives,

and the French Empress and the Spanish Queen Louise seemed to enjoy each

other’s society as if a throne were not changing hands and a noble house

falling, because of the disgraceful inaction and jealousy of one ruler

and the cynical ambition and self-confidence of the other.

The really delightful part of Josephine’s life at Bayonne was the

informal intimacy which she and Napoleon enjoyed. Never since the days

at Malmaison had they been together so long and so freely. They made the

most of their liberty, even romping before the eyes of the members of

their small suite in a most unroyal way. The Castle of Marrac, which

they occupied, was near the shore, and they spent much time on the

beach, where the Emperor, dragging the Empress to the water, would push

her into it or dash sand over her, laughing like a teasing boy as he did

so. In one of these romps the little, low silk slippers which the

Empress always wore slipped off, and Napoleon, seizing them, threw them

into the surf, making Josephine walk back to her carriage in stocking

feet. It was with such frolics that the two enlivened the days at

Marrac, in the summer of 1808. Their journey back to Paris was a

triumphal procession, wherein Josephine, by her tact, her amiability,

her unflagging interest, won every heart. Never had she seemed more

admirable to Napoleon as an Empress, never more charming as a woman.

It was in August, 1808, that Josephine returned to Paris, after four and

a half months with her husband. A few days later, he left her for

Erfurth, where he was to meet Alexander of Russia and the German

sovereigns, for a conference on the affairs of Europe. At a gathering of

the magnitude and splendor of this at Erfurth it would have been fitting

that the Empress be present, but Napoleon did not deem it wise for her

to leave France. That Napoleon meant to indicate by leaving her at home

that his decision to have a divorce was taken and that this was the

beginning of the separation is not clear, though it is certain that the

subject was much in his mind at Erfurth. The stability an heir would

give to his throne and the value of an alliance with one of the old

houses of Europe, now became clearer than ever to him, and undoubtedly

Napoleon came back to Josephine with the idea more firmly fixed in mind

than before. Those who saw them together after Erfurth said to

themselves, “He is meditating the divorce again.” Josephine feared it.

What else could mean his short brusque remarks, his evident desire to

escape her company, his averted eyes.

Dread the future as she might, she could do nothing. To question

Napoleon was to irritate him, and nothing, she knew, was more unwise. To

show a sad face, to weep, was to drive him from her presence, for he

detested tears with all the force of the strong reasoning controlled

creature who sees nothing but a meaningless waste of strength in them.

She knew too well the empire of Napoleon over all those about him to

attempt to build up a party of her own that at the issue would throw its

influence in her favor. There was but one thing to oppose to the

imperious will of her husband—his affection for her. To cherish that,

doing nothing of which he could complain, nothing which would irritate

or weary him; to show him at every meeting her amiability, her devotion,

her tact, to win from him the confession that no woman could fill more

gracefully and successfully than she was doing her difficult

position,—this was Josephine’s course, and the one which she followed

ceaselessly after the interview in 1807. Certainly the fear was

continually in her heart after Erfurth, but to him she gave no sign. She

was gentle, apparently trusting; tactful, and cautious—the very

qualities which Napoleon admired most in women and found rarest. Every

day of intercourse made it harder for him to come to a resolution, and

every day increased her own anxiety.

It was only ten days after Erfurth that the war in Spain compelled

Napoleon to leave Paris. Josephine was left alone. There was little in

the letters she received from Spain to disturb her peace of mind; as

always, they gave her details of the Emperor’s health, expressed concern

for hers, gave brief bits of news—optimistic always; rarely a word of a

disaster was put into a letter to Josephine—directions about fêtes,

about the reception of persons to be sent to her, comments and inquiries

on family matters: such letters, in short, as she had always received.

Yet there was an uneasiness in Josephine’s mind which she could not

conquer;—it was fed by rumors from idle and more or less malicious

tongues in her circle.

It was not only the uncertainty of her own fate which distressed her;

she had further reason for grief in the unhappiness of Hortense, who had

been reconciled with her husband for a time, but was now more wretched

than ever, and whose frequent letters to Josephine must have cut her to

the heart again and again. Her tenderness and her wisdom in her councils

to her daughter at this time, indeed at all times, are admirable. It

would not have been surprising if in receiving daily the complaints of

Hortense, at a moment of so much uneasiness regarding her true

situation, she had resented the misery of her daughter; but there is

never a shadow of irritation in her letters.

In January, Josephine had the joy of seeing Napoleon return. For the two

months and a half he was in Paris she watched him closely, but to no

purpose. Indeed public affairs were in such a condition that the Emperor

had little or no time to give her. He was working day and night in a

frenzied effort to clear France of the traitors who, within his

government, indeed within his own family, were plotting his overthrow,

and to put an army in order for the war he saw Austria and her allies

preparing for him. There was no time in the winter of 1808 and 1809 for

the consideration of divorce and marriage, and if a decision for a

divorce had been taken at Erfurth, the realization was far enough off.

To all outward appearances, Josephine was safe. She was gratified, too,

when the day of the Emperor’s departure came in April, by being allowed

to accompany him as far as Strasburg, where she set up her court for the

next few months. Here were soon gathered about her several of the

family: Hortense, with her two little sons, the Queen of Westphalia, and

the Grand Duchess of Baden. Here she received from the Emperor himself

the first news of the succession of victories with which the campaign of

1809 opened. First it was Abensberg, then Eckmuhl, then Ratisbonne, that

he recounted to her. It was a triumphal march, as always; but at

Ratisbonne something happened which threw Josephine into consternation.

Napoleon was hit by a ball. The news came to the Empress indirectly, and

she hurriedly sent a courier to find out the actual condition of the

wound. “The ball which hit me did not wound me,” he replied, “it

scarcely grazed Achilles’ heel. My health is very good. It is wrong for

you to worry. Everything is going well.”

Four days later, the Empress received a special courier from the

Emperor, who announced to her the surrender of Vienna. Josephine was

very happy. It argued well for a speedy end to the campaign. Her

happiness was brief. The defeat at Essling, and the death of Marshall

Lannes, filled her with foreboding. She, with many others of her day,

looked on the career of the Emperor with superstitious awe. It was

luck—a star. The charm broken, the star obscured, all would go. It is

doubtful if Josephine, any more than hundreds of others who surrounded

the Emperor, ever realized his stupendous genius or the gigantic efforts

the man made to wrest victories from fate. It was the common story of

one who spends himself in achievement, and in the end hears himself

called a “lucky fellow”. After the defeat at Essling, Josephine

discerned on every side the joy of Napoleon’s enemies, saw the alarm of

his friends, heard in her own heart the knell of fate. To complete her

misery, she feared she had offended the Emperor. Hortense, who had been

at Strasburg for some time, was ordered by her physician to go to Baden

for the waters. It was the Emperor’s order that no one of the royal

family should change quarters without his consent. Hortense went to

Baden without consulting him, taking with her the two young princes. The

Emperor was irritated. “My daughter,” he wrote her less than a week

after Essling, “I am dissatisfied to find that you have left France

without my permission, and above all that you have taken my nephews

away. Since you are at Baden, stay; but within an hour after you receive

this letter, send my two nephews to Strasburg to the Empress. They must

never leave France. It is the first time I have had any occasion to be

dissatisfied with you, but you should never make any arrangements for my

nephews without my consent. You must feel the bad effect that would

have.”

