The Court of the Empress Josephine Part 13

"No; by taking my colors you would ruin your reputation; it is a great thing to be opposed to me, and it is a fine part to play; you can continue it for two years without inconvenience, but then you will have to leave Europe."

"Much sooner, and I shall prepare to leave for America. Only the entreaties of my mother and Josephine have kept me here so long."

"I don't ask that of you; my propositions are not too unreasonable to be thought over; ponder them, with your wife, and let me know your answer within eighteen days."

At the end of the interview the two brothers parted with emotion. Lucien flung himself into his brother's arms, saying that doubtless he was embracing him for the last time, and left for Rome with his head high. He was obliged to yield only on one point, by sending to Paris his oldest daughter, Charlotte Marie, the issue of his first marriage with Christine Boyer. (She was born at Saint Maximini in February, 1795, and in 1815 married Prince Marius Gabrielli.) But the young girl had all her father's independent spirit. In Paris she was entrusted to the care of her grandmother, Madame Let.i.tia, and she spoke so severely about the Imperial family in her letters, which were opened, that she was sent back to her father in Rome almost as soon as she had arrived in France. As for the idea of an annulment of the marriage or a divorce, Lucien absolutely rejected it. He preferred his wife to all the wealth, all the honors, all the kingdoms of the world. Jerome had yielded. Lucien did not yield.

Napoleon left Mantua after his interview with his brother, and returned to Milan, where, December 17, he witnessed some naval sports in the arena of the circus, which was turned into a lake. There too, December 20, in the grand, hall of the palace, he adopted Prince Eugene as his son and declared him his heir to the crown of Italy. At the same time he issued these two decrees: "Wishing to give especial proof of our satisfaction with our good city of Venice, we have conferred, and by these letters- patent here present do confer, upon our dearly loved son, Prince Eugene Napoleon, our heir presumptive to the crown of Italy, the t.i.tle of Prince of Venice." "Wishing to give especial proof of our satisfaction with our good city of Bologna, we have conferred, and by these letters-patent here present do confer, the t.i.tle of Princess of Bologna upon our dearly loved granddaughter, the Princess Josephine." Napoleon left Milan, December 24, to return to Paris by way of Turin.

The letters which the Emperor wrote to his wife during this trip were very empty and unimportant, wholly unlike those he had written in 1798. Only a few need be quoted. "Milan, November, 25, 1807. I have been here, my dear, two days. I am glad I did not bring you. You would have suffered terribly crossing Mount Cenis where a storm detained me twenty-four hours. I found Eugene very well; I am much pleased with him. The Princess is ill; I went to see her at Monza: she has had a miscarriage, but is improving. Good by, my dear." "Venice, November 30, 1807. I have your letter of the 22d. I have been for two days in Venice. The weather is very bad, which has not prevented my going through the lagoons to see the different forts. I am glad to see that you are amusing yourself in Paris. The King of Bavaria and his family and the Princess Elisa are also here. After December 2, which I shall spend here, I shall be on my way back, and glad to see you.

Good by, my dear." "Udine, December 11, 1807. I have your letter of the 3d, and I see you are much pleased with the Jardin des Plantes. I am at the furthest limit of my journey; it is possible that I shall be soon in Paris where I shall be glad to see you again. The weather has not been very cold here, but very wet. I have taken advantage of the last fine weather of the season, for I suppose that at Christmas the winter will be here. Good by, my dear. Ever Yours."

During the Emperor's absence the triumphal return of the Guard brought a slight diversion to the Empress's anxiety and distress of mind. Though unhappy as a wife, she was at least happy as a Frenchwoman. She, alas! had a presentiment of divorce, but not of the invasion and dismemberment of France. At noon, November 25, the twelve thousand old soldiers of the Guard, bronzed, covered with glorious wounds, some already gray, made their solemn entry into Paris. An arch of triumph, broader and higher than the Porte Saint Martin, had been built at the gate of La Villette. The Prefect of the Seine and the munic.i.p.al authorities there awaited the veterans.

The prefect welcomed the brave soldiers: "Heroes of Jena, of Eylan, of Friediand," he said, "conquerors of peace, immortal thanks are due you, for the country you have conquered! Your own country will ever remember your triumphs; your names will be handed down to the remotest posterity on bronze and marble, and the story of your exploits, firing the courage of our latest descendants, will be recalled, and you, by the example you have set, will still protect this vast Empire which, you have so gloriously defended with your valor... Hail! war-like eagles, symbols of the power of our magnanimous Emperor; carry over all the earth, with his great name, the glory of the French name, and may the crowns with which the city of Paris has been allowed to decorate you be everywhere a proof at once august and formidable of the union of monarch, people, and army!"

