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Books: The Empress Josephine

L >> Louise Muhlbach >> The Empress Josephine




Napoleon had to spare this jealous disposition of his young wife,
for Maria Louisa was now in that situation which France and its
emperor had expected and hoped from this marriage; she was
approaching the time when the object for which Napoleon had married
her was to be accomplished, when she was to give to France and the
Bonaparte dynasty a legitimate heir. It was necessary, therefore, to
be cautious with the young empress, and, on account of her
interesting situation, it was expedient to avoid the gloomy
sulkiness of jealousy.

By the emperor's orders, and under pain of the punishment of his
wrath, no one dared speak to Maria Louisa of the divorced empress,
and Napoleon avoided designedly to give her an occasion of
complaint. He went no longer to Malmaison; he even ceased
corresponding with his former wife.

Only once during this period he had not been able to resist the
longing of visiting Josephine, who, as he had heard, was sick. The
emperor, accompanied only by one horseman, rode from Trianon to
Malmaison. At the back gate of the garden he dismounted from his
horse, and, without being announced, walked through the park to the
castle. No one had seen him, and he was about passing from the
front-room into the cabinet of the empress by a side-door, when the
folding-doors leading from this front-room into the cabinet opened,
and Spontini walked out.

Napoleon, agitated and vexed at having been surprised, advanced with
imperious mien toward the renowned maestro, who was quietly
approaching him.

"What are you doing here, sir?" cried Napoleon, with choleric
impatience.

Spontini, however, returned the emperor's haughty look, and,
measuring him with a deep, flaming glance, asked, With a lofty
assurance: "Sire, what are you doing here?"

The emperor answered not--a terrible glance fell upon the bold
maestro, without, however, annihilating him: then Napoleon entered
into Josephine's cabinet, and Spontini walked away slowly and with
uplifted head.

Spontini, the famous composer of the "Vestals," whose score he had
dedicated to the Empress Josephine, remained after her divorce a
true and devoted admirer of the empress; and in Malmaison, as well
as in the castle of Navarra, he showed himself as faithful, as ready
to serve, as submissive, as he had once been in the Tuileries, or at
St. Cloud, in the days of Josephine's glory. He often passed whole
weeks in Navarra, and even undertook to teach the ladies and
gentlemen of the court the choruses of the "Vestals," which the
empress so much liked.

Josephine had, therefore, for the renowned maestro a heart-felt
friendship, and she took pleasure in boasting of the gratitude and
loyalty of Spontini, in contrast with the sad experiences she had
made of man's ingratitude. [Footnote: Memoires sur l'Imperatrice
Josephine," par Mlle. Ducrest," vol. i., p. 287.]

The emperor, as already said, avoided to trouble his young wife by
exciting her jealousy; and though he did not visit Malmaison, though
for a time he did not write to Josephine, yet he was acquainted with
the most minute details of her life, and with all the little events
of her home; and he took care that around her every thing was done
according to the strictest rules of etiquette, and that she was
surrounded by the same splendor and the same ceremonies as when she
was empress.

At last the moment had come which was to give to Josephine her most
sacred and glorious reward. The cannon of the Invalides, with their
one hundred and one thunders, announced that Maria Louisa had given
birth to a son, and Prince Eugene was the first who brought this
news to his mother in Navarra.

Josephine's countenance beamed with satisfaction and joy when she
learned from the lips of her son this news of the birth of the King
of Rome; she called her whole court together to communicate herself
this news to the ladies and gentlemen, and to have them listen to
the descriptions which Eugene, with all heartiness, was making of
the scenes which had taken place in the imperial family circle
during the mysterious hours of suspense and expectation.

But when Eugene repeated the words of Napoleon's message which he
sent through him to Josephine, her countenance was illumined with
joy and satisfaction, and tears started from her eyes--tears of
purest joy, of most sacred love!

Napoleon had said: "Eugene, go to your mother; tell her that I am
convinced no one will be more pleased with my happiness than she. I
would have written to her, but I should have had to give up the
pleasure of gazing at my son. I part from him only to attend to
inexorable duties. But this evening I will accomplish the most
agreeable of all duties--I will write to Josephine." [Footnote:
Ducrest, vol. i., p. 236.]

