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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Empress Josephine, by Louise Muhlbach
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Empress Josephine
+
+Author: Louise Muhlbach
+
+Translator: W. Binet
+
+
+Release Date: July, 2003 [Etext# 4226]
+This file was first posted on December 8, 2001
+Last Updated: October 14, 2016
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE EMPRESS JOSEPHINE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE EMPRESS JOSEPHINE
+
+AN HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE DAYS OF NAPOLEON
+
+By Louise Muhlbach
+
+Author Of: Daughter Of An Empress, Marie Antoinette, Joseph II and His
+Court, Frederick The Great and His Family, Berlin And Sans-Souci, Etc.
+
+
+Translated from the German by Rev. W. Binet, A M.
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+BOOK I.
+
+THE VISCOUNTESS BEAUHARNAIS.
+
+       I.  Introduction
+      II.  The Young Maid
+     III.  The Betrothal
+      IV.  The Young Bonaparte
+       V.  The Unhappy Marriage
+      VI.  Trianon and Marie Antoinette
+     VII.  Lieutenant Napoleon Bonaparte
+    VIII.  A Page from History
+      IX.  Josephine’s Return
+       X.  The Days of the Revolution
+      XI.  The 10th of August and the Letter of Napoleon Bonaparte
+     XII.  The Execution of the Queen
+    XIII.  The Arrest
+     XIV.  In Prison
+      XV.  Deliverance
+
+BOOK II.
+
+THE WIFE OF GENERAL BONAPARTE.
+
+     XVI.  Bonaparte in Corsica
+    XVII.  Napoleon Bonaparte before Toulon
+   XVIII.  Bonaparte’s Imprisonment
+     XIX.  The 13th Vendemiaire
+      XX.  The Widow Josephine Beauharnais
+     XXI.  The New Paris
+    XXII.  The First Interview
+   XXIII.  Marriage
+    XXIV.  Bonaparte’s Love-Letters
+     XXV.  Josephine in Italy
+    XXVI.  Bonaparte and Josephine in Milan
+   XXVII.  The Court of Montebello
+  XXVIII.  The Peace of Campo Formio
+    XXIX.  Days of Triumph
+
+BOOK III.
+
+THE EMPRESS AND THE DIVORCED.
+
+     XXX.  Plombieres and Malmaison
+    XXXI.  The First Faithlessness
+   XXXII.  The 18th Brumaire
+  XXXIII.  The Tuileries
+   XXXIV.  The Infernal Machine
+    XXXV.  The Cashmeres and the Letter
+   XXXVI.  Malmaison
+  XXXVII.  Flowers and Music
+ XXXVIII.  Prelude to the Empire
+   XXXIX.  The Pope in Paris
+      XL.  The Coronation
+     XLI.  Days of Happiness
+    XLII.  Divorce
+   XLIII.  The Divorced
+    XLIV.  Death
+
+
+
+
+BOOK I. THE VISCOUNTESS BEAUHARNAIS.
+
+
+CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION.
+
+
+“I win the battles, Josephine wins me the hearts.” These words of
+Napoleon are the most beautiful epitaph of the Empress Josephine, the
+much-loved, the much-regretted, and the much-slandered one. Even while
+Napoleon won battles, while with lofty pride he placed his foot on the
+neck of the conquered, took away from princes their crowns, and from
+nations their liberty--while Europe trembling bowed before him, and
+despite her admiration cursed him--while hatred heaved up the hearts of
+all nations against him--even then none could refuse admiration to the
+tender, lovely woman who, with the gracious smile of goodness, walked
+at his side; none could refuse love to the wife of the conqueror, whose
+countenance of brass received light and lustre from the beautiful eyes
+of Josephine, as Memnon’s statue from the rays of the sun.
+
+She was not beautiful according to those high and exalted rules of
+beauty which we admire in the statues of the gods of old, but her whole
+being was surrounded with such a charm, goodness, and grace, that the
+rules of beauty were forgotten. Josephine’s beauty was believed in,
+and the heart was ravished by the spell of such a gracious, womanly
+apparition. Goethe’s words, which the Princess Eleonore utters in
+reference to Antonio, were not applicable to Josephine:
+
+“All the gods have with one consent brought gifts to his cradle, but,
+alas! the Graces have remained absent, and where the gifts of these
+lovely ones fail, though much was given and much received, yet on such a
+bosom is no resting-place.”
+
+No, the Graces were not absent from the cradle of Josephine; they, more
+than all the other gods, had brought their gifts to Josephine. They had
+encircled her with the girdle of gracefulness, they had imparted to her
+look, to her smile, to her figure, attraction and charm, and given
+her that beauty which is greater and more enduring than that of youth,
+namely loveliness, that only real beauty. Josephine possessed the beauty
+of grace, and this quality remained when youth, happiness, and grandeur,
+had deserted her. This beauty of grace struck the Emperor Alexander as
+he came to Malmaison to salute the dethroned empress. He had entered
+Paris in triumph, and laid his foot on the neck of him whom he once had
+called his friend, yet before the divorced wife of the dethroned emperor
+the czar, full of admiration and respect, bowed his head and made her
+homage as to a queen; for, though she was dethroned, on her head shone
+the crown in imperishable beauty and glory, the crown of loveliness, of
+faithfulness, and of womanhood.
+
+She was not witty in the special sense of a so-called “witty woman.”
+ She composed no verses, she wrote no philosophical dissertations, she
+painted not, she was no politician, she was no practising artist, but
+she possessed the deep and fine intuition of all that which is beautiful
+and noble: she was the protectress of the arts and sciences. She knew
+that disciples were not wanting to the arts, but that often a Maecenas
+is needed. She left it to her cousin, the Countess Fanny Beauharnais, to
+be called an artist; hers was a loftier destiny, and she fulfilled that
+destiny through her whole life--she was a Maecenas, the protectress of
+the arts and sciences.
+
+As Hamlet says of his father, “He was a man, take him for all in all, I
+shall not look upon his like again;” thus Josephine’s fame consists not
+that she was a princess, an empress anointed by the hands of the pope
+himself, but that she was a noble and true wife, loving yet more than
+she was loved, entirely given up in unswerving loyalty to him who
+rejected her; languishing for very sorrow on account of his misfortune,
+and dying for very grief as vanished away the star of his happiness.
+Thousands in her place, rejected, forgotten, cast away, as she
+was--thousands would have rejoiced in the righteousness of the fate
+which struck and threw in the dust the man who, for earthly grandeur,
+had abandoned the beloved one and disowned her love. Josephine wept over
+him, lamented over his calamities, and had but a wish to be allowed to
+share them with him. Josephine died broken-hearted--the misfortunes of
+her beloved, who no more loved her, the misfortunes of Napoleon, broke
+her heart.
+
+She was a woman, “take her for all in all”--a noble, a beautiful woman,
+a loving woman, and such as belongs to no peculiar class, to no peculiar
+nation, to no peculiar special history; she belongs to the world, to
+humanity, to universal history. In the presence of such an apparition
+all national hatred is silent, all differences of political opinion are
+silent. Like a great, powerful drama drawn from the universal history of
+man and represented before our eyes, so her life passes before us; and
+surprised, wondering, we gaze on, indifferent whether the heroine of
+such a tragedy be Creole, French, or to what nation she may owe her
+birth. She belongs to the world, to history, and if we Germans have no
+love for the Emperor Napoleon, the tyrant of the world, the Caesar of
+brass who bowed the people down into the dust, and trod under foot
+their rights and liberties--if we Germans have no love for the conqueror
+Napoleon, because he won so many battles from us, yet this does not
+debar us from loving Josephine, who during her lifetime won hearts to
+Napoleon, and whose beautiful death for love’s sake filled with tears
+the eyes of those whose lips knew but words of hatred and cursing
+against the emperor.
+
+To write the life of Josephine does not mean to write the life of a
+Frenchwoman, the life of the wife of the man who brought over Germany
+so much adversity, shame, and suffering, but it means to write a woman’s
+life which, as a fated tragedy or like a mighty picture, rises before
+our vision. It is to unfold a portion of the world’s history before our
+eyes--and the world’s history is there for our common instruction and
+progress, for our enlightenment and encouragement.
+
+I am not afraid, therefore, of being accused of lacking patriotism,
+because I have undertaken to write the life of a woman who is not a
+German, who was the wife of Germany’s greatest enemy and oppressor. It
+is, indeed, a portion of the universal drama which is unfolded in the
+life of this woman, and amid so much blood, so much dishonor, so many
+tears, so much humiliation, so much pride, arrogance, and treachery, of
+this renowned period of the world’s history, shines forth the figure
+of Josephine as the bright star of womanhood, of love, of
+faithfulness--stars need no birthright, no nationality, they belong to
+all lands and nations.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II. THE YOUNG MAID.
+
+
+On the 23d of July, 1763, to the Chevalier Tascher de la Pagerie,
+ex-lieutenant of the royal troops, a resident of the insignificant
+spot of the Trois Islets, on the island of Martinique, was borne by his
+young, rich, and beautiful wife, a first child.
+
+The loving parents, the relatives and friends had longed for this child,
+but now that it was come, they bade it welcome without joy, and even
+over the brow of the young father hung the shadow of a cloud as he
+received the intelligence of the birth of his child. For it was a girl,
+and not the wished-for boy who was to be the inheritor of the valuable
+family-plantation, and the inheritor also of the ancient and respectable
+name of Tascher de la Pagerie.
+
+It was, however, useless to murmur against fate. What was irrevocable
+had to be accepted, and welcome made to the daughter, who, instead of
+the expected heir, would now lay claim to the rights of primogeniture.
+As an inheritance reserved for him who had not come, the daughter
+received the name which had been destined to the son. For two hundred
+years the name of Joseph had been given to the eldest son of the family
+of Tascher de la Pagerie, but now that there was none to whom the
+Chevalier, Ex-lieutenant Joseph de la Pagerie could leave his name as a
+legacy, the family had to be satisfied to give the name to his daughter,
+and consequently she received at baptism the name of Joseph Marie Rosa.
+
+There was, however, one being who gladly and willingly forgave the fault
+of her birth, and who consecrated to the daughter the same love she
+would have offered to the son. This being was the mother of the little
+Joseph Marie Rosa.
+
+“Contrary to all our wishes,” writes she to her husband’s sister, the
+beautiful Madame Renaudin, in Paris--“contrary to all our wishes, God
+has given me a daughter. My joy is not therefore diminished, for I look
+upon my child as a new bond which binds me still closer to your brother,
+my dear husband, and to you. Why should I have such a poor and meagre
+opinion of the female sex, that a daughter should not be welcomed by
+me? I am acquainted with many persons of our sex who concentrate in
+themselves as many good qualities as one would only with difficulty find
+in the other sex. Maternal love already blinds me and fosters in me the
+hope that my daughter may be like them, and if even I cannot enjoy
+this satisfaction, yet I am thankful to my child that by means of her
+existence I am gathering so much happiness.”
+
+Indeed, extraordinary joy, since the birth of the child, reigned in the
+house of M. Tascher de la Pagerie; joy reigned all over Martinique,
+for the long war between France and England was ended, and a few months
+before the birth of little Joseph Marie Rosa, the peace which secured
+to France the possession of her maritime colonies had been signed.
+Martinique, so often attacked, bombarded, besieged by English
+ships--Martinique was again the unconditional property of France, and
+on the birthday of the little Marie Joseph Rosa the French fleet entered
+into the harbor of Port Royal, landed a French garrison for the island,
+and brought a new governor in the person of the Marquis de Fenelon, the
+nephew of the famous Bishop de Fenelon.
+
+Joyously and quietly passed away the first years of the life of the
+little Joseph, or little Josephine, as her kind parents called her. Only
+once, in the third year of her life, was Josephine’s infancy troubled
+by a fright. A terrible hurricane, such as is known to exist only in the
+Antilles, broke over Martinique. The historians of that period know not
+how to depict the awful and calamitous events of this hurricane, which,
+at the same time, seemed to shake the whole earth with its convulsions.
+In Naples, in Sicily, in the Molucca Islands, volcanoes broke out in
+fearful eruptions; for three days the earth trembled in Constantinople.
+But it was over Martinique that the hurricane raged in the most
+appalling manner. In less than four hours the howling northwest’ wind,
+accompanied by forked lightning, rolling thunder, heavy water-spouts,
+and tremendous earth-tremblings, had hurled down into fragments all the
+houses of the town, all the sugar-plantations, and all the negro cabins.
+Here and there the earth opened, flames darted out and spread round
+about a horrible vapor of sulphur, which suffocated human beings. Trees
+were uprooted, and the sugar and coffee plantations destroyed. The
+sea roared and upheaved, sprang from its bounds, and shivered as mere
+glass-work barks and even some of the larger ships lying in the harbor
+of Port Royal. Five hundred men perished, and a much larger number
+were severely wounded. Distress and poverty were the result of this
+astounding convulsion of nature.
+
+The estate of M. Tascher de la Pagerie was made desolate. His residence,
+his sugar-plantations, were but a heap of ruins and rubbish, and as
+a gift of Providence he looked upon the one refuge left him in his
+sugar-refinery, which was miraculously spared by the hurricane. There M.
+Tascher saved himself, with Josephine and her younger sister, and there
+his wife bore him a third child. But Heaven even now did not fulfil
+the long-cherished wishes of the parents, for it was to a daughter that
+Madame de la Pagerie gave birth. The parents were, however, weary with
+murmuring against fate, which accomplished not their wish; and so to
+prove to fate that this daughter was welcome, they named the child born
+amid the horrors of this terrific hurricane, Desiree, the Desired.
+
+Peaceful, happy years followed;--peaceful and happy, in the midst of the
+family, passed on the years of Josephine’s infancy. She had every thing
+which could be procured. Beloved by her parents, by her two sisters,
+worshipped by her servants and slaves, she lived amid a beautiful,
+splendid, and sublime nature, in the very midst of wealth and affluence.
+Her father, casting away all ambition, was satisfied to cultivate his
+wide and immense domains, and to remain among his one hundred and fifty
+slaves as master and ruler, to whom unconditional and cheerful obedience
+was rendered. Her mother sought and wished for no other happiness than
+the peaceful quietude of the household joys. Her husband, her children,
+her home, constituted the world where she breathed, in which alone
+centred her thoughts, her wishes, and her hopes. To mould her daughters
+into good housekeepers and wives, and if possible to secure for them
+in due time, by means of a brilliant and advantageous marriage, a happy
+future--this was the only ambition of this gentle and virtuous woman.
+
+Above all things, it was necessary to procure to the daughters an
+education suited to the claims of high social position, and which would
+fit her daughters to act on the world’s stage the part which their
+birth, their wealth, and beauty, reserved for them. The tender mother
+consented to part with her darling, with her eldest daughter; and
+Josephine, not yet twelve years old, was brought, for completing her
+education, to the convent of our Lady de la Providence in Port Royal.
+There she learned all which in the Antilles was considered necessary
+for the education of a lady of rank; there she obtained that light,
+superficial, rudimentary instruction, which was then thought sufficient
+for a woman; there she was taught to write her mother tongue with a
+certain fluency and without too many blunders; there she was instructed
+in the use of the needle, to execute artistic pieces of embroidery;
+there she learned something in arithmetic and in music; yea, so as to
+give to the wealthy daughter of M. Tascher de la Pagerie a full and
+complete education, the pious sisters of the convent consented that
+twice a week a dancing-master should come to the convent to give to
+Josephine lessons in dancing, the favorite amusement of the Creoles.
+[Footnote: “Histoire de l’Imperatrice Josephine,” par Joseph Aubenas.
+vol. i., p. 36.]
+
+These dancing-lessons completed the education of Josephine, and,
+barely fifteen years old, she returned to her parents and sisters as an
+accomplished young lady, to perform the honors of the house alongside
+of her mother, to learn from her to preside with grace and ease over
+a large mansion, and above all things to be a good mistress, a
+benefactress, and a protectress to her slaves. Under her mother’s
+guidance, Josephine visited the negro cabins to minister unto the sick,
+to bring comfort and nourishment to the old and to the weak, to pray
+with the dying, to take under her loving guardianship the new-born babes
+of the negro women, to instruct in the catechism the grown-up children,
+to excite them to industry, to encourage them through kindness and
+friendliness, to protect them, and to be a mediator when for some
+offence they were condemned to severe punishment.
+
+It was a wonderfully peaceful and beautiful life that of the young
+Josephine, amid a bountiful nature, in that soft, sunny clime which
+clothed her whole being with that tender, pleasing grace, that lovely
+quietude, that yielding complacency, and at the same time with that
+fiery, passionate nature of the Creoles. Ordinarily dressed only with
+the “gaule,” a wide, loose garment of white muslin, falling loosely
+about the waist, where no belt gathered its folds, the beautiful head
+wrapped up in the many-colored madras, which around the temples was
+folded up into graceful knots holding together her chestnut-brown
+hair--in this dress Josephine would swing for hours in her hammock
+made of homespun silk and ornamented with borders of feathers from the
+variegated iridescent birds of Cayenne.
+
+Round about her were her young female slaves, watching with their
+brilliant dark eyes their young mistress, ever ready to read every
+wish upon that dreamy, smiling countenance, and by their swarthy tinge
+heightening the soft, tender whiteness of her own complexion.
+
+Then, wearied with the stillness and with her dreams, Josephine would
+spring up from the hammock, dart into the house with all the lightness
+of the gazelle to enliven the family with her own joyousness, her merry
+pleasantry, and accompanied by her guitar to sing unto them with her
+lovely youthful voice the songs of the Creoles. As the glowing sun
+was at its setting, away she hastened with her slaves into the garden,
+directed their labors, and with her own hands tended her own cherished
+flowers, which commingled together in admirable admixture from all
+climes under the genial skies of the Antilles. In the evening, the
+family was gathered together in the light of the moon, which imparted
+to the nights the brightness of day and streamed upon them her soft
+blue rays, upon the fragrant terrace, in front of the house, where the
+faithful slaves carefully watched the little group close one to another
+and guarded their masters from the approaches of poisonous serpents,
+that insidious progeny of the night.
+
+On Sundays after Josephine had religiously and faithfully listened to an
+early mass, she gladly attended in the evening the “barraboula” of the
+negroes, dancing their African dances in the glare of torches and to the
+monotonous sound of the tam-tam.
+
+On festivals, she assisted her mother to put all things in order, and
+to preside at the great banquets given to relatives and friends, who
+afterward were visited in their turn, and then the slaves carried their
+masters in hammocks, or else, what was far more acceptable, the young
+maidens mounted small Spanish horses, full of courage and daring,
+and whose firm, quick step made a ride to Porto Rico simply a rushing
+gallop.
+
+Amidst this dreamy, sunny, joyous existence of the young maiden gleamed
+one day, as a lightning-flash, a prophetic ray of Josephine’s future
+greatness.
+
+This happened one afternoon as she was walking alone and thoughtful
+through the plantation. A group of negresses, in the centre of which was
+an old and unknown woman, attracted her attention. Josephine approached.
+It was an old negro woman from a neighboring plantation, and she
+was telling the fortune of the young negro women of M. Tascher de la
+Pagerie. No sooner did the old woman cast her eyes on Josephine than
+she seemed to shrink into one mass, whilst an expression of horror and
+wonder stole over her face. She vehemently seized the hand of the young
+maiden, examined it carefully, and then lifted up her large, astonished
+eyes with a searching expression to the face of Josephine.
+
+“You must see something very wonderful in my face and in my hand?”
+ inquired Josephine, laughing.
+
+“Yes, something very wonderful,” repeated the negro woman, still
+intently staring at her.
+
+“Is it a good or a bad fortune which awaits me?”
+
+The old prophetess slowly shook her head.
+
+“Who can tell,” said she, gravely, “what is a good or a bad fortune
+for human beings? In your hand I see evil, but in your face
+happiness--great, lofty happiness.”
+
+“Well,” cried out Josephine, laughing, “you are cautious, and your
+oracle is not very clear.”
+
+The old woman lifted up her eyes to heaven with a strange expression.
+
+“I dare not,” said she, “express myself more clearly.”
+
+“Speak on, whatever the result!” exclaimed Josephine, whose curiosity
+was excited by the very diffidence of the fortune-teller. “Say what you
+see in my future life. I wish it, I order you to do so.”
+
+“Well, if you order it, I must obey,” said she, with solemnity. “Listen,
+then. I read in your countenance that you are called to high destinies.
+You will soon be married. But your marriage will not be a happy one. You
+will soon be a young widow, and then--”
+
+“Well, and then?” asked Josephine, passionately, as the old woman
+hesitated and remained silent.
+
+“Well, and then you will be Queen of France--more than a queen!” shouted
+the prophetess, with a loud voice. “You will live glorious, brilliant
+days, but at the last misfortune will come and carry you to your grave
+in a day of rebellion.”
+
+Afraid of the pictures which her prophetic vision had contemplated in
+the future, the old hag forced her way through the circle of negro women
+around, and rushed away through the field as fast as her feet could bear
+her on.
+
+Josephine, laughing, turned to her astonished women, who had followed
+with their eyes the flight of the prophetess, but who now directed their
+dark eyes with an expression of awe and bewilderment to their young
+mistress, of whom the fortune-teller had said she would one day be Queen
+of France. Josephine endeavored to overthrow the faith of her swarthy
+servants in the fortune-teller, and, by pointing to the ridiculous
+prophecy in reference to herself, and which predicted an impossible
+future, she tried to prove to them what a folly it was to rely on the
+words of those who made a profession of foretelling the future.
+
+But against her will the prophetic words of the old woman echoed in the
+heart of the young maiden. She could not return home to her family
+and talk, laugh, and dance, as she had been accustomed to do with her
+sisters. Followed by her slaves, she went into her garden and sank in
+a hammock, hung amid the gigantic leaves of a palm-tree, and, while the
+negro girls danced and sang round her, the young maid was dreaming about
+the future, and her beating heart asked if it were not possible that the
+prophecy of the negro woman might one day be realized.
+
+She, the daughter of M. Tascher de la Pagerie--she a future “Queen
+of France! More than a queen!” Oh, it was mere folly to think on such
+things, and to busy herself with the ludicrous prophecies of the old
+woman.
+
+And Josephine laughed at her own credulity, and the slaves sang and
+danced, and against her will the thoughts of the young maiden returned
+to the prophecy again and again.
+
+What the old fortune-teller had said, was it so very ridiculous, so
+impossible? Could not that prophecy become a reality? Was it, then, the
+first time that a daughter of the Island of Martinique had been exalted
+to grandeur and lofty honors?
+
+Josephine asked these questions to herself, as dreaming and thoughtful
+she swung in the hammock and gazed toward the horizon upon the sea,
+which, in its blue depths and brilliancy, hung there as if heaven had
+lowered itself down to earth. That sea was a pathway to France, and
+already once before had its waves wafted a daughter of the Island of
+Martinique to a throne.
+
+Thus ran the thoughts of Josephine. She thought of Franchise d’Aubigne,
+and of her wondrous story. A poor wanderer, fleeing from France to
+search for happiness beyond the seas in a foreign land, M. d’Aubigne
+had landed in Martinique with his young wife. There Franchise was born,
+there passed away the first years of her life. Once, when a child of
+three years old, she was bitten by a venomous serpent, and her life was
+saved only through the devotion of her black nurse, who sucked alike
+poison and death from the wound. Another time, as she was on a voyage
+with her parents, the vessel was in danger of being captured by a
+corsair; and a third time a powerful whirlwind carried into the waves of
+the sea the little Francoise, who was walking on the shore, but a large
+black dog, her companion and favorite, sprang after her, seized her
+dress with its teeth, and carried the child back to the shore, where
+sobbing for joy her mother received her.
+
+Fate had reserved great things for Francoise, and with all manner of
+horrors it submitted the child to probation to make of it a strong and
+noble woman.
+
+A severer blow came when her father, losing in gambling all the property
+which he had gathered in Martinique, died suddenly, leaving his family
+in poverty and want. Another blow more severe still came when on her
+return to France, whither her mother was going with her, she lost this
+last prop of her youth and childhood. Madame d’Aubigne died, and her
+body was committed to the waves; and, as a destitute orphan, Francoise
+d’Aubigne touched the soil of France.
+
+And what became of the poor orphan of the Creole of Martinique?
+
+She became the wife of a king, and nearly a queen! For Francoise
+d’Aubigne, the widow of Scarron, the governess of the children of Louis
+XIV, had caused the mother of these children, the beautiful Madame de
+Montespan, to be cast away, and she became the friend, the beloved,
+the secret spouse of the king: and the lofty Louis, who could say of
+himself, “L’etat c’est moi” he, with all the power of his will, with all
+his authority, was the humble vassal of Franchise d’Aubigne, Marquise de
+Maintenon!
+
+This was the first princess whom Martinique had given to the world!
+
+Was it not possible that the prophecies of the old negro woman could be
+realized? could not once more a daughter of the Island of Martinique be
+exalted into a princess?
+
+“You will be Queen of France!” the negress had said.
+
+No, it was mere folly to believe in such a ridiculous prophecy. The
+throne of France was now occupied. Alongside of her consort, the
+good, the well-beloved Louis XVI, the young and beautiful Queen Marie
+Antoinette, the daughter of the mighty Empress Maria Theresa, sat on the
+throne. She was young, she was beloved throughout France, and she had
+already, to the great delight of her husband and of his people, borne an
+heir to the throne of France.
+
+The throne of the lilies stood then on firm and sure foundations,
+and the prophecies of the old negress belonged only to the kingdom of
+fables. [Footnote: This prophecy, nearly as related above, was told by
+the Empress Josephine herself to her maids of honor in the castle of
+Navarra.--See “Memoires sur l’Imperatrice Josephine, la Ville, la Cour
+et les Salons de Paris sous l’Empire, par Madame Georgette Ducrest.”]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III. THE BETROTHAL.
+
+
+Six months had barely elapsed since Josephine’s return from the convent
+when the family Tascher de la Pagerie received from their relatives in
+Paris letters which were to be of the greatest importance for the whole
+family.
+
+The beautiful Madame de Renaudin, sister of M. Tascher de la Pagerie,
+had settled in Paris after having rid herself of an unhappy marriage
+with a man, coarse and addicted to gambling, and after having, through
+a legal separation, reobtained her freedom. She lived there in the
+closest, intimacy with the Marquis de Beauharnais, who, for many
+years, at an earlier period, had resided as governor on the Island of
+Martinique, and there had bound himself to the whole family of Tascher
+de la Pagerie by the ties of a cordial friendship. His wife, during her
+residence in Martinique, had been the most tender friend of Madame de
+Renaudin, and when the marchioness bore a second son to her husband,
+Madame de Renaudin had stood as godmother, and promised to love and
+protect the child of her friend as if she were his mother.
+
+Chance brought on the opportunity of accomplishing this promise and of
+fulfilling the oath made to God before the altar. The Marchioness de
+Beauharnais returned to France in the year 1763 with her husband and
+her two sons, but died there a short time after; and Madame de Renaudin,
+true to her oath, hastened to replace the natural guardian, the mother.
+
+Perhaps she had but followed the dictates of her heart, perhaps against
+her will a sentiment of joy had passed over her at the death of the
+poor marchioness, for, by this death, one at least of the two obstacles
+intervening between Madame de Renaudin and the Marquis de Beauharnais
+had been removed. Both married, both of the Catholic religion, death
+alone could make their hands free, and confer upon them the right of
+joining hands together for all their days.
+
+They loved one another, they had ceased long ago to make a secret of it;
+they avowed it to each other and to their dependants, for their brave,
+loyal, and noble hearts would not stoop to falsehood and deception, and
+they had the courage to acknowledge what their sentiments were.
+
+Death had then made free the hand of the Marquis de Beauharnais, but
+life held yet in bondage the hand of the Baroness de Renaudin.
+
+As long as her husband lived, she could not, though legally divorced
+from him, conscientiously think of a second marriage.
+
+But she possessed the courage and the loyalty of true love; she had seen
+and experienced enough of the world to despise its judgments, and with
+cheerful determination do what in her conscience she held to be good and
+right.
+
+Before God’s altar she had promised to the deceased Marchioness de
+Beauharnais to be a mother to her son; she loved the child and she loved
+the father of this child, and, as she was now free, as she had no duties
+which might restrain her footsteps, she followed the voice of her heart
+and braved public opinion.
+
+She had purchased not far from Paris, at Noisy-le-Grand, a country
+residence, and there passed the summer with the Marquis de Beauharnais,
+with his two sons and their tutor.
+
+The marquis owned a superb hotel in Paris, in Thevenot Street, and
+there, during winter, he resided with his two sons and the Baroness de
+Renaudin, the mother, the guardian of his two orphan sons, the friend,
+the confidante, the companion of his quiet life, entirely devoted to
+study, to the arts, to the sciences, and to household pleasures.
+
+Thus the years passed away; the two sons of the Marquis de Beauharnais
+had grown up under the care of their maternal friend: they had
+been through their collegiate course, had been one year students at
+Heidelberg, had returned, had been through the drill of soldier and
+officer, a mere form which custom then imposed on young men of high
+birth; and the younger son Alexander, the godchild of the Baroness de
+Renaudin, had scarcely passed his sixteenth year when he received his
+commission as sub-lieutenant.
+
+A year afterward his elder brother married one of his cousins, the
+Countess Claude Beauharnais, and the sight of this youthful happy love
+excited envy in the heart of the young lieutenant of seventeen years,
+and awoke in him a longing for a similar blessedness. Freely and without
+reserve he communicated his wishes to his father, begged of him to
+choose him a wife, and promised to take readily and cheerfully as such
+her whom his father or his sponsor, his second mother, would select for
+him.
+
+A few months later reached Martinique the letters which, as already
+said, were to be of the utmost importance to the family of M. Tascher de
+la Pagerie.
+
+The first of these letters was from the Marquis de Beauharnais, and
+addressed to the parents of Josephine, but with a considerate and
+delicate tact the marquis had not written the letter with his own hand,
+but had dictated it to his son Alexander, so as to prove to the family
+of his friend De la Pagerie that the son was in perfect unison of
+sentiment with the father, and that the latter only expressed what the
+son desired and approved.
+
+“I cannot express,” wrote the marquis, “how much satisfaction I have
+in being at this moment able to give you a proof of the inclination and
+friendship which I always have had for you. As you will perceive, this
+satisfaction is not merely on the surface.
+
+“My two sons,” continues he, “are now enjoying an annual income of forty
+thousand livres. It is in your power to give me your daughter to enjoy
+this income with my son, the chevalier. The esteem and affection he
+feels for Madame de Renaudin makes him passionately desire to be united
+with her niece. I can assure you that I am only gratifying his wishes
+when I pray you to give me for him your second daughter, whose age
+corresponds at best with his. I sincerely wish that your eldest daughter
+were a few years younger, for then she would certainly have had the
+preference, the more so that she is described to me under the most
+advantageous colors. But I confess my son, who is but seventeen and a
+half years old, thinks that a young lady of fifteen is too near him
+in age. This is one of those cases in which reasonable and reflecting
+parents will accommodate themselves to circumstances.”
+
+M. de Beauharnais adds that his son possesses all the qualities
+necessary to make a woman happy. At the same time he declares that, as
+regards his future daughter-in-law, he has no claims to a dowry, for
+his son already possesses an income of forty thousand livres from his
+mother’s legacy, and that after his father’s death he will inherit
+besides an annual income of twenty-five thousand livres. He then
+entreats M. de la Pagerie, as soon as practicable, to send his daughter
+to France, and, if possible, to bring her himself. The marquis then
+addresses himself directly to the wife of M. de la Pagerie, and repeats
+to her in nearly the same words his proposal, and endeavors also to
+excuse to her the choice of the second daughter.
+
+“The most flattering things have been told me,” writes he, “of your
+eldest daughter, but my son finds her, with her fifteen years, too old
+for him. My son is worthy of becoming your son-in-law; Nature has gifted
+him with good and fine parts, and his income is sufficiently large to
+share it with a wife qualified to render him happy. Such a one I trust
+to find in your second daughter; may she resemble you, madame, and I can
+no longer doubt of my son’s happiness! I feel extremely happy to see my
+long-cherished wishes satisfied! I can not express to you how great
+will be my joy to see riveted forever, by means of this union of our two
+families, the inclination and the friendship which have already so long
+chained us together. I trust that Mademoiselle de la Pagerie will not
+refuse her consent. Allow me to embrace her and already to greet her as
+my own beloved daughter.” [Footnote: Aubenas, “Histoire de l’Imperatrice
+Josephine,” vol. i., p. 78.]
+
+To this letter was addressed a note from Madame de Renaudin to her
+brother and to her sister-in-law. She openly acknowledges that she
+it was who desired this union, and who had brought the matter to its
+present stage, and she endeavors to meet the objection that it would
+appear strange for a young lady to undertake a long journey in search of
+a future husband, whilst it would be more expedient that the bridegroom
+should make the journey to his bride, to receive her at the hands of
+her parents, and bring her with him to a new home. But this bride of
+thirteen years must first be trained for her future destiny; she is
+not to be in the house of her future father-in-law, but in the house of
+Madame de Renaudin, her aunt, and she is there to receive the completion
+of her education and that higher culture which her parents, even with
+all the necessary means, could not give her in Martinique.
+
+“We are of opinion,” she writes, “that the young people must see one
+another and please each other, before we bring this matter to a close,
+for they are both too dear to us to desire to coerce them against their
+inclination. Your daughter will find in me a true and kind mother, and
+I am sure that she will find the happiness of her future life in the
+contemplated union, for the chevalier is well qualified to make a wife
+happy. All that I can say of him exhausts by no means the praise he
+deserves. He has a pleasant countenance, an excellent figure, wit,
+genius, knowledge, and, what is more than this, all the noble qualities
+of heart and soul are united in him, and he must consequently be loved
+by all who know him.”
+
+Meanwhile, before these letters reached Martinique, chance had already
+otherwise decided the fate of Mary, the second daughter of M. de la
+Pagerie. With one sentence it had destroyed all the family schemes.
+After three days of confinement to a bed of sickness, Mary had died of a
+violent fever, and when the letter, in which the Marquis de Beauharnais
+asked for her hand, reached her father, she had been buried three
+months.
+
+M. Tascher de la Pagerie hastened to announce her death to the Marquis
+and to Madame de Renaudin; and to prove to them how much he also had at
+heart a union of the two families, he offered to his son, the chevalier,
+the hand of his third daughter, the little twelve-year-old Desiree.
+Undoubtedly it would have been more gratifying to him if the choice of
+the marquis had fallen upon his eldest daughter, and he makes this known
+very clearly in his answer to Madame de Renaudin.
+
+“My eldest daughter,” writes he, “Josephine, who is lately returned from
+the convent, and who has often desired me to take her to France, will,
+believe me, be somewhat sensitive at the preference given to her younger
+sisters. Josephine has a beautiful head, beautiful eyes and arms, and
+also a wonderful talent for music. During her stay in the convent I
+procured her a guitar-teacher; she has made the best of the instruction
+received, and she has a glorious voice. It is a pity she has not the
+opportunity of completing her education in France; and were I to have my
+wish, I would bring her to you instead of my other two daughters.”
+
+Meanwhile the Marquis de Beauharnais, as well as his son, found that the
+youngest daughter of M. de la Pagerie was too young for their impatient
+desire to bring to a favorable issue these important family concerns,
+and that the eldest of the daughters ought to have the preference. The
+son of the marquis especially pronounced himself decidedly in favor of
+Josephine, and father and son, as well as Madame de Renaudin, turned
+imploringly to M. Tascher de la Pagerie, praying that he would bring
+them his eldest daughter.
+
+Now, for the first time, when the choice of the Beauharnais family
+had irrevocably fallen upon Josephine, now for the first time was this
+proposed marriage made known to her, and her consent asked.
+
+Josephine, whose young heart was like a blank sheet of paper, whereon
+love had as yet written no name, Josephine rejoiced at the prospect
+of accomplishing the secret wish of her maiden heart, to go to
+Paris--Paris, the burning desire of all Creoles--Paris, after all the
+narratives and descriptions, which had been made to Josephine, rose
+before the soul of the young maiden as a golden morning dream, a
+charming fairy world; and full of gratitude she already loved her future
+husband, to whom she owed the happiness of becoming acquainted with the
+city of wonders and pleasures.
+
+She therefore acquiesced without regret at being separated from
+her parents and from her sister, from the home of all her sweet
+reminiscences of youth, and joyously, in August of the year 1779, she
+embarked on board the vessel which was to take her with her father to
+France.
+
+In the middle of October they both, after a stormy passage, touched
+the soil of France and announced to their relatives their safe arrival.
+Alexandre de Beauharnais, full of impatient longings to see his unknown
+young bride, hastened to Brest to bid her and her father welcome, and to
+accompany them to Paris.
+
+The first meeting of the young couple decided their future. Josephine,
+smiling and blushing, avowed to her father that she was willing and
+ready to marry M. Alexandre Beanharnais; and, the very first day of
+his meeting with Josephine, Alexandre wrote to his father that he was
+enchanted with the choice made, and that he felt strongly convinced
+that, at the side of so charming, sweet, and lovely a being, he would
+lead a happy and sunny life.
+
+The love of the children had crowned all the schemes of the parents,
+and on the 13th of December, 1779, the marriage of the young couple took
+place. On the 13th of December, Mademoiselle Josephine Tascher de la
+Pagerie became the Viscountess Josephine de Beauharnais.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV. THE YOUNG BONAPARTE.