Marshal Bessieres, who was in, command, replied: "The most perfect harmony will always exist between the populace of this great city and the soldiers of the Imperial guard, and if their eagles should march again, recalling their oath to defend, them to the death, they would remember that the wreaths adorning them redouble the obligation." After these two speeches the standard bearer left the ranks and bent down the flags on which the magistrates placed golden crowns bearing this inscription: "The city of Paris to the Grand Army." Then the troops marched past in the following order: the fusiliers, the riflemen, grenadiers, the light cavalry, the Mamelukes, dragoons, the horse grenadiers, and the picked body of gens des armes. While they pa.s.sed beneath the arch of triumph, a large band and chorus performed a cantata, with words by Arnault and music by Mehul.

Pa.s.sing through the dense crowds that lined the way, the guard came to the Tuileries, pa.s.sing beneath the arch of the Carrousel, where the eagles were set down. Then it entered the palace garden, leaving its arms there, and proceeded to the Champs Elysees, where a banquet for twelve thousand men was laid. The tables were arranged under tents on each side of the Champs Elysees, along their whole extent, from the Place de la Concorde to the gate de l'Etoile. The tent of the staff was in the middle, half-way up. Marshal Bessieres proposed a toast to the city of Paris, and the Prefect of the Seine one to the Emperor and King, and another to the Grand Army.

The next day there were three performances in every theatre. The pit, the orchestra, and princ.i.p.al rows of boxes and galleries were reserved for the Imperial Guard. The opera gave _The Triumph of Trajan_. The Francais gave _Gaston and Bayard_. "That historical play," said the _Moniteur_, "which presents so n.o.ble and true a picture of French honor, of warlike victories, of chivalric enthusiasm,--never did this tragedy have spectators better fitted to appreciate it." In the minor theatres various plays on the events of the day were given. The performance at the opera was magnificent; the _Moniteur_ described it with its usual lyrical enthusiasm: "This picked band of braves, who, in their swift conquests, in their distant marches, have seen such, diverse climates, visited so many sh.o.r.es, and in so few months have seen the springs and the mouths of so many rivers, know also the banks of the Tiber; hence in the scenery they at ones recognized Rome; in the triumphal march, in the eager throng, in the vast populace, bursting through the ranks of the Roman soldiers, and flinging themselves beneath the hoofs of their horses, they saw the touching picture of the reception they had met the day before. Their emotion baffles description. The Imperial Guard gazing at Trajan's triumph was itself an admirable spectacle." The opera was but a series of ingenious allusions to Napoleon's glory. Trajan was represented as burning, with his own hand, papers containing the secret of a conspiracy, recalling Napoleon's throwing into the fire the letters by which, he could have rained M. Hatzfeld; and when the Roman Emperor appeared in his chariot, drawn by four white horses, it was not Trajan who was applauded, but Napoleon.

December 14, at the Military School, Marshal Bessieres, to celebrate the victories of the Grand Army, and to thank the city of Paris for its reception of the Imperial Guard, gave a grand entertainment which the Empress honored with her presence. The Invalides was brilliantly illuminated and connected with the Military School by a long row of lights. In the middle of the Champ de Mars was a vast hemisphere, on which was a pedestal holding a colossal statue of the Emperor, surrounded by allegoric figures. The trophies set aside for each one of the Grand Army were marked with the corps number. The Imperial Guard was under arms, and formed an interesting part of the spectators, and of the spectacle as well. Bengal fires lit up the warlike scene. The heights across the Seine were also ablaze with lights. The Empress arrived at the Military School at about eight in the evening. The entertainment began with a ballet performed by dancers from the opera. Then there were fireworks. The Champ de Mars was one sea of flame, and the Imperial Guard fired blank cartridges for half an hour. Then there was a grand ball with a fine supper; after which the dances continued till morning.