The emperor kept his word. The same evening there came to Malmaison
an imperial page, with an autograph letter from Napoleon to
Josephine. The empress rewarded this messenger of glad tidings with
a costly diamond-pin, and then she called her ladies together, to
show them the letter which had brought so much happiness to her
heart, and which also had obscured her eyes with tears.

It was an autograph letter of Napoleon; it contained six or eight
lines, written with a rapid hand; the pen, too hastily filled, had
dropped large blots of ink on the paper. In these lines Napoleon
announced to Josephine the birth of the King of Rome, and concluded
with these words: "This child, in concert with our Eugene, will
secure the happiness of France, and mine also."

These last words were to Josephine full of delight. "Is it, then,
possible," exclaimed she, joyously, "to be more amiable and more
tender, thus to sweeten what this moment might have of bitterness if
I did not love the emperor so much? To place my son alongside of his
is an act worthy of the man who, when he will, can be the most
enchanting of men." [Footnote: Ducrest, vol. i., p. 238.]

And this child, for which so much suffering had been endured, for
which she had offered her own life in sacrifice, was by Josephine
loved even as if it were her own. She was always asking news from
the little King of Rome, and no deeper joy could be brought to her
heart than to speak to her of the amiableness, the beauty, the
liveliness of this little prince, who appeared to her as the visible
reward of the sacrifice which she had made to God and to the
emperor.

One intense, craving wish did Josephine cherish during all these
years--she longed to see Napoleon's son; she longed to press to her
heart this child who was making her former husband so happy, and on
which rested all the hopes of France.

Finally Napoleon granted her desire. Privately, and in all secrecy,
for Maria Louisa's jealousy was ever on the watch, and she would
never have consented to allow her son to go to her rival; without
pomp, without suite, the emperor took a drive with the little three-
year-old King of Rome to the pleasure-castle of Bagatelle, whither
he had invited the Empress Josephine through his trusty chamberlain
Constant.

Josephine herself has described her interview with the little King
of Rome in a very touching and affecting letter which she addressed
the next day to the emperor, and which contains full and interesting
details of the brief interview she had with the son of Maria Louisa.
We cannot, therefore, abridge this letter, nor deny ourselves the
pleasure of transcribing it:

"Sire, although deeply moved by our interview of yesterday, and
preoccupied with the beautiful and lovely child you brought me,
penetrated with gratitude for the step taken by you for my sake, and
whose unpleasant consequences, I may well imagine, could fall only
upon you; I felt the most pressing desire to converse with you, to
assure you of my joy, which was too great to be at once exhibited in
a suitable manner. You, who to meet my wishes exposed yourself to
the danger of having your peace disturbed, will fully understand why
I thus long to acknowledge to you all the happiness your inestimable
favor has produced within me.

"Truly, it was not out of mere curiosity that I wished to see the
King of Rome; his face was not unknown to me, for I had seen
striking portraits of him. Sire, I wanted to examine the expression
of his features, listen to the tone of his voice, which is so much
like yours; I wanted to see you--how you would caress the child, and
then I longed also to return to him the caresses which my son Eugene
received from you. If I recall to your remembrance how deaf my son
was once to you, it is that you should not be surprised at the
partiality which I cherish for the son of another, for it is your
son, and you will find neither insincerity nor exaggeration in
feelings which you fully appreciate, since you yourself have
nurtured similar ones.

"The moment I saw you enter with the little Napoleon in your hand
was undoubtedly one of the happiest of my eventful life. That moment
surpassed all the preceding ones, for never have I received from you
a stronger proof of your affection to me. It was no passionate love
which induced you to fulfil my wishes, but it was a sincere esteem
and affection, and these feelings are unchangeable, and this thought
completes my happiness.

"It was not without trembling that I thought of the dissolution of
our marriage-ties, for it was reasonable for me to apprehend that a
young, beautiful wife, endowed also with the most enviable gifts,
would soon make you forget one who lacks all these advantages, and
who then would be far away from you. When I called to mind all the
amiable qualities possessed by Maria Louisa, I could not but tremble
at the thought that I should soon be indifferent to you, but surely
I was then ignoring the loftiness and generosity of your soul, which
still preserves the memory of its extraordinary devotedness, and of
its tenderness toward me, a devotedness and tenderness whose
superabundance was proportioned to those eminent qualities which
have surprised Europe, and which cause you to be admired by all
those who come near you, and which even constrain your enemies to
render you justice!