This letter was sent to Hortense through Josephine, who opened it,

thinking to have news herself from Napoleon, about whom she was greatly

concerned. It was a new cause of worry. Would he not blame her for

Hortense’s act? At least the two children had already been sent back to

her—that was one reason for congratulation; but she hastened to write to

Hortense urging her to try and appease the Emperor. Her anxiety became

so great that her health began to give way, and she, too, had to leave

Strasburg, in June, for treatment at Plombières, in the Vosges.

Josephine had been frequently before at Plombières, but certainly never

before so quietly since she was Empress. The usual suite accompanied

her, the same imposing livery, the same magnificent wardrobe, but no

reception, no balls, no excursions marked her sojourn. She lived like a

retired Empress almost—scattering charities everywhere, and amusing

herself principally with her little grandsons, upon whom she lavished

toys of every description in the profusion and extravagance with which

she had always heaped jewels and finery upon herself. Daily she enjoyed

Louis more. “I am so happy to have your son here,” she wrote Hortense.

“He is charming, and I am becoming more and more attached to him.... His

little reasonings amuse me exceedingly.”

[Illustration:

JOSEPHINE, THE FIRST WIFE OF NAPOLEON.

Engraved by Audouin, after Laurent. This portrait “Joséphine

impératrice des Français, reine d’Italie,” is surrounded by an

elaborate frame of Imperial emblems. After the divorce, Josephine’s

portrait was erased from the plate, and that of Marie Louise

inserted.]

The rapid recovery of fortune which followed the reverse at Essling soon

reassured Josephine. She saw from Napoleon’s letters that, however his

critics might feel that his star was waning, he himself had not lost

courage. He scorned their exultation. “They have made an appointment to

meet at my tomb,” he said, “but they’ll not dare carry it out.” His

deeds verified his words. In rapid succession, he sent Josephine

announcements of the series of victories which marked the latter half of

June, 1809, and which culminated in Wagram on July 6th. A week later she

received notice of the suspension of hostilities.

Once more the Empress breathed freely; Napoleon was safe, and he was

victorious. Now his letters were longer, gayer, tenderer than they had

been for many months. He rejoiced in the reports she sent him from

Plombières of her gaining strength. “I am glad the waters are doing you

so much good,” he wrote; and again, “I hear that you are stout, rosy,

and looking very well.” He made no objection to the plans she suggested

for herself. Stay at Plombières if she wished, why not; and when she is

ready in August, go to Paris. If her letters are long in coming, he

chides her. “I have received no letters from you for several days. The

pleasures at Malmaison, the beautiful hot-houses and gardens, make you

forget me. That’s the way it goes, they say.” As the time approached for

his return—the negotiations at Schönbrunn which followed the war lasted

into October—he began to show something like eagerness. Every day he

sent a brief note of his coming return. “I’ll let you know twenty-four

hours before my arrival.” “I shall make a fête of our reunion. I am

waiting for the moment impatiently.” True, there was nothing of the

lover in these daily bulletins (it was hardly to be expected when we

remember that, during most of the campaign of 1809, Mme. de Walewski was

living in a palace in Vienna, where Napoleon saw her constantly); but

there was confidence, affection, interest; no sign at all of an

approaching separation; and yet Napoleon undoubtedly left Schönbrunn in

October persuaded that the divorce was a necessity and resolved to tell

Josephine of his decision as soon as he arrived in France.

CHAPTER VIII

NAPOLEON RETURNS TO FRANCE—JOSEPHINE’S UNHAPPINESS—NAPOLEON’S VIEW OF A

DIVORCE—THE WAY IN WHICH THE DIVORCE WAS EFFECTED

Unhappily for the Empress, her reunion with Napoleon was marred by a

delay which irritated the Emperor no little. Josephine was at St. Cloud

when she received a note, about October 24th or 25th, from Napoleon,

saying he would be at Fontainebleau on the 26th or 27th, and that she

had better go there with her suite. A later courier set the evening of

the 27th as the time of his arrival. What was Josephine’s terror on

having a messenger ride rapidly in from Fontainebleau on the afternoon

of the 26th, saying the Emperor had arrived that morning and there had

been no one but the concierge to meet him! It could not be denied that

such a reception was a poor one for a conquering Emperor who now for the

first time in six months set foot in his kingdom. Josephine feared, with

reason, that Napoleon would be irritated, and now of all times when she

needed so much to please him!

Post haste she drove to Fontainebleau. The Emperor did not come to meet

her, and she was forced to mount to his library, where his scant welcome

chilled her to the heart. He meant to announce the divorce then. She

soon found, however, that it was the Emperor’s resentment at what he

considered her fault in failing to meet him that caused his coldness. A

trembling explanation, a few tears, and he was appeased, and they passed

a happy evening.

Napoleon had taken quite another means, and a most disquieting one, to

hint to Josephine that the divorce was under consideration. The

apartments of the Emperor and Empress at Fontainebleau, as at other

places, were connected by a private staircase. When Josephine looked

about her suite, which had been newly decorated, she discovered that

this passage had been sealed up. In consternation, she sought a friend

of hers in Napoleon’s household, and asked why this had been done, by

whose orders. She could get no satisfaction, nothing but evasive

answers, halting explanations. Alarmed, yet fearing to approach the

Emperor, she showed a troubled face and tear-stained eyes. Now, nothing

ever had disturbed Napoleon more than to see Josephine in sorrow. The

sight, and the knowledge of the cause, unnerved him now. He took a

course characteristic of an autocratic man, accustomed to implicit

obedience from associates, when he has determined to force some one he

loves to do a distasteful act; he avoided Josephine’s presence, scarcely

ever exchanged a word with her that the etiquette of the court did not

require, rarely met her gaze. The Empress felt that his coldness could

mean but one thing. She soon began to hear whispers of the decision in

the court, for the Emperor had made his resolution known to several

persons, and the necessary preparations were already making. Josephine

could not but see, at the same time, that her enemies—the Bonaparte

family and their allies—and those about her who were mere time-servers

had changed materially in their attitude toward her. There was more than

one lord or lady who did not hesitate to neglect, even slight, the

Empress. She was a person whom it was no longer necessary to cultivate;

and, besides, might not the Emperor take it as a compliment to his

judgment to see that she whom he was to discard was ignored by his

followers?

