Queen Hortense: A Life Picture of the Napoleonic Era Part 15

Josephine was, in reality, sadder than usual, for the royal family of the Bourbons had on this day caused her heart to bleed anew. Josephine had read an article in the journals, in which, in the most contemptuous and cruel terms, attention was called to the fact that the eldest son of the Queen of Holland had been interred in the Cathedral of Notre-Dame, and that the Minister Blacas had now issued an order to have the coffin removed from its resting-place, and buried in an ordinary grave-yard.

Hortense, who had read this article, had hastened to Paris, in order that she might herself superintend the removal of the body of her beloved child from Notre-Dame, and its reinterment in the Church of St. Leu.

While she informed the emperor of this new insult, Josephine's whole figure trembled, and a deathly pallor overspread her countenance.

Josephine lacked the strength to conceal her sufferings to-day, for the first time; Hortense was not present, and she might therefore, for once, allow herself the sad consolation of showing, bereft of its smile and its paint, the pale countenance, which death had already lightly touched.

"Your majesty is ill!" exclaimed the emperor, in dismay.

With a smile, which brought tears to Alexander's eyes, Josephine pointed to her breast, and whispered: "Sire, I have received the death-wound here!"

Yes, she was right; she had received a fatal wound, and her heart was bleeding to death.

Terrified by Josephine's condition, the emperor hurried to Paris, and sent his own physician to inquire after her condition. When the latter returned, he informed the emperor that Josephine was dangerously ill, and that he did not believe her recovery possible.

He was right, and Alexander saw the empress no more! Hortense and Eugene, her two children, held a sad watch at their mother's bedside throughout the night. The best physicians were called in, but these only confirmed what the Russian physician had said--the condition of the empress was hopeless. Her heart was broken! With strong hands, she had held it together as long as her children's welfare seemed to require.

Now that Hortense's future was also a.s.sured--now that she knew that her grandchildren would, at least, not be compelled to wander about the world as exiled beggars--now Josephine withdrew her hands from her heart, and suffered it to bleed to death.

On the 29th of May, 1814, the Empress Josephine died, of an illness which had apparently lasted but two days. Hortense had not heard her mother's death-sigh; when she re-entered the room with Eugene, after her mother had received the sacrament from Abbe Bertrand--when she saw her mother, with outstretched arms, vainly endeavoring to speak to them--Hortense fainted away at her mother's bedside, and the empress breathed her last sigh in Eugene's arms.

The intelligence of the death of the empress affected Paris profoundly.

It seemed as though all the city had forgotten for a day that Napoleon was no longer the ruler of France, and that the Bourbons had reascended the throne of their fathers. All Paris mourned; for the hearts of the French people had not forgotten this woman, who had so long been their benefactress, and of whom each could relate the most touching traits of goodness, of generosity, and of gentleness.

Josephine, now that she was dead, was once more enthroned as empress in the hearts of the French people and thousands poured into Malmaison, to pay their last homage to their deceased empress. Even the Faubourg St.

Germain mourned with the Parisians; these haughty and insolent royalists, who had returned with the Bourbons, may, perhaps, for a moment, have recalled the benefits which the empress had shown them, when, as the mighty Empress of France, she employed the half of her allowance for the relief of the emigrants. They had returned without thinking of the thanks they owed their forgotten benefactress; now that she was dead, they no longer withheld the tribute of their admiration.

"Alas!" exclaimed Madame Ducayla, the king's friend; "alas! how interesting a lady was this Josephine! What tact, what goodness! How well she knew how to do everything! And she shows her tact and good taste to the last, in dying just at this moment!"

Immediately after the death of the empress, Eugene had conducted the queen from the death-chamber, almost violently, and had taken her and her children to St. Leu. The body of the empress was interred in Malmaison, and followed to the grave by her two grandchildren only.

Grief had made both of her children severely ill, and the little princes were followed, not by her relatives, but by the Russian General Von Sacken, who represented the emperor, and by the equipages of all those kings and princes who had helped to hurl the Bonapartes from their thrones and restore the Bourbons.

The emperor pa.s.sed his last night in France, before leaving for England, at St. Leu; and, on taking leave of Eugene and Hortense, who, at the earnest solicitation of her brother, had left her room for the first time since her mother's death, for the purpose of seeing the emperor, he a.s.sured them of his unchangeable friendship and attachment.

As he knew that, among those whom he strongly suspected, Pozzo di Borgo[29], the amba.s.sador he left behind him in Paris, was an irreconcilable enemy of Napoleon and his family, he had a.s.signed to duty at the emba.s.sy as _attache_, a gentleman selected for this purpose by Louise de Cochelet--M. de Boutiakin--and it was through him that the emperor directed that the letters and wishes of the queen and of her faithful young lady friend should be received and answered.

[Footnote 29: Upon receiving the intelligence of the death of the emperor at St. Helena, Pozzo di Borgo said: "I did not kill him, but I threw the last handful of earth on his coffin, in order that he might never rise again."]