"Yes, I acknowledge to you, sire, you have once more found the means
of astonishing me, and to fill me with admiration, accustomed as I
am to admire you; and your whole conduct, so well suited to my
position, the solicitude with which you surround me, and finally the
step you took yesterday in my behalf, prove to me that you have far
surpassed all the favorable and charming impressions which I have
ever cherished for you.

"With what fondness I pressed the young prince to my heart! How his
face, radiant with health, filled me with delight, and how happy I
was to see him so amused and so contented as he watched us both! In
fact, I entirely forgot I was a stranger to this child; I forgot
that I was not his mother while partaking his sweet caresses. I then
envied no man's happiness; mine seemed far above all bliss granted
to poor mortals here below. And when the time came to part from him,
when I had to tear myself from this little being whom I had barely
learned to know, I felt in me a deep anguish, as deep as if all the
sorrows of humanity had pierced me through.

"Have yon, as I did, closely noticed the little commanding tone of
your son when he made known to me his wish that he wanted me to be
in the Tuileries with him? And then his little pouting mien when I
answered that this could not be?

"'Why,' exclaimed he, in his own way, 'why, since papa and I wish
it?'

"Yes, this already reveals that he will understand how to command,
and I heartily rejoice to discern traits of character which, in a
private individual, might be pregnant with evil consequences, but
which are becoming to a prince who is destined to rule in a time
that is so near a long and terrible revolution. For after the
downfall of all order, such as we have outlived, a sovereign cannot
hope to maintain peace in his kingdom merely through mildness and
goodness. The nation over which he rules, and which yet stands on
the hot soil of a volcano, must have the assurance that crime no
sooner lifts its head than swift punishment will reach it. As you
yourself have told me a thousand times: 'When once fear has been
instilled, one must not by arbitrariness, but through strict
impartiality, strive to be loved.'

"You have often used your privilege of granting pardon, but you have
more frequently proved that you would not tolerate a violation of
the laws enacted by you. Thus you have subdued and mastered the
Jacobins, quieted the royalists, and satisfied the party of
moderation. Your son will now have your example before him, and,
happier than you, will be able to go further in manifesting clemency
toward the guilty.

"I had with him a conversation which establishes the deep
sensitiveness of his heart.

"He was delighted with my charivari, and then he said to me:

"'Ah, how beautiful that is! but if it were given to a poor man he
would be rich, would he not, madame?'

"'Certainly he would,' I replied. "'Well, then,' said he, 'I have
seen in the woods a poor man; allow me to send for him. I have no
money myself, and he needs a good coat.'

"'The emperor,' I replied, 'will find a pleasure in gratifying your
wishes. Why does not your imperial highness ask him for his purse?'

"'I have asked him already, madame. He gave it to me when we left
Paris, and we have given all away. But as you look so good, I
thought you would do what was so natural.'

"I promised to be useful to that poor man, and I will certainly keep
my word. I have given orders to my courier to find the unfortunate
person, and bring him to-morrow to Malmaison, where we will see what
can be done for him. For it will indeed be sweet for me to perform a
good work counselled by a child three years old. Tell him, I pray
you, sire, that this poor man is no longer poor!

"I have thought you would be pleased to gather these details from a
conversation which passed between us in a low voice, while you were
busy at the other end of the drawing-room, examining an atlas. You
will also perceive by this, how fortunate it is for the King of Rome
to have a governess, who knows how to inspire him with such feelings
of compassion, the more touching that they are seldom found in
princes. For princes in general have been accustomed to a constant
flattery, which induces them to imagine that every thing in the
world is for them, and that they can entirely dismiss the duty of
thinking about others. In fact the eminent qualities of Madame de
Montesquiou make her worthy of the important and responsible charge
you have committed to her care, and the sentiments of the prince
justify the choice you have made. Will he not be good and
benevolent, who is brought up by goodness and benevolence
themselves?

"I am, however, afraid that his imperial highness, notwithstanding
the orders made to him by you, has spoken of this interview, which
was to remain secret. I recommended him not to open his mouth, and I
assured him that if any one knew that he had come to Bagatelle it
would be impossible for him to come here again.