Josephine’s uncertainty as to precisely what the divorce meant made her

alarm the greater. She undoubtedly saw in it at this time nothing but a

disgrace and a punishment. She was to be cast out—her honors stripped

from her, her friends driven away, her luxury at an end. Not only must

she be separated from the Emperor, whom she loved and to whose happiness

and success she believed superstitiously that she was necessary; but no

doubt she would be driven from France. She saw herself in exile, poor,

friendless, alone,—she who had been the Empress of France, the consort

of Napoleon. And her children: her downfall meant theirs. Hortense,

whose happiness had been wrecked by her marriage, what now would become

of her? And Eugène, whom the Emperor had so loved and trusted and

honored, what of him?

But Josephine’s idea of the divorce as a disgrace and punishment was not

Napoleon’s. That he had never explained to her what he meant, was due to

his own cowardice. In 1807, he had succumbed entirely, when the subject

came up, and put the thought aside. Now he clung to his decision, but

lacked courage to break it to her. He feigned irritation and coldness to

hide his own faint-heartedness.

As a matter of fact, Napoleon regarded the divorce as a great state

affair. To perpetuate France’s peace, stability, glory, an heir was

necessary; therefore he and Josephine who loved each other parted. They

suffered that France might live. The divorce then, was to be regarded as

a sacrificial rite, and Josephine was to be placed before the country as

a noble victim to whom the greatest honor then and ever should be shown.

Such was Napoleon’s idea, and quietly, in this month after his return

from Schönbrunn, he was preparing a ceremony which would put the affair

in this light to the country. It was for this reason he summoned all the

members of the Bonaparte and Beauharnais families from far and near;

that he gathered in France all that was great in the Empire and among

his allies; that he made Fontainebleau a veritable court of kings. To

poor Josephine all of this looked like a cruel device to parade her

grief and dishonor.

[Illustration:

THE DIVORCE OF NAPOLEON AND JOSEPHINE.]

About the middle of November, the court came to Paris; but still the

Emperor delayed, he could not say the word. The constraint between the

two became constantly greater; the suffering of both, it was evident to

all their intimate friends, was increasing. At last, on November 30th,

after a silent and wretched dinner, Napoleon led Josephine into a salon,

dismissed their followers, and told her of his decision. Josephine

grasping nothing in his broken words but that they were to be separated,

burst into tears, and fell upon a couch, where she lay sobbing aloud.

She was carried to her apartment, where her attendants vainly sought to

check her wild grief. Nor was her calm restored until late in the

evening, when Hortense came to her with an explanation of the situation,

which seems to have been entirely new to her mind. The Emperor,

overwhelmed by Josephine’s outburst, had strengthened his own mind by

summoning immediately to his side certain advisors who favored the

divorce. After talking with them, he had sent for Hortense, and begun

rather brutally by telling her that tears would do no good, that he had

made up his mind that the divorce was necessary to the safety of the

Empire, and that she and her mother must accept it as inevitable.

Hortense replied with dignity that the Empress, whatever her grief,

would obey his will, and that she and Eugène would follow her into

exile; that none of them would complain at their disgrace, that all

would remember his past kindness. This seems to have been Napoleon’s

first glimmer of the idea of the divorce which the Beauharnais

entertained. He began to weep. “What!” he cried, “do you and Eugène mean

to desert me? You must not do it, you must stay with me. Your position,

the future of your children, require it. However cruel the divorce for

both your mother and me, it must be consummated with the dignity which

the circumstances require.” Everything which could be done to soften the

situation for Josephine should be done, he said. She should remain the

first in rank after the Empress on the throne. She should receive the

honors due her sacrifice; she should remain in France. Her income should

be fit for her rank, she should be given palaces, a retinue—all that a

grateful France could do, in short, should be done. As for Hortense and

Eugène, he looked upon them as his children, and should do for them as

he would for his own.

This new idea of her fate had great effect on Josephine; and when her

friends came to her to console her, weep as she might, she defended

Napoleon, and presented the divorce as a sacrifice which they were

together making for France. “The Emperor is as nearly heart-broken as I

am,” she sobbed. “It cannot be helped. There must be an heir to

consolidate the Empire.”

Now that Josephine knew his decision, Napoleon’s reserve and coldness

passed. He gave her every attention, tried to anticipate every wish,

enveloped her in tenderness. This change of demeanor surprised and

confused the court, where as yet the divorce was a matter of conjecture

to all save Napoleon’s confidential advisors. Had he changed his mind?

As they saw the Empress smilingly going through the great fêtes, they

began to say that after all he had not had the courage to make the

separation. Napoleon’s kindly attitude seems to have given Josephine a

hope that he had changed his mind. But a week after her interview with

him, Eugène arrived in Paris, and she knew soon that divorce was

inevitable and that the first steps were already taken to consummate it.

Another distressing interview between herself and the Emperor followed,

at which Eugène was present, and here again Napoleon promised her his

care, his affection, a continued interest in her children. When she left

this interview, she knew that in a few days more the court, Paris,

France, would know of her fate. Overwhelmed as she was, weak with

constant weeping in private, a prey to a hundred unreasonable fears as

to her future, Josephine nevertheless went through her duties in these

last days with a brave face and a sweet smile. Never did she win more

favor from the better part of the court; never did she deserve it more

than for her courage at this moment.

December 15th was set for the first act in the official part of the

drama. At nine o’clock in the morning, Josephine went to the salon of

the Emperor, accompanied by Eugène and Hortense. Here she found

assembled all of the members of the Bonaparte family, who were in Paris,

Napoleon, King Louis, King Jerome, King Murat and the Queens of Spain,

Naples, and Westphalia, together with the French Arch-Chancellor and the

Minister of State. The ceremony was opened at once by Napoleon. If any

of the Bonapartes hoped to see Josephine humiliated at last, they must

have been grievously disappointed. Every word of the Emperor was

intended to place her in the eyes of France as its chief benefactor and

friend—the woman who sacrificed herself for the country’s good.

Napoleon’s remarks to the little company show exactly the interpretation

he wished placed on the act, and there is no reason to believe that he

was not sincere in what he said at this time. In a voice broken by

agitation, he announced that he and the Empress had resolved to have

their marriage annulled. Addressing the Arch-Chancellor, he said:

“I sent you a sealed letter dated to-day, directing you to come to my

study, in order to make known to you the resolution that the Empress, my

most dear wife, and I have taken. I am glad that the kings, queens, and

princes, my brothers and sisters, my brothers-in-law and sisters-in-law,

my step-daughter and my step-son, my son by adoption, as well as my

mother, are present at the interview. My politics, the interest and need

of my people, which have always guided my actions, make it necessary

that I should leave children behind me, heirs of my love for this people

and of this throne where providence has placed me. However, I have

abandoned all hope now for several years of having children by my

beloved wife, the Empress Josephine. It is this which has led me to

sacrifice the sweetest affections of my heart and to listen only to the

idea of the good of the State, and consequently to dissolve our

marriage. Arrived at the age of forty years, I dare hope that I shall

live long enough to rear, according to my own ideas, the children that

it shall please Providence to give me. God knows how much this

resolution has cost me; but there is no sacrifice that is beyond my

courage when I am convinced that it will be useful to France. I must

add, that far from ever having had any reason to complain of my wife, I

can only praise her love and tenderness. For fifteen years she has been

the ornament of my life. The recollection will always remain engraved on

my heart; she has been crowned by my hand, and I mean that she shall

preserve the rank and title of Empress, and I hope that above all she

will never doubt my feelings toward her and that she will always

consider me her best and truest friend.”