A few days later Eugene also left St. Leu and his sister Hortense, to return, with the King of Bavaria, to his new home in Germany. It was not until his departure that Hortense felt to its full extent the gloomy loneliness and dreary solitude by which she was surrounded. She had not wept over the downfall of all the grandeur and magnificence by which she had formerly been surrounded; she had not complained when the whirlwind of fate hurled to the ground the crowns of all her relations, but had bowed her head to the storm with resignation, and smiled at the loss of her royal t.i.tles; but now, as she stood in her parlor at St. Leu and saw none about her but her two little boys and the few ladies who still remained faithful--now, Hortense wept.

"Alas!" she cried, bursting into tears, as she extended her hand to Louise de Cochelet, "alas! my courage is at an end! My mother is dead, my brother has left me, the Emperor Alexander will soon forget his promised protection, and I alone must contend, with my two children, against all the annoyances and enmities to which the name I bear will subject me! I fear I shall live to regret that I allowed myself to be persuaded to abandon my former plan. Will the love I bear my country recompense me for the torments which are in store for me?"

The queen's dark forebodings were to be only too fully realized. In the great and solemn hour of misfortune, Fate lifts to mortal vision the veil that conceals the future, and, like the Trojan prophetess, we see the impending evil, powerless to avert it.

BOOK III.

_THE RESTORATION._

CHAPTER I.

THE RETURN OF THE BOURBONS.

On the 12th of April, Count d'Artois, whom Louis XVIII. had sent in advance, and invested with the dignity of a lieutenant-general of France, made his triumphal entry into Paris. At the gates of the city, he was received by the newly-formed provisional government, Talleyrand at its head; and here it was that Count d'Artois replied to the address of that gentleman in the following words: "Nothing is changed in France, except that from to-day there will be one Frenchman more in the land."

The people received him with cold curiosity, and the allied troops formed a double line for his pa.s.sage to the Tuileries, at which the ladies of the Faubourg St. Germain, adorned with white lilies and white c.o.c.kades, received him with glowing enthusiasm. Countess Ducayla, afterward the well-known friend of Louis XVIII., had been one of the most active instruments of the restoration, and she it was who had first unfolded again in France the banner of the Bourbons--the white flag. A few days before the entrance of the prince, she had gone, with a number of her royalist friends, into the streets, in order to excite the people to some enthusiasm for the legitimate dynasty. But the people and the army had still preserved their old love for the emperor, and the proclamation of Prince Schwartzenberg, read by Bauvineux in the streets, was listened to in silence. True, the royalists cried, _"Vive le roi!"_ at the end of this reading, but the people remained indifferent and mute.

This sombre silence alarmed Countess Ducayla; it seemed to indicate a secret discontent with the new order of things. She felt that this sullen people must be inflamed, and made to speak with energy and distinctness. To awaken enthusiasm by means of words and proclamations had been attempted in vain; now the countess determined to attempt to arouse them by another means--to astonish them by the display of a striking symbol--to show them the white flag of the Bourbons!

She gave her companion, Count de Montmorency, her handkerchief, that he might wave it aloft, fastening it to the end of his cane, in order that it should be more conspicuous. This handkerchief of Countess Ducayla, fastened to the cane of a Montmorency, was the first royalist banner that fluttered over Paris, after a banishment of twenty years. The Parisians looked at this banner with a kind of reverence and shuddering wonder; they did not greet it with applause; they still remained silent, but they nevertheless followed the procession of royalists, who marched to the boulevards, shouting, _"Vive le roi!"_ They took no part in their joyful demonstration, but neither did they attempt to prevent it.

This demonstration of the royalists, and particularly of the royalist ladies, transcended the bounds of propriety, and of their own dignity.

In their fanaticism for the legitimate dynasty, they gave the allies a reception, which almost a.s.sumed the character of a declaration of love, on the part of the fair ladies of the Faubourg St. Germain, for all the soldiers and officers of the allied army. In a strange confusion of ideas, these warriors, who had certainly entered France as enemies, seemed to these fair ones to be a part of the beloved Bourbons; and they loved them with almost the same love they lavished upon the royal family itself. During several days they were, in their hearts, the daughters of all countries except their own!

Louis XVIII. was himself much displeased with this enthusiasm of the ladies of the Faubourg St. Germain, and openly avowed to Countess Ducayla his dissatisfaction with the ridiculous and contemptible behavior of these ladies at that time. He was even of the opinion that it was calculated to injure his cause, as the nation had then not yet p.r.o.nounced in his favor.

"They should," said he, "have received the allies with a dignified reserve, without frivolous demonstrations, and without this inconsiderate devotion. Such a demeanor would have inspired them with respect for the nation, whereas they now leave Paris with the conviction that we are still--as we were fifty years ago--the most giddy and frivolous people of Europe. You particularly, ladies--you have compromised yourselves in an incomprehensible manner. The allies seemed to you so lovable _en ma.s.se,_ that you gave yourselves the appearance of also loving them _en detail_; and this has occasioned reports concerning you which do little honor to French ladies!"

"But, _mon Dieu!_" replied Countess Ducayla to her royal friend, "we wished to show them a well-earned grat.i.tude for the benefit they conferred in restoring to us your majesty; we wished to offer them freely what we, tired of resistance, were at last compelled to accord to the tyrants of the republic and the sabre-heroes of the empire! None of us can regret what we have done for our good friends the allies!"