"'Oh, then, madame,' replied he, 'be not alarmed, I will say
nothing, for I love you; promise me, however, if I am obedient, to
come soon and visit me.'

"Ah! I assured him, that I desired this more than he did himself,
and I have never spoken more truly.

"Meanwhile, I am conscious that those interviews, which fill me with
extreme joy, cannot often be repeated, and I must not abuse your
goodness toward me by claiming your presence too often. The
sacrifice which I make to your mental quietude is another proof of
my intense desire to render you happy. This thought will comfort me
while waiting to be able to embrace my adopted son. Do you not find
this exchange of children very sweet? As regards myself, sire, what
distresses me is, that I can only give to your son this name,
without being able to be useful to him! And, again, how different is
my position from that which you held toward Eugene! The longer, the
kinder you are to him, the less can I show you my gratitude!
However, I rely upon the vice-king that he will be a comfort to you,
amid the sorrows which your family causes you. If, unfortunately,
what you surmise about the King of Naples were to happen, then
Eugene would become still more useful to you than ever, and I dare
trust he would prove worthy of you by his conduct in war as well as
by his sincere devotedness to your service.

"You have now received quite a long letter from me! The sentiment of
delight in talking about our two sons has carried me away, and this
sentiment will make me excusable for having so long intruded upon
you. As sorrow needs concentration, so joy needs expansion. This,
sire, explains this letter, long as a volume, and which I cannot
close with-out once more expressing my deepest gratitude.

"JOSEPHINE." [Footnote: Ducrest, "Memoires," vol. iii., p. 294.]




CHAPTER XLIV.

DEATH.


Happy the man to whom it is granted to close a beautiful and worthy
life with a beautiful and worthy death! Happy Josephine, for whom it
was not reserved like the rest of the Bonapartes to wander about
Europe seeking for a refuge where they might hide themselves from
the persecutions and hatred of the princes and people! To her alone,
of all the Napoleonic race, was reserved the enviable fate to die
under the ruins of the imperial throne, whose fragments fell so
heavily upon her heart as to break it.

For France the days of fear had come, for Napoleon the days of
vengeance. The nations of Europe had at last risen with the strength
of the lion that breaks his chains and is determined to obtain
liberty by devouring those who deprived him of it, and so those
irritated nations had with the power of their wrath forced their
princes, who had been so obediently submissive to Napoleon, to
declare war and to fight against him for life or death.

The conflicts, battles, and endless victories of the constantly
defeated Austrians, Prussians, Russians, and English, belong to
history--this everlasting tribunal where the deeds of men are
judged, and where they are written on its pages to be for ages to
come as lessons and examples of warning and encouragement.

Josephine, the lonely and rejected one, had nothing to do with those
fearful events which shook France; she played no active part in the
great drama which was performed before the walls of Paris, and which
closed with the fall of the hero whom she had so warmly and so truly
loved.

Josephine, during those days of horror and of decisive conflicts,
was in her pleasure-castle of Navarra. Her daughter, Queen Hortense,
with her two sons, Napoleon Louis and Louis Napoleon, was with her.
There she learned the treachery of the marshals, the capitulation of
Marmont, the surrender of Paris, and the entrance of the foreign foe
into the capital of France.

But where was Napoleon? Where was the emperor? Did Josephine know
anything of him? Why did he not come to the rescue of his capital,
and drive the foe away?

Such were the questions which afflicted Josephine's heart, and to
which the news, finally re-echoed through Paris, gave her the
fearful response.

Napoleon had come too late, and when he had arrived in Fontainebleau
with the remnants of the army defeated by Blucher, he learned there
that Marmont had capitulated, and that the allies had already
entered Paris, and all was lost.

The deputies of the senate and Napoleon's faithless marshals came
from Paris to Fontainebleau to require from him that he should
resign his crown, and that he should save France by the sacrifice of
himself and his imperial dignity. These men, lately the most humble,
devoted courtiers and flatterers of Napoleon, who owed to him
everything--name, position, fortune, and rank--had now the courage
to approach him with lofty demeanor and to request of him to depart
into exile.

Napoleon, overcome by all this misfortune and treachery which fell
upon him, did what they required of him. He abdicated in favor of
his son, and left Paris, left France, to go to the small island of
Elba, there to dream of the days which had been and of the days
which were coming, when be would regain his glory and his emperor's
crown.