When the Emperor ceased to speak, Josephine attempted to read the little

address which had been prepared for her, but her voice failed her, and

she passed her paper to one of the party:—

“With the permission of my august and dear husband,” so her speech read,

“I declare that having given up all hope of bearing the children which

would satisfy the political needs and the welfare of France, I am glad

to give to him the greatest proof of attachment and devotion which has

ever been given in this world. All that I have I hold because of his

goodness; it was his hand which crowned me, and from my throne I have

received only affection and love from the French people. I believe I am

showing my gratitude for these benefits by consenting to the dissolution

of a marriage which henceforth is an obstacle to the welfare of France,

which deprives her of the happiness of being one day governed by the

descendants so evidently raised up by Providence to wipe out the evils

of a terrible revolution and reëstablish the altar, throne, and social

order; but the dissolution of my marriage can never change the feelings

of my heart. In me the Emperor will always have his best friend. I know

how much this act, demanded by politics and by high interests, has

wounded his heart, but we both glory in the sacrifice that we make for

the good of the country.”

The day following this scene, the necessary formalities were gone

through in the Senate. Eugène, then Viceroy of Italy, took the oath of

Senator that day, and later spoke on the divorce. The interpretation he

gave of the separation was that which Napoleon had devised. “You have

just listened to the reading of the project which the Senate submits to

you for deliberation,” Eugène said. “Under the circumstances, I think

that it is my duty to express to you the feelings of my family. My

mother, my sister, and myself owe everything to the Emperor; he has been

a veritable father to us; he will find in us at all times devoted

children and submissive subjects. It is essential to the happiness of

France that the founder of this fourth dynasty should be surrounded by

direct descendants who will be a guarantee to everybody, a safeguard of

the people, of the country. When my mother was crowned before the whole

nation by the hands of her august husband, she contracted the obligation

to sacrifice all her affections to the good of France; she has fulfilled

her duty with courage, nobility, and dignity; her heart has often been

wrung by the painful struggles of a man accustomed to conquer fortune

and to march forward always with a firm step toward the accomplishment

of great designs. The tears that this resolution has cost the Emperor

are sufficient to glorify my mother. In her new situation she will not

be a stranger to the new prosperity that we expect, and it will be with

a satisfaction mingled with pride that she will look upon the happiness

that her sacrifices have brought to the country and to the Emperor.”

The articles annulling the marriage and fixing Josephine’s future state

were passed at the same session. They read:—

_Article I._ The marriage contracted between the Emperor Napoleon and

the Empress Josephine is hereby dissolved.

_Article II._ The Empress Josephine will preserve the title and the rank

of a crowned Empress.

_Article III._ Her annual income is fixed at two million francs

[$400,000], to be paid from the treasury of the State.

_Article IV._ All the obligations taken by the Emperor for the Empress

Josephine out of the public treasury are obligatory upon his successors.

_Article V._ The present senatus-consulte shall be sent by a messenger

to Her Majesty, the Empress Queen.

That afternoon Napoleon, after a heart-breaking scene with Josephine,

left the Tuileries for the Trianon. A few hours later Josephine,

exhausted by weeping, entered her carriage, and in a heavy storm was

driven to Malmaison.

CHAPTER IX

AFTER THE DIVORCE—NAVARRE—JOSEPHINE’S SUSPICIONS OF THE EMPEROR—HER

GRADUAL RETURN TO HAPPINESS

Although divorced, Josephine was still Empress of the French People, and

her income and her position were in keeping with her title. By the

decree of the Senate, her income was fixed at 2,000,000 francs

($400,000), but the Emperor found means of increasing this, by making

her many splendid presents, and by ordering that any unusual outlay,

such as that for repairs at Malmaison, be paid from the civil list. She

was to have three separate homes: Malmaison, always her favorite

residence, upon the chateau and grounds of which she had for years

lavished money, and in which she had carried out every fantasy of

building, decoration and gardening, that entered her head; the Elysée

Palace in Paris, at present the residence of the presidents of the

French Republic; and Navarre, a chateau near Evreux.

Not only did Josephine receive money and property; Napoleon took care

that her suite was in keeping with her rank. It was as large, indeed, as

that of many of the reigning sovereigns of Europe, and included some of

the cleverest and wittiest men and women of France. To the Emperor’s

honor, the persons chosen were all of them in sympathy with the Empress

and loved by her. More than one of those in Josephine’s household,

indeed, would have been welcomed in the suite of Marie Louise; but being

offered their choice, remained with Josephine. Mme. de Remusat was a

notable example. She stayed with Josephine solely because of her

affection and sense of loyalty and in spite of the fact that her husband

was the First Chamberlain of Napoleon.

If Josephine had any idea that her divorce was going to separate her

from Paris and the society of her friends, she immediately found out her

mistake. The day after her arrival at Malmaison, in spite of a heavy

shower, the road from Paris was one long line of carriages of persons

hastening to the chateau to pay her their respects. Those persons who

did stay away because uncertain whether the Emperor was sincere in his

declaration that Josephine was to keep her rank as Empress had to submit

to severe reproofs. “Have you been to see the Empress Josephine?” he

began to ask, after a day or two, and if the courtier said no, the

Emperor frowned and said, “You must go, sir!” And as a result everybody

did go, and continued to go. Indeed, later in the winter, when Josephine

came to the Elysée for a short time, her house was a veritable court.

But Josephine had received a blow which wealth, rank, and friends could

not cure. The man who once had wearied her by his passion and who had

had to beg and threaten to persuade her to pass a week with him in

Italy, had in turn become the object of as passionate affection as she

was capable of feeling. She had for years now regarded his slightest

wish. In devoting herself to Napoleon in order to save her position she

had learned to love him. Her pain now was the greater because she could

not believe that Napoleon meant it when he said that he still should

love and protect her and that he should honor her for her sacrifice as

never before. She seemed to feel that, after she had said good-by to him

at the Tuileries, she would never see him again. She gave way utterly to

her grief, weeping night and day. Napoleon kept his word, however. Two

days after her arrival at Malmaison he came to see her and frequently in

the days that followed, up to the time of his marriage with Marie

Louise, at the end of March, he made her little visits. They were always

formal, in the presence of attendants, but they did much to persuade the

Empress that Napoleon intended to keep his promises to her. After every

visit however, came paroxysms of weeping. Napoleon kept himself informed

of Josephine’s state, and wrote her frequent notes, chiding her for this

weakness, assuring her of his love, and begging her to have courage.