This worldly and military entertainment, at which the Empress queen appeared in all her glory, may be regarded as the crowning point of her splendors. And here, at the end of 1807, we close this study. We have left to narrate in a final volume only the last seven years of Josephine's life. We have already recounted nearly the whole career of this attractive woman, of this justly famous sovereign. We have described her infancy in Martinique, in her modest, patriarchal home, where she was born, June 23, 1763. We have admired her as a young girl, loving flowers, music, and nature, beneath the clear sky of the Antilles, amid banana and orange trees, tropical flowers, and birds of paradise, where the fortune-telling negress said to her: "You will be a queen." We have seen her in France, marrying, December 13, 1779, the young and brilliant Viscount Alexandre de Beauharnais, by whom she had one son, the future Viceroy of Italy, and one daughter, the future Queen of Holland. We have seen her going through that period of illusions, so well called the Golden Age of the Revolution, receiving in her drawing-room in the rue de l'Universite the flower of the liberal n.o.bility and leaders of the Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly, then suddenly pa.s.sing from the Golden to the Iron Age, shuddering at the dangers to which war, and above all the Terror exposed her husband, the general in chief of the Army of the Rhine, the leader of the democracy, rewarded for his patriotism and his devotion to the Republic by the scaffold. She herself, during her husband's captivity, was imprisoned in the Carmes April, 1794; for one hundred and eight days of inexpressible anguish and torment, she occupied in this dungeon the Room of the Swords as it was called, because the walls still bore traces of the three swords which the men of September had leaned against them after the ma.s.sacre of the one hundred and twenty priests who were in the prison. Beauharnais, the man of the old regime, who had embraced the new ideas with so much ardor, this grand lord who got himself treated like a _sans-culotte_ was guillotined four days before Robespierre, whose death would have saved him. His young widow left prison, reduced to extreme want, and took refuge with her father-in-law, at Fontainebleau; then she made her appearance in the motley society which, first showed itself in the drawing-room of Madame Tallien, then at the Luxembourg under Barras. Rivalling Madame Tallien and Madame Recamier in popularity, she smiled through her tears, like Andromache in Homer. Her means becoming greater, thanks to the support of men in authority, she bought in the rue Chantereine, afterwards rue de la Victoire, a little house belonging to Talma, the tragedian. There she received with her customary courtesy the few survivors of French aristocracy who said behind well-closed doors: "Let us talk about the old court; let us take a turn at Versailles."

Bonaparte, commander of the Army of the Interior, after the 13th Vendemiaire, when he saved the expiring Convention, had just ordered the disarmament of the sections and the delivery of all arms found in private houses, when a boy of fourteen called upon him to ask to have back the sword of his father, who had commanded the armies of the Republic. This boy was Eugene de Beauharnais, afterwards Viceroy of Italy. Bonaparte, touched by this action, received him graciously. The next day Madame de Beauharnais called upon him to thank him. He was much struck by her charms and proposed to her; she accepted him and they were married March 9, 1796.

The Viscountess of Beauharnais became Citizeness Bonaparte. No sooner married, than the young husband, who was only twenty-six, tore himself from her arms and started for the army of Italy. Then Napoleon's love for Josephine was much greater than hers for him. It was he who was jealous, he who wrote burning letters; he it was who was all enthusiasm, ardor, and ablaze with pa.s.sion. It was only with reluctance that Josephine decided to leave Paris, where she was happy, but in Italy she found a real royalty.

At Milan she took possession of the Serbelloni Palace, where she did the honors most admirably and received the homage of the proud aristocracy of Milan. She followed her husband to the war, for he could not bear to be separated from her, and one day when, beset with dangers, she was crying, he exclaimed: "Wurmser shall pay dearly for the tears he causes you."

After Arcole, Madame Bonaparte resembled a sovereign. She singularly aided her husband to play the double part which was soon to carry him to the highest rank. When it was a question of repelling royalism, the young conqueror relied on men like Augereau; when it was necessary to attract men of the old regime, Josephine was the bond of union between him and the French or Italian aristocracy. On her return to Paris, June 2, 1798, she shared her husband's glories. The little house in the rue Chantereine became more famous than the grandest palaces.

Bonaparte left for Egypt, embarking at Toulon, May 19, 1798, after taking tender leave of Josephine. During her husband's absence, she bought the estate of Malmaison, an unknown spot which soon became famous. She skilfully defended Bonaparte's interests with the Directory, and in her drawing-room met celebrities of every kind. But malicious persons soon sent to Egypt hostile rumors, and her impetuous husband, wild with jealous wrath, spoke of nothing but separation and divorce. He reached Paris unexpectedly, October 16, 1799, and not finding his wife there, started off to meet her on a different road from hers, wild with jealousy. His brothers, Josephine's enemies, deceived him, and at first he refused to see her again; but, softened by the supplications of Eugene and Hortense de Beauharnais, he pardoned his wife and opened his door to her; she defended herself, and he let himself be convinced, so that, instead of a divorce, there was a complete reconciliation. Josephine was of use to her husband in the preparations for the 18th Brumaire; she helped him to lull the vigilance of the Republicans and to rise to the highest rank.

