Napoleon's Letters To Josephine Part 78

_Stuttgard._--General Rapp describes this journey as follows: "Peace was ratified. We left Nymphenburg and arrived at Stuttgard. Napoleon was received in a style of magnificence, and was lodged in the palace together with his suite. The King was laying out a s.p.a.cious garden, and men who had been condemned to the galleys were employed to labour in it. The Emperor asked the King who the men were who worked in chains; he replied that they were for the most part rebels who had been taken in his new possessions. We set out on the following day. On the way Napoleon alluded to the unfortunate wretches whom he had seen at Stuttgard. 'The King of Wurtemberg,' said he, 'is a very harsh man; but he is very faithful. Of all the sovereigns in Europe he possesses the greatest share of understanding.'

"We stopped for an hour at Rastadt, where the Princess of Baden and Princess Stephanie had arrived for the purpose of paying their respects to the Emperor. The Grand Duke and d.u.c.h.ess accompanied him as far as Strasburg. On his arrival in that city he received despatches which again excited his displeasure against the Faubourg St. Germain.

We proceeded to Fontainebleau; no preparations had been made for the Emperor's reception; there was not even a guard on duty."

This was on October 26th, at 10 A.M. Meneval a.s.serts that Napoleon's subsequent bad temper was feigned. In any case, the meeting--that moment so impatiently awaited--was a very bad _quart d'heure_ for Josephine, accentuated doubtless by Fouche's report of bad conduct on the part of the ladies of St. Germain.

FOOTNOTES

[70] This Archduke was the "international man" at this juncture. Louis Bonaparte speaks of a society at Saragossa, of which the object was to make the Archduke Charles king of Spain.

[71] These Adelphes or Philadelphes were the socialists or educated anarchists of that day. They wished for the _statu quo_ before Napoleon became supreme ruler. They had members in his army, and it seems quite probable that Bernadotte gave them pa.s.sive support. General Oudet was their recognised head, and he died under suspicious circ.u.mstances after Wagram. The society was, unlike the Carbonari, anti-Catholic.

[72] Pelet, vol. i. 127.

[73] Pelet, vol. i. 282.

[74] "Gaily asking his staff to breakfast with him" (Pelet).

[75] Lejeune says "some hours afterwards."

[76] Eugene's.

[77] "What a loss for France and for me," groaned Napoleon, as he left his dead friend.

SERIES M

No. 1.

According to the _Correspondence of Napoleon I._, No. 16,058, the date of this letter is December 17th. It seems, however, possible that it is the letter written immediately after his arrival at Trianon, referred to by Meneval, who was, in fact, responsible for it.

Thiers, working from unpublished memoirs of Hortense and Cambaceres, gives a most interesting account of the family council, held at 9 P.M. on Friday, December 15th, at the Tuileries. Constant also describes the scene, but gives the Empress credit for showing the most self-command of those chiefly interested. The next day, 11 A.M., Count Lacepede introduced the resolutions of the family council to the Senatus-Consultus.[78] "It is to-day that, more than ever before, the Emperor has proved that he wishes to reign only to serve his subjects, and that the Empress has merited that posterity should a.s.sociate her name with that of Napoleon." He pointed out that thirteen of Napoleon's predecessors had broken the bonds of matrimony in order to fulfil better those of sovereign, and that among these were the most admired and beloved of French monarchs--Charlemagne, Philip Augustus, Louis XII. and Henry IV. This speech and the Decrees (carried by 76 votes to 7) are found in the _Moniteur_ of December 17th, which Napoleon considers sufficiently authentic to send to his brother Joseph as a full account of what occurred, and with no further comment of his own but that it was the step which he thought it his duty to take. The Decrees of the Committee of the Senate were:--"(1) The marriage contracted between the Emperor Napoleon and the Empress Josephine is dissolved. (2) The Empress Josephine will retain the t.i.tles and rank of a crowned Empress-Queen.[79] (3) Her jointure is fixed at an annual revenue of 80,000 from the public treasury.[80] (4) Every provision which may be made by the Emperor in favour of the Empress Josephine, out of the funds of the Civil List, shall be obligatory on his successors." They added separate addresses to the Emperor and Empress, and that to the latter seems worthy of quotation:--"Your Imperial and Royal Majesty is about to make for France the greatest of sacrifices; history will preserve the memory of it for ever. The august spouse of the greatest of monarchs cannot be united to his immortal glory by more heroic devotion. For long, Madame, the French people has revered your virtues; it holds dear that loving kindness which inspires your every word, as it directs your every action; it will admire your sublime devotion; it will award for ever to your Majesty, Empress and Queen, the homage of grat.i.tude, respect, and love."

From a letter of Eugene's to his wife, quoted by Aubenas, it appears that he, with his mother, arrived at Malmaison on Sat.u.r.day evening,[81] December 16th, and that it never ceased raining all the next day, which added to the general depression, in spite of, or because of, Eugene's bad puns. On the evening of the 16th Napoleon was at Trianon, writing letters, and we cannot think that if the Emperor had been to Malmaison on the Sunday,[82] Eugene would have included this without comment in the "some visits" they had received. The Emperor, as we see from the next letter, paid Josephine a visit on the Monday.

No. 2.

The date of this is Tuesday, December 19th, while No. 3 is Wednesday the 20th.