+
+
+In the same year, 1779, in which Josephine de la Pagerie for the first
+time left Martinique for Prance, a vessel which had sailed from Corsica
+brought to France a boy who, not only as regards Josephine’s life,
+but also as regards all Europe, yea, the whole world, was to be of the
+highest importance, and who, with the iron step of fatality, was to
+walk through Europe to subvert thrones and raise up new ones; to tread
+nations in the dust, and to lift up others from the dust; to break
+tyranny’s chains in which people languished, so as to impose upon them
+his own chains.
+
+This boy was Napoleon Bonaparte, the son of the advocate Charles de
+Bonaparte.
+
+From Ajaccio, the principal town of Corsica, came the ship which brought
+to France the boy, his father, and his two elder brothers. In Ajaccio
+the family of the Bonapartes had been settled for more than a century.
+There also Napoleon had passed the first years of his life, in the
+family circle with his parents, and in joyous amusements with his five
+brothers and sisters.
+
+His father, Charles de Bonaparte, belonged to one of the noble families
+of Corsica, and was one of the most influential men on the island. His
+mother, Letitia Ramolina, was well known throughout the island for her
+beauty, and the only woman who could have been her rival, for she was
+her equal in beauty, youth, and grace, was her dearest friend, the
+beautiful Panonia de Comnene, afterward the mother of the Duchess
+d’Abrantes.
+
+The beautiful Letitia Ramolina was married to Charles de Bonaparte the
+same year that her friend Panonia de Comnene became the wife of M.
+de Permont, a high French official in Ajaccio. Corsica was then the
+undisputed property of the kingdom of France, and, however proud the
+Corsicans were of their island, yet they were satisfied to be called
+subjects of France, and to have their beautiful island considered as a
+province of France.
+
+Napoleon Bonaparte was the fifth child of his parents, the favorite of
+his beautiful mother Letitia, who was the life of the household, the
+ruler of the family. She governed the house, she educated the children;
+she knew, with the genuine ability of a housekeeper, of a mother, how to
+spend with careful frugality the moderate income of her husband; how
+to economize, and yet how to give to each what was needed. As to the
+father, in the hours of leisure which business, political debates, and
+amusements allowed him to give to his home and family, his children were
+an agreeable recreation, an interesting pastime; and when the children,
+carried away by the sparkling fire of youth, shouted or cried too loud,
+the father endeavored to palliate their misdemeanor, and obtain their
+pardon from their mother. Then Letitia’s eyes were fastened with a
+flaming glance upon her husband, and, imperatively bidding him leave the
+children, she would say: “Let them alone. Their education concerns you
+not. I am the one to keep the eyes upon them.”
+
+She trained them up with the severity of a father and with the
+tenderness of a mother. Inexorable against every vice of heart and
+character, she was lenient and indulgent toward petty offences which
+sprang up from the inconsiderateness and spiritedness of youth. Every
+tendency to vulgar sentiments, to mean envy or selfishness, she strove
+to uproot by galling indignation; but every thing which was great and
+lofty, all sentiments of honor, of courage, of large-heartedness, of
+generosity, of kindness, she nursed and cherished in the hearts of her
+children. It was a glorious sight to contemplate this young mother
+when with her beautiful, rosy countenance glowing with enthusiasm and
+blessedness, she stood among her children, and in fiery, expressive
+manner spoke to the listening group of the great and brave of old, of
+the deeds of a Caesar, of a Hannibal; when she spoke of Brutus, who,
+though he loved Caesar, yet, greater than Caesar, and a more exalted
+Roman in his love for the republic, sacrificed his love to the
+fatherland; or when she, with that burning glow which all Corsicans, the
+women as well as the men, cherish for their home and for the historical
+greatness of their dear island, told them of the bravery and self-denial
+even unto death with which the Corsicans for centuries had fought for
+the freedom of their island; how, faithful to the ancient sacred law of
+blood, they never let the misdeed pass unpunished; they never feared the
+foe, however powerful he might be, but revenged on him the evil which he
+had committed against sister or brother, father or mother.
+
+And when Letitia thus spoke to her children in the beautiful and
+harmonious language of her country, the eyes of the little Napoleon
+were all aflame, his childish countenance suddenly assumed a grave
+expression, and on the little body of the child was seen a man’s head,
+glowing with power, energy, and pride.
+
+These narratives of his mother, these enthusiastic stories of heroes
+of the past, which the boy, with loud-beating heart, with countenance
+blanched by mental excitement, gathered from the beautiful lips of his
+mother, were the highest pleasure of the little Napoleon, and often in
+future years has the emperor amid his glory thought of those days never
+to be forgotten, when the child’s heart and soul hung on his mother’s
+lips, and listened to her wondrous stories of heroes.
+
+These narratives of Letitia, this enthusiasm which her glowing language
+awoke in the heart of the child, this whole education which Letitia gave
+to her children, became the corner-stone of their future. As a sower,
+Letitia scattered the seed from which hero and warrior were to spring
+forth, and the grain which fell into the heart of her little Napoleon
+found a good soil, and grew and prospered, and became a laurel-tree,
+which adorned the whole family of the Bonapartes with the blooming crown
+of immortality.
+
+Great men are ever much more the sons of their mother than of the
+father, while seldom have great men seen their own greatness survive in
+their sons. This is a wonderful secret of Nature, which perhaps cannot
+be explained, but which cannot be denied.
+
+Goethe was the true son of his talented and noble mother, but he could
+leave as a legacy to his son only the fame of a name, and not his
+genius. Henry IV., the son of a noble, spiritual and large-hearted
+Jeanne de Navarre, could not leave to France, which worshipped and loved
+her king, could not leave to his people, a successor who resembled him,
+and who would inherit his sharp-sightedness, his prudence, his courage,
+and his greatness of soul. His son and successor was Louis XIII., a king
+whose misfortune it was ever to be overruled, ever to be humbled, ever
+to stand in the shade of two superior natures, which excited his envy,
+but which he was never competent to overcome; ever overshadowed by the
+past glories which his father’s fame threw upon him, overshadowed by the
+ruler and mentor of his choice, his minister, the Cardinal de Richelieu,
+who darkened his whole sad existence.
+
+Napoleon was the son of his mother, the large-hearted and high-minded
+Letitia Ramolina. But how distant was the son of the hero, who, from a
+poor second lieutenant, had forced his way to the throne of France! how
+distant the poor little Duke de Reichstadt from his great father! Even
+over the life of this son of an eminent father weighed a shadow--the
+shadow of his father’s greatness. Under this shadow which the column of
+Vendome cast from Paris to the imperial city of Vienna, which the steep
+rock of St. Helena cast even upon the castle of Schonbrunn, under this
+shadow died the Duke de Reichstadt, the unfortunate son of his eminent
+father.
+
+The little Napoleon was always a shy, reserved, quiet boy. For hours
+long he could hide in some obscure corner of the house or of the garden,
+and sit there with head bent low and eyes closed, half asleep and half
+dreaming; but when he opened his eyes, what a life in those looks! What
+animation, what exuberance in his whole being, when awaking from his
+childish dreams he mixed again with his brothers, sisters, and friends!
+
+Letitia’s words and example had penetrated the soul of the child with
+the highest emotions of honor and human dignity, and the little boy of
+seven years exhibited oftentimes the sentiments of honor, pride, and
+obstinacy of a man. Every bodily correction to which he was submitted
+made him turn pale and tremble, not from pain but for shame, filled him
+with indignation, and was apt to bring on sickness. In Corsica still
+prevailed the custom of severe discipline for children, and in all the
+classes of the school the rod was applied as a means of punishment and
+reformation. To beat one’s wife was considered in Corsica, as everywhere
+else, an unpardonable brutality; but parents as well as teachers whipped
+children to mould them into noble, refined, honorable men.
+
+The little Napoleon would not adapt himself to the blessings of this
+education, and the mere threats of the rod-switching deprived the child
+of his senses and threw him into convulsions. But though the little
+Napoleon was gloomy, monosyllabic, and quiet, yet was he from early
+childhood the favorite of all who knew him, and he already wielded over
+brothers, sisters, and companions, a wonderful influence.
+
+When a boy of four years old, Letitia sent him to a sort of play-school,
+where boys and girls amused themselves together and learned the ABC. The
+young Napoleon was soon the soul of the little company. The boys obeyed
+him, and submitted to his will; the girls trembled before him, and yet
+with a smile they pressed toward him merely to be near him and to have
+a place at his side. And the four-year child already practised a tender
+chivalry. One of his little school-companions had made an impression on
+his heart; he honored her with special favors, sat at her side during
+the lessons, and when they left school to return home, the little
+Napoleon never missed, with complete gravity of countenance, to offer
+his arm to his favorite of five years of age and to accompany her to her
+home. But the sight of this gallant, with his diminutive, compact,
+and broad figure, over which the large head, with its earnestness of
+expression, seemed so incongruous, and which moved on with so much
+gravity, while the socks fell from the naked calves over the heels--all
+this excited the merriment of the other children; and when, arm-in-arm
+with his little schoolmate, he thus moved on, the other urchins in
+great glee shouted after him: “Napoleone di mezza calzetta dall’ amore
+a Giacominetta!” (“Napoleon in socks is the lover of the little
+Giacominetta!”)
+
+The boy endured these taunts with the stoic composure of a philosopher,
+but never after did he offer his arm to the little Giacominetta, and
+never afterward did his socks hang down over his heels.
+
+When from this “mixed school” he passed into a boys’ school, the little
+Napoleon distinguished himself above all the other boys by his ambition,
+his deep jealousy, his perseverance at learning and studying, and he
+soon became the favorite of the Abbe Recco, [Footnote: Napoleon, in his
+testament, written at St. Helena, willed a fixed sum of money to this
+Professor Recco, in gratitude for the instruction given him in his
+youth.] who taught at the royal college of Ajaccio as professor. A few
+times every week the worthy professor would gather his pupils in a large
+hall, to read them lectures upon ancient history, and especially upon
+the history of Rome; and, in order to give to this hall a worthy and
+significant ornament, he had it adorned on either side with two large
+and costly banners, one of which had the initials S. P. Q. E., and
+represented the standard of ancient Rome; facing it and on the opposite
+side of the hall was the standard of Carthage.
+
+Under the shadows of these standards were ranged the seats for the
+scholars, and in the vacant centre of the large hall was the professor’s
+chair, from which the Abbe Recco dictated to his pupils the history of
+the heroic deeds of ancient Rome.
+
+The elder children sat under the larger standard, under the standard of
+Rome, and the junior boys immediately opposite, under the standard of
+Carthage; and as Napoleon Bonaparte was the youngest scholar of the
+institution, he sat near the Carthaginian standard, whilst his brother
+Joseph, his senior by five years, had his seat facing him on the Roman
+side. Though at the commencement of the lectures Napoleon’s delight had
+been great, and though he had listened with enthusiasm to the history
+of the struggles, and to the martial achievements of the ancient Romans,
+the little Napoleon soon manifested an unmistaken repugnance to attend
+these lectures. He would turn pale, as with his brother he entered the
+hall, and with head bowed low, and dark, angry countenance, took his
+seat. A few days afterward he declared to his brother Joseph, his lips
+drawn in by anguish, that he would no more attend the lectures.
+
+“And why not?” asked Joseph, astonished. “Do you take no interest in the
+Roman history? Can you not follow the lecture?”
+
+The little Napoleon darted upon his brother a look of inexpressible
+contempt. “I would be a simpleton if the history of heroes did not
+interest me,” said he, “and I understand everything the good Professor
+Recco says--I understand it so well that I often know beforehand what
+his warriors and heroes will do.”
+
+“Well, then, since you have such a lively interest in the history of the
+Romans, why will you no more follow the lectures?”
+
+“No, I will not, I cannot,” murmured Napoleon, sadly.
+
+“Tell me, at least, the reason, Napoleon,” said his brother.
+
+The boy looked straight before him, for a long time hesitating and
+undecided; then he threw up his head in a very decided manner, and gazed
+on his brother with flaming eyes.
+
+“Yes,” cried he, passionately, “I will tell you! I can no longer endure
+the shame to sit down under the standard of the conquered and humiliated
+Carthaginians. I do not deserve to be so disgraced.”
+
+“But, Napoleon,” said Joseph, laughing, “why trouble yourself about the
+standard of the old Carthaginians? One is just as well under it as under
+the Roman standard.”
+
+“Is it, then, the same to you under which standard you sit? Do you not
+consider it as a great honor to sit under the standard of the victorious
+Romans?”
+
+“I look upon the one as being without honor, and upon the other as being
+without shame,” said Joseph, smiling.
+
+“If it is so,” cried out the little Napoleon, throwing himself on his
+brother’s neck, “if it is for you no great sacrifice, then, I implore
+you to save me, to make me happy, for you can do it! Let us change
+seats; give me your place under the standard of Rome, and take my place
+instead.”
+
+Joseph declared himself ready to do so, and when the two brothers came
+next time to the lecture, Napoleon, with uplifted head and triumphant
+countenance, took his seat under the standard of victorious Rome.
+
+But soon the expression of joy faded away from his face, and his
+features were overcast, and with a restless, sad look, he repeatedly
+turned himself toward his brother Joseph, who sat facing him under the
+standard of the conquered race.
+
+Silent and sad he went home with Joseph, and when his mother questioned
+him about the cause of his sorrow, he confessed, with tears in his
+eyes, that he was a heartless egotist, that he had been unjust and cruel
+toward Joseph, that he had cheated his brother of his place of honor and
+had seated himself in it.
+
+It required the most earnest assurances of Joseph that he placed no
+value whatever on the seat; it required all the persuasiveness and
+authority of Letitia to appease the boy, and to prevail upon him to
+resume the conquered seat. [Footnote: “Memoires du Roi Joseph,” vol. i.,
+p.40.]
+
+As the course of instruction which the boys had received in Ajaccio was
+not sufficient for the times, and for the capacities of his sons, their
+father passed over to France with Joseph and Napoleon, to take advantage
+of the favorable resources for a more complete education.
+
+Napoleon saw the time of departure approach with an apparently
+indifferent mind, only his face was somewhat paler, he was still more
+monosyllabic and more reserved than before; and his eyes, full of an
+indescribable expression of tenderness and admiration, followed all the
+movements of his mother, as if to print deeply in his soul the beloved
+image, so as to take it with him beyond the seas, in all its freshness
+and beauty.
+
+He wept not as he bade her farewell; not a word of sorrow or regret
+did he speak, but he embraced his mother with impassioned fondness,
+he kissed her hands, her forehead, her large black eyes, he sank down
+before her and kissed her feet, then sprang up, and, after casting upon
+her whole figure a deep, glowing look, he rushed away to embark at once,
+without waiting for brother or father, who were yet bidding a touching
+farewell to relatives and friends.
+
+Letitia gazed after her Napoleon with glowing and wide-open eyes; she
+wept not, she complained not, but she pressed her two hands on her heart
+as if to keep it from breaking asunder, from bleeding to death; then she
+called all her children around her, and, folding them up in her arms,
+exclaimed: “Join your hands and pray with me that our little Napoleon
+may return home to us a noble and great man.”
+
+As soon as they had prosperously landed in France, the father placed
+his two sons in the college of Autun, and then travelled farther on
+to Paris, there to obtain, through the influence of his patrons and
+friends, a place for his daughter Marianne (afterward Elise) in St.
+Cyr, an institution for the daughters of noblemen, and also a place for
+Napoleon in the military school of Brienne. His efforts were crowned
+with success; and whilst Joseph remained at college in Autun, Napoleon
+had to part with him and go to Brienne.
+
+When the brothers bade farewell one to another, Joseph wept bitterly,
+and his sighs and tears choked the tender words of farewell which his
+quivering lips would have uttered.
+
+Napoleon was quiet, and as his eye moistened with a tear, he endeavored
+to hide it, and turned aside ashamed of himself and nearly indignant,
+for he did not wish the Abbe Simon, one of the professors of the
+college, who was present at the parting of the brothers, to see his
+unmanly tenderness.
+
+But the Abbe Simon had seen that tear, and when Napoleon was gone he
+said to Joseph: “Napoleon has shed but one tear, but that tear proves
+his deep sorrow as much as all your tears.” [Footnote: “Memoires du Roi
+Joseph,” vol. i., p.26.]
+
+Taciturn and quiet as he had been in Ajaccio, the little Napoleon was
+equally so at the military school of Brienne, where he remained from
+his eleventh to his sixteenth year. His character had always something
+sombre and hidden; his eye seemed turned more inwardly than outwardly;
+and his fellowship with his books seemed to procure him a more pleasant
+recreation than the company of his schoolmates, whose childish joys
+and pleasures he despised or pretended to do so, because his limited
+pecuniary resources did not allow him to share with them pleasures of an
+expensive nature.
+
+But, though still and reserved, he always was friendly and courteous to
+his comrades, grateful for every mark of friendship and kindness, and
+always ready to protect the young and feeble against the overbearing
+and the strong, censuring with grave authority every injustice, and with
+Spartan harshness throwing his contempt into the very face of him who,
+according to his standard, had offended against honor, the lofty spirit
+and the dignity of a freeman.
+
+It could not fail that soon Napoleon should win over his schoolmates
+a marked moral influence; that they would listen to him as if he were
+their superior; that they should feel something akin to fear in presence
+of the flashing eyes of this little boy of barely fourteen years, whose
+pale, expressive countenance, when illumined with anger, almost seemed
+to them more terrible than that of the irritated face of the teacher,
+and whom they therefore more willingly and more unconditionally obeyed
+than the principal of the establishment.
+
+One day the latter had forbidden the scholars to go to the fair in a
+neighboring locality, because they had lately been guilty of excesses
+on a similar occasion; and, so as to be sure that the scholars would not
+trespass against his orders, the principal had the outside gate in the
+front yard locked.
+
+This last circumstance kindled Napoleon’s anger; he considered it as an
+insult that the scholars should be treated as prisoners.
+
+“Had we been ordered in the name of the law to remain here,” cried
+he, “then honor itself would have claimed from us to remain, for law
+commands obedience to our superiors. But since we are treated as slaves,
+who are by main force compelled to submission, then honor claims from us
+to prove to our oppressors that we are free beings, and that we desire
+to remain such. We are treated as prisoners of war, kept under lock and
+bolt, but no one has demanded our word of honor that we will make no
+effort to escape this subjection. Whosoever has a brave heart and a soul
+full of honor’s love, let him follow me!”
+
+All the youngsters followed him without hesitation. More submissive to
+this pale, small boy of fourteen years, than to the severe, strong,
+and exalted principal, none dared oppose him as he stood in the garden,
+facing a remote place in the wall, and giving orders to undermine it,
+so as to make an outlet. All obeyed the given orders, all were animated
+with burning zeal, with cheerful alacrity; and after an hour of earnest
+labor the work was done, and the passage under the wall completed.
+
+The scholars wanted to rush with jubilant cries through the opening, and
+gain their freedom outside of the wall, but Napoleon held them back.
+
+“I will go first,” said he. “I have been your leader throughout this
+expedition, now I will be the first to pass out, that upon me may fall
+the punishment when we are discovered.”
+
+The young men fell back silently and respectfully, while, proud and
+stately as a field-marshal who gives the signal for the battle, Napoleon
+passed through their ranks, to be the first from the crowd to go through
+the newly-made passage.
+
+It could not fail that the daring of these “prisoners of war” should be
+discovered, that the principal should be the very same day informed that
+the young men had, notwithstanding his strict orders, notwithstanding
+the closed gate, made a way for themselves, and had visited the
+prohibited fair, while the principal believed them to be in the garden.
+
+A strict inquiry took place the next morning. With threatening tones,
+the principal ordered the young men to name him who had guided them
+to so unheard-of a deed, who had misled them into disobedience and
+insubordination. But all were still; none wished to be a traitor, not
+even when the principal promised to all full pardon, full impunity, if
+they would but name the instigator of their guilty action.
+
+But as no one spoke, as no one would name him, Napoleon gave himself up
+as the culpable one.
+
+“I alone am guilty,” cried he, proudly. “I alone deserve punishment.
+These have done only what I commanded them--they have but followed my
+orders, nothing more. The guilt and the punishment are mine alone.”
+
+The principal, glad to know the guilty one, kept his promise, and,
+forgiving the rest, decided to punish only the one who acknowledged
+himself to have been the leader.
+
+Napoleon was, therefore, sentenced to the severest and most degrading
+punishment known in the institution--to the so-called “monk’s penalty.”
+ That is to say, the future young soldier, in the coarse woollen garment
+of a mendicant friar, was on his knees, to devour his meal from an
+earthen vessel in the middle of the dining-room, while all the other
+boys were seated at the table.
+
+A deathly pallor overspread the face of the boy when he heard this
+sentence. He had been for many days imprisoned in a cell with bread and
+water, and he had without a murmur submitted to this correction, endured
+already on a former occasion, but this degrading punishment broke his
+courage.
+
+Stunned, as it were, and barely conscious, he allowed the costume of the
+punishment to be put on, but when he had been led into the dining-room,
+where all the scholars were gathered for the noonday meal, when he was
+forced upon his knees, he sank down to the ground with a heavy sigh, and
+was seized with violent convulsions.
+
+The rector himself, moved with deepest sympathy for the wounded spirit
+of the boy, hastened to raise up Napoleon. At the same moment rushed
+into the hall one of the teachers of the institution, M. Patrault, who
+had just been informed of the execution which was about to be carried
+out on Napoleon. With tears in his eyes, he hastened to Napoleon, and
+with trembling hands tore from his shoulders the detestable garment, and
+broke out at the same time in loud complaints that his best scholar,
+his first mathematician, was to be dishonored and treated in an unworthy
+manner.
+
+Napoleon, however, was not always the reserved, grave boy who took
+no part in the recreations and pleasures of the rest of his young
+schoolmates. Whenever these amusements were of a more serious, of a
+higher nature, Napoleon gladly and willingly took a part in them. Now
+and then in the institution, on festivals, theatrical representations
+took place, and on these occasions the citizens of Brienne were allowed
+to be present.
+
+But to maintain respectable order, every one who desired to be present
+at the representation had to procure a card of admission signed by the
+principal. On the day of the exhibition, at the different doors of the
+institution, were posted guards who received the admission cards, and
+whose strict orders were to let no one pass in without them. These
+posts, which were filled by the scholars, were under the supervision
+of superior and inferior officers, and were confided only to the most
+distinguished and most praiseworthy students.
+
+One day, Voltaire’s tragedy, “The Death of Caesar,” was exhibited.
+Napoleon had the post of honor of a first lieutenant for this festivity,
+and with grave earnestness he filled the duties of his office.
+
+Suddenly at the entrance of the garden arose a loud noise and vehement
+recriminations of threatening and abusive voices.
+
+It was Margaret Haute, the porter’s wife, who wanted to come in, though
+she had no card of admission. She was well known to all the students,
+for at the gate of the institution she had a little stall of fruits,
+eggs, milk, and cakes, and all the boys purchased from her every day,
+and liked to jest and joke with the pleasant and obliging woman.
+
+Margaret Haute had therefore considered it of no importance to procure a
+card of admission, which thing she considered to be superfluous for such
+an important and well-known personage as herself. The greater was her
+astonishment and anger when admission was refused, and she therefore
+began to clamor loudly, hoping by this means to attract some of the
+scholars, who would recognize her and procure her admittance. Meanwhile
+the post guardian dared not act without superior orders, and the
+inferior officer hastened to communicate the important event to the
+first lieutenant, Napoleon de Bonaparte, and receive his decision.
+
+Napoleon, who ordinarily was kind to the fruit-vender, and gladly
+jested with the humorous and coarse woman, listened to the report of
+the lieutenant with furrowed brow and dark countenance, and with severe
+dignity gave his orders: “Remove that woman, who takes upon herself
+to introduce licentiousness into the camp.” [Footnote: Afterward, when
+First Consul, Napoleon sent for this woman and her husband to come to
+Paris, and he gave them the lucrative position of porter at the castle
+of Malmaison, which charge they retained unto their death.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V. THE UNHAPPY MARRIAGE.
+
+
+While the boy Napoleon de Bonaparte pursued his studies as a student in
+Brienne, she, who was one day to share his greatness and his fame, had
+already appeared on the world’s stage as the wife of another. Josephine
+Tascher de la Pagerie was already received in the highest society of
+Paris as the Viscountess de Beauharnais.
+
+Every thing seemed to promise to the young couple a happy, secure
+future, free from care. They were both young, wealthy, of good family,
+and though the parents had planned this marriage and joined together
+the hands of the young couple, yet it was their good fortune that love
+should tie and strengthen the bond which mere expediency had formed.
+
+Yes, they loved one another, these young married people of sixteen and
+eighteen. How could it have been otherwise, when they both met each
+other with the candid and honest desire to make one another happy; when
+each of them had been so well adapted to the other that their brilliant,
+good, and beautiful qualities were so prominent that their eyes were
+blinded to the possibility of imperfections and vices which perchance
+remained in the obscure background of their virtue and of their
+amiableness?
+
+Josephine had entered upon her marriage with a pure maiden heart, and
+soon this heart glowed with enthusiasm for her young husband, who in
+reality was well qualified to excite enthusiasm in a young maid and
+instil into her a passionate attachment. Alexandre de Beauharnais was
+one of the most brilliant and most beloved personages at the court
+of Versailles. His face had all the beauty of regularity; his figure,
+marked by a lofty, even if somewhat heavy form, was tall, well knit,
+and of wonderful elasticity and energy; his manners were noble and
+prepossessing, fine and natural. Even in a court so distinguished as
+that of Versailles for many remarkable chevaliers, the Viscount de
+Beauharnais was considered as one of the most lovely and most gifted:
+even the young Queen Marie Antoinette honored him with special
+distinction. She had called him the most beautiful dancer of Versailles,
+and consequently it was very natural that up to the time of his marriage
+he should be invited to every court-ball, and there should each time
+enjoy the pleasure of being requested to dance with the queen.
+
+This flattering distinction of the Queen Marie Antoinette had naturally
+made the young viscount the mark of attention of all these beautiful,
+young, and coquettish ladies of Versailles. They used to say of him,
+that in the dancing-room he was a zephyr, fluttering from flower to
+flower, but at the head of his regiment he was a Bayard, dreaming only
+of war and carnage.
+
+It was, therefore, quite natural that so brilliant and so preferred
+a cavalier, a young man of so many varied accomplishments, a being
+so impassioned, so gallant, should soon become the object of the most
+tender and passionate fondness from a young wife, who in her quiet
+native land had seen none to compare with him, and who became for her
+the ideal of beauty, chivalry, elegance, and whom, in her devoted and
+admiring love, she used to call her own Achilles.
+
+Josephine loved her husband; she loved him with all the devotedness and
+fire of a creole; she loved him and breathed but for him, and to be with
+him seemed to her life’s golden, blessed dream. Added to all this,
+came the joys and raptures of a Parisian life--these new, unknown,
+diversified pleasures of society, these manifold distractions and
+entertainments of the great city. Josephine abandoned herself to all
+this with the joy and wantonness of an innocent, unsuspicious being.
+With all these glorious things round about her, she felt as if
+surrounded by a sea of blessedness and pleasure, and she plunged into it
+with the quiet daring of innocency, which foresees not what breakers and
+abysses this sea encloses under the shining surface.
+
+But these breakers were there, and against them was the happiness of
+Josephine’s love soon to be dashed to pieces.
+
+She loved her young husband with her whole heart, with all her soul. But
+he, the young, the flattered Viscount Alexandre de Beauharnais, he also
+loved his young wife, whom the wish and will of his superiors had placed
+at his side.
+
+He had not chosen her because he loved her, but only because he had
+thought it expedient and advisable to become married, and because the
+unknown Mademoiselle de la Pagerie had been offered to him as “a good
+settlement.” Perhaps, also, he had contracted this marriage to get rid
+all at once of those manifold ties, intrigues, and attachments which his
+open, unrestrained life of youth had woven around him, for his marriage
+with the young creole had put an end to many love-intrigues which
+perchance threatened to be inconvenient and burdensome.
+
+At first charmed by her foreign, unaccustomed appearance, transported by
+her ingenuous grace, her sweet, lovely amiableness and freshness, he had
+fully decided to love his young wife, and, with all the triumphant pride
+of a lover, he had led Josephine into society, into the saloons.
+
+But his eye was not blinded by the ravishment of a real and true love,
+and in the drawing-room he saw what, in the solitude of the residence
+of Noisy, where the young couple had retired for a few weeks after their
+marriage, he might never have missed--he saw that Josephine possessed
+not the lofty elegance and the exquisite manners of the ladies of the
+Parisian saloons. She always was a charming, artless, graceful young
+woman, but she lacked the striking advantages of a real drawing-room
+lady; she lacked that perfect self-possession, that pliancy of
+refinement, that sparkling wit, and that penetration, which then
+characterized the ladies of the higher Parisian society, and which the
+young viscount had but lately so fondly and passionately admired in the
+beautiful and celebrated Baroness de B.
+
+The viscount saw all these deficiencies of his young wife’s social
+education, and this darkened his brow and brought on his cheek the flush
+of shame. He was cruel enough to reproach Josephine, in somewhat harsh
+and imperious tones, of her lack of higher culture, and thus the first
+matrimonial difference clouded the skies of marriage happiness, which
+the young unsuspecting wife had believed would ever be bright with
+sunshine.
+
+Josephine, however, loved her young husband too fondly not to cheerfully
+comply with all his wishes, not to strive to replace what he reproached
+her to be lacking.
+
+On a sudden she left the brilliant, enchanting Paris, which had
+entranced her with its many joys and its many distractions, and, as her
+husband had to be for some time at Blois with his regiment, she went
+to Noisy, to her aunt’s residence, so as to labor at her higher mental
+culture, at the side of the lovely and intellectual Madame de Renaudin.
+
+Josephine had hitherto, as a simple, sentimental young lady, played the
+guitar, and chirped with it, in her fresh but uncultivated voice, her
+sweet songs of love. She gave up the guitar, the favorite instrument of
+the creoles, and exchanged it for the harp, for which attainment as well
+as for the art of singing she procured the best and ablest masters. Even
+a dancing-master had to come to Noisy to give to the young viscountess
+that perfection of art which would enable her, without fear, to dance at
+a ball alongside of the Viscount de Beauharnais, “the beautiful dancer
+of Versailles.” With her aunt she read the works of the writers and
+poets who were then praised and loved, and with wonderful predilection
+she also studied botany, to which science she ever clung during her
+life, and which threw on her existence gleams of joy when the sun of her
+happiness had long set.
+
+Josephine, who out of pure love for her husband learned and studied
+zealously, communicated to the viscount, in her letters, every
+advancement she made in her studies; and she was proud and happy when he
+applauded her efforts, and when in his letters he praised her assiduity
+and her progress.
+
+But evidently these letters of the viscount contained nothing of that
+love and ardor which the young fiery creole longed for from her
+husband; they were not the utterances of a young, anxious lover, of an
+enthusiastic, worshipping husband; but they were addressed to Josephine
+with the quiet, cool benignity of a considerate friend, of a mentor, of
+a tutor who knows full well how much above his pupil soars his own mind,
+and with what supreme deference this pupil must look up to him.
+
+“I am delighted,” wrote he once--“delighted at your zeal to acquire
+knowledge and culture; this zeal, which we must ever cherish, is ever
+the source of purest enjoyments, and possesses the glorious advantage,
+when we follow its dictates, of never producing any grief. If you
+persevere in the resolution you have taken, if you continue to labor
+with unabated zeal at your personal improvement, be assured that the
+knowledge you will have acquired will exalt you highly above all others;
+and whereas science and modesty will be combined in you, you will
+succeed in becoming an accomplished woman. The talents which you
+cultivate have their pleasant side, and if you devote to them a portion
+of the day, you will unite the agreeable to the useful.” [Footnote:
+“Histoire de l’Imperatrice Josephine,” vol. i., p. 110.]
+
+This is what Alexandre de Beauharnais wanted. His wife, through her
+knowledge, was to be highly exalted above all others. She was to study
+the sciences, and become what is now called a learned woman, but what
+was then termed a philosophical woman.
+
+The ambition of the ardent viscount required that his young wife should
+be the rival of his learned, verse-writing aunt, the Baroness Fanny
+de Beauharnais; that Josephine, if not the most beautiful and most
+intellectual woman of Paris, should be the most accomplished.
+
+But these extravagant expectations did not, unfortunately, coincide
+entirely with the tastes and mental tendencies of Josephine. No one was
+less qualified than she to be a philosophical woman, and to make the
+sciences a serious study. It was far from her ambition to desire to
+shine by her knowledge; and the learned and scientific Baroness de
+Beauharnais only excited fear and antagonism on account of her stiff and
+pretentious pedantry, which seemed to Josephine to have but little in
+harmony with a woman’s being.
+
+Josephine loved the sciences and the arts, but she did not wish to
+convert herself into their devoted priestess. She wished merely to adorn
+herself with their blossoms, to take delight in their fragrance, and to
+rejoice in their beauty. With instinctive sentiment she did not wish to
+have the grace and youthful freshness of her womanly appearance marred
+by knowledge; her heart longed not for the ambition of being called a
+learned woman; she only wished to be a beloved wife.
+
+But the viscount, instead of recognizing and cherishing the tender and
+sacred treasures which reposed in the heart of his young wife, ridiculed
+her for her sensitiveness; allowed himself, through displeasure at her
+uncultivated mind, to utter unreasonable reproaches, and to act harshly
+toward his wife; and her tears were not calculated to conciliate him
+or to gain his heart. He treated Josephine with a sort of contemptuous
+compassion, with a mocking superiority, and her young, deeply-wounded
+soul, intimidated and bleeding, shrank back into itself. Josephine
+became taciturn, embarrassed, and mute, in her husband’s presence; she
+preferred being silent, rather than by her conversation, which might not
+appear intellectual and piquant enough for the viscount, to annoy and
+irritate him.
+
+Confidence and harmony had flown away from the household of the young
+couple. From his timid, silent wife, with tears in her eyes and a mute
+complaint on her trembling lips, the husband rushed away into the world,
+into society, to the boisterous joys of a garrison’s life, or else to
+the dangerous, intoxicating amusements which the refined world of the
+drawing-rooms offered him.
+
+Scarcely after a two years’ marriage, the young bridegroom was again the
+zephyr of the drawing-room; and, breaking asunder the bonds with which
+the marriage and the household had bound him, he fluttered again from
+flower to flower, was once more the gallant cavalier of the belles,
+forgot duty and wife, to pay his attentions and bring his homage to the
+ladies of the court.
+
+But this neglect which she now experienced from her husband, this
+evident preference for other women, suddenly awoke Josephine from her
+painful resignation, from her quiet melancholy. The young, patient,
+retreating wife was changed at once into an irritated lioness, and,
+amid the refinements of the French polish, with all its gilded
+accompaniments, uprose the glowing, impassioned, threatening creole.
+
+Josephine, wounded both in her vanity and in her love--Josephine wished
+not and could not bear, as a passive, silent sufferer, the neglect of
+her husband; he had insulted her as a woman, and the wrath of a woman
+rose within her. She screened not her jealousy from her husband; she
+reproached him for preferring other women to his wife, for neglecting
+her for the sake of others, and she required that to her alone he should
+do homage, that to her alone he should consecrate love and allegiance.
+She wept, she complained, when she learned that, whilst she was left
+at home unnoticed, he had been here and there in the company of other
+women; she allowed herself to be so carried away by jealousy as to make
+violent reproaches against her husband.
+
+But tears and reproaches are not in the least calculated to bring back
+to a wife the heart of a husband, and jealousy recalls not a husband’s
+love, when that love has unfolded his pinions and flown away. It only
+causes the poor butterfly to feel that marriage had tied its wings
+with a thread, and that it constantly recalls him away, with the severe
+admonitions of duty, from the beautiful flowers toward which he desires
+to fly.
+
+The complaints and reproaches of Josephine, however much they proved her
+love, had precisely the contrary effect from what she expected. Through
+them she wanted to bring back her husband to her love, but she repelled
+him further still; he flew away from her complaints to the merry society
+of his friends, male and female, and left Josephine alone at Noisy to
+weep over her wretchedness.
+
+Notwithstanding all this, they were both to be again reunited one to
+another in a new bond of love and happiness. On the 3d of September,
+1781, Josephine presented to her husband a son, the heir of his name,
+and for whom the father had already so long craved. Alexandre came to
+Noisy to be present at the birth of his child, and with true, sincere
+affection he embraced son and mother, and swore everlasting love and
+fidelity to both.
+
+But circumstances were stronger than the will of this young man of
+twenty-two years. The monotonous life of Noisy, the quietude which
+prevailed in the house on account of the young mother, could not long
+retain captive the fiery young man. He endured this life of solitude, of
+watching at the bedside, of listening to the child’s cries, for a whole
+week, and then was drawn away with irresistible attraction to Paris;
+the father’s tenderness could no longer restrain the glowing ardor, the
+impassioned longings for distraction in the young man; and the viscount
+left Noisy to lead once more in Paris or with his garrison the free,
+unrestrained dissipations of his earlier days.
+
+Josephine was comfortless. She had hoped the son would retain the
+father, but he left her alone, alone with the child, and with all the
+torments of her jealousy.
+
+It is true, he came back now and then to see his son, his little Eugene,
+and also to make amends to the young, sick, and suffering mother, by a
+few days’ presence, for the many days of absence.