“I found you weaker than you should have been,” he wrote one day. “You

have shown some courage; you must find a way of keeping it up. You must

not give up to melancholy, you must try to be contented, and above all,

take care of your health, which is so precious to me. If you love me,

you ought to try to be strong and happy. You must not doubt my constant

and tender friendship. You misunderstand entirely my feelings if you

suppose that I can be happy when you are not happy, and above all, when

you are not contented.”

“Savary told me that you were weeping yesterday,” he wrote another day.

“I hope that you have been able to go out to-day. I am sending you the

results of my hunt yesterday. I will come to see you just as soon as you

will promise me that you have regained your self-control and that your

courage has the upper hand. Good-by, dear; I am sad to-day, too, for I

have need of knowing that you are satisfied and courageous.”

After returning to the Tuileries, he wrote her:—“Eugène told me that you

were sad yesterday. That is not well, dear; it is contrary to what you

promised me. It has been a sorrow to me to see the Tuileries again; the

great palace seems empty, and I am lost here.”

The visits, the gifts, the letters of the Emperor really made the

Empress worse rather than better; and finally Mme. de Remusat took the

matter in hand.

“The Empress passed a most unhappy morning,” she wrote to her husband;

“she received a few visits which only increased her grief, and then

every time anything comes from the Emperor she goes off into a terrible

paroxysm. Some way must be found to persuade the Emperor to moderate his

expressions of regret and affection, for whenever he gives a sign of his

own sadness she falls into despair, and really her head seems turned. I

take care of her as well as I can, but she causes me the greatest

sorrow. She is sweet, suffering, affectionate; in fact, everything that

is calculated to tear one’s heart. In showing his affection, the Emperor

only makes her worse. However she suffers, there is never a complaint

escapes her; she is really as gentle as an angel.... Try, if you can, to

have the Emperor write to her so as to encourage her, and let him never

send anything in the evening, because that gives her a terrible night.

She cannot endure his expressions of regret. Doubtless, she could endure

coldness still less, but there must be a medium way. She was in such a

state yesterday after the last letter of the Emperor that I was on the

point of writing him myself at the Trianon.”

As time went on and Josephine found that she really had no reason to

suspect the Emperor of withdrawing the friendship he had promised, she

began to imagine that he meant to keep her always at Malmaison, never to

allow her to go again to Paris. This alarm probably was due to gossip

that reached her. She no doubt would have preferred remaining at

Malmaison if this fear had not arisen. She was so overcome by suspicion

that she tested his sincerity by asking permission to go to Paris. She

did this in spite of the fact that the talk of the forthcoming

marriage—not yet settled, but in full negotiation—was in everybody’s

mouth. The Emperor’s reply to her request was kind. “I shall be glad to

know that you are at the Elysée, and happy to see you oftener, for you

know how much I love you.” In the course of this correspondence about

her coming he could not help scolding her a little, however. “I have

just told Eugène that you would rather listen to the gossip of the town

than to what I tell you.”

And yet, even in this period of distress, Josephine was not idle; nor

was she so selfish in her grief that she forgot her friends. Napoleon’s

letters to her record more than one promise of a favor she had asked for

somebody. She even interested herself actively in securing a princess

for the Emperor. Summoning the Countess de Metternich of Austria, just

arrived in Paris, she told her frankly that she should consider the

sacrifice she had made a pure waste if the Emperor did not marry the

Archduchess of Austria. At that time Napoleon had not decided on his

future Empress; but the negotiations thus opened by Josephine enabled

Metternich to prepare the way in Austria so that, when the time came,

there were none of the delays which had irritated Napoleon in applying

for the hand of the Russian princess as he did first. The negotiations

for the hand of Marie Louise terminated favorably, and the wedding was

set for March.

As the day drew near, a sense of the impropriety of Josephine remaining

at Malmaison during the ceremonies, grew on Napoleon, and he asked her

to spend the month of April at Navarre. She arrived there the very day

that Marie Louise entered Paris. Navarre was not an attractive place to

take possession of with a large household like Josephine’s at that

season of the year, and the company, used to the luxury of Malmaison,

found themselves obliged to camp out in great discomfort in an old,

damp, half-furnished chateau, where neither doors nor windows would shut

securely and where every chimney smoked. Repairs were quickly made,

however, and furniture in quantities was sent from Paris. In the

interval, the whole suite seems to have endured the experience

good-naturedly, and Josephine made a really brave effort to adapt

herself to her new situation and to forget her grief. She set herself to

finding out the resources of her new estate, driving daily through the

parks; she superintended the gardens, planned repairs and improvements

in the chateau, looked up the poor and sick, invited in the people of

Evreux whom she wanted to know, and every night played her favorite game

of tric-trac with the bishop of the diocese. It was a good beginning for

a useful and eventually a happy life for her, and all would have gone

very well if she could have dismissed the idea that after all Napoleon

did not mean to keep his promises to her—that it was only a question of

time when he would lose his interest, withdraw his support, drive her

from France.

Two weeks passed after the marriage, and no word came to her from the

Emperor. In the meantime, she was receiving letters from Eugène and

Hortense, who were required to be present at the ceremonies, and every

member of her suite had daily bulletins of the gaieties at the capital

and of its gossip. Hints reached her that it was probable the Emperor

would not consider it proper for her to return soon to Malmaison, if he

did at all. Her worry became a veritable panic, and before she had been

three weeks at Navarre, she asked permission to return to Malmaison. It

was granted at once; thereupon she sent the Emperor a stilted letter of

thanks. Her letter and the reply it brought from the Emperor are

excellent examples of the masculine and feminine ways of looking at the

same situation. Josephine’s letter read:—

SIRE:—I have just received from my son the assurance that your

Majesty consents to my return to Malmaison and that you have been

good enough to advance to me the money that I have asked to make the

Chateau of Navarre habitable. This double favor, Sire, dissipates

largely the unrest and even the fears that the long silence of your

Majesty had awakened. I was afraid of being entirely banished from

your mind; I see that I have not been. I am less unhappy to-day in

consequence; I am even as happy as it will ever be possible for me

to be.

At the end of the month I shall go to Malmaison since your Majesty

sees no objection to it, but I should say to you, Sire, that I

should not so soon take advantage of the liberty which your Majesty

has given me if the house at Navarre did not need so many repairs,

both on account of my health and that of my suite. My plan is to

stay at Malmaison a very short time. I shall soon go to the Springs.

But while I am at Malmaison your Majesty may be sure I shall live as

if I were a thousand leagues from Paris. I have made a great

sacrifice, Sire and each day I feel it more. However, this sacrifice

shall be complete; your Majesty shall not be disturbed in your

happiness by any expression of regrets on my part. I shall pray

ceaselessly for your Majesty’s happiness, but your Majesty may be

sure that I shall always respect his new situation; I shall respect

it in silence, having confidence in the feeling that he once had for

me. I shall not try to awaken any new proof of it; I shall trust in

your justice and in your heart. I ask but one favor; it is that your

Majesty shall deign to give me now and then some proof that I have a

small place in your thoughts and a large place in your esteem and

your friendship. This will soften my grief without, it seems to me,

compromising that which is much more important than all to me, the

happiness of your Majesty.