_Savary_, always unpopular with the Court ladies, has now nothing but kind words for Josephine. "She quitted the Court, but the Court did not quit her; it had always loved her, for never had any one been so kind.... She never injured any one in the time of her power; she protected even her enemies"--such as Fouche at this juncture, and Lucien earlier. "During her stay at Malmaison, the highroad from Paris to this chateau was only one long procession, in spite of the bad weather; every one considered it a duty to present themselves at least once a week." Later, Marie Louise became jealous of this, and poor Josephine had to go to the chateau of Navarre, and finally to leave France.

_Queen of Naples._--For some reason Napoleon had not wanted this sister at Paris this winter, and had written her to this effect from Schoenbrunn on October 15th. "If you were not so far off, and the season so advanced, I would have asked Murat to spend two months in Paris. But you cannot be there before December, which is a horrible season, especially for a Neapolitan."[83] But sister Caroline, "with the head of a Cromwell on the shoulders of a pretty woman," was not easy to lead; and her husband had in consequence to bear the full weight of the Emperor's displeasure. Murat's finances were in disorder, and Napoleon wrote Champagny on December 30th to tell Murat plainly that if the borrowed money was not returned to France, it would be taken by main force.[84]

_The hunt._--In pouring rain, in the forest of St. Germain.

No. 4.

Thursday, December 21st, is the date.

_The weather is very damp._--Making Malmaison as unhealthy as its very name warranted, and rendering more difficult the task which Madame de Remusat had set herself of resting Josephine mentally by tiring her physically. This typical toady--Napoleon's Eavesdropper Extraordinary--had arrived at Malmaison on December 18th. She writes on the Friday (December 22nd), beseeching her husband to advise the Emperor to moderate the tone of his letters, especially this one (Thursday, December 21st), which had upset Josephine frightfully. Surely a more harmless letter was never penned. But it is the Remusat all over; she lives in a chronic atmosphere of suspicion that all her letters are read by the Emperor, and therefore, like Stevenson's nursery rhymes, they are always written with "one eye on the grown-up person"[85]--on the grown-up person _par excellence_ of France and the century. The opening of letters by the government was doubtless a blemish, which, however, Napoleon tried to neutralise by entrusting the Post Office to his wife's relative, Lavalette, a man whose ever-kind heart prevented this necessary espionage degenerating into unnecessary interference with individual rights.

No. 5.

Date probably Sunday, December 24th.

_King of Bavaria._--Eugene had gone to Meaux to meet his father-in-law, who had put off the "dog's humour" which he had shown since the 16th.

No. 6.

Josephine had gone by special invitation to dine at the little Trianon with Napoleon on Christmas Day, and Madame d'Avrillon says she had a very happy day there. "On her return she told me how kind the Emperor had been to her, that he had kept her all the evening, saying the kindest things to her." Aubenas says, "The repast was eaten in silence and gloom," but does not give his authority. Eugene, moreover, confirms Madame d'Avrillon in his letter to his wife of December 26th: "My dear Auguste, the Emperor came on Sunday to see the Empress.

Yesterday she went to Trianon to see him, and stayed to dinner. The Emperor was very kind and amiable to her, and she seemed to be much better. Everything points to the Empress being more happy in her new position, and we also." On this Christmas Day Napoleon had his last meal with Josephine.

No. 7.

_Tuileries._--His return from Trianon to this, his official residence, made the divorce more apparent to every one.

No. 8.

_A house vacant in Paris._--This seems a hint for Josephine. She wishes to come to Paris, to the elysee, and to try a little diplomacy of her own in favour of the Austrian match, and she sends secretly to Madame de Metternich--whose husband was absent. Eugene more officially is approaching Prince Schwartzenberg, the amba.s.sador. Josephine, like Talleyrand, wished to heal the schism with Rome by an Austrian alliance; while Cambaceres, foreseeing a war with the power not allied by marriage, would have preferred the Russian match.

No. 9.

Thursday, January 4th.

_Hortense._--Louis had tried to obtain a divorce. Cambaceres was ordered on December 22nd to summon a family council (_New Letters of Napoleon I._, No. 234); but the wish of the King was refused (verbally, says Louis in his _Historical Doc.u.ments of Holland_), whereupon he refused to agree to Josephine's divorce, but had to give way, and was present at what he calls the farewell festival given by the city of Paris to the Empress Josephine on January 1st. The ecclesiastical divorce was p.r.o.nounced on January 12th.

No. 10.

January 5th. He duly visits Josephine the next day.

No. 11.

January 7th is the date.

_What charms your society has._--Her repertoire of small talk and scandal. He had also lost in her his Agenda, his Journal of Paris.

Still the visits are growing rarer. This long kind letter was doubtless intended to be specially so, for two days later the clergy of Paris p.r.o.nounced the annulment of her marriage. This was far worse than the p.r.o.nouncement by the Senate in December, as it meant to her that she and Napoleon had never been properly married at all. The Emperor, who hated divorces, and especially _divorcees_, had found great difficulty in breaking down the barriers he had helped to build, for which purpose _he_ had to be subordinated to his own Senate, _the Pope_ to his own bishops. Seven of them allowed the annulment of the marriage of 1804 on account of (1) its secrecy, (2) the insufficiency of consent of the contracting parties, and (3) the absence of the local parish priest at the ceremony. The last reason was merely a technical one; but with respect to the first two it is only fair to admit that Napoleon had undoubtedly, and perhaps for the only time in his life, been completely "rushed," _i.e._ by the Pope and Josephine.