+
+But Josephine, irritated, jealous, too young, too inexperienced to
+reflect, Josephine committed the fault of receiving her husband every
+time he came, with reproaches and complaints, and of meeting him
+with violent scenes of jealousy and of offended dignity. The viscount
+himself, so young, so impassioned, had not the patience to go with
+calm indifference through the purgatory of such scenes. His proud heart
+rebelled against the chains with which marriage would bind him; he was
+angry with this woman who dared reproach him; he was the more vexed
+that his conscience told him she was unjust toward him, that he was the
+innocent one. He returned her complaints with deriding scorn; he allowed
+himself to be carried away by her reproaches to the manifestation of
+violent anger; and the tempest of matrimonial discord raged through this
+house, which at first seemed to have been built for a temple of peace
+and happiness.
+
+The parents of the young couple saw with deep, heartfelt concern the gap
+deepening between them both, and which every day widened more and more,
+and as their warnings and wishes now remained fruitless, they resolved
+to try if a long absence might not heal the wounds which they both had
+inflicted upon their own hearts. At the request of his father and of
+Madame de Renaudin, the viscount undertook a long journey to Italy, from
+which he returned only after nearly nine months’ absence.
+
+What the relatives had hoped from this journey seemed to be realized.
+The viscount returned home to his Josephine with a penitent, tender
+heart; and Josephine, enchanted with his tenderness, with the pliant
+loveliness of his whole being--Josephine, with a smile of blessedness
+and with happy dreams of the future, rested once more on the bosom of
+the man whom, even in her angry moods, she had never ceased to love.
+
+But after a few months passed in happiness and harmony, the viscount
+was once more obliged to separate himself from his wife, to meet his
+regiment, which was now in Verdun. Absence soon broke the slender
+threads which had bound together the hearts of husband and wife.
+Alexandre abandoned himself to his tendencies to dissipation, and
+Josephine to her jealousy. During the frequent visits which the viscount
+paid to his wife in Noisy, he was received with tears and reproaches,
+which always ended in violent scenes of anger and bitterness.
+
+Such an existence, full of ever-recurring storms and ceaseless discord,
+weighed heavily on the hearts of both husband and wife, and made them
+long for an issue from this Labyrinth of an unhappy marriage. Yet
+neither of them dreamed of a separation; not only their son, the little
+Eugene, kept them from such thoughts, but also the new hopes which
+Josephine carried in her bosom would have made such thoughts appear
+criminal. It was necessary to endeavor to bear life as well as one
+could, and not allow one’s self to be too much lacerated by its thorns,
+even if there was no further hope of gathering its roses.
+
+Alexandre de Beauharnais, even if he lacked the skill of being a
+faithful, devoted husband, was a noble and goodnatured man, whose
+generous heart wanted to punish himself alone for the error of this
+marriage, which weighed so heavily on husband and wife; and, in order
+to procure peace to both, he resolved to become an exile, to tear away
+pitilessly the attractive ties which society, friends, and women, had
+woven around him. If he could not be a good husband, he might at least
+be a good soldier; and, whereas his heart could not adopt the resolution
+of devoting itself with exclusive affection to his wife, he resolved
+to devote himself entirely to that love to which he had never been
+disloyal, the love of fame. His ambitious nature longed for honors
+and distinction; his restless, youthful courage craved for action and
+battle-fields; and, as no opportunity offered itself on land, Alexandre
+de Beauharnais decided to search on the seas for what was denied him on
+land.
+
+The Marquis de Bouille, governor of Martinique, had just arrived in
+France, to propose to the government a new expedition against the
+British colonies in the Antilles. Already this fearless and enterprising
+man, since he had been in Martinique, with the forces at his disposal,
+with the help of the young creoles, and supported by the squadrons which
+lay in Port Royal, had conquered Dominique, Grenada, St. Vincent, St.
+Christophe, Mievres, and Montserrat, and now he contemplated an attack
+upon the rich and important island of Jamaica, whose conquest he trusted
+would force the English into peace.
+
+Alexandre de Beauharnais wanted nothing more attractive than to join
+this important and daring enterprise of the Marquis de Bouille. With
+recommendations from his uncle, the Duke de la Rochefoucauld, the
+viscount hastened to the Marquis de Bouille, begged of him instantly the
+privilege of serving under him, and offered his services as adjutant.
+
+The marquis received with kindness a young man so earnestly recommended,
+and gave him the hope of fulfilling his wishes. These hopes were not,
+however, realized; and the viscount, no longer able to endure the burden
+of uncertainty and of domestic discord, decided to leave France on his
+own responsibility, to sail for Martinique, and there to enlist as a
+simple volunteer, under the orders of the governor.
+
+In September, 1782, he left Noisy for Brest, there to embark for
+Martinique. At the hour of departure the love, which for so long had
+been hidden under the dark cloud of jealousy and discord, awoke in all
+its glow and energy in the hearts of the young couple. With streaming
+eyes Josephine embraced her husband, and in the most touching tones
+entreated him to remain with her, entreated him not to tear the father
+away from the son, who already recognized him and stretched his little
+hands toward him, nor from the child yet unborn in her bosom. Carried
+away by so much intensity of affection, by such a fond, all-pardoning
+love, Alexandre was deeply moved; he regretted the past, and the
+decision he had taken to leave his wife and his family. All the sweet
+emotions of peace, of home, of paternal bliss, of married life, overcame
+him in this hour of farewell with, resistless power, and in Josephine’s
+arms he wept bitter tears of repentance, of love, of farewell.
+
+But these tears, no more than his wife’s regrets, could make him waver
+in his determination.
+
+The word of separation had been spoken, and it had to be fulfilled. Amid
+the anguish of parting, he felt for himself the necessity of breaking,
+by means of a long absence, with the evil practices of the past, and to
+make amends for the sad errors of his youth.
+
+He left his home to win in a distant land the happiness which he had
+in vain sought at the side of his wife, of his son, and of his family.
+Before the ship upon which he was to embark for his journey weighed
+anchor, he took a last farewell of his family in a letter addressed to
+Madame de Renaudin.
+
+“I have,” said he, “received the letter which tells of your good wishes
+for the future, and I have read with the deepest interest the assurances
+of your attachment. These assurances would still have been more
+flattering to me, could they have convinced me that my actual course has
+your approbation, and that you estimate rightly my determination, and
+the sacrifice I am making. However, I have on my side conscience, which
+applauds me for preferring, to the real, actual joys of a quiet
+and pleasurable existence, the prospect, even if a remote one,
+of preferment, which may secure me a distinguished position and a
+distinction which may be of advantage to my children. The greater have
+been my sacrifices, the more commendable it is to have made them; and if
+chance only favors my determination, then the laurels I will win shall
+make ample amends for all troubles and hardships, and shall change all
+my anguish into joy!--Be kind enough, I pray you, to embrace for me,
+my father, my wife, and Eugene!” [Forward: “Histoire de l’Imperatrice
+Josephine,” vol. i, p. 133.]
+
+It is evident that Alexandre de Beauharnais had gone to Martinique to
+win fame and to fight for laurels. But chance favored not his resolves.
+He had no sooner landed in Martinique, than the news spread that
+negotiations had begun between England and France. M. de Bouille
+received strict orders to make no attack on Jamaica; and a few weeks
+after, on the 20th of January, 1783, the preliminaries of peace were
+signed at Versailles. A few months later, peace was concluded, and all
+the conquests made by the Marquis de Bouille were returned to England.
+
+Alexandre de Beauharnais had then come in vain to Martinique. No fame
+was to be won--no laurels could be gathered there.
+
+Unfortunately, however, the viscount found another occupation for his
+restless heart, for the vague cravings of his affections. He made the
+acquaintance there with a young creole, who had been a widow for the
+last six months, and who had returned to Martinique from France to
+pass there her year’s mourning. But her heart had no mourning for her
+deceased husband; it longed for Paris, it craved for the world and its
+joys. She was yet, though a few years older than the viscount, a young
+woman; she was beautiful--of that wondrous, enticing beauty peculiar to
+the creoles; she was an accomplished mistress in the difficult art
+of pleasing, and she formed the design of gaining the heart of the
+impulsive Viscount Alexandre de Beauharnais. This design was not
+undertaken because he seemed worthy of love, but because she wanted to
+revenge herself on the family of Tascher de la Pagerie, which family had
+been for a long time at enmity with her own, and had given free and
+open expression against the too easy manners and light behavior of
+the beautiful widow. She wanted to take vengeance for these insults by
+seducing from M. de la Pagerie his own son-in-law, and by enjoying the
+triumph of having charmed away the husband from his daughter.
+
+The proverb says, “What woman will, woman can!” and what the beautiful
+Madame de Gisard wanted was not so very hard to achieve. All she wished
+was to hold complete sway over the heart of a young man who felt heavily
+burdened with the fetters of marriage; who, now that the schemes of
+ambition had failed, reproached his young wife that she was the cause of
+his misfortune; that for her sake he had exiled himself from home, and
+sentenced himself to the dulness and loneliness of a village-life in
+Martinique. The society of the beautiful Madame de Gisard brought at
+least novelty and distraction to this loneliness; she gave occupation
+to the heart weary with connubial storms; she excited his fancy and his
+desires.
+
+Madame de Gisard knew how to use all these advantages; she wanted to
+triumph over the family of De la Pagerie, she wanted to return to Paris
+in the company of a young, handsome, and distinguished lover.
+
+It was not enough to win the love of the viscount; she had to drive
+him into the resolution of separating from his wife, of accusing her of
+unfaithfulness and guilt, so as to have the right of casting her away,
+in order that she herself might openly occupy her place. Madame de
+Gisard had the requisite talent to carry out her plans, and to acquire
+full control over the otherwise rebellious and proud heart of the young
+man. She first began to lead him into open rupture with his father
+and mother-in-law. Through respect for them, the viscount had avoided
+appearing in public with Madame de Gisard, and betraying the intimacy
+which existed between them. Madame de Gisard ridiculed his bashfulness
+and submissive spirit; she considered this servility to the head of
+the family as absurd, and she drove the viscount by means of scorn and
+sarcasm to open revolt.
+
+Then, after separating him from his wife’s family, she attacked the wife
+herself. With all the cunning and smoothness of a seducing demon, she
+encompassed the young man’s heart, and filled it with mistrust against
+Josephine. She accused the forsaken one with levity and unfaithfulness;
+she filled his heart with jealousy and rancor; she used all the means of
+perfidy and calumny of which a woman is capable, and in which she finds
+a refuge when her object is to ruin, and she succeeded completely.
+
+Alexandre de Beauharnais was now entirely hers; he was gathering against
+Josephine anger and vengeance; and even when he received the news that,
+on the 13th of April, 1783, his young wife had given birth to a daughter
+at Noisy, his soul was not moved by soft emotions, by milder sentiments
+of reconciliation.
+
+Madame de Gisard had taught him that henceforth he need no more be on
+the defensive in reference to the reproaches of Josephine, but that he
+now must be the aggressor; that, to justify his own guiltiness, he must
+accuse his wife of guilt. She had offered herself as the price of his
+reconquered freedom; and the viscount, overcome with love, anger, and
+jealousy, was anxious to become worthy of this price.
+
+He left Martinique and returned to Noisy, not to embrace and bless his
+daughter Eugenie Hortense, but to bow down the mother’s head with the
+curse of shame. He accused, without listening to any justification, and,
+with all the vehemence of misguided passion, he asked for an immediate
+separation, an immediate divorce. Vain were the expostulations, the
+prayers of his father and of Madame de Renaudin. Vain were the tears,
+the assurances of innocence from Josephine. The tears of an injured
+woman, the prayers of his sorrowing relatives, were impotent against the
+whisperings and the seducing smiles of the beautiful Madame de Gisard,
+who had secretly accompanied him to France, and who had now over him an
+unconditional sway.
+
+The viscount brought before Parliament a complaint for separation from
+his wife, and based it upon the most improbable and most shameless
+accusations.
+
+Josephine, who, for two years in loneliness and abandonment, had awaited
+the return of her husband; Josephine, who had always hoped, through the
+voice of her children, to recall her husband to herself, saw herself
+suddenly threatened with a new, unexpected tempest. Two years of
+suffering were finally to be rewarded by a scandalous process, which
+exposed her person to the idle and malicious tongues of the Parisians.
+
+She had, however, to submit to fate; she had to bow her head to the
+storm, and trust for her justification to the mercy of God and to the
+justice of the Parliament. During the time of the process she withdrew,
+according to custom, into a convent, and for nearly one year hid herself
+with her shame and her anguish in the abbey of Pantemont, in the street
+Grenelle, St. Germain. However, she was not alone; her aunt, Madame
+de Renaudin, accompanied her, and every day came the Marquis de
+Beauharnais, her husband’s father, bringing her the children, who,
+during the time of the unfortunate process, were to remain at Noisy,
+under the guardianship of their grandfather and of a worthy governess.
+The members of her husband’s family rivalled each other in their
+manifestations of affection to a woman so much injured and so
+incriminated, and openly before the world they declared themselves
+against the viscount, who, blinded by passion and entirely in the chains
+of this ensnaring woman, was justifying the innocency of his wife by
+his own indiscreet demeanor--by the public exhibition of his passion
+for Madame de Gisard, and thus caused the accusations launched against
+Josephine to recoil upon his own head.
+
+At last, after one year of debates, of careful considerations and
+investigations, of receiving evidence, and of hearing witnesses, the
+Parliament pronounced its decision.
+
+Josephine was declared absolutely innocent of the crimes brought against
+her, and was entirely acquitted of the accusation of unfaithfulness. The
+Parliament pronounced the solemn decree: The accusation directed against
+the Viscountess de Beauharnais was simply a malicious calumny. The
+innocency of the accused wife was evident, and consequently the Viscount
+de Beauharnais was bound to receive again his wife into his house.
+However, the viscountess was permitted and allowed not to share the same
+residence with her husband, and to separate herself from him. In this
+case the viscount was condemned to pay to his wife an annual pension of
+ten thousand francs, and to leave with her mother his daughter Eugenie
+Hortense, while he, the father, should provide for the education of the
+son.
+
+Exonerated from the disgraceful imputation of faithlessness, Josephine
+was again free to leave the convent and return to the life of the world.
+It was her husband’s family which now prepared for the poor young
+woman the most beautiful and most touching triumph. The father of her,
+accuser, the Marquis de Beauharnais, as well as his elder son and wife,
+the Duke and Duchess de la Rochefoucauld, and the Baroness Fanny de
+Beauharnais, came in their state carriages to the abbey to receive
+Josephine and lead her back to Paris. They had been joined by a great
+number of the most respectable and most noble ladies of the Parisian
+aristocracy, all in their state carriages, and in the splendor of their
+armorial trappings and liveries, as if it were to accompany a queen
+returning home.
+
+Josephine shed tears of blessed joy when quitting her small, sombre
+rooms in the abbey. She entered into the reception-room to bid farewell
+to the prioress, and there met all these friends and relatives, who
+saluted her with looks of deepest tenderness and sympathy, and embraced
+her in their arms as one found again, as one long desired. This hour of
+triumph indemnified her for the sorrows and sufferings of the unhappy
+year which the poor wife of scarcely twenty years of age, and fleeing
+from calumny and hatred, liar! sighed away in the desolate and lonesome
+convent. She was free, she was justified; the disgrace was removed from
+her head; she was again authorized to be the mother of her children; she
+saw herself surrounded by loving parents, by true friends, and yet in
+her heart there was a sting. Notwithstanding his cruelty, his harshness,
+though he had abandoned and despised her, her heart could not be forced
+into hating the husband for whom she had so much wept and suffered.
+Her tears had impressed his image yet deeper in her heart. He was
+the husband of her first love, the father of her children; how could
+Josephine have hated him, how could her heart, so soft and true, cherish
+animosity against him?
+
+At the side of her husband’s father, and holding her daughter in
+her arms, Josephine entered Paris. Behind them came a long train of
+brilliant equipages, of relatives and friends. The passers-by stopped to
+see the brilliant procession move before them, and to ask what it meant.
+Some had recognized the viscountess, and they told to others of the
+sufferings and of the acquittal of the poor young woman; and the people,
+easily affected and sympathizing, rejoiced in the decision of the
+Parliament, and with shouts and applause followed the carriage of the
+young wife.
+
+The marquis, her father-in-law, turned smilingly to Josephine.
+
+“Do you see, my daughter,” said he, “what a triumph you enjoy, and how
+much you are beloved and recognized?”
+
+Josephine bent down toward the little Hortense and kissed her.
+
+“Ah,” said she, in a low voice, “we are returning home, but the father
+of my children will not bid us welcome. For a pressure of his hand,
+for a kind word from him, I would gladly give the lofty triumph of this
+hour.”
+
+No, Alexandre de Beauharnais did not bid welcome to Josephine in his
+father’s house, which they had occupied together. Ashamed and irritated,
+he had sped away from Paris, and returned to his regiment at Verdun.
+
+On the arm of the Marquis de Beauharnais, Josephine traversed the
+apartments in which she had lived with her husband, and which she now
+saw again as a widow, whom not death but life had separated from her
+husband. Her father-in-law saw the tears standing in her eyes, and,
+with the refined sympathy of a sensitive mind, he understood the painful
+thoughts which agitated the soul of the young wife.
+
+He fondly folded her in his arms, and laid his blessing hand on the head
+of the little Hortense.
+
+“I have lost my son Alexandre,” said he, “but I have found in his stead
+a daughter. Yes, Josephine, you are and will remain my daughter, and to
+you and to your children I will be a true father. My son has parted from
+us, but we remain together in harmony and love, and as long as I live my
+daughter Josephine will never want a protector.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI. TRIANON AND MARIE ANTOINETTE.
+
+
+Whilst the Viscountess Josephine de Beauharnais, the empress of the
+future, was living in enforced widowhood, the life of Marie Antoinette,
+the queen of the present, resembled a serene, golden, sunny dream; her
+countenance, beaming with youth, beauty, and grace, had never yet been
+darkened with a cloud; her large blue eyes had not yet been dimmed with
+tears.
+
+In Fontainebleau, whither Josephine had retired with her father-in-law,
+who through unfortunate events had lost the greatest part of his
+fortune--in Fontainebleau lived the future Empress of France in sad
+monotony; in Versailles, in Trianon, lived the present Queen of France
+in the dazzling splendor of her glory, of her youth, and of her beauty.
+In Trianon--this first gift of love from the king to his wife--the Queen
+of France dreamed life away in a pleasant idyl, in a joyous pastoral
+amusement; there, she tried to forget that she was queen, that is to
+say, that she was the slave of etiquette; there she tried to indemnify
+herself for the tediousness, the emptiness, the heartlessness of the
+great festivals in the Tuileries and in Versailles.
+
+In Trianon, Marie Antoinette desired to be the domestic wife, the
+pleasant, youthful woman, as in the Tuileries and at Versailles she was
+the proud and lofty queen. Marie Antoinette felt her days obscured by
+the splendors of royalty; the crown weighed heavily on her beautiful
+head, which seemed made for a crown of myrtle and roses; life’s
+earnestness had not yet cast its breath on those rosy cheeks and robbed
+of youth’s charm the smile on those crimson lips.
+
+And why should not Marie Antoinette have smiled and been joyous? Every
+thing shone round about her; every thing seemed to promise an enduring
+harvest of felicity, for the surface of France was calm and bright, and
+the queen’s vision had not yet been made keen enough by experience to
+penetrate below this shining surface and see the precipices already
+hidden underneath.
+
+These precipices were yet covered with flowers, and the skies floating
+above them seemed yet cloudless. The French people appeared to retain
+yet for the royal family that enthusiastic devotedness which they had
+manifested for centuries; they fondly proclaimed to the queen, whenever
+she appeared, their affection, their admiration; they were not weary
+with the expressions of their rapture and their worship, and Marie
+Antoinette was not weary of listening to these jubilant manifestations
+with which she was received in the theatre, on the streets, in the
+gardens of the Tuileries, on the terraces of Versailles; she was not
+weary of returning thanks with a friendly nod or with a gracious smile.
+
+All the Parisians seemed still to be, as once, at the arrival of the
+Dauphin, they had been called by the Baron de Vesenval, “the queen’s
+lovers,” and also to rival one another in manifesting their allegiance.
+
+Even the fish-women of Paris shared the general enthusiasm; and when,
+in 1781, the queen had given to her husband a son, and to his people
+a future monarch, the ladies of “the Halls” were amongst the most
+enthusiastic friends of the queen. They even came to Versailles to
+congratulate the royal couple on the dauphin’s birth, to salute the
+young dauphin as the heir to the crown of France, and to sing under the
+window of the king some songs, one of which so pleased the king that
+oftentimes afterward, in his quiet and happy hours, he used to sing
+a verse of it with a smile on his lip. This Terse, which even Marie
+Antoinette sang, ran thus:
+
+    “Ne craignez pas, cher papa,
+        D’ voir augmenter vot’ famille,
+     Le bon Dieu z’y pourvoira:
+        Faits-en taut qu’ Versailles en fourmille;
+     Yeut-il cent Bourbons cheu nos
+        Ya du pain, du laurier pour tous.”
+
+[Footnote: Madaine ile Carapan, “Histoire de Marie Antoinette,” vol. i.,
+p. 218.]
+
+In Trianon, Marie Antoinette passed her happiest hours and days; there,
+the queen changed herself into a shepherdess; there, vanished from her
+the empty splendors of purple and ermine, of etiquette and ceremonial;
+there, she enjoyed life in its purity, in its innocency, in its
+naturalness; such was the ideal Marie Antoinette wished to realize in
+Trianon.
+
+A simple dress of white muslin, a light kerchief of gauze, a straw hat
+with a gayly-colored ribbon, such was the attire of the queen and of the
+princesses whom Marie Antoinette invited. For the only etiquette which
+prevailed at Trianon was this: that no one from the court, even princes
+or princesses, should come to Trianon without having received an
+invitation from the queen to that effect. Even the king submitted to
+this ceremonial, and had expressly promised his consort never to come to
+Trianon without an invitation, and, so as to please the queen, no sooner
+did she announce her intention of retiring to her country-residence,
+than he was always the first who hastened to obtain the favor of an
+invitation.
+
+In Trianon, Louis ceased to be king as well as Marie Antoinette ceased
+to be queen. There Louis XVI. was but the farmer of the lady of the
+castle; the Count d’Artois was the miller, and the learned Count de
+Provence, the schoolmaster. For each of them had been erected in
+the gardens of Trianon a separate house suited to their respective
+avocations.
+
+The farmer Louis had his farm-house built in Swiss style, with a balcony
+of finely-carved wood at the gable-end, and with stalls attached to the
+house, and where bellowed the stately red cows of Switzerland; behind
+the house was a small garden in which the variegated convolvulus and the
+daisy shed their fragrance.
+
+The Count d’Artois had, near the stream which flowed through the park,
+his miller’s house, with an enormous wheel, made of wooden spokes joined
+together, and which moved lustily in the water, and adorned the clear
+brook with wavelets of foam.
+
+The Count de Provence had, under the shadow of a mulberry-tree,
+his house, with a large school-room in it; and oftentimes the whole
+court-society were converted into scholars of both sexes, who took their
+seats on the benches of the school-room, whilst the Count de Provence,
+in a long coat with lead buttons and with an immense rod in his hand,
+ascended the cathedra and delivered to his school-children a humorous
+and piquant lecture, all sparkling with wit.
+
+The princesses also had in this “grove of Paradise,” as Marie Antoinette
+called the woods of Trianon, their cottages, where they milked cows,
+made butter, and searched for eggs in the hens’ nests. In the midst of
+all these cottages and Swiss houses stood the cottage of the farming
+Marie Antoinette; it was the finest and the most beautiful one of all,
+adorned with vases full of fragrant blossoms and surrounded by flowering
+plants and by cozy bowers of verdure. This cottage was the highest
+delight of the queen’s life, the enchanting toy of her happiness. Even
+the little castle of Trianon, however simple and modest, seemed too
+splendid for the taste of the pastoral queen. For in Trianon one
+was always reminded that the lady of this castle was a queen; there,
+servants were in livery; there, officials and names and titles were to
+be found, even when etiquette was forbidden entrance into the halls of
+the little castle of Trianon. Marie Antoinette was no more queen there,
+it is true, but she was the lady of the palace to whom the highest
+respect was shown, and who therefore had been constrained expressly and
+strictly to order that at her entrance into the drawing-rooms the ladies
+would not interrupt the piece begun on the piano, nor stand up if seated
+at their embroidery, and that the gentlemen would keep on undisturbed
+their billiard-party or their game at trictrac.
+
+But in her cottage all rank disappeared; there, was no distinction;
+there, ceased the glory of name and title, and no sooner was the castle
+abandoned for the cottages than each named the other with some Arcadic,
+pastoral appellation, and each busied himself with his rural avocations.
+How lustily the laughter, how merrily the song sounded from these
+cottages amid these bowers and groves; how the countenance of the
+farming-lady was lighted up with happiness and joy; with what delight
+rested upon her the eye of the farmer Louis, who in his blue blouse,
+with a straw hat on his head, with a rosy, fleshy, good-natured face,
+was exactly fitted for his part, and who found it no difficult task to
+hide under the farmer’s garment the purple of the king!
+
+How often was Marie Antoinette seen in her simple white dress, her
+glowing countenance shaded by a straw hat, bounding through the garden
+as light as a gazelle, and going from the barn to the milk-room,
+followed by the company she had invited to drink of her milk and eat of
+her fresh eggs! How often, when the farmer Louis had secreted himself
+in a grove for the sake of reading, how often was he discovered there by
+the queen, torn away from his book and drawn to a dejeuner on the
+grass! When that was over, and Louis had gone back to his book, Marie
+Antoinette hastened to her cows to see them milked, or she went into the
+rocking-boat to fish, or else reposed on the lawn, busy as a peasant,
+with her spindle.
+
+But this quiet occupation detained not long the lively, spirited
+farming-lady; with a loud voice, she called to her maids or companions
+from the cottages, and then began those merry, unrestrained amusements
+which the queen had introduced into society, and which since then have
+been introduced not only into the drawing-rooms of the upper classes,
+but also into the more austere circles of the wealthy burghers.
+
+Then the queen with her court played at blindman’s bluff, at pampam,
+or at a game invented by the Duke de Chartres, the future Duke Philippe
+d’Orleans, Egalite, and which game was called “descamper,” a sort of
+hide-and-seek amusement, in which the ladies hid themselves in the shady
+bushes and groves, to be there discovered by the gentlemen, and then
+to endeavor by flight to save themselves, for if once caught and seized
+they had to purchase their liberty with a kiss.
+
+When evening came all left the cottages for the little castle, and
+the pastoral recreations gave way to the higher enjoyments of refined
+society. Marie Antoinette was not in the castle of Trianon queen again,
+but she was not either the simple lady of the farm, she was the lady of
+the castle, and--the first amateur in the theatrical company which twice
+a week exhibited their pieces in the theatre of Trianon.
+
+These theatrical performances were quite as much the queen’s delight as
+her pastoral occupations in her farm cottages, and Marie Antoinette
+was unwearied in learning and studying her parts. She had chosen for
+teachers two pensioned actors, Caillot and Dazincourt, who had to come
+every day to Trianon to teach to the noble group of actors the
+small operas, vaudevilles, and dramas, which had been chosen for
+representation, and in which the queen naturally always played the
+part of first amateur, while the princesses, the wives of the Counts de
+Provence and Artois, the two Countesses de Polignac, undertook the other
+parts, even those of gentlemen, when the two brothers of the king, the
+only male members of this theatrical company, could not assume all the
+gentlemen’s parts.
+
+At first the audience at these representations was very limited. Only
+the king, the princes and the princesses of the royal household, not
+engaged in the performance, constituted the audience; but afterward it
+was found that to encourage the actors a little, a larger audience
+was needed; then the boxes were filled with the governesses of the
+princesses, the queen’s waiting-women, whose sisters and daughters with
+a few other select ladies had been invited.
+
+It was natural that those who had been thus preferred, and who enjoyed
+the privilege of seeing the Queen of France, the princes and princesses,
+appear as actors, should be full of admiration and applause at the
+talents displayed by the royal troupe; and as they alone formed the
+select audience, whose presence had for object to animate the artistes,
+they had also assumed the duty to excite and to vitalise the zeal
+and the fire of the players by their enthusiasm and by their liberal
+praises.
+
+This applause of a grateful public blinded the royal actors as to their
+real merits, and excited in them the ambition to exhibit their artistic
+talents before a larger audience and to be admired. Consequently, the
+queen granted to the officers of the lifeguard and to the masters of the
+king’s stalls and to their brothers, admittance into the theatre; the
+gentlemen and ladies of the court had seats in the gilt boxes; a larger
+number of ladies were invited, and soon from all sides came requests for
+tickets of admission to the theatrical performances in the Trianon.
+
+The same privileges which had been allowed to a few could not be, and
+it was not desirable that they should be, granted to all; those who were
+purposely refused revenged themselves of this refusal by an unsparing
+criticism on the performers and by bitter sarcasm at the Queen of
+France, who so far forgot her dignity as to play comedies before her
+subjects, and who played her part not always in such a manner as to give
+to a sharp criticism no reason for blame.
+
+The queen possessed, it is true, the desire, but not the ability, to be
+an actress or a songstress. When she played the part of a comedian, no
+one felt tempted to laugh; but contrariwise it might often happen that,
+when her part was tragical, impressive and touching even to tears, the
+faces of her auditors brightened with involuntary laughter.
+
+Once even it happened that a person from the audience, when the queen
+had not yet left the stage, cried aloud, and perhaps with the intention
+of being heard by her: “One must confess that royal acting is bad
+acting!”
+
+Though she understood the words, yet the smile on her lips vanished not
+away; and as the Countess Diana de Polignac wished to persuade her to
+allow the impertinent one who had spoken these words, to be sought out
+and punished, the queen, shrugging her shoulders answered: “My friend, I
+say as Madame de Maintenon: ‘I am upon the stage, and must therefore be
+willing to be applauded or hissed.’”
+
+Yes, she had to endure the applause or the hissing. Unfortunately, the
+number of those who hissed grew every day. The queen had provoked public
+expression since she bade it defiance. On the day she banished etiquette
+from its watchful duty at the apartments of the Queen of France, the
+public expression with its train of slanders and maliciousness entered
+in through the open portals. The queen was blamed for her theatricals as
+well as for her simple, unadorned toilet, yet she was imitated in these
+two things, as even before the costly and luxurious toilet, the high
+head-gears of the queen, and also blindman’s buff and descamper, had
+been imitated. Every woman now wanted such a simple negligee, such a
+headdress, such a feather as Marie Antoinette. As once before, Madame
+Bertin, the celebrated milliner of the queen, had been circumvented to
+furnish a pattern of the queen’s coiffure, so now all the ladies rushed
+upon her in flocks to procure the small caps, fichus, and mantelets,
+after the queen’s model. The robes with long trains, the court-dresses
+of heavy silk, jewels and gold ornaments, were on a sudden despised;
+every thing which could add brilliancy and dignity to the toilet was
+banished, the greatest simplicity and nonchalance were now the fashion;
+every lady strove, if possible, to resemble a shepherdess of Watteau,
+and it was soon impossible to distinguish a duchess from an actress.
+
+Not only the ladies but also the gentlemen were carried away by this
+flood of novelty. They gave up the boots with red heels, the embroidered
+garments, as already before they had given up laces, bandelets, gold
+fringes, and diamond buttons on the hats; they put on simple coats of
+cloth as the burgher and the man of the people wore; they abandoned
+their equipages, with their brilliant armorial trappings and the golden
+liveries, and found satisfaction in promenading the streets, with cane
+in hand, and with boots instead of buckled shoes.
+
+It is true these street promenadings of the nobility were not oftentimes
+without inconvenience and molestation. As without the insignia of their
+rank and position they mixed with the society of the streets, entered
+into taverns and cafes, the people took them for what they seemed to be,
+for their equals, and instead of respectfully making way for them,
+the people claimed as much attention from them as they themselves were
+willing to give. Often enough disputes and scuffles took place between
+the disguised nobleman and the man of the people, the laborer, or the
+commissionnaire, and at such experiments of hand to hand the victory was
+not to the nobleman, but to the fist of the man, of the people.
+
+The novelty of such scenes excited the fastidious aristocracy; it became
+a sort of passion to mix with the people, to frequent the cabarets, to
+strike some bargain at trade, to be the hero of a fist-fight, even if
+it ended by the stout workmen throwing down the aristocrats who had
+despised them. To be thrown down was no more considered by the nobility
+as a disgrace, and they applauded these affrays as once they had
+applauded duelling.
+
+The aristocracy mixed with the people, adopted their manners and usages,
+even much of their mode of thinking, of their democratic opinions, and,
+by divesting themselves of their external dignity, of their halo, the
+nobility threw down the barrier of separation which stood between them
+and the democracy; that respect and esteem which the man of the people
+had hitherto maintained toward the nobleman vanished away.
+
+The principle of equality, which was to have such fatal consequences for
+France, arose from the folly of the aristocracy; and Marie Antoinette
+was the one who, with her taste for simplicity, with her opposition to
+etiquette and ceremony, had called this principle into life.
+
+Not only was the queen imitated in her simplicity, she was also imitated
+in her love of comedy. These theatrical amusements of the queen were
+a subject of reproach, and yet these private recreations of Marie
+Antoinette were the fashion of the day. The taste for theatrical
+representations made its way into all classes of society; soon there was
+no nobleman, no banker, not even a respectable, well-to-do merchant,
+who had not in his house a small theatre, and who, with his family and
+friends, endeavored not to emulate on his own narrow stage the manners
+of the celebrated actors.
+
+Before these days, a nobleman would have considered himself insulted and
+dishonored if he had been supposed to have become a comedian, or even
+to have assumed a comedian’s garb, were it but in the home-circle. The
+queen by her example had now destroyed this prepossession, and it was
+now so much bon ton to act a comedy that even men of gravity, even the
+first magistrate of Paris, could so much forget the dignity of position
+as to commit to memory and even to act some of the parts of a buffoon.
+[Footnote: Montjoie, “Histoire de Marie Antoinette, Reine de France.”]
+
+It was also soon considered to be highly fashionable to set one’s self
+against the prejudice which had been hitherto fostered against
+actors; and, whereas the queen took lessons in singing from Garat, the
+opera-singer, and even sang duets with her, she threw down the wall of
+partition which had hitherto separated the artistes of the stage from
+good society.
+
+Unfortunate queen, who, with the best qualities of the heart, was
+preparing her own ruin; who understood not that the freedom and license
+which she herself granted, would soon throw on the roof of the Tuileries
+the firebrand which reduced to dust and ashes the throne of the
+Bourbons!--unfortunate queen, who in her modesty would so gladly forget
+her exaltation and her majesty, and who thereby taught her subjects to
+make light of majesty and to despise the throne!
+
+She saw not yet the abyss opening under her feet; the flowers of Trianon
+hid it from her view! She heard not the distant mutterings of the public
+mind, which, like the raging wave of the storm, swelled up nearer and
+nearer the throne to crush it one day under the howling thunders of the
+unshackled elements of the unloosed rage of the people!
+
+The skies, arching over the fragrant blossoms of the charming Trianon,
+and over the cottages of the farming queen, were yet serene and
+cloudless, and the voice of public opinion was yet drowned in the joyous
+laughter which echoed from the cottages of Trianon, or in the sweet
+harmonies which waved in the concert-hall, when the queen, with Garat,
+or with the Baron de Vaudreuil, the most welcome favorite of the ladies,
+and the most accomplished courtier of his day, sang her duets.
+
+Repose and peace prevailed yet in Trianon, and the loyal subjects of the
+King of France made their pilgrimages to Trianon, there to admire the
+idyls of the queen and to watch for the favorable opportunity of espying
+the queen, Marie Antoinette, in her rustic costume, with a basket of
+eggs on her arm, or the spindle in hand, and to be greeted by her with
+a salutation, a friendly word. For Marie Antoinette in Trianon was only
+the lady of the mansion, or the farming-lady--so much so, that she had
+allowed the very last duties of etiquette, which separated the subject
+from the queen, to be abandoned, that even when with her gay company she
+was in Trianon, the gates of the park and of the castle were not closed
+to visitors, but were opened to any one who had secured from the keeper
+a card of admission; the benefit arising from these cards was applied by
+order of the queen to the relief of the poor of Versailles. It is true,
+one condition of small importance was attached, “by order of the queen,”
+ to the obtaining of such a card. It was necessary to belong to the
+nobility, or to the higher magistracy, so as to be entitled to purchase
+a card of admission into the Trianon, and this sole insignificant
+condition contained the germ of much evil and of bitter hatred. The
+merchant, the spicier, was conscious of a bitter insult in this order,
+which banished him from Trianon, which made it impossible for him to
+satisfy his curiosity, and to see the queen as a shepherdess, and the
+king as a farmer. This order only whetted more and more the hatred and
+the contempt for the preferred classes, for the aristocrats, and turned
+the most important class of the population, the burgesses, into enemies
+of the queen. For it was the queen who had given this order which kept
+away from Trianon the tradesmen; it was the queen alone who ruled in
+Trianon: and, to vent vengeance on the queen’s order, she was blamed
+for assuming a right belonging only to the King of France. Only he, the
+king, was entitled to give laws to France, only he could set on the very
+front of the law this seal: “DE PAR LE ROI.”