Amid the agonies, cares, and humiliations of his present situation,
Napoleon thought of the woman whom he had once named the "angel of
his happiness," and who he well knew would readily and gladly be the
angel of his misfortune. Before leaving Fontainebleau to retire to
the island of Elba, Napoleon wrote to Josephine a farewell letter,
telling her of the fate reserved for him, and assuring her of his
never-ending friendship and affection. He sent this letter to the
castle of Navarra by M. de Maussion, and the messenger of evil
tidings arrived there in the middle of the night.

Josephine had given orders that she should be awakened as soon as
any one brought news for her. She immediately arose from her bed,
threw a mantle over her shoulders, and bade M. de Maussion come in.

"Does the emperor live?" cried she, as he approached. "Only answer
me this: does the emperor live?"

Then, when she had received this assurance, after reading Napoleon's
letter, and learning all the sad, humiliating news, pale, and
trembling in all her limbs, she hastened to her daughter Hortense.

"Ah, Hortense," exclaimed she, overcome and falling into an arm-
chair near her daughter's bed, "ah, Hortense, the unfortunate
Napoleon! They are sending him to the island of Elba! Now he is
unhappy, abandoned, and I am not near him! Were I not his wife I
would go to him and exile myself with him! Oh, why cannot I be with
him?" [Footnote: Mlle. Cochelet, "Memoires," vol. ii.]

But she dared not! Napoleon, knowing her heart and her love, had
commissioned the Duke de Bassano expressly to tell the Empress
Josephine to make no attempt to follow him, and "to respect the
rights of another."

This other, however, had not been pleased to claim the right which
Josephine was to respect. Napoleon left Fontainebleau on the 21st of
April, 1814, to go to the island of Elba. It was his wish to meet
there his wife and his son. But Maria Louisa did not come; she did
not obey her husband's call; she descended from the imperial throne,
and was satisfied to be again an archduchess of Austria, and to see
the little King of Rome dispossessed of country, rank, father, and
even name. The poor little Napoleon was now called Frank--he was but
the son of the Archduchess Maria Louisa; he dared not ask for his
father, and yet memory ever and ever re-echoed through his heart the
sounds of other days; this memory caused the death of the Duke de
Reichstadt, the son of Napoleon.

Napoleon had gone to Elba, and there he waited in vain for Maria
Louisa, to fill whose place Josephine would have gladly poured her
heart's blood.

But she dared not! she submitted faithfully and devotedly to
Napoleon's will. To her he was, though banished, humiliated, and
conquered, still the emperor and the sovereign; and her tearful eyes
gazed toward the solitary island which to her would have been a
paradise could she but have lived there by the side of her Napoleon!

But she had to remain in France; she had sacred duties to perform;
she had to save out of the wreck of the empire at least something
for her children! For herself she wanted nothing, she desired
nothing; but the future of her children had to be secured.

Therefore, Josephine gathered all her courage; she pressed her hands
on the mortal wounds of her heart, and kept it still alive, for it
must not yet bleed to death; her children yet claimed her care.

Josephine, therefore, left the castle of Navarra for that of
Malmaison, thus fulfilling the wishes of the Emperor Alexander, who
desired to know Josephine's wishes in reference to herself and to
her children, and who sincerely wished to become acquainted with
her, that he might offer her his homage, and transfer to her the
friendship he once cherished for Napoleon.

Josephine received in Malmaison the first visit of Alexander, and
from this time he came every day, to the great grief of the returned
Bourbons, who felt bitterly hurt at the homage thus publicly offered
before all the world by the conqueror of Napoleon to the divorced
Empress Josephine, who, in the eyes of the proud Bourbons, was but
the widow of General de Beauharnais.

Notwithstanding this, the rest of the princes of the victorious
allies followed the example of Alexander. They all came to Malmaison
to visit the Empress Josephine; so that again, as in the days of her
imperial glory, she received at her residence the conquerors of
Europe, and saw around her emperors and kings. The Emperor
Alexander, with his brothers; the King Frederick William, with his
sons; the Duke of Coburg, and many others of the little German
princes, were guests at her table, and endeavored, through the
respect they manifested to her, and the expressions of their esteem
and devotedness, to turn away from her the sad fate which had come
upon all the Bonapartes.