JOSEPHINE.

Napoleon replied:—

MY DEAR:—I received your letter of the 19th of April. The style is

very bad. I am always the same; men like me never change. I do not

know what Eugène could have said to you. I did not write you because

you had not written me; my only desire is to be agreeable to you. I

am glad that you are going to Malmaison and that you are contented.

I shall go there to find out how you are and to give you news of

myself. Now compare this letter with yours, and after that I will

let you judge which is the more friendly, yours or mine. Good-bye,

my dear. Take care of yourself, and be just to yourself and to me.

NAPOLEON.

Having permission to return to Malmaison, Josephine was satisfied to

remain at Navarre. In fact, she was beginning to enjoy the place and

particularly the plans for its improvements. It was not until May that

she returned to Malmaison, where she remained a month. Later she spent

three months at Aix-En-Savoy and then made a trip in Switzerland.

On the whole, the summer and fall of 1810 were not unpleasant. She had

dismissed, for the time, her doubt of the Emperor, and suffered only

from the separation from him. That separation Napoleon did as much as

the situation allowed to soften. In May, after her return to Malmaison,

he went to see her, and the visit seems to have been as free from

restraint and grief as could be expected. Josephine was greatly pleased

by the Emperor’s attention. “Yesterday was a day of joy for me,” she

wrote to Hortense. “The Emperor came to see me. His presence made me

happy, though it awakened my sorrow. As long as he stayed with me I had

the courage to keep back my tears, but when he was gone, I was not able

to restrain them, and I found myself very wretched. He was as good as

ever to me, and I hope he read in my heart all the devotion and

tenderness I feel for him.”

Not only did Napoleon go to visit her, he conceived a notion

incomprehensible to a feminine mind of some day taking Marie Louise, and

broached the subject one day as the two were driving near Malmaison in

Josephine’s absence, by asking the Empress if she would not like to go

over the chateau. Marie Louise immediately began to cry, and Napoleon,

overwhelmed by what he had done, though probably not understanding at

all, never ventured to go further. He probably saw no reason why the two

women could not in private be friends.

Everywhere that Josephine went in these first journeys after her divorce

she was received with such expressions of devotion and interest that she

must have been convinced that the people had adopted the Emperor’s view

of the divorce and looked upon her as one who had sacrificed herself for

the country. Curiously enough, they brought petitions to her praying her

to remit them to the Emperor; her influence over him and her relation to

him were thus publicly acknowledged. In all the interviews Josephine

gave to persons who sought her as she traveled she was exceedingly

discreet; especially admirable was the way in which she talked of the

Emperor. It was as of a brother whom she loved dearly and whose

interests she had deeply at heart. Although, as a rule, she received

cordially all who sought her, she did refuse, if she believed the person

hostile to Napoleon. In September, while Josephine was in Switzerland,

Mme. de Staël, then in exile, tried to secure an interview. Josephine

declined. “I know her too well,” she said, “to wish an interview. In the

first book she published, she would report our conversation, and the

Lord only knows how many things she would make me say of which I never

thought.”

[Illustration:

EUGÉNIE HORTENSE DE BEAUHARNAIS. 1783–1837.

Daughter of Josephine, wife of Louis, King of Holland, and mother of

Napoleon III.]

One real and serious cause of unhappiness for Josephine was removed in

part this summer. It was her daughter Hortense’s trouble. The poor Queen

of Holland had for a long time been hopelessly embroiled with the King,

Louis Bonaparte, and her daily letters to her mother during the winter

and spring were hysterical cries of bitterness and despair. Josephine

shows nowhere in better light than in her replies. During all this

period of her own sorrow she wrote constantly to Hortense letters full

of cheer, of wise counsel, and of the tenderest affection. The doubt of

the Emperor which seized her now and then she never allowed Hortense to

entertain. She never advised anything but courage and forbearance in her

relations to King Louis. She held before her her duty to her little

sons, to the people of Holland, who had always loved her, and to her

mother. In July, Louis put an end to the sad situation by abdicating his

throne, which by the Constitution went to the Queen. Napoleon promptly

annexed Holland to France. “This emancipates the queen,” the Emperor

wrote to Josephine, “and your unhappy daughter can come to Paris, where,

with her sons, she will be perfectly happy.” It was not going to Paris,

however, that pleased Hortense; it was release from Louis, the care of

her sons, and rejoining her mother. Indeed, Louis Bonaparte’s cowardly

conduct in Holland brought great relief to both Hortense and Josephine,

especially was the latter happy at being able to have the children,

Napoleon Louis and Louis Napoleon, or little _Oui-oui_, as she called

him, (afterwards Napoleon III.) with her. She really was an ideal

grandmother, everybody conceded, the children first of all. Their

opinion was happily expressed once by Louis, who, when a lady of the

court was leaving to see her husband, said soberly, “She must love M.

A—— very much if she will leave grandmama to go and see him.”

When Josephine left Malmaison in June, she had intended traveling in

Italy, after Switzerland, and spending the winter at Milan with her son.

Her old terror of being forgotten by the Emperor and driven from France

seized her in September, however, and for weeks she tormented herself

with the notion that it was Napoleon’s plan not to allow her to return

to France. She had no reason for the supposition beyond the gossip which

came to her and the fears of her own sore heart; but this was enough to

persuade her so thoroughly that she was to be exiled that her health

began to fail. She succeeded, too, in communicating her fears to the

ladies of her suite, and the little company made themselves wretched in

the classical feminine way over a possibility for which there was no

foundation whatever.

[Illustration:

LOUIS BONAPARTE. 1778–1846.

King of Holland in 1806. Abdicated in 1810, taking the title of Comte

de St. Leu.]

Finally, Josephine wrote a humble letter to Napoleon, asking permission

to spend the winter at Navarre. He replied at once, that of course she

might go there if she would. The household were thrown in hysterical

transports of joy by this permission, and they hastened northward for a

long winter in a provincial chateau as if Italy was a prison and the

honors they would have received there mockery and insult.

In spite of the fact that Navarre was not a suitable winter residence

even when in the best condition, and that the changes and repairs

planned were still incomplete, Josephine and her household passed a

really happy winter and spring there. The life was a simple and

wholesome one, free from the exacting ceremonies and the tiresome

restraints of the court, and the health of them all, and notably of

Josephine, improved. Instead of late hours and heated rooms and great

crowds, there were the healthy habits of the country, constant outdoor

sports, the plain people of Evreux. Josephine found the headaches, which

for so long a time had tormented her, almost totally disappearing. As

her health improved she wept less, and her eyes, which she had seriously

injured since the divorce, by her constant tears, grew better. The

unfailing sweetness of her disposition in her trial had, up to this

time, been combined with such weakness and suspicions that its beauty

had been obscured. When, one after another, her alarms proved to be

unfounded; when each time she found she received what she asked; when

Napoleon continued to write her as a dear friend, to visit her from time

to time, to do for her children; when, after the birth of the King of

Rome, he even arranged that she should see the child, and when from

every side she continued to hear praise for her sacrifice which had made

an heir possible, she took courage. With the return of peace to her

distracted heart, she began to fill her life fuller of useful and

pleasant occupations. She established a school at Navarre, where poor

children were taught; she improved the town promenade, and built a

little theater; she fed the hungry, cared for the sick; proved herself,

indeed, a veritable providence to the whole country-side.