+
+And now the queen wanted to assume this privilege. In the castles of
+pleasure presented by the king to the queen, in Trianon as well as in
+St. Cloud, was seen at the entrance of the gardens a tablet, containing
+the regulations under which admission was granted to the public, and
+these two tablets began with the formula, “DE PAR LA HEINE!” This
+unfortunate expression excited the ill-will and the anger of all France;
+every one felt himself injured, every one was satisfied to see therein
+an attack on the integrity of the monarchy, on the sovereignty of the
+king.
+
+“It is no more the king alone who enacts laws,” they said, “but the
+queen also assumes this right; she makes use of the formalities of the
+state, she issues laws without the approbation of the Parliament. The
+queen wants to place our king aside and despoil us of our rights, so as
+to take the king’s place!”
+
+And these complaints, these reproaches became so vehement, so loud, that
+their echoes resounded in the chambers of the king, so that even one of
+the ministers could make observations to the king on that subject, and
+say: “It is certainly immoral and impolitic for a queen of France to own
+castles for her own private use” [Footnote: Campan, “Memoires,” vol. i.,
+p. 274.]
+
+The good Louis therefore ventured to speak to his consort on this
+subject, and to ask of her to remove this expression which gave so much
+offence, and which had so violently excited the public sentiment.
+
+But the pure heart of Marie Antoinette rebelled against such a
+supposition; her pride was stirred up that she, a queen, the daughter of
+the Caesars, should make concession to public opinion; that she should
+submit to this imaginary and invisible power, which dared despise her as
+a queen, which she recognized not and would not recognize!
+
+This power, the public opinion, stood yet behind Marie Antoinette as an
+invisible, an unobserved phantom, which soon was to be transformed into
+a cruel monster, whose giant hand would pitilessly crush the happiness
+and the peace of the queen.
+
+The prayers and expostulations of the king were in vain. Marie
+Antoinette would not bow to the public sentiment; she would not depart
+from her regulations, she would not strike off her “De par la reine” for
+the sake of “De par le peuple”
+
+“My name is there in its right place,” said she, with a countenance
+beaming with resolution and pride; “these gardens and castles are my
+property, and I can very well issue orders in them, without interfering
+with state rights.”
+
+And the “De par la reine” remained on the regulation-tablets in Trianon
+as well as in St. Cloud; and the people, who, through birth or through
+official position, were not entitled to enter Trianon, came thither at
+least to read the tablets of rules at the gate of entrance, and to
+fill up their hearts with scorn and contempt, and to utter loud curses
+against this presumptuous and daring “De par la reine.”
+
+And this woman, whose pride and imperiousness kept away and scorned away
+the burgesses from the gates of Trianon, came to Trianon there to rest
+from the unbending majesty of her sovereignty, and she herself used to
+say to her ladies, with her own enchanting smile, “To forget that she
+was queen.”
+
+The numberless fairy-tales related about the enchanted castle of the
+queen had found their way to Fontainebleau, and had been re-echoed in
+the quiet, lonely house where lived the Marquis de Beauharnais and
+his family. The marquis, always extremely attentive to procure for his
+beloved daughter-in-law some distraction and some recreation, proposed
+to Josephine to visit this Trianon, which furnished so much material
+for admiration and slander, and to make thither with a few friends a
+pleasure excursion.
+
+Josephine gladly accepted the invitation; she longed for diversion and
+society. Her young, glowing heart had been healed and strengthened after
+the deep wound which the ever-beloved husband had inflicted; she had
+submitted to her fate; she was a divorced woman, but Parliament had by
+its judgment kept her honor free from every shadow; public opinion had
+pronounced itself in her favor; the love of her parents, of the father
+of him who had so shamefully accused her, so cruelly deserted her,
+endeavored to make compensation for what she had lost. Josephine could
+not trouble, with her sorrows, with her sad longings of soul, those who
+so much busied themselves in cheering her up. She had, therefore, so
+mastered herself as to appear content, as to dry here tears; and her
+youth, the freshness and elasticity of her mind, had come to the help
+of her efforts. She had at first smiled through effort, she soon did
+it from the force of youthful pleasure; she had at first repressed her
+tears by the power of her will, soon her tears were dried up and her
+eyes irradiated again the fire of youth and hope, of the hope once
+more to win her husband’s heart, to return her two graceful and beloved
+children to their father, whom their youth needed, for whom every
+evening she raised to the God of love the prayers which their mother
+with low, trembling voice and tears in her eyes made them say after her.
+
+Josephine, then, in company with her aunt Madame de Renaudin and
+with her father-in-law the Marquis de Beauharnais, undertook this
+pleasure-excursion to Trianon. The sight of these glorious parks, these
+gardens so artistically laid out, charmed her and filled her with the
+sweet reminiscences of the loved home, of the beautiful gardens in
+Martinique, which she herself with her slaves had cultivated, in which
+she had planted those beautiful flowers whose liveliness of color and
+whose fragrance of blossom were here in hot-houses so much praised. The
+love of plants and flowers had ever remained fresh amid the storms
+and sorrows which in the last years had passed over her heart, and
+oftentimes she had sought in the study of botany forgetfulness and
+refreshment. With a vivacity and a joyfulness such as had not been seen
+in her for a long time, Josephine wandered about this beautiful park,
+these hot-houses and gardens, and, transported with joy and admiration,
+she exclaimed: “Oh, how happy must the queen be to call this paradise
+her own!”
+
+The sound of approaching voices interrupted her in her observations and
+in her admiration, which, perchance, was not entirely free from envy.
+Through the foliage of the trees was seen a large company approaching
+the queen’s farm-house, before which stood Josephine with her escort. At
+the curve of the path near the grove where Josephine stood, appeared
+a woman. A white muslin dress, not expanded by the stiff, ceremonious
+hoop-petticoat, but falling down in ample folds, wrapped up her tall,
+noble figure, a small lace kerchief covered the beautiful neck, and
+in part the splendid shoulders. The deep-blond unpowdered hair hung
+in heavy, curly locks on either side of the rosy cheeks; the head was
+covered with a large, round straw hat, adorned with long, streaming silk
+ribbons; on the arm, partly covered with a black knit glove, hung an
+ornamented woven basket, which was completely filled with eggs.
+
+“The queen!” murmured Josephine, trembling within herself, and,
+frightened at this unexpected meeting, she wanted to withdraw behind the
+grove, in the hope of being unnoticed by the farmer’s wife passing by.
+
+But Marie Antoinette had already seen her, and on her beautiful, smiling
+countenance was not for a moment expressed either surprise or concern at
+this unexpected meeting with uninvited strangers. She was so accustomed
+to see curiosity-seekers in her lovely Trianon, and to meet them,
+disturbed not in the least her unaffected serenity. A moment only she
+stood still, to allow her followers, the Duchesses de Polignac, the
+Princess de Lamballe, and the two Counts de Coigny, to draw near; then
+lightly and smilingly she walked toward the house near which Josephine
+bewildered and blushing stood, whilst the marquis bowed profoundly and
+reverentially.
+
+The queen, who was about to pass by and enter into the house, stood
+still. Her large dark-blue eye was for a moment fixed with questioning
+expression upon Josephine, then a smile illumined her beautiful
+countenance. She had recognized the Viscountess de Beauharnais, though
+she had seen her only twice. Although, through her husband’s rank and
+station, Josephine was entitled to appear at court, yet she had always,
+with all the retreating anxiety of inexperienced youth, endeavored to
+evade the solemnity of an official presentation. The young, lively,
+unaffected Creole had cherished an invincible horror for the stiff
+court-etiquette, for the ceremonial court-dress of gold brocade, with
+the court-mantle strictly embroidered after the established pattern, and
+which terminated in a long, heavy train, for the majestic head-gear of
+feathers, flowers, laces, and veils, all towering up nearly a yard high,
+and, above all things, for those rules and laws which regulated and
+fixed every word, every step, every movement, at a solemn presentation
+at court.
+
+Marie Antoinette had had compassion on the timidity of the young
+Creole, and to spare her the solemnity of a rigid presentation had twice
+received at a private audience the young Viscountess de Beauharnais, and
+had then received also her homage. [Footnote: Le Normand, “Histoire de
+l’Imperatrice Josephine,” vol. i., p. 97.]
+
+The youthful, charming appearance of Josephine, her peculiar and at
+the same time ingenuous and graceful attitude, had not been without
+impression on the queen; and with the most sympathizing interest, she
+had heard of the sad disturbances which had clouded the matrimonial
+happiness of the young Creole.
+
+No longer, as before, had Marie Antoinette requested the Viscount de
+Beauharnais, the beautiful dancer of Versailles, to dance with her;
+and when Parliament had given its sentence, and openly and solemnly had
+proclaimed the innocency of Josephine, the accused wife, the queen also
+had loudly expressed her satisfaction at this judgment, and the Viscount
+de Beauharnais was no more invited to the court festivities.
+
+About to enter into the house, the queen had recognized the young
+viscountess, and with a friendly movement of the head she beckoned her
+to approach, welcomed the marquis, whom her short-sightedness had not at
+once recognized, to her beloved Trianon, and she requested them both
+to visit her little kingdom as often as they would wish, and to examine
+every thing attentively.
+
+In the goodness and generosity of her heart, the queen gladly desired
+to make amends to the young, timid woman, who, embarrassed and blushing,
+stood before her, for the sufferings she had endured, for the disgrace
+under which she had had to bow her head; she wanted to give the accused
+innocent one a reparation of honor such as Parliament and public
+sentiment had already done.
+
+She was consequently all goodness, all condescension, all confidence;
+she spoke to Josephine, not as a queen to her favored subjects, but as
+a young woman to a young woman, as to her equal. With sympathetic
+friendliness she made inquiries concerning the welfare of the
+viscountess and her family; she invited her to come often to Trianon,
+and, with a flattering allusion to the vast knowledge of the viscountess
+in botany, she asked her if she was satisfied with the arrangements of
+garden and hot-houses.
+
+Josephine, with the sensitiveness and fine tact natural to her, felt
+that the trivial flattery of a courtier would but be a wretched and
+inappropriate return for so much goodness and loving-kindness; she
+felt that frankness and truth were the thanks due to the queen’s
+large-heartedness.
+
+She therefore answered the queen’s questions with impartial sincerity,
+and, encouraged by the kindness of the queen, she openly and clearly
+gave her opinion concerning the arrangement of the hot-houses, and drew
+the attention of the queen to some precious and choice plants which she
+had noticed in the hot-houses.
+
+Marie Antoinette listened to her with lively interest, and at parting
+extended to her in a friendly manner her beautiful hand.
+
+“Come soon again, viscountess,” said she, with that beautiful smile
+which ever won her true hearts; “you are worthy to enjoy the beauty
+of my beloved Trianon, for you have eyes and sense for the beautiful.
+Examine everything closely, and when we see one another again, tell
+me what you have observed and what has pleased you. It will ever be a
+pleasure to see you.” [Footnote: The very words of the queen.--See Le
+Normand, “Histoire,” &c., vol. i., p. 135.]
+
+But Josephine was no more to see the beautiful queen, so worthy of
+compassion; and these kind words which Marie Antoinette had spoken to
+her were the last which Josephine was ever to hear from her lips.
+
+A few days after this visit to Trianon, Josephine received from her
+parents in Martinique letters which had for their object to persuade her
+with the tenderness of love, with all the reasons of wisdom, to
+return to her home, to the house of her parents, to withdraw with
+bold resolution from all the inconveniences and humiliations of her
+precarious and dangerous situation, and, instead of living in humble
+solitude as a divorced, despised woman, sooner to come to Martinique,
+and there in her parents’ home be again the beloved and welcomed
+daughter.
+
+Josephine hesitated still. She could not come to the resolution of
+abandoning the hope of a reunion with Alexandre de Beauharnais; she
+dreamt yet of the happiness of seeing the beloved wanderer return to his
+wife, to his children.
+
+But her aunt and her father-in-law knew better than she that there was
+no prospect of such an event; they knew that the viscount was still the
+impassioned lover of the beautiful Madame de Gisard; that she held him
+too tightly in her web to look for a possibility of his returning to his
+legitimate affection.
+
+If any thing could rouse him from this love-spell, and bring him back to
+duty and reason, it would be that sudden, unexpected departure; it would
+be the conviction which would necessarily be impressed upon him,
+that Josephine desired to be forever separated from him; that she was
+conscious of being divorced from him forever, and that, in the pride of
+her insulted womanhood, she wished to withdraw herself and her daughter
+from his approaches, and from the scandal which his passion for Madame
+de Gisard was giving.
+
+Such were the reasons with which her relatives, even the grandfather
+of her two children, sought to persuade her to a voyage to
+Martinique--bitter though the anguish would be for them to be deprived
+of the presence of the gentle, lovely young woman, whose youthful
+freshness and grace had like sunshine cheered the lonely house in
+Fontainebleau; to see also part from them the little Hortense, whose
+joyous voice of childhood had now and then recalled the faithless son
+to the father’s house, and which was still a bond which united Josephine
+with her husband and with his family.
+
+Josephine had to give way before these arguments, however much her heart
+bled. She had long felt how much of impropriety and of danger there was
+in the situation of a young woman divorced from her husband, and how
+much more dignified and expedient it would be for her to return to
+her father’s home and to the bosom of her family. She therefore took a
+decided resolution; she tore herself away from her relatives, from her
+beloved son, whom she could not take with her, for he belonged to the
+father. With a stream of painful tears she bade farewell to the love of
+youth, to the joys of youth, from which naught remained but the wounds
+of a despised heart, and the children who gazed at her with the beloved
+eyes of their father.
+
+In the month of July of the year 1788, Josephine, with her little
+five-year-old daughter Hortense, left Fontainebleau, went to Havre,
+whence she embarked for Martinique.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII. LIEUTENANT NAPOLEON BONAPARTE.
+
+
+While the Viscountess Josephine de Beauharnais was, during long years of
+resignation, enduring all the anguish, humiliations, and agonies of an
+unhappy marriage, the first pain and sorrow had also clouded the days of
+the young Corsican boy who, in the same year as Josephine, had embarked
+from his native land for France.
+
+In the beginning of the year 1785, Napoleon Bonaparte had lost his
+father. In Montpellier, whither he had come for the cure of his diseased
+breast, he died, away from home, from his Letitia and his children.
+Only his eldest son Joseph stood near his dying couch, and, moreover,
+a fortunate accident had brought to pass that the poor, lonely sufferer
+should meet there a friendly home, where he was received with the most
+considerate affection. Letitia’s companion of youth, the beautiful
+Panonia Comnene, now Madame de Permont, resided in Montpellier with
+her husband, who was settled there, and with all the faithfulness and
+friendship of a Corsican, she nursed the sick husband of her Letitia.
+
+But neither the skill of the renowned physicians of Montpellier, nor the
+tender care of friends, nor the tears of the son, could keep alive the
+unfortunate Charles de Bonaparte. For three days long he struggled with
+death; for three days long his youth, his manhood’s powers, resisted the
+mighty foe, which already held him in its chains; then he had to submit
+to the conqueror. Exhausted with death’s pallor, Charles de Bonaparte
+sank back on his couch, and as Death threw his dark shadows on his
+face bathed in cold perspiration, Charles de Bonaparte, with stammering
+tongue, in the last paroxysms of fancy, exclaimed: “It is in vain!
+Nothing can save me! Even Napoleon’s sword, which one day is to triumph
+over all Europe, even that sword cannot frighten away the dragon of
+death which crouches on my breast!” [Footnote: See “Memoires du Roi
+Joseph,” vol. i., p. 29.]
+
+Wonderful vision of a dying man! The dimmed eye of the dying father
+saw his son Napoleon’s sword, “which one day was to triumph over all
+Europe;” as he prophesied its power, he sighed at the same time over the
+impotency which holds all mankind in its bands, and leaves even the hero
+as a powerless child in the hands of fate. The sword which was to be a
+yoke to all Europe could not terrify from the breast of his father the
+dragon of death!
+
+Napoleon received the news of his father’s decease whilst at the
+military school of Paris, where he had been placed for the last six
+months, to the joy and satisfaction of his teachers as well as to that
+of his schoolmates in Brienne. For the reserved, taciturn, proud boy,
+who, rugged and blunt, stood aloof from his comrades, who even dared
+speak rude and bitter words against his teachers and against the whole
+military institution at Brienne, was oftentimes an inconvenience and a
+burden as well to teachers as to schoolmates; and all felt relieved, as
+from a depressing weight, when they no more feared the naming eyes of
+the boy who observed every thing, who criticised every thing, and passed
+judgment upon every thing.
+
+But if he was not loved, it was impossible to refuse esteem to his
+capacity, to his desire for learning; and the testimony which Monsieur
+de Heralio, the principal of the institution of Brienne, sent with the
+young Napoleon to Paris, was a tribute of respect and an acknowledgment
+of merit. He portrayed him “as having an extremely capacious head,
+especially skilled in mathematics, and of great powers and talents.” As
+to his character, one of the professors of the institution had in the
+testimonial written the remark: “A Corsican by birth and character. He
+will do great things, if circumstances are favorable.”
+
+But circumstances did not appear favorable, but contrariwise seemed to
+bo roused in enmity against the poor Corsican boy. He had been scarcely
+half a year in Paris when he lost his father, and this grief, of which
+not a murmur escaped, which he kept within, devouring his heart, as
+every thing else which affected him, made his existence still more
+reserved, still more retired, and isolated him more and more. Moreover,
+death had not only taken away the father, but also the support which
+Napoleon received from him. The means of the Bonaparte family were very
+meagre, and barely sufficed to the support of Signora Letitia and her
+seven children. Napoleon could not and dared not require or accept
+any help from his mother, on whom and on his brother Joseph it became
+incumbent to educate and support the young family. He had to be
+satisfied to live upon the bounty which the royal treasury furnished to
+the young men at the military school.
+
+But these limited means were to the ambitious boy a source of
+humiliation and pain. The majority of his comrades consisted of young
+aristocrats, who, provided with ample means, led a gay, luxurious,
+dissipated life, had horses, servants, equipages, kept up one with
+another expensive dinner-parties and dejeuners, and seized every
+opportunity to organize a festivity or a pleasure-party. Every
+departure, every admission of a scholar, was celebrated with brilliant
+display; every birthday furnished the opportunity of a feast, and every
+holiday became the welcomed occasion for a pleasure excursion which the
+young men on horseback, and followed by their servants in livery, made
+in the vicinity of Paris.
+
+Napoleon could take no part in all these feastings and dissipations; and
+as his proud heart could not acknowledge his poverty, he put on the mask
+of a stoic, who, with contemptuous disregard, cast away vain pleasures
+and amusements, and scorned those who with unrestrained zest abandoned
+themselves to them.
+
+He had scarcely been half a year in the military school when he gave
+loud expression to his jealousy and envy; the young Napoleon, nearly
+sixteen years old, undertook boldly to censure in the very presence of
+the teachers the regulations of the institution. In a memorial which
+he had composed, and which he presented to the second director of the
+establishment, M. Berton, he gave utterance to his own views in the most
+energetic and daring manner, imposing upon the professors the duty of
+making a complete change in the institution; of limiting the number
+of servants, so that the military pupils might learn to wait upon
+themselves; of simplifying the noonday meal, so as to accustom them to
+moderation; of forbidding banquets, dejeuners, and pleasure-excursions,
+so that they might not become inured to a frivolous, extravagant mode of
+life.
+
+This mask of a censuring stoic, which he put on in the presence of
+teachers and school-mates, he retained also with his few friends. Madame
+de Permont, a short time after the death of Napoleon’s father, came with
+her family to Paris, where her husband had obtained an important and
+lucrative office; her son Albert attended the military school and was
+soon the friend of Napoleon, as much as a friendship could be formed
+between the young, lively M. de Permont, the son of wealthy and
+distinguished parents, and the reserved, proud Napoleon Bonaparte, the
+son of a poor, lonely widow.
+
+However, Napoleon this time acquiesced in the wishes of his true friend,
+and condescended to pass his holidays with Albert in the house of
+Madame de Permont, the friend of his mother; and oftentimes his whole
+countenance would brighten into a smile, when speaking with her of the
+distant home, of the mother, and of the family. But as many times also
+that countenance would darken when, gazing round, he tacitly compared
+this costly, tastefully decorated mansion with the poor and sparingly
+furnished house in which his noble and beautiful mother lived with her
+six orphans, and who in her household duties had to wait upon herself;
+when again he noticed with what solicitude and love Madame de Permont
+had her children educated by masters from the court, by governesses
+and by teachers at enormous salaries, whilst her friend Letitia had to
+content herself with the very deficient institutions of learning to
+be found in Corsica, because her means were not sufficient to bring to
+Paris, to the educational establishment of St. Cyr, her young daughters,
+like the parents of the beautiful Pauline.
+
+The young Napoleon hated luxury, because he himself had not the means
+of procuring it; he spoke contemptuously of servants, for his position
+allowed him not to maintain them; he spoke against the expensive noonday
+meal, because he had to be content with less; he scorned the amusements
+of his school-mates, because, when they arranged their picnics and
+festivities, his purse allowed him not to take a part in them.
+
+One day in the military school, as one of the teachers was to bid it
+farewell, the scholars organized a festivity, toward which each of them
+was to contribute a tolerably large sum. It was perhaps not all accident
+that precisely on that day M. de Permont, the father of Albert, came to
+the military school to visit his son, and Napoleon, his son’s friend.
+
+He found all the scholars in joyous excitement and motion; his son
+Albert was, like the rest, intently busy with the preparations of the
+feast, which was to take place in the garden, and to end in a great
+display of fireworks. All faces beamed with delight, all eyes were
+illumined, and the whole park re-echoed with jubilant cries and joyous
+laughter.
+
+But Napoleon Bonaparte was not among the gay company. M. de Permont
+found him in a remote, lonesome path. He was walking up and down
+with head bent low, his hands folded behind his back; as he saw M. de
+Permont, his face became paler and gloomier, and a look nearly scornful
+met the unwelcomed disturber.
+
+“My young friend,” said M. de Permont, with a friendly smile, “I come to
+bring you the small sum which you need to enable you to take a part in
+the festivity. Here it is; take it, I pray you.”
+
+But Napoleon, with a vehement movement of the hand, waved back the
+offered money, a burning redness for a moment covered his face, then his
+cheeks assumed that yellowish whiteness which in the child had always
+indicated a violent emotion.
+
+“No,” cried he, vehemently, “no, I have nothing to do with this
+meaningless festivity. I thank you--I receive no alms.”
+
+M. de Permont gazed with emotions of sympathizing sorrow in the pale
+face of the poor young man for whom poverty was preparing so many
+griefs, and in the generosity of his heart he had recourse to a
+falsehood.
+
+“This is no alms I offer you, Napoleon,” said he, gently, “but this
+money belongs to you, it comes from your father. At his dying hour he
+confided to me a small sum of money, with the express charge to keep it
+for you and to give you a portion of it in pressing circumstances, when
+your personal honor required it. I therefore bring you to-day the fourth
+part of this sum, and retain the rest for another pressing occasion.”
+
+With a penetrating, searching look. Napoleon gazed into the face of
+the speaker, and the slight motions of a sarcastic smile played for an
+instant around his thin, compressed lips.
+
+“Well, then,” said he, after a pause, “since this money comes from my
+father, I can use it; but had you simply wished to lend it to me,
+I could not have received it. My mother has already too much
+responsibility and care; I cannot increase them by an outlay, especially
+when such an outlay is imposed upon me by the sheer folly of my
+schoolmates.” [Footnote: Napoleon’s words.--See “Memoires de la Duchesse
+d’Abrantes,” vol. i., p. 81.]
+
+He then took the offered sum for which, as he thought, he was indebted
+to no man, and hastened to pay his contribution to the festivity. But,
+in respect to his principles, he took no part in the festivity, but
+declaimed all the louder, and in a more biting tone, against the
+criminal propensities for pleasure in the young men who, instead of
+turning their attention to their studies, lavished away their precious
+time in dissipation and frivolities.
+
+These anxieties and humiliations of poverty Napoleon had doubly to
+endure, not only for himself, but also for his sister Marianne (who
+afterward called herself Elise). She had been, as already said, at her
+father’s intercession and application, received in the royal educational
+institute of St. Cyr, and there enjoyed the solid and brilliant
+education of the pupils of the king. But the spirit of luxury and the
+desire for pleasure had also penetrated into this institution, founded
+by the pious and high-minded Madame de Maintenon, and the young ladies
+of St. Cyr had among themselves picnics and festivals, as well as the
+young men of the military school.
+
+Napoleon, whose means, as long as he was in Brienne, never allowed him
+to visit his beloved sister at St. Cyr, had now frequent opportunities
+of seeing her, for Madame de Permont, in her royal friendship to the
+Bonaparte family, took as lively an interest in the daughter as in the
+son of her friend Letitia, and often drove to St. Cyr to visit the young
+and beautiful Marianne.
+
+A few days after the festival in the military school, a short vacation
+had followed, and Napoleon passed it with his friend Albert in the house
+of the family of Permont. To please young Napoleon, it was decided to
+go to St. Cyr, and the glowing cheeks and the lively manner with which
+Napoleon, during the journey, conversed with M. and Madame de Permont,
+proved what satisfaction he anticipated in meeting his sister.
+
+But Marianne Bonaparte did not seem to share this satisfaction. With
+downcast countenance and sad mien she entered the reception-room and
+saluted M. and Madame Permont, and even her brother, with a gloomy,
+despairing look. As she was questioned about the cause of her sadness,
+she broke into tears, and threw herself with vehement emotion into the
+arms of Madame de Permont.
+
+Vain were the prayers and expostulations of her mother’s friend to have
+her reveal the cause of her sadness. Marianne only shook her head in a
+negative manner, and ever a fresh flow of tears started from her eyes,
+but she remained silent.
+
+Napoleon, who at first, pale and silent, had looked on this outbreak of
+sorrow, now excitedly approached his sister, and, laying his hand upon
+her arm, said in angry tones: “Since you cry, you must also confess the
+cause of your tears, or else we are afraid that you weep over some wrong
+of which you are guilty. But woe to you if it is so! I am here in the
+name of our father, and I will be without pity!” [Footnote: “Memoires de
+la Duehesse d’Abrantes.”]
+
+Marianne trembled, and cast a timid, anxious look upon her young
+brother, whose voice had assumed such a peculiar, imperious
+expression--whose eyes shone with the expression of a proud, angry
+master.
+
+“I am in no wise guilty, my brother,” murmured she, “and yet I am sad
+and unhappy.”
+
+And blushing, trembling, with broken words, interrupted by tears and
+sighs, Marianne related that next day, a farewell festival was to take
+place in the institution in honor of one of the pupils about to leave.
+The whole class was taking a part in it, and each of the young ladies
+had already paid her contribution.
+
+“But I only am not able,” exclaimed Marianne, with a loud burst of
+anguish, “I have but six francs; if I give them, nothing is left me, and
+my pension is not paid until six weeks. But even were I to give all I
+have, my miserable six francs would not be enough.”
+
+Very unwillingly indeed had Napoleon, whilst Marianne thus spoke,
+put his hand into his pocket, as if to draw out the money which his
+sorrowing sister needed, but remembering his own poverty, his hand
+dropped at his side; a deep glow of anger overspread his cheeks, and
+wildly stamping down with the foot he turned away and walked to the
+window, perhaps to allow none to notice the nervous agitation of his
+countenance and his tears of vexation and shame.
+
+But what Napoleon could not do, that did Madame de Permont. She gave to
+the weeping young girl the twelve francs she needed to take a part in
+the festivity, and Marianne, less proud and less disdainful than her
+brother, accepted gladly, without opposition and without the need of a
+falsehood, the little sum offered.
+
+Napoleon allowed this to take place without contradiction, and hindered
+not his sister to receive from Madame de Permont the alms which he
+himself had so arrogantly refused.
+
+But they had barely left the reception-room and entered the carriage,
+than his suffering heart burst into a sarcastic philippic against the
+contemptible administration of such royal establishments as St. Cyr and
+the military school.
+
+M. de Permont, who had at first patiently and with a smile listened to
+these raving invectives, felt himself at last wounded by them; and the
+supercilious and presumptuous manner in which the young man of barely
+seventeen years spoke of the highest offices of the state, and of the
+king himself, excited his anger.
+
+“Hush, Napoleon!” said he, reluctantly. “It does not beseem you, who are
+educated upon the king’s bounty, to speak thus.”
+
+Napoleon shrank within himself as if he had been bitten by a serpent,
+and a deadly pallor overspread his cheeks.
+
+“I am not the pupil of the king, but of the state!” exclaimed he, in a
+boisterous voice, trembling with passion.
+
+“Ah, that is indeed a fine distinction which you have made there,
+Napoleon,” said M. de Permont, laughing. “It is all the same whether you
+are the pupil of the state or of the king; moreover, is not the king
+the state also? However it may be, it beseems you not to speak of your
+benefactor in such inappropriate terms.”
+
+Napoleon concentrated all his efforts into self-control, and mastered
+himself into a grave, quiet countenance.
+
+“I will be silent,” said he, with an appearance of composure; “I will no
+more say what might excite your displeasure. Only allow me to say,
+were I master here, had I to decide upon the regulations of these
+institutions, I would have them very different, and for the good of
+all.”
+
+“Were I master here!” The pupil of the military school, for whom poverty
+was preparing so much humiliation, who had just now experienced a fresh
+humiliation through his sister in the reception-room of St. Cyr, was
+already thinking what he would do were he the ruler of France; and,
+strange enough, these words seemed natural to his lips, and no one
+thought of sneering or laughing at him when he thus spoke.
+
+Meanwhile his harsh and repulsive behavior, his constant fault-finding
+and censoriousness were by no means conducive to the friendship and
+affection of those around him; he was a burden to all, he was an
+inconvenience to all; and the teachers as well as the pupils of the
+military school were all anxious to get rid of his presence.
+
+As nothing else could be said to his reproach; as there was no denying
+his assiduity, his capacities, and progress, there was but one means
+of removing him from the institution--he had to be promoted. It was
+necessary to recognize the young pupil of the military school as
+competent to enter into the practical, active military service; it was
+necessary to make a lieutenant out of the pupil.
+
+Scarcely had one year passed since Napoleon had been received into the
+military school of Paris, when he was nominated by the authorities of
+the school for a vacancy in the rank of lieutenant, and he was promoted
+to it in the artillery regiment of La Fere, then stationed at Valence.
+
+In the year 1786 Napoleon left the military school to serve his country
+and his king as second lieutenant, and to take the oath of allegiance.
+
+Radiant with happiness and joy, proud alike of his promotion and of his
+uniform, the young lieutenant went to the house of M. de Permont to show
+himself to his friends in his new dignity and in his new splendors, and,
+at their invitation, to pass a few days in their house before leaving
+for Valence.
+
+But, alas! his appearance realized not the wished-for result. As he
+entered the saloon of Madame de Permont the whole family was gathered
+there, and at the sight of Napoleon the two daughters, girls of six and
+thirteen years, broke out into loud laughter. None are more alive than
+children to the impression of what is ridiculous, and there was indeed
+in the appearance of the young lieutenant something which well might
+excite the laughing propensities of the lively little maidens. The
+uniform appeared much too long and wide for the little meagre figure
+of Napoleon, and his slender legs vanished in boots of such height and
+breadth that he seemed more to swim than to walk with them.
+
+These boots especially had excited the laughter of the little maidens;
+and at every step which Napoleon, embarrassed as he was by the terrible
+cannon-boots, made forward, the laughter only increased, so that the
+expostulations and reproaches of Madame de Permont could not procure
+silence.
+
+Napoleon, who had entered the drawing-room with a face radiant with joy,
+felt wounded by the children’s joyousness at his own cost. To be the
+subject of scorn or sarcasm was then, as it was afterward, entirely
+unbearable to him, and when he himself also tried to jest he knew not
+how to receive the jests directed at him. After having saluted M. and
+Madame de Permont, Napoleon turned to the eldest daughter Cecilia, who,
+a few days before, had come from the boarding-school to remain a
+short time at home, and who, laughing, had placed herself right before
+monsieur the lieutenant.
+
+“I find your laughter very silly and childish,” said he, eagerly.
+
+The young maid, however, continued to laugh.
+
+“M. Lieutenant,” said she, “since you carry such a mighty sword, you
+no doubt wish to carry it as a lady’s knight, and therefore you must
+consider it an honor when ladies jest with you.”
+
+Napoleon gave a contemptuous shrug of the shoulders.
+
+“It is evident,” said he, scornfully, “that you are but a little
+school-girl.”
+
+These sarcastic words wounded the vanity of the young maiden, and
+brought a glow of anger on her face.
+
+“Well, yes,” cries she, angrily, “I am a school-girl, but you--you are
+nothing else than a puss in boots!”
+
+A general laugh followed; even Madame de Permont, ordinarily so good
+and so considerate, could not suppress laughter. The witty words of the
+little school-girl were too keen and too applicable that she should be
+subjected to reproach.
+
+Napoleon’s wrath was indescribable. His visage was overspread with a
+yellow-greenish pallor, his lips were contracted nervously, and already
+opened for a word of anger. But he suppressed that word with an effort;
+for though not yet familiar with all the forms and usages of society,
+his fine tact and the instinct of what was becoming told him that when
+the conversation ran into personalities the best plan was to be silent,
+and that he must not return personal remarks, since his opponent was one
+of the fair sex. He therefore remained silent, and so controlled himself
+as to join in the general laughter and to show himself heartily amused
+at the unfortunate nickname of the little Cecilia.
+
+And that every one might be convinced how much he himself had been
+amused at this little scene, he brought, a few days afterward, to the
+youngest daughter of Madame de Permont, a charming little toy which he
+had had made purposely for her. This toy consisted of a small gilt and
+richly-ornamented carriage of papier-mache, before which leaped along a
+very lovely puss in boots.
+
+To this present for the little Lolotte (afterward Duchess d’Abrantes),
+was added for Cecilia an elegant and interesting edition of the tales
+of “Puss in Boots,” and when Napoleon politely presented it to the young
+maid he begged her to receive kindly this small souvenir from him.
+
+“That is too much,” said Madame de Permont, shaking her head. “The toy
+for Loulou would have been quite enough. But this present to Cecilia
+shows that you took her jest in earnest, and were hurt by it.”
+
+Napoleon, however, affirmed that he had not taken the jest in earnest,
+that he had been no wise hurt by it; that he himself when he put on
+his uniform had to laugh at the nickname of “puss in boots” which dear
+Cecilia had given him.
+
+He had, however, endeavored no more to deserve this nickname, and the
+unlucky boots were replaced by much smaller and closer-fitting ones.
+
+A few days after this little incident the young second lieutenant left
+Paris and went to meet his regiment La Fere at Valence.
+
+A life of labor and study, of hopes and dreams, now began for the young
+lieutenant. He gave himself up entirely to his military service, and
+pursued earnest, scientific studies in regard to it. Mathematics, the
+science of war, geometry, and finally politics, were the objects of his
+zeal; but alongside of these he read and studied earnestly the works of
+Voltaire, Corneille, Racine, Montaigne, the Abbe Raynal, and, above all,
+the works of Jean Jacques Rousseau, whose passionate and enthusiastic
+disciple Napoleon Bonaparte was at that time. [Footnote: “Memoires du
+Roi Joseph,” vol. i., p. 33.]
+
+Amid so many grave occupations of the mind it would seem that the heart
+with all its claims had to remain in the background. The smiling boy
+Cupid, with his gracious raillery and his smarting griefs, seemed
+to make no impression on that pale, grave, and taciturn artillery
+lieutenant, and not to dare shoot an arrow toward that bosom which had
+mailed itself in an impenetrable cuirass of misanthropy, stoicism, and
+learning.
+
+But yet between the links of this coat-of-mail an arrow must have
+glided, for the young lieutenant suddenly became conscious that there
+in his bosom a heart did beat, and that it was going in the midst of
+his studies to interrupt his dreams of misanthropy. Yes, it had come to
+this, that he abandoned his study to pay his court to a young lady, that
+at her side he lost his gravity of mien, his gloomy taciturnity, and
+became joyous, talkative, and merry, as beseemed a young man of his age.
+
+The young lady who exercised so powerful an influence upon the young
+Bonaparte was the daughter of the commanding officer at Valence, M. de
+Colombier. He loved her, but his lips were yet too timid to confess
+it, and of what need were words to these young people to understand one
+another and to know what the one felt for the other?
+
+In the morning they took long walks through the beautiful park; they
+spoke one to another of their childhood, of their brothers and
+sisters, and when the young maid with tears in her eyes listened to the
+descriptions which Napoleon made to her of his country, of his father’s
+house, and, above all things, of his mother--when she with animation
+and enthusiasm declared that Letitia was a heroine greater than whom
+antiquity had never seen, then Napoleon would take her two hands in his
+and thank her with tremulous voice for the love which she consecrated to
+his noble mother.
+
+If in the morning they had to separate, as an indemnification an evening
+walk in the light of the moon was agreed upon, and the young maid
+promised heroically to come without uncertainty, however imperative was
+her mother’s prohibition. And truly, when her mother was asleep, she
+glided down into the park, and Napoleon welcomed her with a happy smile,
+and arm in arm, happy as children, they wandered through the paths,
+laughing at their own shadows, which the light of the moon in wondrous
+distortion made to dance before them. They entered into a small bower,
+which stood in the shadow of trees, and there the young Napoleon had
+prepared for the young maid a very pleasing surprise. There on the table
+was a basket full of her favorite fruit--full of the sweetest, finest
+cherries. Louise thanked her young lover with a hand-pressure for the
+tender attention, but she declared that she would touch none of the
+cherries unless Napoleon enjoyed them with her, and to please his
+beloved he had to obey.