Citizeness Bonaparte had become the wife of the First Consul. Like the ladies of the old regime, she was addressed as Madame until she should be called Empress, or Your Majesty. She was at the head of the Consular Court, rich in youth, glory, and hope. At the Tuileries she took possession of the apartments of Marie Antoinette. At Malmaison she enjoyed the pleasures of the country. The hero of Marengo looked upon her as his good angel, his good genius. Their happiness was interrupted by the infernal machine, but this gloomy incident was soon forgotten. Under Josephine's guidance Parisian society soon resumed its former brilliancy.

Monarchical customs reappeared. The Concordat effected a reconciliation of the church with the government, and the wife of the First Consul, surrounded by a real court, heard a _Te Deum_ in the rood-loft of Notre Dame. At heart she was a Royalist by her memories and her feelings, although she was made by fate an Empress. The crown, so far from tempting her, filled her with fear. She yearned to descend as her husband yearned to rise. The proclamation of the Consulate for life, the prelude of the Empire, filled her with gloom and apprehension, Neither the pomp of Saint Cloud, nor the triumphal trip in Belgium. robbed her of her wise and modest ideas. She much preferred Malmaison to any splendid palace, and looked back with regret at the time when she was simply Citizeness Bonaparte. Grandeur, so far from turning her head, only made her less ambitious, She gave her husband excellent advice, which, unfortunately, he did not follow. Had he listened to her, he would not have had the Duke of Enghien killed, he would have been modest in good fortune, and would have remained the first citizen of a great Republic.

Crowned at Notre Dame by the hands of Napoleon, Josephine played a sovereign's part with as much ease as if she had been born on the steps of the throne. The greatest names of the old regime figured in her house. She adorned magnificent festivities by her presence. In Italy, whither she accompanied her husband, she received as Queen the same homage she had received as Empress. Yet, amid all this splendor, she was not happy. The terrible wars in which Napoleon engaged filled her with anxiety. At Stra.s.sburg, during the Austerlitz campaign, at Mayence during that of Jena and that of Poland, she was a victim of the greatest distress of mind and nervous terror. Then, too, her husband's infidelities filled her with despair. Towards the end of 1807 the spectre of divorce arose before her.

The loss of a crown would be a trifling matter, but the sight of another woman reigning as lawful wife over Napoleon's heart was a thought to which she could not reconcile herself. From that moment she knew no peace or happiness. She was like a convicted criminal awaiting sentence at any moment, and she had to hide her terrible grief from every one. She always imagined that in the homage paid her by force of habit, there was something false and ironical. She thought of herself only as disgraced, betrayed, repudiated. All that was left of her crown was its mark on her brow. Few peasant women in their huts were ever as thoroughly unhappy as was this sovereign in her palace.

We have seen Josephine in her springtime, in her summer; it remains for us to describe only the autumn of this wonderful and melancholy career. This last study will be profoundly sad. "In the season which despoils nature,"

said Madame Swetchine, "there is no breeze, no puff of air so light that it fails to detach the leaf from the tree that bore it. In the autumn of the heart there is no movement that does not carry away a happiness or a hope." The great afflictions of Josephine's later years were the divorce, the invasion, and the long agony. Driven from the Tuileries forever, she took refuge at Malmaison one rainy, cold, December night, recalling, doubtless, the starlit evenings when the conqueror of Italy sought calm and happiness in that favorite spot. And after draining the cup of bitterness, the deserted wife exclaimed: "It sometimes seems to me as if I were dead and there was nothing left of me except a sort of vague power of feeling that I no longer exist." She could truly say with Queen Margaret of Navarre: "I have borne more than my share of the weariness which is the common lot of man." A still harder trial awaited her. Napoleon was unhappy, and she was forbidden to comfort him! He was exiled, and she was forbidden to follow him! The Empire she had seen so magnificent she was to see conquered, invaded, dismembered. No one was to mourn the woes of her country more than she. She was to die of grief, and when, May 29, 1814, she had breathed her last after uttering in her death agony these three words which sum up the anguish of her soul: "Napoleon! Elba! Marie Louise!" Mademoiselle Avrillon, the First Lady of her Bedchamber, was to say, "I have seen the Empress Josephine's sleeplessness and her terrible dreams. I have known her to pa.s.s whole days buried in the gloomiest thought. I know what I have seen and heard, and I am sure that grief killed her!" Was there ever a life of greater vicissitudes? It was a career full of smiles and tears, presenting every contrast of light and shade, of joy and grief, reproducing all the splendor and all the misery that can be crowded into human existence! It was a career, as fascinating as it was strange, which could only have been seen in those pathetic and disturbed epochs, when one surprise follows another, and the actors are perhaps even more astonished than the spectators at the shifting scenes and the incidents of the drama, in which events always take an unexpected turn, when men and things suffer shocks unknown to previous generations, and when history reads like the wildest romance.