[Illustration:

NAPOLEON AND THE KING OF ROME.

Bronze from the collection of Prince Victor. This elegant figure is a

faithful reproduction of a medallion made by Andrieu, on the birth

of the King of Rome.]

In her own family, too, she was a good genius. Hortense was now at the

court of Marie Louise, and Josephine was as ever her confidant and

adviser. The two little princes she kept much with her, relieving

Hortense of their care. Napoleon was particularly pleased with this

arrangement, knowing how much it would do to make Josephine happy, and

feeling, too, that her training was an excellent thing for the lads.

Even when the children were with Hortense, much of her time was taken up

with providing playthings for them and for the little folks at Milan.

Mlle. Ducrest says that the salon at Malmaison often looked like a

warehouse in the Rue du Coq, so full was it of toys, and there was no

surer way of pleasing Josephine than admiring the trifles she was

constantly buying for her grandchildren.

Eugène frequently made brief visits to Napoleon, and Josephine’s pride

in him and in the place he held in the Emperor’s respect and affection

was great. She rejoiced that Eugène was happy in his married life, loved

his wife, the good and beautiful Augusta, daughter of the King of

Bavaria; and when she went to Italy to visit the court at Milan, as she

did in Eugène’s absence in 1812, at the confinement of the princess, she

came away with her heart abrim with maternal joy.

Indeed, Josephine grew more and more beloved throughout the years 1811

and 1812 as she added cheerfulness and courage to her amiability. “You

are adored at Milan,” wrote Eugène to her once. “They are writing me

charming things about you. You turn the head of everybody who comes near

you.” Even Marie Louise laid aside her jealousy of Josephine after the

birth of the King of Rome, and by many little attentions to Hortense

added to Josephine’s happiness. She was something in France, she felt;

she was honored, her place was secure.

Nobody was better satisfied than Napoleon himself at seeing Josephine

take the position he had conceived she should have, and her returning

cheerfulness was a constant pleasure to him. Only one subject of

contention seems to have occurred between them at this period that was

the old one of Josephine’s extravagance. She could not be persuaded to

live within her income, and finally Napoleon took the matter rigorously

in hand, writing to the Minister of the Public Exchequer the following

letter:—

1st November, 1811.

You will do well to send privately for the Empress Josephine’s

comptroller and make him aware that nothing will be paid over to

him, unless proof is furnished that there are no debts; and, as I

will have no shilly-shallying on the subject, this must be

guaranteed on the comptroller’s own property. You will therefore

notify the comptroller, that from the 1st of January next, no

payment will be made, either in your office, or by the Crown

Treasury, until he has given an undertaking that no debts exist, and

made his own property responsible for the fact. I have information

that the expenditure in that household is exceedingly careless. You

will, therefore, see the comptroller, and put yourself in possession

of all facts regarding money matters; for it is absurd that instead

of saving two millions of money, as the Empress should have done,

she should have more debts to be paid. It will be easy for you to

find out the truth about this from the comptroller, and to make him

understand that he himself might be seriously compromised.

Take an opportunity of seeing the Empress Josephine yourself, and

give her to understand that I trust her household will be managed

with more economy, and that if any debts are left outstanding, she

will incur my sovereign displeasure. The Empress Louise has only 100

000 crowns; she pays everything every week; she does without gowns,

and denies herself, so as never to owe money.

My intention is, then, that from the 1st of January, no payment

shall be made for the Empress Josephine’s household without a

certificate from the comptroller, to the effect that she has no

debts. Look into her budget for 1811, and that prepared for 1812. It

should not amount to more than a million. If too many horses are

kept, some of them must be put down. The Empress Josephine, who has

children and grandchildren, ought to economise, and so be of some

use to them, instead of running into debt.

I desire you will not make any more payments to Queen Hortense,

either on account of her appanage, or for wood-felling, without

asking my permission. Confer with her comptroller too, so that her

household may be properly managed, and that she may not only keep

out of debt, but regulate her expenditure in a fitting manner.

CHAPTER X

EFFECT ON JOSEPHINE OF DISASTERS IN RUSSIA—ANXIETY DURING CAMPAIGN OF

1813—FLIGHT FROM PARIS—DEATH IN 1814

By the spring of 1812 Josephine had adjusted herself admirably to her

new life. She had conquered her suspicions, acquired self-control, taken

up useful duties. Her position was recognized by all France. In every

quarter she was loved and honored. Never indeed in all her disordered,

changeful existence was she so worthy of respect and affection. With

every week her power of self-control, her capacity for happiness seemed

to grow. In the spring she spent some time with Hortense at the chateau

of Saint Leu, the latter’s country home. After she returned to

Malmaison, she wrote back a letter which shows to what a large degree

she had regained contentment. “The few days I spent with you,” she wrote

Hortense, “were very happy, and did me great good. Everybody who comes

to see me says that I never looked better, and I am not surprised at it.

My health always depends on my experiences, and those with you were

sweet and happy.”

In June, the campaign against Russia, for which Napoleon had been

preparing for several months, began; but there is no indication that

Josephine had any anxiety in seeing the Grand Army set out. Had she not

seen the Emperor return from Italy, from Austerlitz, Jena, and Wagram?

In July she went to Milan, to remain with the Princess Augusta, Eugène’s

wife, through her confinement. She seemed to get great pleasure from her

visit. The princess she found charming, the children could not be

better, everybody treated her with a consideration and an affection

which touched her deeply. She seems to have been happy at Milan for the

most natural, wholesome reasons—because her son’s wife is a good woman

and loves her husband; because the new granddaughter is a healthy child;

because the good people of Milan remember her, and love her.

Josephine took great satisfaction at this time, too, in Eugène’s

success. He was, in fact, justifying fully in Russia the good opinion

the Emperor had always had of him, and his letters to his mother were

almost exultant. “The Emperor gained a great victory over the Russians

to-day,” he wrote her on September 8th. “We fought for thirteen hours,

and I commanded the left. We all did our duty, and I hope the Emperor is

satisfied.” And again, “I write you only two words, my good mother, to

tell you that I am well. My corps had a brilliant day yesterday. I had

to deal with eight divisions of the enemy from morning until night, and

I kept my position. The Emperor is pleased, and you can believe that I

am.”