+
+They sat down on the seat before the bower and enjoyed the golden light
+of the moon, the night air amid the lime-trees, the joy of being thus
+secretly together, and with infinite delight they ate of the sweet juicy
+cherries. But when the last cherry was eaten, the moon became darkened,
+a rude night breeze shook the trees, and made the young maid tremble
+with cold. She must not remain from home any longer, she must not
+expose herself to the dangerous night air; thus argued the considerate
+tenderness of the young lieutenant, and, kissing her hand, he bade
+farewell to Louise, and watched until the tender ethereal figure had
+vanished behind the little door which led from the park into the house.
+[Footnote: “Memorial de St. Helene,” p. 30.]
+
+The sweet idyl of his first love had, however, come to a sudden and
+unexpected end. The young Second-Lieutenant Bonaparte was ordered to
+Lyons with his regiment, and the first innocent romance of his heart was
+ended.
+
+But he never forgot the young maid, whom he then had so tenderly loved,
+and in the later days of his grandeur he remembered her, and when he
+learned that she had lost her husband, a M. de Bracieux, and lived in
+very depressing circumstances, he appointed her maid of honor to his
+sister Elise, and secured her a very handsome competency.
+
+The dream of his first love had been dreamed away; and, perhaps
+to forget it, Napoleon again in Lyons gave himself up with deepest
+earnestness to study. The Academy of Sciences in Lyons had offered
+a prize for the answer to the question: “What are the sentiments and
+emotions which are to be instilled into men, so as to make them happy?”
+
+Napoleon entered the lists for this prize, and, if his work did not
+receive the prize, it furnished the occasion for the Abbe Raynal, who
+had answered the question successfully, to become acquainted with
+the young author, and to encourage him to persevere in his literary
+pursuits, for which he had exhibited so much talent.
+
+Napoleon then, with all the fire of his soul, began a new work, the
+history of the revolutions in Corsica; and, in order to make accurate
+researches in the archives of Ajaccio, he obtained leave of absence to
+go thither. In the year 1788, Napoleon returned to his native isle to
+his mother, to his brothers and sisters, all of whom he had not seen for
+nine years, and was welcomed by them with the tenderest affection.
+
+But the joys of the family could draw away the young man but little
+from his studies and researches; and, however much he loved his mother,
+brothers and sisters, now much grown up, yet he preferred being alone
+with his elder brother Joseph, making long walks with him, and in solemn
+exchange of thoughts and sentiments, communicating to him his studies,
+his hopes, his dreams for the future.
+
+To acquire distinction, fame, reputation with the actual world, and
+immortality with the future--such was the object on which all the
+wishes, all the hopes of Napoleon were concentrated; and in long hours
+of conversation with Joseph he spoke of the lofty glory to carve out an
+immortal name, to accomplish deeds before which admiring posterity would
+bow.
+
+Did Napoleon then think of purchasing for himself an immortal name as
+writer, as historian? At least he studied very earnestly the archives of
+Ajaccio, and sent a preliminary essay of his history of the revolutions
+of Corsica to Raynal for examination. This renowned savant of his day
+warmly congratulated the young author on his work, and asked him to send
+a copy that he might show it to Mirabeau.
+
+Napoleon complied with these wishes; and when, a few weeks after, he
+received a letter from Raynal, after reading it, he, with radiant eyes
+and a bright smile, handed it to his brother Joseph.
+
+In this letter of Raynal were found these words: “Monsieur de Mirabeau
+has in this little essay found traits which announce a genius of the
+first rank. He entreats the young author to come to him in Paris.”
+ [Footnote: “Memoires du Roi Joseph,” vol. i., p. 33.]
+
+But the young author could not at once obey the call of the Count de
+Mirabeau. A sad family bereavement delayed him at the time in Corsica.
+The brother of his grandfather, the aged Archdeacon Lucian, the faithful
+counsellor and friend of Letitia and of her young family, was seized
+with a mortal disease; the gout, which for years had tormented him, was
+now to give him the fatal blow, and the whole family of the Bonapartes
+was called to the bedside of the old man to receive his parting words.
+
+Weeping, they all stood around his couch; weeping, Letitia bent over the
+aged man, whose countenance was already signed with the hand of death.
+Around kneeled the younger children of Letitia, for their great-uncle
+had long been to them a kind father and protector; and on the other
+side of the couch, facing Letitia and her brother, the Abbe Fesch, stood
+Joseph and Napoleon, gazing with sad looks on their uncle.
+
+His large, already obscured eyes wandered with a deep, searching glance
+upon all the members of the Bonaparte family, and then at last remained
+fixed with a wondrous brilliancy of expression on the pale, grave face
+of Napoleon.
+
+At this moment, the Abbe Fesch, with a voice trembling with emotion and
+full of holy zeal, began to intone the prayers for the dead. But the old
+priest ordered him with a voice full of impatience to be silent.
+
+“I have prayed long enough in my life,” said he; “I have now but a few
+moments to live, and I must give them to my family.”
+
+The loud sobbings of Letitia and of her children interrupted him, and
+called forth a last genial smile upon the already stiffening features.
+
+“Letitia,” said he, in a loud, friendly tone, “Letitia, cease to shed
+tears; I die happy, for I see you surrounded by all your children. My
+life is no longer necessary to the children of my dear Charles; I
+can therefore die. Joseph is at the head of the administration of
+the country, and he will know how to take care of what belongs to his
+family. You, Napoleon,” continued he, with a louder voice, “you will be
+a great and exalted man.” [Footnote: “Tu poi. Napoleon, serai unomone”
+ such were the words of the dying man, assures us King Joseph in his
+memoirs; whilst Las Casas, in his memorial of St. Helena, makes Napoleon
+relate that his uncle had told him, “You, Napoleon, will be the head of
+the family.”]
+
+His eyes turned on Napoleon, he sank back on the cushions, and his dying
+lips murmured yet once more, “Tu serai unomone!”
+
+After the body of the worthy great-uncle had been laid in the grave,
+Napoleon left Corsica to return to France and to his regiment, for the
+time of his leave of absence had expired.
+
+For the second time the lips of a dying man had prophesied him a great
+and brilliant future. His dying father had said that one day the sword
+of his son Napoleon would make all Europe bow under the yoke; his
+great-uncle had prophesied he would be a great and exalted personage.
+
+To these prophecies of the dying is to be added Mirabeau’s judgment,
+which called Napoleon a genius of the first stamp.
+
+But this great and glorious future was yet screened under dark
+clouds from the eyes of the young lieutenant of artillery, and the
+blood-dripping hand of the Revolution was first needed to tear away
+these clouds and to convert the king’s lieutenant of artillery into the
+Emperor of France!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII. A PAGE FROM HISTORY.
+
+
+The dark clouds which hung yet over the future of Napoleon Bonaparte,
+the lieutenant of artillery, were gathering in heavier and heavier
+masses over all France, and already were overshadowing the throne of the
+lilies.
+
+Marie Antoinette had already abandoned the paradise of innocency in
+Trianon, and when she came there now it was to weep in silence, to cast
+away the mask from her face, and under the garb of the proud, imperious,
+ambitious queen to exhibit the pallid, anxious countenance of the woman.
+
+Alas! they were passed away, those days of festivity, those innocent
+joys of Trianon; the royal farmer’s wife had no more the heart to carry
+the spindle, to gather eggs from the hens’ nests, and to perform with
+her friends the joyous idyls of a pastoral life.
+
+The queen had procured for herself a few years of freedom and license by
+banishing from Versailles and from the Tuileries the burdensome Madame
+Etiquette, who hitherto had watched over every step of a Queen of
+France, but in her place Madame Politique had entered into the palace,
+and Marie Antoinette could not drive her away as she had done with
+Madame Etiquette.
+
+For Madame Politique came into the queen’s apartments, ushered in by a
+powerful and irresistible suite. The failure of the crops throughout
+the land, want, the cries of distress from a famishing people, the
+disordered finances of the state--such was the suite which accompanied
+Politique before the queen; pamphlets, pasquinades, sarcastic songs
+on Marie Antoinette, whom no more the people called their queen,
+but already the foreigner, L’Autrichienne--such were the gifts which
+Politique brought for the queen.
+
+The beautiful and innocent days of Trianon were gone, no longer could
+Marie Antoinette forget that she was a queen! The burden of her lofty
+position pressed upon her always; and, if now and then she sought to
+adorn her head with roses, her crown pressed their thorns with deeper
+pain into her brow.
+
+Unfortunate queen! Even the circle of friends she had gathered round her
+person only urged her on more and more into the circle which politics
+had traced around her. In her innocency and thoughtlessness of heart she
+imagined that, to a queen as to any other woman, it might be allowed
+to have about her friends and confidants, to enjoy the pleasures of
+society, and to amuse one another! But now she had to learn that a queen
+dare not have confidants, friends, or social circles!
+
+Her friends, in whose disinterestedness she had trusted, approached
+her with demands, with prayers; they claimed power, influence, and
+distinctions; they all wanted to rule through the queen; they all wanted
+through her to impose laws to king and state; they wanted to name and
+to depose ministers; they wanted their friendship to be rewarded with
+embassies, ministerial offices, decorations, and titles.
+
+And when Marie Antoinette refused compliance with their wishes, her
+beautiful friends, the Duchesses de Polignac, wept, and her friends,
+Messieurs Vesenval, Vaudreuil, Coigny, and Polignac, dared be angry and
+murmur at her.
+
+But when Marie Antoinette consented--when she used her influence with
+the king, to satisfy the wishes of her friends, and to make ministers of
+her facon--then the queen’s enemies, with loud, mad-dog cry, lifted up
+the voice and complained and clamored that it was no more the king but
+the queen who reigned; that she was the one who precipitated the nation
+into wretchedness and want; that she gave millions to her friends,
+whilst the people were perishing with hunger; that she sent millions to
+her brother, the Emperor of Austria, whilst the country was only able
+to pay the interest of her enormous debt; that she, in unrestrained
+appetite and licentiousness, lived only for pleasure and festivities,
+whilst France was depressed under misery and want.
+
+And the queen’s enemies were mightier, more numerous, and more loyal one
+to another than the queen’s friends, who were ever ready to pass into
+the camp of her foes as soon as Marie Antoinette gratified not their
+wishes and would not satisfy their political claims.
+
+At the head of these enemies was the king’s brother, the Count de
+Provence, who never forgave the queen for being an Austrian princess;
+there were also the king’s aunts, who could never forgive her that the
+king loved her, that by means of this love to his wife they should lose
+the influence which these aunts, and especially Madame Adelaide, had
+before exercised over him; there was the Duke d’Orleans, who had to
+revenge himself for the disgust and dislike which Marie Antoinette
+publicly expressed against this vicious and wild prince; there was the
+Cardinal Prince de Rohan, whose criminal passion the queen had repelled
+with contemptuous disgust, and who had paid for this passion one million
+francs, with imprisonment, shame, and ridicule. For this passion for the
+queen had blinded the cardinal, and made him believe in the possibility
+of a return. In his blindness he had placed confidence in the
+whisperings and false promises of the insidious intriguer Madame de
+la Motte-Valois, who, in the queen’s name, asked from him a loan of a
+million for the purchase of a jewelled ornament which highly pleased
+the queen, and which she, notwithstanding her exhausted coffers, was
+resolved to possess.
+
+Yes, love had blinded Cardinal de Rohan, and with blind eyes he had
+accepted as letters from the queen those which Madame de la Motte
+brought him; and he could not see that the person who gave him a
+rendezvous in the gardens of Versailles was not the queen, but only a
+common, vicious woman, who had been clothed in the queen’s garments.
+
+The queen had been travestied into a wench, and the highest
+ecclesiastical dignitary of the land was the one who took this wench for
+his queen, was the one who, with a rendezvous, a kiss on the hand, and
+a rose, was rewarded for the million he had given to the jeweller for a
+necklace of diamonds!
+
+It is true, the deception was discovered; it is true, it was Marie
+Antoinette herself who asked for a strict investigation, who with tears
+of anger required from her consort that this horrible intrigue which had
+been woven round her person should be investigated and judged publicly
+before the Parliament; that the Cardinal de Rohan should be punished for
+the criminal insult offered by him to the queen, since he thought her
+capable of granting him a rendezvous, of exchanging with him letters of
+tender passion, and of accepting gifts from him!
+
+But the Parliament, which recognized the guilt of Madame de la Motte,
+which ordered her to be whipped, branded, and driven out of the country
+as an impostor and a thief, the Parliament declared the Cardinal de
+Rohan innocent; all punishments were removed from him, and he was
+re-established in all his dignities and rights. And the people, who in
+enormous masses had besieged the Parliament buildings, welcomed this
+decision of the judges with loud demonstrations and shouts of joy, and
+carried the cardinal in triumph through the streets, and honored and
+glorified him as a martyr and a saint.
+
+This triumph of the cardinal was an affecting defeat to the queen; it
+was the first awful testimony, spoken loudly and openly, by the popular
+sentiment.
+
+Hitherto her enemies had worked against her quietly, and in the darkness
+of night; but now, in open day, they dared launch against her their
+terrible accusations, and represent her imprudence as a crime, her
+errors as shameful and premeditated wickedness. No one believed in the
+queen’s innocency in this necklace transaction; and whereas Cardinal
+de Rohan had been made a martyr, whereas Parliament had declared him
+innocent, the queen consequently must be the guilty one, to whose
+cupidity the cardinal and the unfortunate Madame de la Motte and also
+the beautiful D’Olivia, who in this horrible farce had played the part
+of the queen, had been sacrificed.
+
+The name, the character, the reputation of the queen, had been trodden
+down in the dust, and the Count de Provence, who himself composed
+sarcastic songs and pasquinades against his royal sister-in-law, and
+had copies of them circulated through the court, reflected not that in
+calumniating the queen and exposing her to the scorn and ridicule of
+the world he thereby shook the throne itself, and imperilled the awe and
+respect which the people should have had for the monarchy. And all the
+other mighty dignitaries and foes of Marie Antoinette did not calculate
+that in exciting the storm of calumny against the Queen of France, they
+also attacked the king and the aristocracy, and tore down the barrier
+which hitherto had stood between the people and the nobility.
+
+Hitherto pamphlets and sarcastic songs only had been directed against
+the queen; but now, in the year 1787, all France was to re-echo a
+pamphlet launched against the nobility and the whole aristocracy.
+
+This pamphlet was “The Wedding of Figaro,” by Beaumarchais. The habits
+of the aristocracy, of the higher classes, were in this drama castigated
+and thrown to the scorn, ridicule, and laughter of all France. Every
+thing which the people hitherto had held sacred, was laughed at in this
+drama; all the laws of manners, of rank, of morality, were scorned
+at, hissed at; and, under this hissing, appeared in full view and with
+fearful veracity the rotten and poisoned condition of the so-called
+upper classes of society.
+
+It was in vain that the censor declared the publication illegal, and
+prohibited the representation of “The Wedding of Figaro.” The opposition
+took advantage of this measure, and since it could not be published,
+hundreds of copies were circulated; and, if it could not be represented,
+its reading was listened to. It soon became fashionable to attend at the
+readings of “Figaro’s Wedding” and to possess a copy of the drama.
+Even in the queen’s social circle, in the circle of the Polignacs, this
+dangerous drama was patronized, and even the queen was requested to use
+her influence upon the king for its representation.
+
+This general clamor, this tempest of the public opinion, excited
+even the king’s curiosity; and as everybody attended the readings of
+Beaumarchais’ drama, the crowned heads had also to bow to the fashion.
+Madame de Campan had to read before the king and the queen this renowned
+“Wedding of Figaro,” so that the king might give his decision. The
+good-natured countenance of the king darkened more and more, and during
+Figaro’s monologue, in which the different institutions of the state
+are ridiculed, especially when, with words full of poison and scorn, the
+author alludes to state-prisons, the king rose angrily from his seat.
+
+“It is a contemptible thing,” cried he, vehemently. “The Bastile must be
+destroyed before the representation of this piece would not appear as a
+dangerous inconsequence. This man ridicules every thing which in a state
+ought to be esteemed and respected.”
+
+“This piece will not then be represented?” asked Marie Antoinette, at
+the close of the reading.
+
+“No, certainly not!” exclaimed Louis, “you can be convinced of it; this
+piece will not be represented.”
+
+But the clamor, the longings for this representation were more and more
+loudly expressed, and more and more pressing. It was in vain that the
+king by his decree forbade its already-announced representation in the
+theatre of the menus plaisirs. Beaumarchais cried aloud to the murmuring
+audience, who complained very loudly against this tyranny, against
+this oppression of the king, the consoling words: “Well, sirs, the king
+desires that my drama be not represented here, but I swear that it will
+be represented, perhaps even in the chancel of Notre Dame.”
+
+It was soon apparent that Beaumarchais’ words and the wishes of the
+public opinion were stronger than the words and the wishes of the king
+and of his highest officers. The king himself felt it and acknowledged
+it soon; he shrugged his shoulders compassionately when the chancellor
+of the seal, adhering still to his opposition, would by no means consent
+to the performance of the drama.
+
+“You will see,” said Louis, with his own soft, good-natured smile--“you
+will see that Beaumarchais’ credit is better than that of the great-seal
+bearer.” [Footnote: “Memoires de Madame de Campan,” vol. i., p. 279.]
+
+The king’s prophecy was correct--Beaumarchais had more credit than the
+chancellor! His powerful patrons in high places, and all those who
+made opposition to the king and queen, and at their head the Count de
+Provence, banded together to have this piece publicly represented. The
+king’s consent was elicited from him by the assurance made public
+that Beaumarchais had stricken out of his drama all the offensive and
+captious parts, and that it was now a mere innocent and somewhat tedious
+piece.
+
+The king gave his consent, and “The Wedding of Figaro” was represented
+at the Theatre Francais.
+
+The effect of this drama on the public was a thing unheard of; so
+enthusiastic that Beaumarchais himself laughingly said: “There
+is something yet more foolhardy than my piece, and that is, its
+result”--that the renowned actress Sophie Arnold, in allusion to this,
+that the opponents of this drama had prophesied that it would fall
+through, exclaimed: “The piece will fall through to-day more than fifty
+times one after another!”
+
+But even this prophecy of the actress did not reach the full result,
+and the sixtieth representation was as crowded as the first. All Paris
+wanted to see it, so as to hiss the government, the nobility, clergy,
+morality. There was a rush from the provinces to Paris for the sake of
+attending the representation of “Figaro’s Wedding;” and even those who
+hitherto had opposed the performance, pressed forward to see it.
+
+One day Beaumarchais received a letter from the Duke de Villequier,
+asking of him as a favor to give up for that evening his trellised
+box in behalf of some ladies of the court, who desired to see “Figaro”
+ without being seen.
+
+Beaumarchais answered: “My lord duke, I have no respect for ladies who
+desire to see a performance which they consider improper, and who wish
+to see it under cover. I cannot stoop to such fancies. I have given my
+piece to the public to amuse and not to instruct them, not to procure to
+tamed wenches (begueules mitigees) the satisfaction of thinking well of
+the piece in a small trellised box, and then to say all manner of evil
+against it in public. The pleasure of vice and the honors of
+virtue, that is what the prudery of our age demands. My piece is not
+double-faced. It must be accepted or repelled. I salute you, my lord
+duke, and keep my box.” [Footnote: “Correspondance de Diderot et Grimm
+avec un Souverain.”]
+
+All Paris chuckled over this letter, which was circulated in hundreds
+of copies, as the drama itself had circulated at first. Every one was
+convinced that it was the queen who wanted to attend the representation
+of “Figaro” in the trellised box; for it, was well known that the
+queen, angry at monsieur for having been present with all his suite at
+a representation in the box reserved for the court, had openly declared:
+“Could she come to the conclusion of seeing this drama, she would only
+see it through a small trellised box, and that without any ceremony.”
+
+In laughing at the letter of Beaumarchais, the ridicule was directed
+against the queen, who had been refused in so shameful a manner. But
+Marie Antoinette did not wish to be laughed at. She still hoped to
+overcome her enemies, and to win the public sentiment. She requested an
+investigation, she insisted that the Duke de Villequier should openly
+acknowledge for whom among the ladies of the court he had asked for the
+box; that Beaumarchais should publicly confess that he had not dared
+suppose his words were directed against the queen.
+
+The whole matter was brought to an end by an arbitrary decree.
+Beaumarchais was compelled publicly to acknowledge that his famous
+letter was directed neither to a duke nor to a peer, but to one of his
+friends, whose strange request he had thus answered in the first flush
+of anger. But it is evident no one believed in this explanation, and
+every one felt pleasure in referring to the queen the expression of
+“begueule mitigee.”
+
+Paris, which for a whole winter had laughed at a theatrical piece, and
+was satiated with it, was now to assist at the first scene of a drama
+whose tragical power and force were to tear France asunder, and whose
+continuance was to be marked by blood and tears.
+
+This important drama, whose opening followed closely Beaumarchais’
+drama, exhibited its first scene at Versailles at the opening of the
+States-General on the 5th of May, 1789. All Paris, all France watched
+this event as the rise of a new sun, of a new era which was to break
+upon France and bring her happiness, salvation, and strength. A new, an
+unsuspected power entered with it upon the scene, the Tiers Etat;
+the third class was, at the opening of the States-General, solemnly
+recognized as a third power, alongside of the nobility and clergy.
+With the third class, the people and the yeomen entered into the king’s
+palace; one-half of the people were to make the laws instead of having
+to submit to them.
+
+It was Marie Antoinette who had endeavored with all her influence on the
+king that the third class, hitherto barely recognized, barely
+tolerated, should appear in a two-fold stronger representation at the
+States-General; it was the queen also who had requested Necker’s recall.
+Unfortunate woman, who bowed both pride and will to the wishes of public
+opinion, who yet hoped to succeed in winning again the people’s love,
+since she endeavored to meet the wishes of the people!
+
+But this love had turned away from her forever; and whatever Marie
+Antoinette might now do to exhibit her candid wishes, her devotedness
+was not trusted in by the people, who looked upon her as an enemy, no
+longer Queen of France, but simply an Austrian.
+
+Even on this day of universal joy, on the day of the opening of the
+States-General, there was no desire to hide from the queen the hatred
+felt against her, but there was the resolve to show her that France,
+even in her hour of happiness, ceased not to make opposition to her.
+
+The opening of the States-General was to be preceded in Versailles
+by divine service. In solemn procession the deputies arrived; and the
+people who had streamed from Paris and from the whole region round
+about, and who in compact masses filled the immense square in front of
+the palace, and the whole street leading to the Church of St. Louis,
+received the deputies with loud, unbroken shouts, and met the princes
+and the king with applause. But no sooner was the queen in sight, than
+the people remained dumb; and then, after this appalling pause, which
+petrified the heart of the queen, the women with their true instinct of
+hatred began to cry out, “Long live the Duke d’Orleans! Long live the
+people’s friend, the good Duke d’Orleans!”
+
+The name of the duke thus derisively thrown in the face of the
+queen--for it was well known that she hated him, that she had forbidden
+him to enter into her apartments--this name at this hour, thrown at
+her by the people, struck the queen’s heart as the blow of a dagger;
+a deathly pallor overspread her cheeks, and nearly fainting she had to
+throw herself into the arms of the Princess de Lamballe, so as not to
+sink down. [Footnote: See “Count Mirabeau,” by Theodore Mundt. Second
+edition, vol. iii., p. 234.]
+
+With the opening of the States-General, as already said, began the first
+act of the great drama which France was going to represent before
+the eyes of Europe terrified and horrified: with the opening of the
+States-General the revolution had begun. Every one felt it; every
+one knew it; the first man who had the courage to express it was
+Mirabeau--Mirabeau, the deputy of the Third Estate, the count who was at
+enmity with all those of his rank, who had solemnly parted with them to
+devote himself to the people’s service and to liberty!
+
+On the day of the opening, as he entered the hall in which the
+States-General were convened, he gazed with scrutinizing and flaming
+eyes on the representatives of the nobility, on those brilliant and
+proud lords who, though his equals in rank, were now his inveterate
+enemies. A proud, disdainful smile fluttered athwart his lips, which
+ordinarily were pressed together with a sarcastic and contemptuous
+expression. He then crossed the hall with the bearing of a conqueror,
+and took his seat upon those benches from which was launched the
+thunderbolt which was to dash to pieces the throne of the lilies.
+
+A long-tried friend, who was also a friend of the government and of the
+nobility, had seen this look of hatred and anger which Mirabeau had
+cast upon the gallery of the aristocrats; he now approached Mirabeau
+to salute him, and perhaps to pave a way of reconciliation between the
+prodigal Count de Mirabeau and his associates in rank.
+
+“Think,” said he, “my friend, that society is not to be won by threats,
+but by flatteries; that, when once injured, it is difficult to effect a
+reconciliation. You have been unjust toward society, and if you look
+for forgiveness you must not be obstinate, but you must stoop to ask for
+pardon.”
+
+Mirabeau had listened with impatience, but at the word “pardon,” his
+anger broke with terrible force. He sprang up, stamped violently on the
+floor with his feet; his hair which, like a lion’s mane, mantled his
+head, seemed to bristle up, his little eyes darted flashes, and his lips
+were blanched and trembling, and with a thundering voice he exclaimed:
+“I am not here to implore pardon for myself, but that others should sue
+for mercy.”
+
+Was Mirabeau himself willing to grant pardon? Had he come with a
+reconciling heart into this assembly, where people and king were to
+measure their rights one against the other?
+
+As the good King Louis this day entered the hall, in all the pomp of
+his royal dignity, to welcome the States-General with a solemn address,
+Mirabeau’s eyes were fixed on him: “Behold the victim,” said he.
+[Footnote: Theodore Mundt: “Graf Mirabeau,” vol. iv., p. 15.]
+
+From this day the struggle began--the struggle of the monarchy against
+the revolution, of the liberal party against the reaction, the struggle
+of the people against the aristocracy, against every thing which
+hitherto had been legitimate, welcomed, and sacred!
+
+A new day had broken in, and the prophetic mind of the queen understood
+that with it came the storm which was to scatter into fragments her
+happiness and her peace.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX. JOSEPHINE’S RETURN.
+
+
+To rest!--to forget! This was what Josephine sought for in Martinique,
+and what she found in the circle of her friends. She wanted to rest from
+the pains and struggles which had agitated the last years of her life.
+She wanted to forget that she still loved the Viscount de Beauharnais,
+though rejected and accused, though he had treacherously abandoned her
+for the sake of another woman.
+
+But he was the father of her children, and there was Hortense with her
+large blue eyes and her noble, lovely countenance to remind Josephine
+of the father to whom Hortense bore so close a resemblance. Josephine’s
+tender-heartedness would not suffer the innocent, childish heart of
+Hortense to become alienated from her father, or to forget the esteem
+and respect which as a daughter she owed to him. Josephine therefore
+never allowed any one to utter a word of blame against her husband in
+the presence of her daughter; she even imposed silence on her mother
+when, in the just resentment of a parent who sees her child suffer, she
+accused the man who had brought wretchedness on her Josephine, who at so
+early an age had taught her life’s sorrows.
+
+How joyous, beautiful, happy had her Josephine nearly ten years ago
+left her home, her country, her family, to go to a foreign land which
+attracted her with every thing which can charm a young girl--with the
+love of a young and beautiful husband--with the luxury, the pleasures
+and festivities of Paris!
+
+And now after ten years Josephine returned to her father’s home, lonely,
+abandoned, unhappy, blighted with the mildew which ever deteriorates the
+character of a divorced woman; yet so young, with so many ruined hopes,
+with so many wounds in the heart!
+
+Josephine’s mother could not pardon him all this, and her countenance
+became clouded whenever the little Hortense spoke of her father. And
+the child spoke of him so often--for each evening and morning she had to
+pray God in his behalf--and when she asked her mother where her brother
+Eugene was, why he had not come with them to Martinique; Josephine
+answered her, he had remained with his father, who loved him so much,
+and who must have at least one of his children with him.
+
+“Why then can he not, with Eugene, be with us?” asked the little
+Hortense, thoughtfully. “Why does he remain in that hateful, stony
+Paris, whilst he could live with us in the beautiful garden where so
+many charming flowers and so many large trees are to be found? Why is
+papa not with us, mamma?”
+
+“Because he has occupations--because he cannot leave his regiment, my
+child,” answered Josephine, carefully hiding her tears.
+
+“If he cannot come to us, mamma, then let us go to him,” cried the
+loving child. “Come, mamma, let us go on board a ship, and let us go to
+our dear papa, and to my dear brother Eugene.”
+
+“We must wait until your father sends for us, until he writes that we
+must come,” said Josephine, with a sad smile. “Pray to God, my child,
+that he may soon do it!”
+
+And from this time the child prayed God every evening that her father
+would soon send for her mother and for herself; and whenever she saw her
+mother receive a letter she said: “Is it a letter from my papa? Does he
+write for us to travel and to come to him?”
+
+One day Josephine was enabled to answer this question to her daughter
+with a proud and joyous yes.
+
+Yes, the Viscount de Beauharnais had begged his wife to forget the past,
+and to come back to him. He had, with all the contrition of penitence,
+with the glow of an awakening love, prayed for pardon; he requested from
+her large-heartedness to be once more reunited to him who had despised,
+calumniated, and rejected her; he swore with sacred oaths to love her
+alone, and to keep to her in unbroken faithfulness.
+
+At first Josephine received these vows with a suspicious, sorrowful
+smile; the wounds of her heart were not yet healed, the bitter
+experiences of the past were yet too fresh in her mind; and Madame de la
+Pagerie, Josephine’s mother, repelled with earnestness every thought
+of reconciliation and reunion. She did not wish to lose her daughter a
+second time, and see her go to meet a dubious and dangerous happiness;
+she did not wish that Josephine, barely returned to the haven of rest
+and peace, should once more risk herself on the open, tempestuous ocean
+of life.
+
+But the letters of the viscount were more and more pressing, more and
+more tender. He had completely and forever broken with Madame de Gisard;
+he did not wish to see her again, and henceforth he desired to be the
+true, devoted husband of his Josephine.
+
+Josephine read these assurances, these vows of love, with a joyous
+smile, with a beating heart: all the crushed flowers of her youth raised
+up their blossoms again in her heart; she began again to hope, to trust,
+to believe once more in the possibility of happiness; she was ready to
+listen to her husband’s call, and to hasten to him.
+
+But her mother held her back. She believed not, she trusted not. Her
+insulted maternal heart could not forget the humiliations and the
+sufferings which this man who now called for Josephine had inflicted
+upon her daughter. She could not pardon the viscount for having deserted
+his young wife, and that for the sake of a coquette! She therefore
+sought to inspire Josephine with mistrust; she told her that these vows
+of the viscount were not to be relied upon; that he had not given up his
+paramour to come back to Josephine, but that he was forsaken by her and
+abandoned by her. Madame de Gisard had regretted to be only the paramour
+of the Viscount de Beauharnais, and, as she could never hope to be his
+legitimate wife, she had abandoned him, to marry a wealthy Englishman,
+with whom she had left France to go with him to Italy.
+
+At this news Josephine’s head would sink down, and, with tears in her
+eyes and sorrow in her heart, she promised her mother no more to listen
+to the voice of a faithless husband; no more to value the assurances of
+a love which only returned to her because it was rejected elsewhere.
+
+Meanwhile, not only the Viscount de Beauharnais prayed Josephine to
+return, but also his father the marquis claimed this from his beloved
+daughter-in-law; even Madame de Renaudin confirmed the entire conversion
+of Alexandre, and conjured Josephine to hesitate no longer once more to
+take possession of a heart which beat with so burning a sorrow and so
+longing a love toward her. She pictured to her, besides, how necessary
+she was to him; how much in these troublous and stormy days which had
+just begun, he was in need of a quiet haven of domestic life, there to
+rest after the labors and the conflicts of politics and of public life;
+how many dangers surrounded him, and how soon it might happen that he
+would need not only a household refuge but also a nurse who would bind
+his wounds and keep watch near the bed of sickness.
+
+For the times of quietness were gone; the brand which the States-General
+had flung over France had lit a fire everywhere, in every city, in every
+house, in every head; and the flaming speeches of the deputies of the
+Third Estate only fanned the fire into higher flames.
+
+The revolution was there, and nothing could keep back the torrent
+of blood, fire, enthusiasm, and hatred. Already the Third Estate had
+solemnly proclaimed its separation from Old France, from the ancient
+monarchy of the lilies, since that monarchy had abandoned the large
+assembly-hall where the States-General held their sessions, and in which
+the nobility and the clergy still imagined they were able to maintain
+the balance of power against the despised Third Estate. The Tiers Etat
+had, in the ballroom, converted itself into the National Assembly, and
+with enthusiasm had all these deputies of the third class sworn on the
+17th of June, 1789, “never to part one from the other until they had
+given a constitution to France.”
+
+Alexandre de Beauharnais, deputy from Blois, had passed with his
+colleagues into the ballroom, had with them taken the fatal oath; in
+the decisive night of the 4th of August he, with burning enthusiasm,
+had renounced all the privileges of the nobility, all his feudal rights;
+and, breaking with the past, with all its family traditions and customs,
+had passed, with all the passion and zest of his nine-and-twenty years,
+into the hostile camp of the people and of liberty.
+
+The revolution, which moved onward with such rash and destructive
+strides, had drawn Alexandre de Beauharnais more and more into its
+flood. It had converted the king’s major into an enthusiastic speaker
+of the Jacobins, then into the secretary of the National Assembly, and
+finally into its president.
+
+The monarchy was not yet powerless; it fought still with all the
+bitterness of despair, of the pains of death, against its foes; it still
+found defenders in the National Assembly, in the faithful regiments of
+the Swiss and of the guards, and in the hearts of a large portion of the
+people. The passions of parties were let loose one against another; and
+Alexandre de Beauharnais, the president of the National Assembly, stood
+naturally in the first rank of those who were threatened by the attacks
+of the royalists.
+
+Yes, Alexandre de Beauharnais was in danger! Since Josephine knew this,
+there was for her but one place which belonged to her, to which she
+could lay claim--the place at her husband’s side.
+
+How could she then have withstood his appeals, his prayers? How could
+she then have remained in the solitude and stillness of Martinique, when
+her husband was now in the fight, in the very struggle? She had, now
+that fate claimed it, either to share her husband’s triumphs, or to
+bring him comfort if he fell.
+
+The intercessions of her family, even the tears of her mother, could no
+longer retain Josephine; at the side of her husband, the father of her
+two children, there was her place! No one could deprive her of it, if
+she herself wished to occupy it.
+
+She was entitled to it, she was still the wife of the Viscount de
+Beauharnais. The Parliament, which had pronounced its verdict against
+the demands of a divorce from the viscount, had, in declaring Josephine
+innocent, condemned her husband to receive into his house his wife, if
+she desired it; or else, in case she waived this right, to pay her a
+fixed annual income.
+
+Josephine had parted voluntarily from her husband, since she had not
+returned to him, but had exiled herself with her father-in-law and her
+aunt in Fontainebleau; but she had never laid claims to nor received the
+income which Parliament had appointed. She had never assumed the rights
+of a divorced wife, but she retained still all the privileges of a
+married woman, who at God’s altar had bound herself to her husband for a
+whole life, in a wedlock which, being performed according to the laws of
+the Catholic Church, was indissoluble.
+
+Now the viscount claimed his wife, and who dared keep her back if she
+wished to follow this call? Who could stand between husband and wife,
+when their hearts claimed and longed for this reunion?
+
+The tears of Madame de la Pagerie had attempted it, but had not
+succeeded! The soft, patient, pliant Josephine had suddenly become a
+strong-minded, joyous, courageous woman; the inconveniences of a long
+sea-voyage, the perils of the revolution, into whose open crater she
+was to enter, affrighted her not. All the energies of her being began to
+develop themselves under the first sunbeams of a renewed love! The years
+of sorrow had passed away. Life, love called Josephine again, and she
+listened to the call, jubilant and full of friendly trust of undimmed
+hope!
+
+In the first days of September, 1790, Josephine, with the little
+Hortense, embarked from Martinique, and after a short, favorable
+passage, landed in France, in the middle of October. [Footnote: If,
+in the work “Queen Hortense, an Historical Sketch from the Days of
+Napoleon,” I have given a few different details of Josephine’s return to
+France and to her husband, I have followed the error common to all the
+historians of that time, who represent Josephine returning despite her
+husband’s will, who receives her into his house, and recognizes her as
+his wife, only at the instant supplication of his family, and
+especially of his children. It is only of late that all this has been
+satisfactorily refuted, and that it has been proved that Josephine
+returned only at the instance of her husband’s pressing demands. See
+Aubenas, “Histoire de l’Imperatrice Josephine,” vol. i., p. 164.--L. M.]
+
+Again a prophecy accompanied Josephine to France, and perhaps this
+prophecy is to be blamed for her sudden departure and her unwavering
+resolution to leave Martinique. The old negro woman who, once before
+Josephine’s departure, had prophesied that she would wear a crown and be
+more than a Queen of France--the old Euphemia was still living, and
+was still considered as an infallible oracle. A few days before her
+departure, Josephine, with all the superstitious faith of a Creole, went
+to ask the old prophetess if her journey would be propitious.
+
+The old Euphemia stared long and fixedly into Josephine’s smiling
+countenance; then, as if overcome by a sudden thought, she exclaimed:
+“Go! go as fast as possible, for death and danger threaten you! Already
+are on the watch wicked and bloodthirsty fiends, who every moment are
+ready to rush among us with fire and sword, and to destroy the colony in
+their cruel wrath!”