Nevertheless, that which the ladies "had done for their good friends the allies" was the occasion of many annoying family scenes, and the husbands who did not fully partic.i.p.ate in the enthusiasm of their wives were of the opinion that they had good cause to complain of their inordinate zeal.

Count G----, among others, had married a young and beautiful lady a few days before the restoration. She, in her youthful innocence, was entirely indifferent to political matters; but her step-father, her step-mother, and her husband, Count G----, were royalists of the first water.

On the day of the entrance of the allies into Paris, step-father, step-mother, and husband, in common with all good legitimists, hurried forward to welcome "their good friends," and each of them returned to their dwelling with a stranger--the husband with an Englishman, the step-mother with a Prussian, and the step-father with an Austrian. The three endeavored to outdo each other in the attentions which they showered upon the guests they had the good fortune to possess. The little countess alone remained indifferent, in the midst of the joy of her family. They reproached her with having too little attachment for the good cause, and exhorted her to do everything in her power to entertain the gallant men who had restored to France her king.

The husband requested the Englishman to instruct the young countess in riding; the marquise begged the Prussian to escort her daughter to the ball, and teach her the German waltz; and, finally, the marquis, who had discovered a fine taste for paintings in the Austrian, appealed to this gentleman to conduct the young wife through the picture-galleries.

In short, every opportunity was given the young countess to commit a folly, or rather three follies, for she did not like to give the preference to any one of the three strangers. She was young, and inexperienced in matters of this kind. Her triple intrigue was, therefore, soon discovered, and betrayed to her family; and now husband, step-father, and step-mother, were exasperated. This exceeded even the demands of their royalism; and they showered reproaches on the head of the young wife.

"It is not my fault!" cried she, sobbing. "I only did what you commanded. You ordered me to do everything in my power to entertain these gentlemen, and I could therefore refuse them nothing."

But there were also cases in which the advances of the enthusiastic ladies of the Faubourg St. Germain were repelled. Even the high-born and haughty Marquise M---- was to experience this mortification. She stepped before the sullen, sombre veterans of the Old Guard of the empire, who had just allowed Count d'Artois to pa.s.s before their ranks in dead silence. She ardently appealed to their love for the dynasty of their fathers, and, in her enthusiasm for royalism, went so far as to offer herself as a reward to him who should first cry _"Vive le roi!"_ But the faithful soldiers of the emperor stood unmoved by this generous offer, and the silence remained unbroken by the lowest cry!

The princes who stood at the head of the allied armies were, of course, the objects of the most ardent enthusiasm of the royalist ladies; but it was, above all, with them that they found the least encouragement. The Emperor of Austria was too much occupied with the future of his daughter and grandson, and the King of Prussia was too grave and severe, to find any pleasure in the coquetries of women. The young Emperor Alexander of Russia, therefore, became the chief object of their enthusiasm and love.

But their enthusiasm also met with a poor recompense in this quarter.

Almost distrustfully, the czar held himself aloof from the ladies of the Faubourg St. Germain; and yet it was they who had decided the fate of France with him, and induced him to give his vote for the Bourbons; for until then it had remained undetermined whom the allies should call to the throne of France.

In his inmost heart, the Emperor of Russia desired to see the universally-beloved Viceroy of Italy, Eugene Beauharnais, elevated to the vacant throne. The letter with which Eugene replied to the proposition of the allies, tendering him the ducal crown of Genoa, had won for Josephine's son the love and esteem of the czar for all time.

Alexander had himself written to Eugene, and proffered him, in the name of the allies, a duchy of Genoa, if he would desert Napoleon, and take sides with the allies. Eugene Beauharnais had replied to him in the following letter:

"SIRE,--I have received your majesty's propositions. They are undoubtedly very favorable, but they are powerless to change my resolution. I must have known how to express my thoughts but poorly when I had the honor of seeing you, if your majesty can believe that I could sully my honor for any, even the highest, reward. Neither the prospect of possessing the crown of the duchy of Genoa, nor that of the kingdom of Italy, can induce me to become a traitor. The example of the King of Naples cannot mislead me; I will rather be a plain soldier than a traitorous prince.

"The emperor, you say, has done me injustice; I have forgotten it; I only remember his benefits. I owe all to him--my rank, my t.i.tles, and my fortune, and I owe to him that which I prefer to all else--that which your indulgence calls my renown. I shall, therefore, serve him as long as I live; my person is his, as is my heart. May my sword break in my hands, if it could ever turn against the emperor, or against France! I trust that my well-grounded refusal will at least secure to me the respect of your imperial majesty. I am, etc."

The Emperor of Austria, on the other hand, ardently desired to secure the throne of France to his grandson, the King of Rome, under the regency of the Empress Marie Louise; but he did not venture to make this demand openly and without reservation of his allies, whose action he had promised to approve and ratify. The appeals of the Duke of Cadore, who had been sent to her father by Marie Louise from Blois, urging the emperor to look after her interests, and to demand of the allies that they should a.s.sure the crown to herself and son, were, therefore, fruitless.