But the joy of victory was not long continued. Moscow was entered on

September 15th, 1812. The exultation that the capture of the enemy’s

capital caused in France was short-lived. Close upon it came reports of

the burning of the city, of the awful cost of the march inland, of the

suffering the army was undergoing. When Josephine reached Paris in

October, the city was full of sinister reports of defeat. A plot to

seize the government, based on a report of Napoleon’s death, had just

been suppressed. Her letters from Eugène had talked only of victory.

What could it mean? As she listened to the reports afloat and came under

the spell of the city’s foreboding, a deadly despair seized her. At the

mere mention of Napoleon’s name she wept. Her face carried such woe that

her household feared that worse evils had befallen them than they knew

of, and Malmaison for weeks was wrapped in gloom.

[Illustration:

EUGENE DE BEAUHARNAIS, NAPOLEON’S STEPSON. (“EUGENIO NAPOLEONE, PRINCE

DI FRANCIA, VICE RE D’ITALIA, 1813.”)

Engraved by Longhi, after Gérard, Milan, 1813.]

This was her condition when suddenly it was reported that Napoleon had

returned unannounced from Russia. Amazed at the extent of the conspiracy

which had arisen in his absence and at the instability of the throne at

the mere report of his own death, and fearing still more serious results

when the full news of the catastrophe in Russia reached France, the

Emperor had driven night and day across Europe to Paris. His presence

inspired courage, but it could not close the ears of France to the

ghastly stories of the retreat from Moscow, nor blind her eyes to the

haggard remnants of men who daily flocked into the city. There was an

appearance of gaiety, because the Emperor ordered it; but there was

little heart in the winter’s merry-making.

Napoleon’s return did not restore Josephine’s confidence. Her

superstition, always lively, asserted itself to the full. The first day

of the new year, 1813, was on Friday. Josephine’s presentiments were the

darkest. This year would bring Napoleon sorrow and loss, she declared.

France was to suffer. Nothing could restore her calm. In all this grief

the thought was ever present with her that the divorce was the cause of

Napoleon’s misfortunes. He had destroyed his Star. Nor was she by any

means alone in this theory. Indeed, it is probable that she had adopted

it from others, for many people in France had always believed it. Even

in the Grand Army, during the campaign against Russia, soldiers said,

after reverses began, that it was because of the divorce. “He shouldn’t

have left the old girl,” they put it; “she brought him luck—and us too.”

In the spring of 1813, the Emperor was off again at the head of the army

which by feverish efforts he had gathered and equipped. Josephine saw

the new campaign begin with foreboding; she watched its doubtful

progress with growing dismay, and finally when in November, the French

army, defeated, and with its allies daily deserting, crossed the Rhine,

her anguish was pitiful. Napoleon’s name was incessantly on her lips,

and of everybody who came within her range that knew anything of him she

asked a hundred eager questions. How did he look? Was he pale? Did he

sleep? Did he believe his Star had deserted him?

When Eugène’s father-in-law, the King of Bavaria, abandoned his alliance

with the Emperor, Josephine urged upon her son loyalty and energy; and

when Louis Bonaparte moved by his brother’s misfortunes, hurried to

offer his services, Josephine pointed out to Hortense, who, she thought,

might reasonably expect new annoyance if Louis’s offer was accepted,

that her husband’s act was a noble one and that Hortense should view it

so. Hortense seems as a matter of fact, to have felt more respect for

her husband when she heard of his offer to return than she had for many

years.

During the advance of the allies towards Paris and the wonderful

resistance Napoleon offered for many weeks, Josephine remained at

Malmaison feverishly questioning everybody who came. As the battles grew

nearer, she interested herself in hospital work, and set her household

to making lint. Now and then she received a note from the Emperor—a

characteristic note of triumph—never of fear or complaint. These notes

she always retired to read and to weep over, and afterwards she spent

hours talking of them to her women.

As the end of March approached the allies were so near Paris that

Josephine saw bodies of strangely uniformed men passing and repassing

near Malmaison—Cossacks, Austrians, Prussians. What could it all mean?

Hortense, at the court of Marie Louise, sent her daily notes, telling

her of the hopes and fears of Paris. Invariably these notes were

courageous, showing perfect confidence in the final triumph of Napoleon.

When at last, on March 28th, Hortense learned that Marie Louise and the

court were leaving the city, her indignation was intense. She could do

nothing, however. It was her duty to accompany Marie Louise, and she had

only time before departing to send a note to Josephine, urging her to go

to Navarre.

“My dear Hortense,” Josephine replied, “up to the moment I received your

letter I kept my courage. I cannot endure the thought that I am to be

separated from you, and God knows for how long! I am following your

counsel; I shall go to-morrow to Navarre. I have only sixteen men in my

guard here, and they are all wounded. I shall keep them; but as a matter

of fact, I do not need them. I am so wretched at being separated from my

children that I am indifferent about what happens to myself. Try to send

me word how you are, what you will do, and where you will go. I shall

try to follow you from afar, at least.”

Early on March 29th, the little household started through rain and mud.

Josephine’s terror was complete. She fancied she would be waylaid by

Cossacks; and once when she saw a band of soldiers approaching, she

jumped from her carriage, and fled across the fields alone. It was with

difficulty that her attendants convinced her that the strangers were

French, not foreign soldiers.

Once at Navarre, she spent much of her time alone—a practice quite

unlike her,—reading and re-reading Napoleon’s letters. One of them she

carried always in her bosom. It had been sent from Brienne, only a short

time before the abdication, and contained the most touching expressions

of his affection for her to be found in any of his later letters: “I

have sought death in numberless engagements; I no longer dread its

approach; I should now hail it as a boon.... Nevertheless, I still wish

to see Josephine once more.”

* * * * *

A few days after Josephine’s arrival at Navarre, Hortense joined her,

and there the two learned of Napoleon’s abdication and of the return of

the Bourbons. After the first paroxysm of grief was over, they began

planning for the future. Hortense would go to America, with her

children, she declared. There she could rear them so that they would be

fit for any future. But Josephine was not for renouncing her position.

She began to write feverishly in every direction, apparently hoping to

interest her friends in saving something for her in the general

overthrow. The allies had no disposition, however, to take from

Josephine either her rank or all her income. The Emperor Alexander, who

was the real umpire of the game, believed it wise to look after the

material interests of the Bonaparte family, and in the treaty arranged

that Josephine should have an annual income of 1,000,000 francs and that

she should keep all of her property, disposing of it as she pleased.

Alexander showed a strong desire to win Josephine’s favor, in fact.

Learning that she was at Navarre, he invited her to Malmaison, giving

her every assurance that she would be safe there. Before the end of

April, she came with Hortense, and here Eugene joined them. Alexander

soon came to Malmaison to see the Empress. His attentions to her set the

vogue for the court, and repeated assurances came from all sides to

Josephine that her position and that of her children was safe with the

new _régime_. But Josephine could not believe it so. Her days and nights

were full of foreboding—of laments over the fate of the Emperor. One

day, after dining with Alexander at the Chateau of St. Leu, she returned

to her room in complete collapse.