+
+“And shall I safely arrive in France?” asked Josephine. “Shall I again
+see my husband?”
+
+“You will see him again,” exclaimed the prophetess, “but hasten to go to
+him.”
+
+“Is he threatened with any danger?” demanded Josephine.
+
+“Not yet!--not at once!” said the old negress. “They now applaud your
+husband and recognize his services. But he has powerful enemies, and one
+day they will threaten his life, and will lead him to the scaffold and
+murder him!”
+
+Before Josephine left Martinique, a portion of these prophecies of
+the old negro woman were to be fulfilled. The wicked and bloodthirsty
+fiends, of whom she said they were ready with fire and sword to rush
+upon the colony--those fiends did light the firebrand and destroy the
+peace of Martinique.
+
+The resounding cries for freedom uttered in the National Assembly, and
+which shook the whole continent, had rushed along across the ocean to
+Martinique. The storm-wind of the revolution had on its wings borne the
+wondrous story to Martinique--the wondrous story of man’s sacred rights,
+which Lafayette had proclaimed in the National Assembly, the wondrous
+story that man was born free, that he ought to remain free, that there
+were to be no more slaves in the land of liberty, in France, and in her
+colonies.
+
+The storm-wind which brought this great news across the ocean to
+Martinique scattered it into the negro-cabins, and at first they
+listened to it with wondrous delight. Then the delirium of joy came over
+them; jubilant they broke their chains, and in wild madness anticipated
+their human rights, their personal freedom.
+
+The revolution, with its terrible consequences of blood and horrors,
+broke loose in Martinique, and, exulting in freedom, the slaves threw
+the firebrand on the roof of their former masters, rushed with war’s
+wild cry into their dwellings, and, in freedom’s name, punished those
+who so long had punished them in tyranny’s name.
+
+Amid the barbaric shouts of those dark free men, Josephine embarked on
+board the ship which was to carry her and her little Hortense to France;
+and the flames which rose from the roofs of the houses as so many
+way-marks of fire for the new era, were Josephine’s last, sad farewell
+from the home which she was never to see again. [Footnote: Le Normand,
+“Memoires de l’Imperatrice Josephine,” vol. i., p. 147]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X. THE DAYS OF THE REVOLUTION.
+
+
+Happiness had once more penetrated into the heart of Josephine. Love
+again threw her sun-gleams upon her existence, and filled her whole
+being with animation and joy. She was once more united to her husband,
+who, with tears of joy and repentance, had again taken her to his heart.
+She was once more with her relatives, who, in the day of distress, had
+shown her so much love and faithfulness, and finally she had also her
+son, her own dear Eugene, from whom she had been separated during the
+sad years of their matrimonial disagreements.
+
+How different was the husband she now found from him she had quitted! He
+was now a man, an earnest, thoughtful man, with a fiery determination,
+with decidedness of purpose, and yet thoughtful, following only what
+reason approved, even if the heart had been the mover. The passions
+of youth had died away. The excitable, thoughtless, pleasure-seeking
+officer of the king had become a grave, industrious, indefatigable,
+moral, austere servant of the people and of liberty. The songs of joy,
+of equivocal jesting, of political satire, had died away on those lips
+which only opened now in the clubs, in the National Assembly, to utter
+inspired words in regard to liberty, fraternity, and equality.
+
+The most beautiful dancer of Versailles had become the president of the
+National Assembly, which made so many tears run, and awoke so much anger
+and hatred in the king’s palace of Versailles. He at least belonged to
+the constitutional fraction of the National Assembly; he was the
+friend and guest of Mirabeau and of Lafayette; he was the opponent of
+Robespierre, Marat, and Danton, and of all the fanatics of the Mountain
+party, who already announced their bloody views, and claimed a republic
+as the object of their conflicts.
+
+Alexandre de Beauharnais was no republican, however enthusiastic he
+might have been in favor of America’s struggle for freedom, however
+deeply he had longed to go like Lafayette to America, for the sake of
+assisting the Americans to break the chains which yoked them to England,
+so as to build a republic for themselves. The enthusiasm of that
+day, the enthusiasm for France had driven him upon the path of the
+opposition; but while desiring freedom for the people, he still hoped
+that the people’s freedom was compatible with the power and dignity of
+the crown; that at the head of constitutional France the throne of a
+constitutional king would be maintained. To bring to pass this reunion,
+this balance of right between the monarchy and the people, such was the
+object of the wishes of Alexandre de Beauharnais; this was the ultimate
+aim of his struggles and longings.
+
+Josephine looked upon these tumultuous conflicts of parties, upon this
+wild storm of politics, with wondering, sad looks. With all the tact of
+tender womanhood she held herself aloof from every personal interference
+in these political party strifes. At the bottom of her heart a true and
+zealous royalist, she guarded herself carefully from endeavoring to keep
+her husband back from his chosen path, and to bring into her house and
+family the party strifes of the political arena. She wanted and longed
+for peace, unity, and rest, and in his home at least her husband would
+have no debates to go through, no sentiments to fight against.
+
+In silence and devotedness Josephine submitted to her husband’s will,
+and left him to perform his political part, while she assumed the part
+of wife, mother, of the representative of the household; and every
+evening opened her drawing-room to her friends, and to her husband’s
+associates in the same conflict.
+
+What a mixed and extraordinary assemblage was seen in the
+drawing-room of the president of the National Assembly! There were
+the representatives of old France, the brilliant members of the old
+nobility: the Duke de la Rochefoucauld, the Count de Montmorency, the
+Marquis de Caulaincourt, the Prince de Salm-Cherbourg, the Princess von
+Hohenzollern, Madame de Montesson, the wife of the old Duke d’Orleans;
+and alongside of these names of the ancient regime, new names rose up.
+There were the deputies of the National Assembly--Barnave, Mounier,
+Thouvet, Lafayette, and the favorite of the people, the great Mirabeau.
+Old France and Young France met here in this drawing-room of Josephine
+on neutral grounds, and the beautiful viscountess, full of grace and
+prudence, offered to them both the honors of her house. She listened
+with modest bashfulness to the words of the great tribunes of the
+people, and oftentimes with a smile or a soft word she reconciled the
+royalists, those old friends who sought in this drawing-room for
+the Viscountess de Beauharnais, and found there only the wife of the
+president of the National Assembly.
+
+The saloon of Josephine was soon spoken of, and seemed as a haven in
+which the refined, elegant manners, the grace, the wit, the esprit, had
+been saved from the stormy flood of political strife. Every one sought
+the privilege of being admitted into this drawing-room, whose charming
+mistress in her own gentleness and grace received the homage of all
+parties, pleased every one by her loveliness, her charms, the fine,
+exquisite tact with which she managed at all times the sentiments of the
+company, and with which she knew how to guide the conversation so
+that it would never dwindle into political debates or into impassioned
+speeches.
+
+However violent was the tempest of faction outside, Josephine endeavored
+that in the interior of her home the serene peace of happiness should
+prevail. For she was now happy again, and all the liveliness, all the
+joys of youth, had again found entrance into her mind. The anguish
+endured, the tears shed, had also brought their blessing; they had
+strengthened and invigorated her heart; with their grave, solemn
+memories they preserved Josephine, that child of the South, of the sun,
+and of joy, from that light frivolity which otherwise is so often the
+common heritage of the Creoles.
+
+The viscount had now the satisfaction which ten years ago, at the
+beginning of his married life, he had so intently longed for, the
+satisfaction of seeing his wife occupied with grave studies, with the
+culture of her own mind and talents. It was to him a ravishment to see
+Josephine in her drawing-room in earnest conversation with Buffon, and
+with all the aptitude of a naturalist speak of the organization and
+formation of the different families of plants; he exulted in the open
+praise paid to her when, with her fine, far-reaching voice, she sang
+the songs of her home, which she herself accompanied on the harp; he was
+proud when, in her saloon, with all the tact and assurance of a lady of
+the world, she took the lead in the conversation, and could speak
+with poets and authors, with artists and savants, and that, with
+understanding and feeling, upon their latest works and creations; he
+was made happy when, passing from serious gravity to the most innocent
+gayety, she jested, laughed, and danced, as if she were yet the
+sixteen-year-old child whom ten years ago he had made his wife, and from
+whom he had then so cruelly exacted that she should demean herself as a
+fine, experienced, and highly-refined lady.
+
+Life had since undertaken to mould the young Creole into an elegant,
+highly-accomplished woman, but fortunately life had been impotent to
+change her heart, and that heart was ever beating in all the freshness
+of youth, in all the joyous warmth and faithfulness of the young girl of
+sixteen years who had come to France with so many ideal visions, so many
+illusions, so many dreams and hopes. It is true this ideal had vanished
+away, these illusions had burst into pieces like meteors in the skies;
+the dreams and hopes of the young maiden heart had fallen into dust, but
+the love, the confiding, faithful, hoping love, the love assured of the
+future, had remained alive; it had overcome the storms and conflicts; it
+had been Josephine’s consolation in the days of sorrow; it was now her
+delight in these days of happiness.
+
+Her whole heart, her undivided love, belonged to her husband, to her
+children, and often from the society gathered in her reception-rooms,
+she would slip away and hasten to the bed of her little Hortense to
+bid good-night to the child, who never would sleep without bidding
+good-night to its mother, who would kneel at the side of the crib with
+little Hortense, and utter the evening prayer, asking of God to grant to
+them all prosperity and peace!
+
+But this peace which Josephine so earnestly longed for was soon to be
+imperilled more and more, was to be banished from the interior of home
+and family, from its most sacred asylum, by the revolution and its
+stormy factions.
+
+An important event, pregnant with results, suddenly moved all Paris, and
+filled the minds of all with the most fearful anticipations.
+
+The king, with his wife and children, had fled! Openly and irretrievably
+he had separated himself from country and people; he had, by this
+flight, solemnly expressed before all Europe the discord which existed
+between him and his people, between the king and the constitution to
+which he had sworn allegiance.
+
+Alexandre de Beauharnais, the president of the National Assembly, was
+the first to be informed of this extraordinary event. On the morning of
+the 21st of June, 1791, M. de Bailly, mayor of Paris, came to announce
+to him that the king with all his family had fled from Paris the
+previous evening.
+
+It was the hour at which the sessions of the National assembly began
+every morning, and Beauharnais, accompanied by Bailly, hastened to the
+Assembly. The deputies were already seated when the president took
+the chair with a grave, solemn countenance. This countenance told the
+deputies of the people that the president had an important and very
+unusual message to communicate, and a deep stillness, an oppressive
+silence, overspread the whole assemblage as the president rose from his
+seat to address them.
+
+“Gentlemen,” said he, with a voice which, amid the general silence,
+sounded solemn and powerful--“gentlemen, I have a sad message to bring
+before you. The mayor of Paris has just now informed me that the king
+and his family have this night been seduced into flight by the
+enemies of the people.” [Footnote: Aubenas, “Histoire de l’Imperatrice
+Josephine,” vol i., p. 171.]
+
+This news had a stupendous effect on the deputies. At first they sat
+there dumb, as if petrified with fear; then they all rose up to make
+their remarks and motions in a whirl of confusion, and it required all
+the energy and determination of the president to re-establish peace, and
+to control their minds.
+
+The Assembly then, in quiet debate, resolved to declare itself in
+permanent session until the termination of this crisis, and gave to the
+president full power during this time to provide for the tranquillity
+and security of the Assembly. Bailly and Lafayette were by the president
+summoned before the deputies, to state what the sentiments of Paris
+were, what was the attitude of the National Guards, what were the
+precautions they had taken to preserve aright the peace of Paris.
+
+But this peace was not in danger, and the only one whom the Parisian
+people at this moment dreaded, was he who had fled from Paris--the king.
+And yet, not for a moment did the people rise in anger against the
+king; actuated by a new and overpowering thought, the people in their
+enthusiasm for this idea forgot their anger against him who by his deed
+had kindled this thought. The thought which was uppermost in all minds
+at the flight of the king was this: that the state could subsist even
+if there were no king at its head; that law and order still remained in
+Paris, even when the king had fled.
+
+This law and order was the National Assembly, the living representation
+and embodiment of the law; the government was there; the king alone had
+disappeared. Such was the sentiment which animated all classes, which
+brought the people in streaming masses to the palace where the National
+Assembly held its sittings. A few hours after the news of the king’s
+flight had spread through Paris, thousands were besieging the National
+Assembly, and shouting enthusiastically: “Our king is here; he is in the
+hall of session. Louis XVI. can go; he can do what he wills; our king
+is still in Paris!” [Footnote: Prudhomme, “Histoire Parlementaire de la
+Revolution,” vol. x. p. 241.]
+
+The Assembly, “the King of Paris,” remained in permanent session,
+waiting for the developments of events, and working out in committees
+the decrees passed in common deliberation, whilst the president and
+the secretary remained the whole night in the council-room, so as to
+be ready at any moment to rectify fresh news and to issue the necessary
+orders.
+
+Early next morning the most important news had reached the president,
+and the deputies hastened from their respective committees into the hall
+of session, there to take their seats.
+
+Amid the breathless silence of the Assembly, President Beauharnais
+announced that the king, the queen, the dauphin, Madame, and divers
+persons of their suite, had been arrested in Varennes.
+
+The Assembly received this communication with dignified quietude, for
+they were conscious that the king’s return would in no wise impair their
+own sovereignty, that the power was in their hands, even if the king
+were there. In this full assurance of their dignity the National
+Assembly passed a decree ordering the proper authorities “to protect
+the king’s return, to seize and imprison all those who might forget, the
+respect they owed to the royal dignity.”
+
+At the same time the National Assembly sent from their number
+two deputies, Barnave and Petion, to bring back from Varennes the
+unfortunate royal family and to accompany them to Paris.
+
+Meanwhile the news of the king’s capture only increased the people’s
+enthusiasm for the National Assembly, the truly acknowledged sovereign
+of France. Every one was anxious to give expression to this enthusiasm;
+the National Guards of Paris begged for the privilege of taking the oath
+of allegiance to the National Assembly, and when at the motion of the
+president this was granted by the Assembly, a whole detachment was
+marched into the hall so as to take the oath of allegiance to the
+National Assembly with one voice, amid the applause of the Assembly and
+the tribunes. This detachment was followed by fresh companies, and the
+people filled the streets to see the National Guards come and go, and
+like them to swear allegiance to the National Assembly with enthusiastic
+shouts.
+
+The provinces would not be a whit behind the enthusiasm of Paris; and
+whilst the guards swore their oath, from all cities and provinces came
+to the president of the National Assembly, addresses congratulating
+the Assembly on its triumphs, and promising the most unconditional
+devotedness.
+
+Finally after two days of restless activity, after two days, during
+which Alexandre de Beauharnais had hardly found time to quiet his wife
+by a note, explaining his absence from home, finally a courier brought
+the news that the captive royal family were entering Paris. A second
+courier followed the first. He announced that the royal family had
+reached the Tuileries surrounded by an immense crowd, whose excitement
+caused serious apprehensions. Petion had, therefore, thought it
+expedient not to allow the royal family to alight, but had confined them
+to the two carriages, and he now sent the keys of these two carriages to
+the president of the National Assembly, as it was now his duty to adopt
+still further measures.
+
+Beauharnais proposed that at once twenty deputies be chosen to speed on
+to the Tuileries to deliver the royal family from their prison, and to
+lead them into the palace.
+
+The motion was carried, and the deputies reached the court of the
+Tuileries yet in time to save the affrighted family from the people,
+who, in their wild madness, were about to destroy the carriages, and to
+take possession of the king and queen.
+
+The presence of the deputies imposed silence on the shouts and howlings
+of the people. The king had come into the Tuileries, and before him
+bowed the people in dumb respect. They quietly allowed that this their
+king should open the carriage wherein the other king, the king by God’s
+grace, Louis XVI., sat a prisoner; they allowed that the king by the
+grace of the people, the National Assembly, through its twenty deputies,
+should render liberty to Louis and to his family, and lead them quietly
+under their protection into the Tuileries.
+
+But from this day the Tuileries, which for centuries had been the palace
+of the kings of France, now became a prison for the King of France!
+
+Louis XVI. was returned, not as the head, but as the prisoner of the
+state; from the moment he left Paris, the ermine mantle of his royalty
+had fallen from his shoulders upon the shoulders of the National
+Assembly; King Louis XVI. had dethroned himself.
+
+Amid these fatal storms, amid these ever-swelling revolutionary floods,
+there was yet an hour of happiness for Josephine. Out of the wild waves
+of rebellion was to rise, for a short time, an island of bliss. The
+National Assembly, whose president, Alexandre de Beauharnais, had
+once more, in the course of the sessions, been re-elected by general
+acclamation, declared itself on the 3d of September, 1791, dissolved,
+and its members vanished to make room for the Legislative Assembly,
+which organized the very next day.
+
+Alexandre de Beauharnais, after having so long and so zealously
+discharged his duties as a citizen, returned to his Josephine, to his
+children; and, weary with the storms and debates of the last months,
+longed for a quiet little place, away from the turmoil of the capital
+and from the attrition of parties. Josephine acquiesced gladly in the
+wishes of her husband, for she felt her innermost being shattered by
+these last exciting times, and perhaps she cherished the secret hope
+that her husband, once removed from Paris, would be drawn away from the
+dangerous arena of politics, into which his enthusiasm had driven
+him. She was, and remained at heart, a good and true royalist; and
+as Mirabeau, dying in the midst of revolution’s storms, had said
+of himself, that “he took to his grave the mourning-badge for the
+monarchy,” [Footnote: Mirabeau died on the 6th of May, 1791.--See,
+on his death, “Count Mirabeau,” by Theodore Mundt, vol. iv.] so also
+Josephine’s heart, since the flight to Varennes, wore the mourning-badge
+for the unfortunate royal family, who since that day had to endure so
+much humiliation, so much insult, and to whom Josephine in her loyal
+sense of duty consecrated the homage of a devout subject.
+
+Josephine, therefore, gladly consented to the viscount’s proposal to
+leave Paris. Accompanied by their children and by the governess of
+Hortense, Madame Lanoy, the viscount and his wife went to a property
+belonging to one of the Beauharnais family near Solange.
+
+Three months were granted to Josephine in the quietude, in the sweet
+repose of country-life, at her husband’s side, and with her children, to
+gather strength from the anxieties and griefs which she had suffered in
+Paris. She enjoyed these days as one enjoys an unexpected blessing, a
+last sunshine before winter’s near approach, with thankful heart to God.
+Full of cheerful devotedness to her husband, to her children, her lovely
+countenance was radiant with joy and love; she was ever busy, with the
+sunshine of her smile, to dissipate the shadows from her husband’s brow,
+and to replace the impassioned excitements, the honors and distinctions
+of his Parisian life, by the pleasantness and joys of home.
+
+But Alexandra de Beauharnais could no longer find satisfaction in the
+quiet, harmless joys of home; he even reproached himself that he could
+be cheerful and satisfied whilst France resounded with cries of distress
+and complaints, whilst France was torn in her innermost life by the
+disputes and conflicts of factions which, no more satisfied with the
+speeches of the tribune, filled the streets with blood and wounds. The
+revolution had entered into a new phase, the Legislative Assembly had
+become the Constituent Assembly, which despoiled the monarchy of the
+last appearance of power and degraded it to a mere insignificancy. The
+Girondists, those ideal fanatics, who wanted to regenerate France after
+the model of the states of antiquity, had seized the power and the
+ministerial portefeuilles. The beautiful, witty, and noble Madame Roland
+ruled, by means of her husband, the Minister Roland, and was striving to
+realize in France the ideal of a republic after the pattern of Greece;
+she was the very soul of the new cabinet, the soul of the Girondists,
+the rulers of France; in her drawing-room, during the evening, the new
+laws to be proposed next day in the Constituent Assembly, were spoken
+of, and the government measures discussed.
+
+For a moment it had seemed as if the king, through his cabinet
+of Girondists, would once more be reconciled with his people, and
+especially with the Constituent Assembly, as if the nation and the
+monarchy would once more endeavor to stand one by the other in harmony
+and peace. Perhaps the Girondists had believed in this possibility,
+and had regarded the king’s assurances that he would adhere to the
+constitution, and that he would go hand in hand with his ministers, and
+accept the constitution as the faithful expression of his will. But when
+they discovered that Louis was not honorable in his assurances; that
+he was in secret correspondence with the enemies of France; that in a
+letter to his brother-in-law, the Emperor Leopold, he had made bitter
+complaints about the constraint to which he was subjected, then
+the Girondists were inflamed with animosity, and had recourse to
+counter-measures. They decreed the exile of the priests, and the
+formation, in the vicinity of Paris, of a camp of twenty thousand
+militia from all the departments of France.
+
+Foreign nations looked upon this decree as a sign of dawning
+hostilities, and threatened France with countermeasures. France
+responded to the challenge thus thrown at her, and, in a stormy session
+of the Assembly, the fatherland was declared to be in danger, the
+organization of an army to occupy the frontiers was decreed, and all the
+children of the fatherland were solemnly called to her defence.
+
+This call awoke Alexandre de Beauharnais from the dreamy repose to which
+he had abandoned himself during the last months. His country called
+him, and he dared not remain deaf to this call; it was his duty to tear
+himself from the quiet peace of the household, from the arms of his
+wife and family, and place himself in the ranks of the defenders of his
+country.
+
+Josephine heard this resolution with tears in her eyes, but she
+could not keep back her husband, whose countenance was beaming with
+enthusiasm, and who dreamed of fame and victory. She accompanied
+Alexandre to Paris, and after he had been gladly received by the
+minister of war, and appointed to the Northern army, she then took from
+him a last, fond farewell, entreated him with all the eloquence of love
+to spare himself, and not wantonly to face danger, but to preserve his
+life for his wife and children.
+
+Deeply moved by this tender solicitude of his wife, Alexandre promised
+to hold her requests as sacred. Once more they embraced each other
+before they both quitted Paris on diverging roads.
+
+Alexandre de Beauharnais went to Valenciennes, where commanded Marshal
+Rochambeau, to whom he had been commissioned adjutant.
+
+Josephine hastened with her children toward Fontainebleau, so at least
+to be there united with her husband’s father, and to live under his
+protection until the return of her husband.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI. THE TENTH OF AUGUST, AND THE LETTER OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE.
+
+
+Since the death of Mirabeau, the last defender of the monarchy, since
+the failure of the contemplated flight, royalty in France had no chance
+of existence left; the throne had lost every prop upon which it could
+find support, and it sank more and more into the abyss which the
+revolution had dug under its feet.
+
+Marie Antoinette was conscious of it; her foreboding spirit foresaw
+the coming evil; her proud soul nearly broke under the humiliations and
+griefs which every day brought on. She had hitherto courageously and
+heroically struggled against adversity; she had concealed tears and
+anguish, to smile at that people which hated her and cursed her, which
+insulted and reviled her constantly. But a day was to come in which the
+smile would forever depart from her lip--in which Marie Antoinette, the
+daughter of the Caesars, so deeply humbled and trodden down in the dust,
+would no more lift up her head, would no more rise from the terrible
+blow.
+
+This day was the 10th of August, in the year 1792. The terrible storm,
+which so long had filled the air with its mutterings, and had shaken the
+throne with its thunderings, was on this day with terrific power to be
+let loose and to dash in pieces the monarchy. The king furnished the
+occasion for this eruption by dismissing his Girondist ministry, by not
+signing the decree for the organization of a national militia, and for
+the exile of the priests.
+
+This refusal was the flash which broke open the heavy clouds that so
+long had hung over his head--the flash which caused the tempest to burst
+forth.
+
+Since that day Paris was in a state of rebellion; fresh disturbances
+took place every day; and finally, on the morning of the 10th of August,
+bands of people rushed to the palace of the Tuileries and surrounded
+it with wild howlings and shouts. A portion of the National Guards
+endeavored to force the people into a retreat; the other portion united
+with the people in fierce assaults upon the Tuileries, and on its
+defenders the Swiss. These were massacred by the people armed with
+pikes; with jubilant howlings the armed masses rushed over the corpses
+of the fallen into the king’s palace.
+
+The Procurator-General Roderer implored the king to save himself with
+his family by taking refuge in the National Assembly, for there alone
+was safety for him and the queen.
+
+Louis hesitated; but Marie Antoinette felt once more the pride of a
+queen awake within her; she felt it was nobler and worthier to die as
+the loyal Swiss had done, to die sword in hand, than to meet pardon and
+disgrace, than to bow her head under the yoke. She entreated the king to
+remain with the loyal National Guards and to fight with his soldiers and
+die in the palace of his fathers. She spoke to the successor of Henry
+IV., to the father of the dauphin, for whom he should maintain the
+inheritance received; she appealed to the heart, to the honor of Louis;
+she spoke with flaming eyes, and with the eloquence of despair.
+
+But Louis listened not to her, but to the solicitations of Roderer, who
+told him that he had but five minutes to save himself, the queen, and
+his children; that in five minutes more all would be lost.
+
+“It cannot be helped,” muttered the king; and then with louder voice
+he continued: “It is my will that we be conducted into the Legislative
+Assembly; I command it!”
+
+A shriek of terror broke forth from the breast of the queen; her proud
+heart resisted once more her husband’s weakness, who, for his own and
+for her misfortune, was not made of the stuff which moulds kings.
+
+“Sire,” cried she, angrily and excited--“sire, you must first command
+that I be nailed to the walls of this palace! I remain here. I stir not
+from this spot!” [Footnote: The very words of the queen.--See “Memoires
+Secretes et Universelles,” par Lafont d’Aussone.]
+
+But Madame Elizabeth, the Princesses de Lamballe and de Tarent, begged
+her with tears to consent; the good king fixed on her sad, weeping
+eyes, and Roderer entreated her not to abandon, by her delays, to the
+approaching executioners, her husband, her children, and herself.
+
+Marie Antoinette offered to her husband her last and her greatest
+sacrifice; she bowed her proud head to his will; she consented to
+accompany the king with her children into the Assembly.
+
+She took the dauphin in her arms, Madame Therese by the hand, and, at
+the side of the king, followed by the Princesses Lamballe and Tarent,
+walked out of the palace of the Tuileries to go to the Convent des
+Peuillants, where the Legislative Assembly held its sessions.
+
+What a martyrdom in this short distance from the Tuileries to the
+Feuillants--what dishonor and fears were gathered on this path! Between
+the deep ranks of Swiss grenadiers and National Guards was this path;
+the queen stares fixedly on the ground, and she does not see that her
+thin silk shoes will be torn by the hard, fallen leaves of the trees
+under which they are moving.
+
+But the king sees every thing, notices every thing. “How many leaves,”
+ said he, gazing forward--“they fall early this year!”
+
+Now at the foot of the terrace the advance of the royal family is
+stopped by a multitude of people, who, with wild howlings, swing their
+pikes and clubs, and in their madness shout: “No, they must not enter
+the Assembly!--they are the cause of all our misery! Let us put an end
+to all this! Down with them!--down!”
+
+The queen pays no attention to these shouts; she sees not that the
+National Guards are clearing a way by force; she walks forward with
+uplifted head, with a countenance petrified like that of Medusa at the
+sight of evil.
+
+But as a man approaches her, seizes the dauphin and takes him in his
+arms, the transfixed queen is aroused, and, with all the anguish of a
+mother’s despair, grapples the arm of the man who wants to rob her of
+all she now possesses, her child!
+
+“Be not afraid,” whispered the man, “I will do him no harm, I am but
+going to carry him;” and Marie Antoinette, her eyes fixed on the child,
+moves forward. At their entrance into the hall of the Assembly the man
+gives her back the dauphin, and she makes him sit down near her on the
+seats of the ministers.
+
+A rough voice issues from the midst of the Assembly: “The dauphin
+belongs to the nation; place him at the side of the president. The
+Austrian is not worthy of our confidence!”
+
+They tear away from the queen the weeping child, who clings to her, and
+who is carried to the president, at whose left hand the king has seated
+himself.
+
+Again a voice is heard reminding the Assembly of the law which forbids
+them to deliberate in the presence of the king.
+
+The royal family must leave the lower portion of the hall, and are led
+into a small room, with iron trellis-work, behind the president’s chair.
+
+The royal family, with their attendants, pressed into the small space of
+this room, can here at least, away from the gaze of their enemies, hide
+their dishonored heads; at least no one sees the nervousness of despair
+which now and then agitates the tall figure of the queen, the tears
+trembling on her eyelids when she looks to the poor little dauphin,
+whose blond curly head lies in her bosom, asleep from exhaustion,
+hunger, and sorrow.
+
+No one sees the king and the queen, but they see and hear every thing.
+They hear from without the howlings of the mob, the cannon’s roar, the
+reports of the rifles, telling them that a bloody fratricidal strife, a
+terrible civil war, is raging. They hear there in the hall, a few steps
+from them, the fanatical harangues of the deputies, whose words, full
+of blood, are like the hands of the murdering Marsellais there without.
+Marie Antoinette hears Vergniaud’s motion, “to divest the king at once
+of his power and rank,” and she hears the acclamations of the Assembly
+in favor of the motion. She hears the Assembly by their own power
+reinvesting the Girondist ministers, dismissed by the king, with their
+dignity and power! She hears the Assembly decide “to invite the French
+people to form a national compact.”
+
+She hears all this, and the cold perspiration of anguish and horror
+covers her brow while she has yet strength enough to force hack her
+tears into her heart. She asks for a handkerchief to wipe her forehead.
+Not one of the attendants around can furnish a kerchief which is not
+stained with the blood of the victims fallen at their side in protecting
+the royal family with their lives. [Footnote: “Memoires inedites du
+Comte de la Rochefoucauld.”]
+
+At last, at two o’clock in the morning, is this painful martyrdom ended,
+and the royal family are led into the upper rooms of the convent, where
+hastily and penuriously enough a few chambers had been furnished.
+
+The howlings of the crowd ascend to their windows. Under those of the
+queen’s room groups of infuriated women sing the song whose horrible
+burden is, “Madame Veto avait promis de faire egorger tout Paris.”
+ Between the sentences other voices shout and howl: “The queen is the
+cause of our misery! Kill her! kill the queen, the murderess of France!
+Kill Madame Veto! Throw us her head!”
+
+Three days after, the royal family are led to the Temple. The rulers of
+the state are now state prisoners. But the queen had already found the
+peace which misfortune generally brings to strong souls; and as she
+walked to the Temple, and saw her foot protruding from the extremity
+of her shoe, she said with an affecting smile, “Who could have believed
+that one day the Queen of France should be in want of shoes!”
+
+With the 10th of August began the last act of the great tragedy of the
+revolution. Its second scene had its representation in the first days of
+September, in those days of blood and tears, in which infuriated
+bands of the people stormed the prisons to murder the captive priests,
+aristocrats, and royalists.
+
+Under the guillotine fell during this month the head of the queen’s
+friend, the Princess de Lamballe, who was followed in crowds by the
+king’s faithful adherents, sealing their loyalty and their love with
+their death.
+
+This loyalty and love for the royal family was during this month branded
+as an unpardonable crime, for the National Convention, which on the 21st
+of September had taken the place of the Constituent Assembly, on the
+25th declared France to be a republic, and the royalists became thereby
+criminals, who had sinned in the respect and love which they owed to the
+“republic one and indivisible.”
+
+The new republic of France celebrated her saturnalia in the following
+months, and unfurled her blood-stained standard over the nation. She
+was not satisfied with having brought to the guillotine more than ten
+thousand aristocrats and royalists, to terrify the faithful adherents
+and servants of the throne. She required, moreover, the death of those
+for whose sake so many thousands had perished--the death of the king and
+of the queen.
+
+On the 5th of December began the trial of Louis Capet, ex-King of
+France, now accused by the Convention. The pages of history have
+illustrated this stupendous and tragical event in all its shapes and
+colors. Each party has preyed upon it, the poets have sung it, and made
+it the central point of tragedy and romance: but none have painted it
+in so telling, in so terse, masterly traits, none have so fully
+comprehended and expressed the already stupendous event, as Lieutenant
+Napoleon Bonaparte, the future Emperor of France.
+
+He happened to be in Paris during these days of terror. He had, with all
+the energies of his soul, given himself up to the new state of
+things, and he belonged to the most upright and zealous faction of
+the republicans. He acknowledged himself won over to their ideas, he
+participated in their celebrations, he was the friend of many of the
+most influential and conspicuous members of the Convention, and he was
+rarely absent from their meetings; but in the presence of the awful
+catastrophe of the king’s accusation and execution his proud and daring
+soul shrank back, and, full of misgivings, shuddered within itself. The
+young, enthusiastic republican, to his own great horror, found in
+the depths of his soul a holy respect and awe in the presence of this
+royalty which he so often in words had despised, and the fall of the
+king, this enemy of the republic, moved his heart as a calamity which
+had fallen upon him and upon all France. He himself gave to one of
+his friends in Ajaccio a very correct description of these days. After
+narrating the events of the first days of the trial of the king, he
+continues:
+
+“The day after I heard that the advocate Target had refused to undertake
+the king’s defence, to which he was privileged by virtue of his office.
+This is what may be called, in the strictest sense of the word, to erase
+one’s name from history. What grounds had he for such a low cunning?
+‘His life I will not save, and mine I dare not risk!’ Malherbes,
+Tronchet, Deseze, loyal and devoted subjects, to imitate them in their
+zeal would be impossible for me; but were I a prince I would have them
+sit at my right hand--united together in the most strenuous efforts to
+defend the successor of St. Louis. If they survive this deed of sublime
+faithfulness, never can I pass by them without uncovering my head.
+
+“Business detained me unavoidably in Versailles. Only on the 16th of
+January did I return to Paris, and consequently I had lost three or four
+scenes of this tragedy of ambition. But on the 18th of January I went
+to the National Convention. Ah, my friend, it is true, and the most
+infuriated republicans avow it also, a prince is but an ordinary man!
+His head will as surely fall as that of another man, but whosoever
+decrees his death trembles at his own madness, and were he not urged
+by secret motives, his vote would die on his lips ere it was uttered.
+I gazed with much curiosity at the fearless mortals who were about
+deciding the fate of their king. I watched their looks. I searched into
+their hearts. The exceeding weightiness of the occasion had exalted
+them, intoxicated them, but within themselves they were full of fear in
+the presence of the grandeur of their victim.
+
+“Had they dared retreat, the prince had been saved. To his misfortune,
+they had argued within themselves, ‘If his head falls not to-day, then
+we must soon give ours to the executioner’s stroke.’
+
+“This was the prominent thought which controlled their vote. No pen
+can adequately portray the feelings of the spectators in the galleries.
+Silent, horrified, breathless, they gazed now on the accused, now on the
+defenders, now on the judges.
+
+“The vote of Orleans sounded forth--‘Death!’ An electric shock could
+not have produced deeper impression. The whole assembly, seized with
+an involuntary terror, rose. The hall was filled with the murmurs of
+conflicting emotions.
+
+“Only one man remained seated, immovable as a rock, and that one was
+myself.
+
+“I ventured to reflect on the cause of such indifference (as that of
+Orleans) and I found that cause grounded on ambition, but this cannot
+justify the conduct of Orleans. It is only thus that I could account
+for his action: he seeks a throne, though without any right to it, and
+a throne cannot be won if the pretender renounces all claims to public
+respect and virtue.
+
+“I will be brief, for to unfold a mournful story is not my business.
+The king was sentenced to death; and if the 21st day of January does
+not inspire hatred for the name of France, a glorious name at least will
+have been added to the roll-call of her martyrs.
+
+“What a city was Paris on that day! The population seemed to be in a
+state of bewilderment; all seemed to exchange but gloomy looks, and one
+man hurried on to meet another without uttering a word. The streets were
+deserted; houses and palaces were like graves. The very air seemed to
+mirror the executioner. In a word, the successor of St. Louis was led to
+the scaffold through the ranks of mourning automatons, that a short time
+before were his subjects.
+
+“If any one is at your side, my friend, when you read this, conceal the
+following lines from him, even were he your father. It is a stain on the
+stuff of which my character is made--that Napoleon Bonaparte, for the
+sake of a human being’s destruction, should have been deeply moved and
+compelled to retire to his bed, is a thing barely credible, though it is
+true, and I cannot confess it without being ashamed of myself.
+
+“On the night before the 21st of January I could not close my eyes, and
+yet I could not explain to myself the cause of this unusual excitement.
+I rose up early and ran everywhere to and fro where crowds had gathered.
+I wondered at, or much more I despised, the weakness of those forty
+thousand National Guards, of which the nineteenth part were practically
+the assistants of the executioner. At the gate of St. Denis I met
+Santerre; a numerous staff followed him. I could have cut off his ears.
+I spat down before him--it was all I could do. In my opinion, the Duke
+d’Orleans would have filled his place better. He had set his eyes on a
+crown, and, as every one knows, such a motive overcomes much hesitancy.
+
+“Following the Boulevards, I came to the Place de la Revolution. The
+guillotine, a new invention, I had not yet seen. A cold perspiration
+ran over me. Near me stood a stranger, who attributed my uneasiness and
+pallor to some special interest on my part for the king’s fate. ‘Do not
+be alarmed,’ said he, ‘he is not going to die; the Convention is only
+glad to exhibit its power, and at the foot of the scaffold the king will
+find his letters of pardon.’ ‘In this case,’ said I, ‘the members of the
+Convention are not far from their own ruin, and could a guilty man have
+more deserved his fate than they? Whoever attacks a lion, and desires
+not to be destroyed by it, must not wound but kill on the spot.’
+
+“A hollow, confused noise was heard. It was the royal victim. I pushed
+forward, making way with my elbows, and being pushed myself. All my
+efforts to come closer were fruitless. Suddenly the noise of drums
+broke upon the gloomy silence of the crowd. ‘This is the signal for
+his freedom,’ said the stranger. ‘It will fall back on the head of
+his murderers,’ answered I; ‘half a crime in a case like this is but
+weakness.’
+
+“A moment’s stillness followed. Something heavy fell on the scaffold.
+This sound went through my heart.
+
+“I inquired of a gendarme the cause of this sound. ‘The axe has fallen,’
+said he. ‘The king is not saved then?’ ‘He is dead.’ ‘He is dead!’
+
+“For ten times at least I repeated the words ‘He is dead.’
+
+“For a few moments I remained unconscious. Without knowing by whom,
+I was carried along by a crowd, and found myself on the Quai des
+Theatines, but could say nothing, except ‘He is dead.’
+
+“Entirely bewildered, I went home, but a good hour elapsed before I
+fully recovered my senses.” [Footnote: See “Edinburgh Quarterly Review,”
+ 1830.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII. THE EXECUTION OF THE QUEEN.
+
+
+The king’s execution was the signal-fire which announced to the
+horrified world the beginning of the reign of terror, and told Europe
+that in France the throne had been torn down, and in its stead the
+guillotine erected. Yes, the guillotine alone now ruled over France; the
+days of moderation, of the Girondists, had passed away; the terrorists,
+named also men of the Mountain, on account of the high seats they
+occupied in the Convention, had seized the reins of power, and now
+controlled the course of events.
+
+Everywhere, in every province, in every city, the blood-red standard of
+the revolution was lifted up; might had become law; death was the rule,
+and in lieu of the boasted liberty of conscience was tyranny. Who dared
+think otherwise than the terrorists, who presumed to doubt the measures
+of the Convention, was a criminal who, in the name of the one and
+indivisible republic, was to be punished with death; whose head must
+fall, for he had cherished thoughts which agreed not with the schemes of
+the revolutionists.
+
+How in these days of agitation and anguish Josephine rejoiced at her
+good fortune, that she had not to tremble for her husband’s life; that
+she was away from the crater of the revolution which raged in Paris, and
+daily claimed so many victims!
+
+Alexandre de Beauharnais was still with the army. He had risen from rank
+to rank; and when, in May, General Custine was deposed by the Committee
+of Public Safety from the command of the Northern army, Alexandre de
+Beauharnais, who was then chief of the general’s staff of this army, was
+appointed in his place as commanding general of the Army of the Rhine;
+and the important work now to be achieved was to debar the besieging
+Prussians and Austrians from recapturing Mayence. The Committee of
+Public Safety had dismissed General Custine from his post, because
+he had not pressed on with sufficient speed to the rescue of Mayence,
+according to the judgment of these new rulers of France, who wanted from
+Paris to decide all military matters, and who demanded victories whilst
+too often refusing the means necessary for victory.
+
+General de Beauharnais was to turn to good what General Custine,
+according to the opinion of these gentlemen of the Convention, had
+failed to do. This was an important and highly significant order, and to
+leave it unfulfilled was to excite the anger of the Committee of Safety;
+it was simply to deserve death.
+
+General de Beauharnais knew this well, but he shrank not back from the
+weighty and dangerous situation in which he was placed. To his country
+belonged his life, all his energies; and it was to him of equal
+importance whether his head fell on the battle-field or on the scaffold;
+in either case it would fall for his country; he would do his duty, and
+his country might be satisfied with him.
+
+In this enthusiastic love for country, De Beauharnais accepted
+cheerfully the offered command of the Army of the Rhine as
+general-in-chief, and he prepared himself to march to the rescue of
+besieged Mayence.
+
+Whilst General de Beauharnais was on the French frontier, Josephine
+trembled with anxious misgivings. The new dignity of her husband filled
+her with fear, for she multiplied the dangers which surrounded him and
+his family, for now the eyes of the terrorists were fixed on him. An
+unfortunate move, an unsuccessful war operation, could excite the wrath
+of these men of power, and send Beauharnais to the guillotine. It
+was well known that he belonged not to the Mountain party, but to the
+moderate republicans, to the Girondists; and as the Girondists were now
+incarcerated, as the Committee of Safety had brought accusations against
+them, and declared them guilty of treason toward France, it was also
+easy, if it pleased the terrorists, to find a flaw in the character of
+General Beauharnais, and to bring accusations against him as had been
+done against the Girondists.
+
+Such were Josephine’s fears, which made her tremble for her husband,
+for her children. She wished at least to secure these from the impending
+danger, and to save and shield them from the guillotine. Her friend, the
+Princess von Hohenzollern, was on the eve of leaving for England with
+her brother the Prince von Salm, and Josephine was anxious to seize this
+opportunity to save her children. She brought Eugene and Hortense to the
+princess, who was now waiting in St. Martin, in the vicinity of St. Pol,
+in the county of Artois, expecting a favorable moment for departure; for
+already was the emigration watched, already it was considered a crime
+to leave France. With bitter tears of grief, and yet glad to know her
+children safe, Josephine bade farewell to her little ones, and then
+returned to Paris, so as to excite no suspicion through her absence. But
+no sooner had General Beauharnais heard of Josephine’s plan to send her
+children from the country, than in utmost speed he dispatched to his
+wife a courier bearing a letter in which he decidedly opposed the
+departure of the children, for by this emigration his own position would
+be imperilled and his character made suspicious.
+
+Josephine sighed, and, with tears in her eyes, submitted to her
+husband’s will; she sent a faithful messenger to St. Martin to bring
+back Eugene and Hortense. But the Princess von Hohenzollern would not
+trust the children to any one; she had sworn to her friend Josephine to
+watch over them, never to let them go out of her sight, and she wished
+to keep her oath until such time as she could restore the children to
+their mother. She therefore returned herself to Paris, to bring back
+Eugene and Hortense to Josephine; and this journey, so short and so
+insignificant in itself, was nevertheless the occasion that the Princess
+von Hohenzollern remained in France; that her brother, the Prince von
+Salm, should mount the scaffold! The favorable moment for emigration was
+lost through this delay; the journey to Paris had attracted the eyes of
+the authorities to the doings of the princess and of her brother, the
+contemplated journey to England was discovered, and the incarceration of
+the Prince von Salm and of his sister was the natural consequence. A few
+months after, the prince paid with his life the contemplated attempt to
+migrate; his sister, the Princess von Hohenzollern, was saved from the
+guillotine through accident.
+
+Meanwhile, Josephine had at least her children safely returned, and,
+in the quietude and solitude of Fontainebleau, she awaited with beating
+heart the future developments of events; she saw increase every day the
+dangers which threatened her, her family, and, above all things, her
+husband.
+
+Mayence was still besieged by the Austrian and Prussian forces. General
+Beauharnais had not completed the organization of his army so as to
+press onward to the rescue of the besieged, whose perils increased every
+day. But whilst, in unwearied activity, he urged on the preliminary
+operations, a courier arrived, who brought to the general his
+appointment to the office of minister of war, and required his immediate
+presence in Paris, there to assume his new dignity.
+
+Alexandre de Beauharnais had the courage to answer with a declination
+the office. He entreated the Convention to make another choice, for
+he considered himself more competent to serve his country against the
+coalition of tyrants, among his companions-in-arms, than to be minister
+of war amid revolution’s storms.
+
+The Convention pardoned his refusal for the sake of the patriotic
+sentiments which he had expressed. But this refusal was to have, not
+only for the general, but also for all the aristocracy of France, the
+most fatal results. Some of the most fanatical members of the Mountain
+party ever considered as an audacious resistance to the commands of
+the Convention this refusal of Alexandre de Beauharnais, to accept the
+office which the highest powers of the land offered him.
+
+It was a nobleman, an aristocrat, who had dared oppose the democratic
+Convention, and hence the welcome pretext was found to begin the
+long-wished-for conflict against the aristocrats. One of the deputies of
+the Mountain made the motion to remove from all public offices, from
+the army, from the cabinet, all noblemen. Another accused General de
+Beauharnais, as well as all officers from amongst the nobility, of
+moderate tendencies, and requested at the same time that a list of all
+officers from the nobility, and now in the army, should be laid before
+the Convention.
+
+But on this very day a letter from the general reached the Convention.
+In this letter he expressed the hope of a speedy rescue of Mayence; he
+announced that he had completed the organization of his forces and
+all his preparations, and that soon from the camps of Vicembourg and
+Lauterburg he would advance against Mayence.
+
+This letter was received by the Convention with loud acclamations, and
+so took possession of all minds that they passed over the motion of
+hostility against the nobility, to the order of the day.
+
+Had General de Beauharnais accomplished his purpose--had he succeeded in
+relieving the garrison besieged in Mayence, now sorely pressed, and
+in delivering them, this horrible decree which caused so much blood to
+flow, this decree against the nobility, would never have appeared, and
+France would have been spared many scenes of cruelty and horror.
+
+Beauharnais hoped still to effect the rescue. Trusty messengers from
+Mayence had brought him the news that the garrison held on courageously
+and bravely, and that they could hold their ground a few days longer.
+Dispatch was therefore necessary; and if in a few days they could be
+re-enforced, then they would be saved, provided the other generals
+should advance with their troops in time to attack the Austrian and
+Prussian forces lying round about Mayence. The French had already
+succeeded in obtaining some advantages over the enemy; and General de
+Beauharnais could triumphantly announce to the Convention that, on the
+22d of July, a warm encounter with the Prussians had taken place at St.
+Anna’s chapel, and that he had forced the Prussians to a retreat with
+considerable loss.
+
+The Convention received this news with jubilant shouts, and already
+trusted in the sure triumph of the French armies against the united
+forces of Prussia and Austria. If in these days of joyous excitement
+some one had dared renew the motion to dismiss Beauharnais from his
+command because he was a nobleman, the mover would undoubtedly have been
+considered an enemy of his country.
+
+How much attention in these happy days was paid to the general’s
+wife--how busy were even the most fanatical republicans, the dreaded
+ones of the Mountain, to flatter her, to give expression to their
+enthusiastic praises of the general who was preparing for the arms of
+the republic so glorious a triumph!
+
+Josephine now came every day to be present in the gallery at the
+sessions of the Convention, and her gracious countenance radiated a
+cheerful smile when the minister of war communicated to the Assembly
+the newly-arrived dispatches which announced fresh advantages or closer
+approaches of General Beauharnais. By degrees a new confidence filled
+the heart of Josephine, and the gloomy forebodings, which so long had
+tormented her, began to fade away.
+
+In the session of the 28th of July, Barrere, with a grave, solemn
+countenance, mounted the tribune and with a loud, sad voice announced to
+the Convention, in the name of the Committee of Safety, that a courier
+had just arrived bringing the news that, on the 23d of July, Mayence, in
+virtue of an unjust capitulation, had fallen.
+
+A loud, piercing shriek, which issued from the gallery, broke the
+silence with which the Assembly had received this news. It was Josephine
+who had uttered this cry--Josephine who was carried away fainting from
+the hall. She awoke from her long swoon only to shed a torrent of tears,
+to press her children to her heart, as if desirous to screen them from
+the perils of death, which now, said her own forebodings, were pressing
+on from all sides.
+
+Josephine was not deceived: this calamitous news, all at once, changed
+the whole aspect of affairs, gave to the Convention and to the republic
+another attitude, and threw its dark shadows over the unfortunate
+general who had undertaken to save Mayence, and had not been able to
+fulfil his word.
+
+Surely this was not his fault, for General Dubayet had capitulated
+before it had been possible for Beauharnais to accomplish the rescue. No
+one therefore ventured to accuse him, but undeserved misfortune always
+remains a misfortune in the eyes of those who had counted upon success;
+and the Convention could never forgive the generals from whom they had
+expected so much, and who had not met these expectations.
+
+These generals had all been men of the aristocracy. As there was
+no reason to accuse them on account of their unsuccessful military
+operations, it was necessary to attack them with other weapons, and
+seek a spot where they could be wounded. This spot was their name, their
+ancestors, who in the eyes of the republican Convention rose up like
+embodied crimes behind their progeny, to accuse the guilty.
+
+The Jacobin Club, a short time after the capture of Mayence, began again
+in an infuriated session the conflict against the nobility, and the
+fanatical Hebert moved:
+
+“All the noblemen who serve in the army, in the magistracy, in any
+public office, must be driven away and dismissed. The people must
+require this, the people themselves! They must go in masses to the
+Convention, and after exposing the crimes and the treachery of the
+aristocrats, must insist on their expulsion. The people must not leave
+the Convention, it must remain in permanent session, there until it is
+assured that its will is carried out.”
+
+The multitude with loud, jubilant tones cried, “Yes. yes, that is what
+we want, let us go to the Convention! No more nobility! the nobles are
+our murderers!”
+
+The next day, the Jacobins, accompanied by thousands of shouting women
+and infuriated men, went to the Convention to make known its will in the
+name of the people. The Convention received their petition and decreed
+the exile and the dissolution of the nobility, and delivered to the
+punishment of the law the guilty subject who would dare use the name of
+noble.
+
+General de Beauharnais saw full well the blow aimed at him, and at all
+the officers from the nobility in the army; he foresaw that they would
+not stop at these measures; that soon he and his companions of fate
+would be accused and charged with treason, as had been already done to
+General Custine, and to so many others who had paid with their lives
+their tried loyalty to the republic. He wanted to anticipate the
+storm, and sent in his resignation. As the Convention left his petition
+unanswered, he renewed it, and as it remained still ineffective, he
+gladly, forced to this measure by sickness, transferred his command
+to General Landremont. The Convention had then to grant him leave of
+absence, and, as it maintained him in his rank, they ordered him back to
+Paris.
+
+At last Josephine saw her husband again, for whom during the last
+few months she had suffered so much anxiety and pain. At last she was
+enabled to bring to her children the father for whom every evening they
+had prayed God to guard him from foes abroad and from foes at home. As a
+gift sent again by Heaven, she received her husband and entreated him to
+save himself with his family from revolution’s yawning abyss, which was
+ready to swallow them all, and to go away with his own into a foreign
+land, as his brother had done, who for some months past had been in
+Coblentz with the Prince d’Artois.
+
+But Alexandre de Beanharnais rejected with something like anger these
+tearful supplications of his wife. He was not blinded to the dangers
+which threatened him, but he wanted to meet them bravely; true to the
+oath he had taken to the republic and to his country, he wished as a
+dutiful son to remain near her, even if his allegiance had to be paid
+with his death.
+
+Josephine, on the bosom of her husband, wept hot, burning tears as he
+communicated to her his irrevocable decision not to leave France, but in
+the depths of her heart she experienced a noble satisfaction to find her
+husband so heroic and so brave, and, offering him her hand, said with
+tears in her eyes:
+
+“It is well--we remain; and if we must go to the scaffold, we will at
+least die together.”
+
+The general, with his wife and children, retired to his small property,
+Ferte-Beauharnais, where he longed to obtain rest during a few happy
+months of quietude.
+
+But the fearful storms which had agitated France in her innermost life,
+now raged so violently that each household, each family, trembled; there
+was neither peace nor rest in the home nor in the hearts of men.
+
+The Convention, threatened from outside by failures and defeats--for the
+capture of Mayence by the Prussians and Austrians had been followed by
+the capture of Toulon in September by the English--the Convention wanted
+to consolidate at least its internal authority, and to terrify by severe
+measures those who, on account of the misfortunes on the frontiers,
+might hope for a fresh change of affairs in the interior, and who might
+help it to pass.
+
+Consequently the Convention issued a decree ordering all dismissed
+or destitute soldiers to return in four-and-twenty hours to their
+respective municipalities, under pain of ten years in chains, and at the
+same time forbade them to enter Paris or to approach the capital nearer
+than ten leagues.
+
+A second decree ordered the formation of a revolutionary army in Paris,
+to which was assigned the duty of carrying out the decrees of the
+Convention.
+
+Finally a third decree, which appeared on the 17th of September, ordered
+the arrest and punishment of all suspected persons.
+
+This decree thus characterized the suspected ones: “All those who, by
+their conduct, their relations, their discourses, their writings, had
+shown themselves the adherents of tyranny, of federalism, the enemies
+of liberty, much more all the ex-nobles, men, women, fathers, brothers,
+sons or daughters, sisters or brothers, or agents of the migrated ones,
+all who had not invariably exhibited and proved their adherence to the
+revolution.”
+
+With this decree the days of terror had reached their deepest gloom;
+with this decree began the wild, bloody hunting down of aristocrats and
+ci-devants; then began suspicions, accusations which needed no
+evidence to bring the accused to the guillotine; then were renewed
+the dragonnades of the days of Louis XIV., only that now, instead of
+Protestants, the nobles were hunted down, and hunted down to death. The
+night of the St. Bartholomew, the night of the murderess Catharine de
+Medicis and of her mad son Charles IX., found now in France its cruel
+and bloody repetition; only this night of horror was prolonged during
+the day, and shrank not back from the light.
+
+The sun beamed upon the pools of blood which flowed through the streets
+of Paris, and packs of ferocious dogs in large numbers lay in the
+streets, and fed upon this blood, which imparted to these once tamed
+creatures their natural wildness. The sun beamed on the scaffold,
+which, like a threatening monster, lifted itself upon the Place de la
+Revolution, and the sun beamed upon the horrible axe, which every day
+out off so many noble heads, and ever glittering, ever menacing, rose up
+from the midst of blood and death.
+
+The sun also shone upon the day in which Marie Antoinette, like her
+husband, ascended the scaffold, to rest at last in the grave from all
+her dishonor and from the agonies of the last years.
+
+This day was the 16th of October, 1793. For the last four months, Marie
+Antoinette had longed for this day as for a long-expected bliss; four
+months ago she had been led from the prison of the Temple into the
+Conciergerie, and she knew that the prisoners of the Conciergerie only
+left it to obtain the freedom which men do not give, but which God gives
+to the suffering ones, the freedom of death.
+
+Marie Antoinette longed for this liberty, and for this deliverance of
+death. How distant behind were the days of happiness, of joyous youth,
+far behind in infinite legendary distance! How long since this tall,
+grave figure, with its proud and yet affable countenance, had lost
+all similarity to the charming Queen Marie Antoinette, around whom had
+fluttered the genii of beauty, of youth, of love, of happiness; who once
+in Trianon had represented the idyl of a pastoral queen; who, in the
+exuberance of joy, had visited in disguise the public opera-ball; who
+imagined herself so secure amid the French people as to believe she
+could dispense with the protection of “Madame Etiquette;” who then was
+applauded by all France with jubilant acclamations, and who now was
+persecuted with mad anger!
+
+No, the queen of that day, Marie Antoinette, who, in the golden halls of
+Versailles and of the Tuileries, received the homage of all France, and
+who, with smiling grace and face radiant with happiness, responded to
+all this homage; she had no resemblance with Louis Capet’s widow, who
+now stands before the tribunal of the revolution, and gravely, firmly
+gives her answers to the proposed questions.
+
+She has also made her toilet for this day; but how different is this
+toilet of the Widow Capet from that which once Marie Antoinette had worn
+to be admired!
+
+Then could Marie Antoinette, the frivolous, fortunate daughter of bliss,
+shut herself up in her boudoir for long hours with her confidante the
+milliner, Madame Bertier, to devise some new ball-dress, some new fichu,
+some new ornament for her robes; then could Leonard, for this queen with
+her wondrous blond hair, tax all the wealth of his science and of his
+imagination; to invent continually new coiffures and new head-dresses
+wherewith to adorn the beautiful head of the Queen Marie Antoinette, on
+whose towering curls clustered tufts of white plumes; or else diminutive
+men-of-war unfurled the net-work of their sails; or else, for variety’s
+sake, on that royal head was arranged a garden, a parterre adorned with
+flowers and fruits, with butterflies and birds of paradise.
+
+The Widow Capet needs no milliner now; she needs no friseur now for
+her toilette. Her tall, slim figure is draped in a black woollen dress,
+which the republic at her request has granted her to mourn her beheaded
+husband; her neck and shoulders, once the admiration of France, are now
+covered with a white muslin kerchief, which in pity Bault, her attendant
+at the jail, has given her. Her hair is uncovered, and falls in long
+natural curls on either side of her transparent, blanched cheeks. This
+hair needs no powder now; the long sleepless nights, the anxious days,
+have covered it with their powder forever, and the thirty-eight-year-old
+widow of Louis Capet wears on her head the gray hairs of a
+seventy-year-old woman.
+
+In this toilet, Marie Antoinette stands before the tribunal of the
+revolution from the 6th to the 13th day of October. There is nothing
+royal about her, nothing but her look and the proud attitude of her
+figure.
+
+And the people who fill the galleries in closely-packed masses, and
+who weary not to gaze on the queen in her humiliation, in her toilet
+of anguish, the people claim constantly that Marie Antoinette will rise
+from her rush-woven seat; that she will allow herself to be stared at by
+these masses of people, whom curiosity and not compassion have brought
+there.
+
+Once, as at the call from the public in the galleries, she rose up, the
+queen sighed: “Ah, will not the people soon be tired of my sufferings?”
+ [Footnote: Marie Antoinette’s own words.--See Goncourt, “Histoire de
+Marie Antoinette,” p. 404.]
+
+Another time her dry, blanched lips murmured, “I thirst.” But no one
+near her dares have compassion on this sigh of agony from the queen;
+each looks embarrassed at his neighbor; not one dares give a glass of
+water to the thirsty woman.
+
+One of the gendarmes has at last the courage to do so, and Marie
+Antoinette thanks him with a look which brings tears in the eyes of the
+gendarme, and which may perchance cause his death to-morrow under the
+guillotine as a traitor!
+
+The gendarmes who guard the queen have alone the courage to show pity!
+
+One night, as she is led from the hall of trial to her prison, Marie
+Antoinette becomes so exhausted, so overpowered, that staggering, she
+murmurs, “I can see no longer! I can go no farther! I cannot move!”
+
+One of the gendarmes walking alongside of her offers his arm, and
+supported by it Marie Antoinette totters up the three stone steps which
+lead into the prison.
+
+At last, at four o’clock in the morning, on the 15th of August, the
+jury have given their verdict. It runs: “Death!--execution by the
+guillotine!”
+
+Marie Antoinette has heard the verdict with unmoved composure, whilst
+the noise from the excited crowd in the galleries is suddenly hushed as
+by a magic spell, and even the faces of the infuriated fish women turn
+pale!
+
+Marie Antoinette alone has remained calm; grave and cool she rises from
+her seat and herself opens the balustrade to leave the hall and return
+to her prison.
+
+And then at last, on the morning of the 16th of October, her sorrows
+will end, and Marie Antoinette can find refuge in the grave! Her soul is
+almost joyous and serene; she has suffered so much, and for her to sink
+into death is truly blessedness!
+
+She has passed the undisturbed hours of the night in writing to her
+sister-in-law, Madame Elizabeth, and this letter is also the queen’s
+testament. But the widow of Louis Capet has no riches, no treasures, no
+property to will; she has nothing left which belongs to her--nothing but
+her love, her tears, her farewell salutations. These she leaves behind
+to all those who have loved her. She takes leave of her relatives, her
+brothers and sisters, and cries out to them a farewell.
+
+“I had friends,” she continues; “the thought of being forever separated
+from them, and your grief for my death, are my deepest sorrow; you will
+at least know that to the last moment I have remembered you.”
+
+Then, when Marie Antoinette has finished this letter, some of whose
+characters here and there are disfigured by her tears, she thinks of
+leaving to her children a last token of remembrance--one which the
+executioner’s hand has not desecrated.
+
+The only ornament which remains is her long hair, whose silver-gray
+locks are the tearful history of her sufferings.
+
+Marie Antoinette with her own hands despoils herself of this last
+ornament; she cuts off her long hair behind the head, so as to leave
+it as a last token to her children, to her relatives and friends. Then,
+after having taken her spiritual farewell of life, she prepares herself
+for the last great ceremony of her existence, for death.
+
+She feels exhausted, weary unto death, and she strengthens herself for
+this last toilsome journey, that she may worthily pass through it.
+
+Marie Antoinette needs food, and with courageous mind she eats a
+chicken’s wing which has been brought to her. After having eaten, she
+makes her last toilet, the toilet of death.
+
+The wife of the jailer, at the queen’s request, gives her one of her own
+chemises, and Marie Antoinette puts it on. Then she clothes herself
+with the garments which she has worn during her days of trial before the
+tribunal of the revolution, only over the black woollen dress, which she
+has often mended and patched with her own hand, she puts on a mantle
+of white needlework. Around her neck she ties a small plain kerchief of
+white muslin, and, as it is not allowed her to mount the scaffold
+with uncovered head, she puts on it the round linen hood which the
+peasant-women used to wear. Black stockings cover her feet, and over
+them she draws shoes of black woollen stuff.
+
+Her toilet is now ended--earthly things have passed away! Ready to meet
+death, the queen lays herself down on her bed and sleeps.
+
+She still sleeps when she is notified that a priest is there, ready to
+come in, if she will confess.
+
+But Marie Antoinette has already unveiled her heart to God; she will
+have none of these priests of reason, whom the republic has ordained,
+after having exiled or murdered with the guillotine the priests of the
+Church.
+
+“As I cannot do as I please,” she has written to Madame Elizabeth, in
+her farewell letter, “so must I endure it if a priest is sent to me; but
+I now declare that I will tell him not a word, that I will consider him
+entirely as a stranger to me.”
+
+And Marie Antoinette held her word. She forbids not the priest Girard
+to come in, but she answers in the negative when he asks her if she will
+receive from him the consolations of religion.
+
+She paces her small cell to and fro, to warm herself, for her feet are
+stiff with cold. As seven o’clock strikes, the door opens.
+
+It is the executioner of Paris, Samson, who enters.
+
+A slight tremor runs through the queen’s frame. “You come very early,
+sir,” murmurs she, “could you not delay somewhat?”
+
+As Samson replies in the negative, Marie Antoinette assumes again
+a calm, cold attitude. She drinks without any reluctance the cup
+of chocolate which has been brought to her from a neighboring cafe.
+Proudly, calmly, she allows her hands to be bound with strong ropes
+behind her back.
+
+At eleven o’clock she finally leaves her room to descend the corridor,
+and to mount into the wagon which waits for her before the gate of the
+Conciergerie.
+
+No one guides her on the way; no one bids her a last farewell; no one
+shows a sympathizing or sad countenance to the departing one.
+
+Alone, between two rows of gendarmes posted on both sides of the
+corridor, the queen walks forward; behind her is Samson, holding in
+his hand the end of the rope; the priest and the two assistants of the
+executioner follow him.
+
+On the path of Death--such is the suite of the queen, the daughter of an
+emperor!
+
+Perchance at this hour thousands were on their knees to offer to God
+their heart-felt prayers for Marie Antoinette, whom in the silence
+of the soul they still call “the queen;” perchance many thousand
+compassionate hearts pour out warm tears of sympathy for her who now
+ascends into the miserable wagon, and sits on a plank which ropes have
+made firm to both sides of the vehicle. But those who pray and weep have
+retired into the solitude of their rooms, for God alone must receive
+their sighs and see their tears. The eyes which follow the queen on
+her last journey must not weep; the words which are shouted at her must
+betray no compassion.
+
+Paris knows that this is the hour of the queen’s execution, and the
+Parisian crowd is ready, it is waiting. In the streets, in the windows
+of the houses, on the roofs, the people have stationed themselves in
+enormous masses; they fill the whole Place de la Revolution with their
+dark, destructive forms.
+
+Now resound the drums of the National Guard posted before the
+Conciergerie. The large white horse, which draws the chariot in which
+Marie Antoinette sits backward, at the side of the priest, is driven
+onward by the man who swings on its back. Behind her in the wagon is
+Samson and his assistants.
+
+The queen’s face is white; all blood has left her cheeks and lips, but
+her eyes are red; they have wept so much, unfortunate queen! She weeps
+not now. Not one tear dims her eye, which pensively and calmly soars
+above the crowd, then is lifted up to the very roofs of the houses, then
+again is slowly lowered, and seems to stare over the human heads away
+into infinite distance.
+
+Calm and pensive as the eye is the queen’s countenance, her lips
+are nearly closed, no nervous movement on her face tells whether she
+suffers, whether she feels, whether she notices those tens of thousands
+of eyes which are fixed on her, cold, curious, sarcastic! And yet Marie
+Antoinette sees every thing! She sees yonder woman who lifts up her
+child; she sees how this child with his tiny hands sends a kiss to the
+queen! Suddenly a nervous agitation passes over the queen’s features,
+her lips tremble, and her eyes are obscured with a tear! This first,
+this single token of human sympathy has revived the heart of the queen
+and awakened her from her torpor.
+
+But the people are bent upon this, that Marie Antoinette shall not reach
+the end of her journey with this last comfort of pity. They press on,
+howling and shouting, scorning and jubilant, nearer and nearer to the
+wagon; they sing sarcastic songs on Madame Veto, they clap hands, and
+point at her with the finger of scorn.
+
+She, however, is calm; her look, cold and indifferent, runs over the
+crowd; only once it flames up with a last angry flash as she passes
+by the Palais Royal, where Philippe Egalite, the ex-Duke d’Orleans,
+resides, as she reads the inscription which he had placed at the gate of
+his palace.
+
+At noon the chariot reaches at last its destination. It stops at the
+foot of the scaffold, and Marie Antoinette alights from the wagon, and
+then calm and erect ascends the steps of the scaffold.
+
+Her lips have not opened once on this awful journey; they now have no
+word of complaint, of farewell! The only farewell which she has yet to
+say on earth is told by her look--by a look which is slowly directed
+yonder to the Tuileries--it is the farewell to past memories--it deepens
+the pallor on the cheeks, it opens her lips to a painful sigh. She then
+bows her head--a momentary, breathless silence follows. Samson lifts up
+the white head, which once had been the head of the Queen of France, and
+the people cry and shout, “Long live the republic!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII. THE ARREST.
+
+
+Uninterruptedly had the guillotine for the last three months of the
+year 1793 continued its destructive work of murder, and the noblest
+and worthiest heads had fallen under this reaper of Death. No personal
+merit, no nobility of character, no age, no youth, could hope to escape
+the death-instrument of the revolution when a noble name stood up as
+accuser. Before this accuser every service was considered as nothing;
+it was enough to be an aristocrat, a ci-devant, to be suspected, to be
+dragged as a criminal before the tribunal of the revolution, and to be
+condemned.
+
+The execution of the queen was followed by that of the Girondists; and
+this brilliant array of noble and great men was followed in the next
+month by names no less noble, no less great. It was an infuriated chase
+of the aristocrats as well as of the officers, of all the military
+persons who, in the unfortunate days of Toulon and of Mayence, had been
+in the army, and who had been dismissed, or whose resignation had been
+accepted.
+
+The aristocrats were tracked in their most secret recesses, and not
+only were they punished, but also those who dared screen them from the
+avenging hand of the republic. The officers were recognized under
+every disguise, and the very fact that they had disguised themselves or
+remained silent as to their true character was a crime great enough to
+be punished with the guillotine.
+
+More than twenty generals were imprisoned during the last months of the
+year 1793, and many more paid with their lives for crimes which they had
+never committed, and which had existence only in the heated imagination
+of their accusers. Thus had General Houchard fallen; he was followed
+in the first days of the new year of 1794 by the Generals Luckner and
+Biron.
+
+Alexandre de Beauharnais had served under Luckner, he had been Biron’s
+adjutant, he had been united with General Houchard in the unfortunate
+attempt to relieve Mayence. It was therefore natural that he should be
+noticed and espied. Besides which, he was an aristocrat, a relative of
+many of the emigres, the brother of the Count de Beauharnais, who was
+now residing in Coblentz with the Count d’Artois, and it had not been
+forgotten what an important part Alexandre de Beauharnais had played
+in the National Assembly; it was well known that he belonged to the
+moderate party, that he had been the friend of the Girondists.
+
+Had the Convention wished to forget it, the informers were there to
+remind them of it. Alexandre de Beauharnais was denounced as suspected,
+and this denunciation was followed, in the first days of January, by an
+arrest. He was taken to Paris, and at first shut up in the Luxemburg,
+where already many of his companions-in-arms were incarcerated.
+
+Josephine was not in Ferte-Beauharnais when the emissaries of the
+republic came to arrest her husband. She was just then in Paris, whither
+she had gone to seek protection and assistance for Alexandre at the
+hands of influential acquaintances; in Paris she learned the arrest of
+her husband.
+
+The misfortune, which she had so long expected and foreseen, was now
+upon her and ready to crush her and the future of her children. Her
+husband was arrested--that is to say, he was condemned to die.
+
+At this thought Josephine rose up like a lioness; the indolence, the
+dreamy quietude of the creole, had suddenly vanished, and Josephine was
+now a resolute, energetic woman, anxious to risk every thing, to try
+every thing, so as to save her husband, the father of her children. She
+now knew no timidity, no trembling, no fear, no horror; every thing
+in her was decision of purpose; keen, daring action. Letters, visits,
+petitions, and even personal supplications, every thing was tried; there
+was no humiliation before which she shrank. For long hours she sat in
+the anterooms of the tribunal of the revolution, of the ministers who,
+however much they despised the aristocrats, imitated their manners,
+and made the people wait in the vestibule, even as the ministers of
+the tyrant had done; with tears, with all the eloquence of love, she
+entreated those men of blood and terror to give her back her husband, or
+at least not to condemn him before he had been accused, and to furnish
+him with the means of defence.
+
+But those new lords and rulers of France had no heart for compassion;
+Robespierre, Marat, Danton, could not be moved by the tears which a wife
+could shed for an accused husband. They had already witnessed so much
+weeping, listened to so many complaints, to so many cries of distress,
+their eyes were not open for such things, their ears heard not.
+
+France was diseased, and only by drawing away the bad blood could she
+be restored to health, could she be made sound, could she rise up again
+with the strength of youth! And Marat, Danton, Robespierre, were the
+physicians who were healing France, who were restoring her to health
+by thus horribly opening her veins. Marat and Danton murdered from
+bloodthirsty hatred, from misanthropy and vengeance; Robespierre
+murdered through principle, from the settled fanatical conviction, that
+France was lost if all the old corrupt blood was not cleansed away from
+her veins, so as to replenish them with youthful, vitalizing blood.
+
+Robespierre was therefore inexorable, and Robespierre now ruled over
+France! He was the dictator to whom every thing had to bow; he was at
+the head of the tribunal of revolution; he daily signed hundreds of
+death-warrants; and this selfsame man, who once in Arras had resigned
+his office of judge because his hand could not be induced to sign
+the death-warrant of a convicted criminal [Footnote: See “Maximilian
+Robespierre,” by Theodore Mundt, vol. i.]--this man, who shed tears over
+a tame dove which the shot of a hunter had killed, could, with heart
+unmoved, with composed look, sit for long hours near the guillotine on
+the tribune of the revolution, and gaze with undimmed eyes on the heads
+of his victims falling under the axe.
+
+He was now at the summit of his power; France lay bleeding, trembling
+at his feet; fear had silenced even his enemies; no one dared touch
+the dreaded man whose mere contact was death; whose look, when coldly,
+calmly fixed on the face of any man, benumbed his heart as if he had
+read his sentence of death in the blue eyes of Robespierre.
+
+At the side of Robespierre sat the terrorists Fouquier-Tinville and
+Marat, to whom murder was a delight, blood-shedding a joy, who with
+sarcastic pleasure listened unmoved to the cries, to the tearful prayers
+of mothers, wives, children, of those sentenced to death, and who fed on
+their tears and on their despair.
+
+With such men at the head of affairs it was natural that the reign of
+terror should still be increasing in power, and that with it the number
+of the captives in the prisons should increase.
+
+In the month of January, 1794, the list of the incarcerated within the
+prisons of Paris ran up to the number of 4,659; in the month of February
+the number rose up to 5,892; in the beginning of April to 7,541; and at
+the end of the same month it was reckoned that there were in Paris
+eight thousand prisoners. [Footnote: Thiers, “Histoire de la Revolution
+Francaise,” vol. vi., p. 41]
+
+The greater the number of prisoners, the more zealous was the tribunal
+of the revolution to get rid of them; and with satisfaction these judges
+of blood saw the new improvements made in the guillotine, and which not
+only caused the machine to work faster, but also prevented the axe from
+losing its edge too soon by the sundering of so many necks.
+
+“It works well,” exclaimed Fouquier-Tinville, triumphantly; “to-day we
+have fifty sentenced. The heads fall like poppy-heads!”
+
+And these fifty heads falling like poppy-heads, were not enough for his
+bloodthirstiness.
+
+“It must work better still,” cried he; “in the next decade, I must have
+at least four hundred and fifty poppy-heads!”
+
+And then, as if inspired by a joyous and happy thought, his gloomy
+countenance became radiant with a grinning laughter, and, rubbing his
+hands with delight, he continued: “Yes, I must have four hundred and
+fifty! Then, if we work on so perseveringly, we will soon write over
+our prison-gates, ‘House to let!’” [Footnote: “Histoire de l’Imperatrice
+Josephine.”]
+
+They worked on perseveringly, and the vehicles which carried the
+condemned to execution rolled every morning with a fresh freight through
+the streets of Paris, where the guillotine, with its glaring axe,
+awaited them.
+
+The month of April, as already said, had brought the number of prisoners
+in Paris to eight thousand; the month of April had therefore more
+executions to engrave with its bloody pen into the annals of history.
+On the 20th of April fell on the Place de la Revolution the heads of
+fourteen members of the ex-Parliament of Paris; the next day followed
+the Duke de Villeroy, the Admiral d’Estaing, the former Minister of War
+Latour du Pin, the Count de Bethune, the President de Nicolai. One day
+after, the well-laden wagon drove from the Conciergerie to the Place de
+la Revolution; in it were three members of the Constituent Assembly,
+and to have belonged to it was the only crime they were accused of. Near
+these three sat the aged Malesherbes, with his sister; the Marquis de
+Chateaubriand, with his wife; the Duchess de Grammont, and Du Chatelet.
+It will be seen that the turn for women had now come; for those women
+who were now led to the execution had committed no other crime than to
+be the wives or the relatives of emigrants or of accused persons, than
+to bear names which had shone for centuries in the history of France.
+
+Josephine also had an ancient aristocratic name; she also was related
+to the migrated ones, the wife of an accused, of a prisoner! And she
+wearied the tribunal of the revolution constantly with petitions, with
+visits, with complaints. They were tired of these molestations, and it
+was so easy, so convenient to shield one’s self against them! There was
+nothing else to do but to arrest Josephine; for once a prisoner, she
+could no longer--in anterooms, where she would wait for hours; in the
+street before the house-door, where she would stand, despite rains and
+winds--she could no longer trouble the rulers of France, and beseech
+them with tears and prayers for her husband’s freedom. The prisoner
+could no more write petitions, or move heaven and earth for her
+husband’s sake.
+
+The Viscountess de Beauharnais was arrested. On the 20th of April, as
+she happened to be at the proper authority’s office to obtain a pass
+according to the new law, which ordered all ci-devants to leave Paris
+in ten days, Josephine was arrested and led into the Convent of the
+Carmelites, which for two years had served as a prison for the bloody
+republic, and from which so many of its victims had issued to mount the
+wagon which led them to the guillotine.
+
+Amid this wretchedness there was one sweet joy. Alexandre de Beauharnais
+had no sooner heard of the arrest of his wife, than he asked as a favor
+from the tribunal of the revolution to be removed into the same prison
+where his wife was. In an incomprehensible fit of merciful humor his
+prayer was granted; he was transferred to the Convent of the Carmelites,
+and if the husband and wife could not share the same cell, yet they were
+within the same walls, and could daily (through the turnkeys, who had to
+be bribed by all manner of means, by promises, by gold, as much as could
+be gathered together among the prisoners) hear the news.
+
+Josephine was united to her husband. She received daily from him news
+and messages; she could often, in the hours when the prisoners in
+separate detachments made their promenades in the yard and in the
+garden, meet Alexandre, reach him her hand, whisper low words of trust,
+of hope, and speak with him of Eugene and Hortense, of these dear
+children who, now deserted by their parents, could hope for protection
+and safety only from the faithfulness and love of their governess,
+Madame Lanoy. The thought of these darling ones of her heart excited
+and troubled Josephine, and all the pride and courage with which she had
+armed her heart melted into tears of anxiety and into longings for her
+deserted children.
+
+But Madame Lanoy with the most faithful solicitude watched over the
+abandoned ones; she had once sworn to Josephine that if the calamity,
+which Josephine had constantly anticipated, should fall upon her and
+upon her husband, she would be to Hortense and Eugene a second mother;
+she would care for them and protect them as if they were her own
+children. And Madame Lanoy kept her promise.
+
+To place them beyond the dangers which their very name made imminent,
+and also perhaps to give by means of the children evidence of the
+patriotic sentiments of the parents, Madame Lanoy left with the children
+the viscount’s house, where they had hitherto resided, and occupied
+with both of them a small shabby house, where she established herself
+as seamstress. The little eleven-year-old Hortense, the daughter of the
+Citizeness Beauharnais, was now the assistant of the Citizeness Lanoy,
+at the trade of seamstress. Eugene was apprenticed to a cabinet-maker;
+a leather apron was put on, and then with a plank under his arm,
+and carrying a plane in his hand, he went through the streets to the
+workshop of the cabinet-maker, and every one lauded the patriotic
+sentiments of the Citizeness Lanoy, who tried to educate the brood of
+the ex-aristocrats into orderly and moral beings.
+
+Eugene and Hortense fell rapidly and understandingly into the plan of
+their faithful governess; they transformed themselves in their language,
+in their dress, in their whole being and appearance, into little
+republicans, full of genuine patriotism. Like their cousin, Emile de
+Beauharnais, whose mother (the wife of the elder brother of the Viscount
+de Beauharnais) had already for a long time languished in prison, they
+attended the festivals which had for its object the glorification of the
+republic, and, alongside of the Citizeness Lanoy, the little milliner
+Hortense followed the procession of her quarter of the city, perhaps
+to awaken thereby the good-will of the authorities in favor of her
+imprisoned parents.
+
+Then, when Madame Lanoy thought this good-will had been gained, she
+made a step further, and undertook to have the children present to the
+Convention a petition for their parents. This petition ran thus:
+
+“Two innocent children appeal to you, fellow-citizens, for the freedom
+of their dear mother--their mother against whom no reproach can be
+made but the misfortune of being born in a class from which, as she has
+proven, she ever felt completely estranged, for she has ever surrounded
+herself with the best patriots, the most distinguished men of the
+Mountain. After she had on the 26th of Germinal requested a pass in
+order to obey the law, she was arrested on the evening of that day
+without knowing the cause. Citizen representatives, you cannot be
+guilty of oppressing innocence, patriotism, and virtue. Give back to
+us unfortunate children our life. Our youth is not made for suffering.”
+ Signed: EUGENE BEAUHARNAIS, aged twelve years, and HORTENSE BEAUHARNAIS,
+aged eleven years. [Footnote: “Histoire de l’Imperatrice Josephine,” par
+Aubenas.]
+
+To this complaint of two deserted children no more attention was paid
+than to the cries of the dove which the hawk carries away in its claws,
+but perhaps the innocent touching words of the petition had awakened
+compassion in the heart of some father.
+
+It is true no answer was given to the petition of the children, but the
+Citizeness Lanoy was allowed to take the children of the accused twice
+a week into the reception-room of the Carmelite Convent, that there they
+might see and speak to their mother.
+
+This was a sweet comfort, an unhoped-for joy, as well to Josephine as to
+her husband; for if he was not permitted to come into the lower room and
+see the children, yet he now saw them through the eyes of his wife, and
+through her he received the wishes of their tender affection.
+
+What happiness for Josephine, who loved her children with all the
+unrestrained fondness of a Creole! what happiness to see her Eugene, her
+Hortense, and to be permitted to speak to them! How much they had to say
+one to another, how much to communicate one to the other!
+
+It is true much had to be passed in silence if they would not excite
+the anger of the turnkey, who was always present at the meeting of the
+children with their mother. Strict orders had been given that Josephine
+should never whisper one word to the children, or speak to them of the
+events of the day, of what was going on beyond the prison walls. The
+least infringement of this rule was to be punished by debarring the
+children from having any further conversation with their mother.
+
+And yet they had so much to say; they needed her advice so much, so as
+to know what future steps they might take to accomplish their mother’s
+freedom! They had so much to tell to Josephine about relatives and
+friends, and above all so much to say about what was going on outside
+of the prison! But how bring her news? how speak to their mother? how
+receive her message in such a way that the jailer’s ears could not know
+what was said?
+
+Love is full of invention. It turns every thing into subserviency to
+its end. Love once turned the dove into a carrier; love made Josephine’s
+children find out a new mail-carrier--it made them invent the lapdog
+mail.
+
+Josephine, like all Creoles, had, besides her love for flowers, botany,
+and birds, a great fondness for dogs. Never since the earliest days of
+her childhood had Josephine been seen in her room, at the promenade, or
+in her carriage, without one of these faithful friends and companions of
+man, which share with the lords of creation all their good qualities
+and virtues, without being burdened with their failings. The love,
+the faithfulness, the cunningness of dogs are virtues, wherewith they
+successfully rival man, and the dogs boast only of one quality which
+amongst men is considered a despicable vice, namely, the canine
+humbleness which these animals practise, without egotism, without
+calculation, whilst man practises it only when his interest and his
+selfishness make it seem advantageous.
+
+Two years before, a friend of Josephine had given her a small, young
+model of the then fashionable breed of dogs, a small lapdog, and at
+once Josephine had made a pet of the little animal, which had been
+recommended to her as the progeny of a rare and genuine race of lapdogs.
+It is true the little Fortune had not fulfilled what had been promised;
+he had not grown up exactly into a model of beauty and loveliness.
+With small feet, a long body of a pale yellow rather than red, a thick,
+double, flat nose, this lapdog had nothing of its race but the black
+face, and the tail in the shape of a corkscrew. Besides all this, he was
+undoubtedly of a surly, quarrelsome disposition, and he preferred the
+indolent and ease of his cushion to either a promenade with Josephine or
+to a game with her children.
+
+But since Josephine was no more there, since her beautiful hands no more
+presented him his food, a change had come over Fortune’s character;
+he had awakened from the effeminacy of happiness to full activity. The
+children had but to say, “We are going to mamma,” and at once Fortune
+would spring up from his cushion with a cheerful bark, and run out into
+the streets, describing circles and performing joyous leaps. Fortune,
+as soon as the reception-room of the prison was opened, was always the
+first to rush in, barking loudly at the jailer; then, when his spite
+was over, to run with all the signs of passionate tenderness toward his
+mistress; then he would surround her with caresses, and leap, bark, and
+whine, until she noticed him, until she should have kissed and embraced
+the children, and then taken him up in her arms.
+
+But one day, as the door of the reception-room opened, and Eugene and
+Hortense entered with Madame Lanoy, Fortune’s loud barking trumpet
+sounded not, and he sprang not forward toward Josephine. He walked on
+gravely with measured steps at the side of Madame Lanoy, who led him
+with a string which she had fastened to his collar. With important,
+thoughtful mien, he gazed resignedly and gravely at his mistress, and
+even for his hated foe the jailer he had but a dull growl, which he soon
+repressed.
+
+Josephine was somewhat alarmed at this change in Fortune’s demeanor,
+and after she had welcomed, taken to her bosom and kissed her darling
+children, after she had saluted the good Madame Lanoy, she inquired why
+Fortune was so sad and why he was led as a captive.
+
+“Because he is so wild and unruly, mamma,” said Eugene, with a peculiar
+smile, “because he wants always to be the first to salute you, and
+because he barks so loud that we cannot possibly for some time hear what
+our dear mamma has to say.”
+
+“And then, in the street, he is so wicked and troublesome,” cried
+Hortense, with eagerness, “and he always begins quarrelling and fighting
+with every dog which passes by, and we must stand there and wait for him
+when we are so anxious to see our dear mamma.”
+
+“For all these reasons,” resumed Madame Lanoy, with slow, solemn
+intonation, “for all these reasons we have thought it necessary to chain
+Fortune and to tighten up his collar.”
+
+“And you have done quite well, citizeness,” growled the turnkey, “for
+I had already thought of silencing forever the abominable lapdog if he
+again barked at me so.”
+
+Josephine said nothing, but the peculiar smile she had noticed on
+her children’s face had passed, at the words of Madame Lanoy, over
+Josephine’s radiant countenance, and she now with her pet names called
+Fortune to her, to press him to her heart, to pat him, and by all these
+caresses to make amends for his having his collar somewhat tightened.
+
+But whilst thus petting him, and tenderly smoothing down his sleek fur,
+her slim fingers quickly and cautiously passed under the wide collar of
+Fortune. Then her eyes were rapidly directed toward the jailer. He was
+engaged in animated conversation with Madame Lanoy, who knew how to make
+him talk, by inquiring after the health of his little sick daughter.
+
+A second time Josephine’s fingers were passed under Fortune’s
+collar--for she had well understood the words of Madame Lanoy--with a
+woman’s keen instinct she understood why Fortune’s collar had been drawn
+closer about him. She had felt the thin, closely-folded paper, which
+was tied up with the string in the dog’s collar, and she drew it out
+rapidly, adroitly to hide it in her hand. She then called Hortense and
+Eugene, and whilst she talked with them, she slowly and carefully, under
+pretext of adjusting more closely the kerchief round her neck, secreted
+the paper in her bosom.
+
+The jailer had seen nothing; he was telling Madame Lanoy, with all the
+pride of a kind father, that all the prisoners were anxious about his
+little Eugenie; that all, more than once a day, inquired how it fared
+with the little one; that she was the pet of the prisoners, who were so
+delighted to have the child with them, and for long hours to jest and
+play with her. Unfortunate captives, who nattered the child, and feigned
+love for it, so as to move the father’s heart, and instil into it a
+little compassion for their misfortune!
+
+When Eugene and Hortense came the next time with their faithful Lanoy,
+Fortune was again led by the string as a prisoner, and this time
+Josephine was still more affectionate than before. She not only welcomed
+him at his entrance, and lifted him up in her arms, but she was yet,
+if possible, more affectionate toward him at the time of departure,
+and embraced him, and tried if the collar had not been buckled on too
+tightly, if the string which was tied round it did not hurt him too
+much. And whilst she examined this, Eugene was telling the jailer that
+he was now a worthy apprentice of a cabinet-maker, and that he hoped one
+day to be a useful citizen of the republic. The jailer was listening to
+him with a complacent smile, and had no suspicion that at this moment
+Josephine’s cunning fingers were making sure with the string under the
+collar the note in which she gave an answer to the other note that she
+had before found under the collar of Fortune. [Footnote: “Souvenirs d’un
+Sexagenaire,” par M.L. Arnould, vol. iii., p. 3.]
+
+From this day, Josephine knew every thing of importance in Paris; from
+this time she could point out to her children the means to pursue so as
+to win to their parents influential and powerful friends, so that they
+might one day be delivered from their captivity. Fortune was love’s
+messenger between Josephine and her children; a beam of happiness
+had penetrated both cells, where lived Alexandre de Beauharnais and
+Josephine, and they owed this gleam only to the lapdog mail.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV. IN PRISON.
+
+
+Since France had become a democratic republic, since the differences
+in rank were abolished, and liberty, equality, and fraternity alone
+prevailed, the aristocracy was either beyond the frontiers of France
+or else in the prisons. Outside of the prison were but citoyens and
+citoyennes; inside of the prison were yet dukes and duchesses, counts
+and countesses, viscounts and viscountesses; there, behind locks
+and bars, the aristocracy was represented in its most glorious and
+high-sounding names.
+
+And there also, within these walls, was the proud, strict dame, whom
+Marie Antoinette had once, to her misfortune, driven away from the
+Tuileries, and who had not been permitted to possess a single foot of
+ground in all France--there, within the prison with the aristocrats,
+lived also Madame Etiquette. She had to leave the Tuileries with the
+nobility, and with the nobility she had entered into the prisons of the
+Conciergerie and of the Carmelite Convent. There she ruled with the same
+authority and with the same gravity as once in happier days she had done
+in the king’s palace.
+
+The republic had mixed together the prisoners without any distinction,
+and in the hall, where every morning they gathered together to attend to
+the roll-call of the condemned who were to report for the guillotine; in
+the narrow rooms and cells, where they passed the rest of the day,
+the republic had made no distinction between all these inmates of the
+prison, dukes and simple knights, duchesses and baronesses, princesses
+of the blood and country nobility of inferior degree. But etiquette
+was there to remedy this unseemliness of fate and to re-establish the
+natural order of things--etiquette, which had enacted rules and laws for
+the halls of kings, enforced them also in the halls of prisons. Only for
+the ladies of the most ancient nobility, the duchesses and princesses of
+the blood, in the prison-rooms, as once in the king’s halls, the small
+stool (tabouret) was reserved, and they were privileged to occupy the
+rush-bottomed seats which were in the prisons, and which now replaced
+the tabouret. No lady of inferior rank would consent to sit down in
+their presence unless these ladies of superior rank had expressly
+requested and entitled their inferior companions of misfortune to do so.
+When, at the appointed hour, the halls were abandoned for the general
+promenade in the yards of the Conciergerie, or in the small cloistered
+gardens of the Carmelites, this recreation was preceded by a ceremony
+which shortened its already short hour by at least ten minutes: the
+ladies and the gentlemen, according to their order, rank, and nobility,
+placed themselves in two rows on either side of the outer door, and
+between them passed on first in ceremonial order of rank, as at a
+court-festival, the ladies and gentlemen who at court were entitled
+to the high and small levees, as well as to the tabouret, and to the
+kissing of the queen’s hand. As they passed, each bowed low, and then,
+with the same due observance of rank, as was customary at court, the
+ladies and gentlemen of inferior titles followed two by two, when the
+higher nobility had passed. [Footnote: “Souvenirs de la Marquise de
+Crequi,” vol. v].
+
+It was yet the court-society which was assembled here in the rooms and
+cells of the prison; only this court-society, this aristocracy, had no
+more King Louis to do homage unto, but they served another king, they
+bowed low before another queen! This king to whom the nobility of France
+belonged was Death; this queen to which proud heads bowed low was the
+Guillotine!
+
+It was King Death who now summoned the aristocrats to his court; the
+scaffold was the hall of festivity where solemn homage was made to this
+king. It would therefore have been against all etiquette to crowd into
+this hall of festivity with beclouded countenance; this would have
+diminished the respect due to King Death, if he had not been approached
+with full-court ceremonial, and with the serene, easy smile of a
+courtier. To die, to meet death was now a distinction, an honor for
+which each almost envied the other. When at ten o’clock in the morning
+the gathering took place in the large room, the conversation was of the
+most cheerful and unaffected easiness; they joked, they laughed, they
+speculated on politics, though it was well known that in a few minutes
+yonder door was to open, and that on its threshold the jailer would
+appear, list in hand; that from this list he would call out with his
+loud, croaking voice, as Death’s harbinger, the names of those whose
+death-warrants had been yesterday signed by Robespierre, and who would
+have immediately to leave the hall, to mount the wagons which were
+already waiting at the prison’s gate to drive them to the guillotine.
+
+While the jailer read his list, suspense and excitement were visible on
+all faces, but no one would have so deeply lowered himself as to betray
+fear or anguish when his name fell from the lips of the jailer. The
+smile remained on the lip, friends and acquaintances were bidden
+farewell with a cheerful salutation, and with easy, unaffected demeanor
+they quitted the hall to mount the fatal vehicle.
+
+To die gracefully was now considered as much bon ton as it had been once
+fashionable gracefully to enter the ballroom and do obeisance to
+the king; contempt and scorn would have followed him who might have
+exhibited a sorrowful mien, hesitation, or fear.
+
+One morning the jailer had read his list, and sixteen gentlemen and
+ladies of the aristocracy had consequently to leave the hall of the
+Conciergerie to enter both wagons now ready at the gate. As they were
+starting for the fatal journey a second turnkey appeared, to say
+that through some accident only one of the wagons was ready, and that
+consequently only eight of the sentenced ones could be driven to the
+guillotine. This meant that the accident nullified eight death-warrants
+and saved the lives of eight sentenced persons. For it was not
+probable that these eight persons would next morning be honored with
+an execution. Their warrants were signed, their names had been called;
+neither the tribunal of the revolution nor the jailer could pay special
+attention whether their heads had fallen or not. The next day would
+bring on new condemnations, new lists, new distinctions for the wagons,
+new heads for the guillotine. Whoever, on the day appointed for the
+execution, missed the guillotine, could safely reckon that his life
+was saved; that henceforth he was amongst the forgotten ones, of whom a
+great number filled the prisons, and who expected their freedom through
+some favorable accident.
+
+To-day, therefore, only eight of the sixteen condemned were to mount the
+wagon. But who were to be the favored ones? The two turnkeys, with cold
+indifference, left the choice to the condemned. Only eight could be
+accommodated in the wagon, they said, and it was the same who went or
+who remained. “Make your choice!”
+
+A strife arose among the sixteen condemned ones--not as to who might
+remain behind, but as to those who might mount into the wagon.
+
+The ladies declared that, according to the rules of common politeness,
+which allowed ladies to go first, the choice belonged to them; the
+gentlemen objected to this motion of the ladies on the plea that to
+reach the guillotine steps had to be ascended, and as etiquette required
+that in going up-stairs the gentlemen should always precede the ladies,
+they were also now entitled to go first and to mount the steps of the
+scaffold before the ladies. At last all had to give way to the claims of
+the Duchess de Grammont, who declared that at this festival as at every
+other the order of rank was to be observed, and that she, as well as all
+the gentlemen and ladies of superior rank, had the undisputed privilege
+now, as at all other celebrations, to take the precedency.
+
+No one ventured to oppose this decision, and the Duchess de Grammont,
+proud of the victory won, was the first to leave the room and mount the
+wagon.
+
+Another time the turnkey began to read the list: every one listened
+with grave attention, and at every call a clear, cheerful “Here I am!”
+ followed.
+
+But after the jailer, with wearied voice, had many times repeated a name
+from his list, the accustomed answer failed. No one came forward, no one
+seemed to be there to lay claim to that name and to the execution.
+The jailer stopped a few minutes, and as all were dumb, he continued,
+indifferent and unmoved, to call out the names.
+
+“We will then have only fifteen heads to deliver to-day,” said he, after
+reading the list, “for there must have been a mistake. One of the
+names is false, or else the person to whom it belongs has already been
+delivered.”
+
+“It is probably but a blunder of the pen!” exclaimed a handsome young
+man who, smiling, stepped out of the crowd of listeners and passed on to
+the side where the victims stood. “You read Chapetolle. There is no
+such name here. The hand of the writer was probably tired of writing the
+numerous lists of those who are sentenced to death, and he has therefore
+written the letters wrong. My name is Chapelotte, and I am the one meant
+by Chapetolle.”
+
+“I do not know,” said the jailer, “but it is certain that sixteen
+sentenced ones ought to go into the wagons, and that only fifteen have
+reported themselves in a legal way.”
+
+“Well, then, add me in an illegal manner to your fifteen,” said the
+young man, smiling. “Without doubt it is my name they intended to write.
+I do not wish to save my life through a blunder in writing, and who
+knows if another time I may find such good company as to-day in your
+chariot? Allow me then to journey on with my friends.”
+
+The jailer had no reason to refuse him this journey, and he had the
+satisfaction besides of being thus able to deliver sixteen sentenced
+prisoners to the guillotine.
+
+Such was the society of the aristocrats, among whom Josephine lived the
+long, dreary days of her imprisonment. The cell she occupied was
+shared by two companions of misfortune, the Duchess de Aguillon and the
+beautiful Madame de Fontenay, who afterward became Madame Tallien, so
+distinguished and renowned for her beauty and wit. Therese de Fontenay
+knew, and every one knew, that she was already sentenced, even if her
+sentence was not yet written down and countersigned. It was recorded in
+the heart of Robespierre. He had sentenced her, without any concealment.
+She had but a few weeks more to endure the martyrdom, the anguish of
+hope and of expectation. She was his secure victim; Robespierre needed
+not hasten the fall of this beautiful head, which was the admiration of
+all who saw it. This beauty was the very crime which Robespierre wanted
+to punish, for with this beauty, Therese de Fontenay, who then resided
+in Bordeaux with her husband, had captivated the old friend and
+associate in sentiments of Robespierre, the fanatical Tallien; with
+this beauty she had converted the man of blood and terror into a
+soft, compassionate being, inclined to pardon and to mercy toward his
+fellow-beings.
+
+Tallien had been sent as commissionnaire from the Convention to
+Bordeaux, and there with inexorable severity he had raged against the
+unfortunate merchants, from whom he exacted enormous assessments, and
+whom he sentenced to the guillotine if they refused, or were unable to
+pay. But suddenly love changed the bloodthirsty tiger into a sensitive
+being, and the beautiful Madame de Fontenay, who had become acquainted
+with Tallien in the prison of Bordeaux, had worked a complete change in
+his whole being. For the first time this man, who unmoved had condemned
+to death King Louis and the Girondists, found on his lips the word
+“pardon;” for the first time the hand which had signed so many
+death-warrants wrote the order to let a prisoner go free.
+
+This prisoner was Therese de Fontenay, the daughter of the Spanish
+banker Cabarrus, and she rewarded him for the gift of her life with
+a smile which forever made him her captive. From this time the
+death-warrants were converted into pardons from his lips, and for every
+pardon Therese thanked him with a sweet smile, with a glowing look of
+love.
+
+But this leniency was looked upon as criminal by the tribunal of
+terror in Paris. They recalled the culprit who dared pardon instead of
+punishing; and if Robespierre did not think himself powerful enough
+to send Tallien as a traitor and as an apostate to the scaffold,
+he punished him for his leniency by separating from him Therese de
+Fontenay, who had abandoned the husband forced upon her, and who had
+followed Tallien to Paris, and Robespierre had sent her to prison.
+
+There, at the Carmelites’, was Therese de Fontenay; she occupied the
+same cell as Josephine; the same misfortune had made them companions and
+friends. They communicated one to the other their hopes and fears;
+and when Josephine, with tears in her eyes, spoke to her friend of her
+children, of her deep anguish, for they were alone and abandoned in the
+world outside of the prison walls, whilst their unfortunate pitiable
+mother languished in prison, Therese comforted and encouraged her.
+
+“So long as one lives there is hope,” said Therese, with her enchanting
+smile. “Myself, who in the eyes of you all am sentenced to death,
+hope--no, I hope not--I am convinced that I will soon obtain my freedom.
+And I swear that, as soon as I am free, I will stir heaven and earth to
+procure the liberty of my dear friend Josephine and of her husband the
+Viscount de Beauharnais, and to give back to the poor orphaned children
+their parents.”
+
+Josephine answered with an incredulous smile, and a shrugging of the
+shoulders; and then Therese’s very expressive countenance glowed, and
+her large, black eyes flashed deeper gleams.
+
+“You have no faith in me, Josephine,” she said, vehemently; “but I
+repeat to you, I will soon obtain my freedom, and then I will procure
+your liberty and that of your husband.”
+
+“But how will you obtain that?” asked Josephine, shaking her head.
+
+“I will ruin Robespierre,” said Therese, gravely.
+
+“In what do your means of ruining him consist?”
+
+“In this letter here,” said Therese, as she drew out of her bosom a
+small paper folded up. “See, this sheet of paper; it consists but of a
+few lines which, since they would not furnish me with writing-materials,
+I have written with my blood on this sheet of paper, which I found
+yesterday in the garden during the promenade. The turnkey will give this
+letter to-day to Tallien. He has given me his word, and I have promised
+him that Tallien will recompense him magnificently for it. This letter
+will ruin Robespierre and make me free, and then I will procure the
+freedom of the Viscount and of the Viscountess de Beauharnais.”
+
+“What then, in that letter is the magic word which is to work out such
+wonders?”
+
+Therese handed the paper to her friend.
+
+“Read,” said she, smiling.
+
+Josephine read: “Therese of Fontenay to the citizen Tallien. Either in
+eight days I am free and the wife of my deliverer, the noble and brave
+Tallien, who will have freed the world from the monster Robespierre, or
+else, in eight days, I mount the scaffold; and my last thought will be
+a curse for the cowardly, heartless man who has not had the courage to
+risk his life for her he loved, and who suffers for his sake, for his
+sake meets death--who had not the mind to consider that with daring deed
+he must destroy the bloodthirsty fiend or be ruined by him. Therese de
+Fontenay will ever love her Tallien if he delivers her; she will
+hate him, even in death, if he sacrifices her to Robespierre’s
+blood-greediness!”
+
+“If, through mishap, Robespierre should receive this letter, then you
+and Tallien are lost,” sighed Josephine.
+
+“But Tallien, and not Robespierre, will receive it, and I am saved,”
+ exclaimed Therese. “Therefore, my friend, take courage and be bold. Wait
+but eight days patiently. Let us wait and hope.”
+
+“Yes, let us wait and hope,” sighed Josephine. “Hope and patience are
+the only companions of the captive.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV. DELIVERANCE.
+
+
+Meanwhile the patience of the unfortunate prisoners of the Carmelite
+convent were to be subjected to a severe trial; and the very next day
+after this conversation with Therese de Fontenay, Josephine believed
+that there was no more hope for her, that she was irrevocably lost, as
+her husband was lost. For three days she had not seen the viscount, nor
+received any news from him. Only a vague report had reached her that the
+viscount was no longer in the Carmelite convent, but that he had been
+transferred to the Conciergerie.
+
+This report told the truth. Alexandre de Beauharnais had once more been
+denounced, and this second accusation was his sentence of death. For
+some time past the fanatical Jacobins had invented a new means to find
+guilty ones for the guillotine, and to keep the veins bleeding, so as
+to restore France to health. They sent emissaries into the prisons to
+instigate conspiracies among the prisoners, and to find out men wretched
+enough to purchase their life by accusing their prison companions, and
+by delivering them over to the executioner’s axe. Such a spy had been
+sent into that portion of the prison where Beauharnais was, and he had
+begun his horrible work, for he had kindled discord and strife among the
+prisoners, and had won a few to his sinister projects. But Beauharnais’s
+keen eye had discovered the traitor, and he had loudly and openly
+denounced him to his fellow-prisoners. The next day, the spy disappeared
+from the prison, but as he went he swore bloody vengeance on General de
+Beauharnais. [Footnote: “Memoires du Comte de Lavalette,” vol. i., p.
+175.]
+
+And he kept his word; the next morning De Beauharnais was summoned
+for trial, and the gloomy, hateful faces of his judges, their hostile
+questions and reproaches, the capital crimes they accused him of, led
+him to conclude that his death was decided upon, and that he was doomed
+to the guillotine.
+
+In the night which followed his trial, Alexandre de Beauharnais wrote to
+his wife a letter, in which he communicated to her his sad forebodings,
+and bade her farewell for this life. The next day he was transferred to
+the Conciergerie--that is to say, into the vestibule of the scaffold.
+
+This letter of her husband, received by Josephine the next day after her
+conversation with Therese de Fontenay, ran thus:
+
+“The fourth Thermidor, in the second year of the republic. All the signs
+of a kind of trial, to which I and other prisoners have been subjected
+this day, tell me that I am the victim of the treacherous calumny of a
+few aristocrats, patriots so called, of this house. The mere conjecture
+that this hellish machination will follow me to the tribunal of the
+revolution gives me no hope to see you again, my friend, no more
+to embrace you or our children. I speak not of my sorrow: my tender
+solicitude for you, the heartfelt affection which unites me to you,
+cannot leave you in doubt of the sentiments with which I leave this
+life.
+
+“I am also sorry to have to part with my country, which I love, for
+which I would a thousand times have laid down my life, and which I
+no more can serve, but which beholds me now quit her bosom, since she
+considers me to be a bad citizen. This heart-rending thought does not
+allow me to commend my memory to you; labor, then, to make it pure
+in proving that a life which has been devoted to the service of the
+country, and to the triumph of liberty and equality, must punish that
+abominable slanderer, especially when he comes from a suspicious
+class of men. But this labor must be postponed; for in the storms of
+revolution, a great people, struggling to reduce its chains to dust,
+must of necessity surround itself with suspicion, and be more afraid to
+forget a guilty man than to put an innocent one to death.
+
+“I will die with that calmness which allows man to feel emotion at the
+thought of his dearest inclinations--I will die with that courage which
+is the distinctive feature of a free man, of a clear conscience, of an
+exalted soul, whose highest wishes are the prosperity and growth of the
+republic.
+
+“Farewell, my friend; gather consolation from my children; derive
+comfort in educating them, in teaching them that, by their virtues
+and their devotion to their country, they obliterate the memory of my
+execution, and recall to national gratitude my services and my claims.
+Farewell to those I love: you know them! Be their consolation, and
+through your solicitude for them prolong my life in their hearts!
+Farewell! for the last time in this life I press you and my children to
+my heart!--ALEXANDRE BEAUHARNAIS.”
+
+Josephine had read this letter with a thousand tears, but she hoped
+still; she believed still in the possibility that the gloomy forebodings
+of her husband would not be realized; that some fortunate circumstance
+would save him or at least retard his death.
+
+But this hope was not to be fulfilled. A few hours after receiving
+this letter the turnkey brought to the prisoners the bulletin of the
+executions of the preceding day. It was that day Josephine’s turn to
+read this bulletin to her companions. She therefore began her sad task;
+and, as slowly and thoughtfully she let fall name after name from her
+lips, here and there the faces of her hearers were blanched, and their
+eyes filled with tears.
+
+Suddenly Josephine uttered a piercing cry, and sprang up with the
+movement of madness toward the door, shook it in her deathly sorrow, as
+if her life hung upon the opening of that door, and then she sank down
+fainting.
+
+Unfortunate Josephine! she had seen in the list of those who had been
+executed the name of General Beauharnais, and in the first excitement
+of horror she wanted to rush out to see him, or at least to give to his
+body the parting kiss.
+
+On the sixth Thermidor, in the year II., that is, on the 24th of
+July, 1794, fell on the scaffold the head of the General Viscount de
+Beauharnais. With quiet, composed coolness he had ascended the scaffold,
+and his last cry, as he laid his head on the block, was, “Long live the
+republic!”
+
+In the wagon which drove him to the scaffold, he had found again a
+friend, the Prince de Salm-Kirbourg, who was now on his way to the
+guillotine, and who had risked his life in bringing back to Paris the
+children of Josephine.
+
+His bloodthirsty enemies had not enough of the head of General
+Beauharnais; his wife’s head also should fall, and the name of the
+traitor of his country was to be extinguished forever.
+
+Two days after the execution of her husband, the turnkey brought to
+Josephine the writ of her accusation, and the summons to appear before
+the tribunal of the revolution--a summons which then had all the
+significancy of a death-warrant.
+
+Josephine heard the summons of the jailer with a quiet, easy smile; she
+had not even a look for the fatal paper which lay on her bed. Near this
+bed stood the physician, whom the compassionate republic, which would
+not leave its prisoners to die on a sick-bed, but only on the scaffold,
+had sent to Josephine to inquire into her illness and afford her relief.
+
+With indignation he eagerly snatched the paper from the bed, and,
+returning it back to the jailer, exclaimed: “Tell the tribunal of the
+revolution that it has nothing more to do with this woman! Disease will
+bring on justice here, and leave nothing to do for the guillotine. In
+eight days Citoyenne Beauharnais is dead!” [Footnote: Aubenas, “Histoire
+de l’Imperatrice Josephine,” vol. i., p. 235.]
+
+This decision of the physician was transmitted to the tribunal, which
+resolved that the trial of Madame Beauharnais would be postponed for
+eight days, and that the tribunal would wait and see if truly death
+would save her from the guillotine.
+
+Meanwhile, during these eight days, events were to pass which were to
+give a very different form to the state of things, and impart to the
+young republic a new, unexpected attitude.
+
+Robespierre ruled yet, he was the feared dictator of France! But Tallien
+had received the note of his beautiful, fondly-loved Therese, and he
+swore to himself that she should not ascend the scaffold, that she
+should not curse him, that he would possess her, that he would win her
+love, and destroy the fiend who stood in the way of his happiness, whose
+blood-streaming hands were every day ready to sign her death-warrant.
+
+On the very same day in which he received the letter of Therese,
+he conversed with a few trusty friends, men whom he knew detested
+Robespierre as much as himself, and who all longed for an occasion to
+destroy him. They planned a scheme of attack against the dictator who
+imperilled the life of all, and from whom it was consequently necessary
+to take away life and power, so as to be sure of one’s life. It was
+decided to launch an accusation against him before the whole Convention,
+to incriminate him as striving after dominion, as desirous of breaking
+the republic with his bloody hands, and ambitious to exalt himself into
+dictator and sovereign. Tallien undertook to fulminate this accusation
+against him, and they all agreed to wait yet a few days so as to gain
+amongst the deputies in the Convention some members who would support
+the accusation and give countenance to the conspirators. On the ninth
+Thermidor this scheme was to be carried out; on the ninth Thermidor,
+Tallien was to thunder forth the accusation against Robespierre and move
+his punishment!
+
+This enterprise, however, seemed a folly, an impossibility, for at this
+time Robespierre was at the height of his power, and fear weighed
+upon the whole republic as a universal agony. No one dared oppose
+Robespierre, for a look from his eye, a sign from his hand sufficed to
+bring death, to lead to the scaffold.
+
+The calm, peaceful, and united republic for which Robespierre had
+toiled, which had been the ultimate end of his bloodthirstiness, was at
+last there, but this republic was built upon corpses, was baptized with
+streams of blood and tears. And now that the republic had given up
+all opposition, now that she bowed, trembling under the hand of her
+conqueror, now, Robespierre wanted to make her happy, he wanted to give
+her what the storms of past years had ravished from her--he wanted
+to give the republic a God! On the tribune of the Convention, on this
+tribune which was his throne, rose Robespierre, to tell with grave
+dignity to the republic that there was a Supreme Being, that the soul of
+man was immortal. Then, accompanied by the Convention, he proceeded to
+the Champ de Mars, to inaugurate the celebration of the worship of a
+Supreme Being as his high-priest. But amid this triumph, on his way
+to the Champ de Mars, Robespierre the conqueror had for the first time
+noticed the murmurs of the Tarpeian rock; he had noticed the dark,
+threatening glances which were directed at him from all sides. He felt
+the danger which menaced him, and he was determined to remove it from
+his person by annihilating those who threatened.
+
+But already terror had lost its power, no one trembled before the
+guillotine, no one took pleasure in the fall of the axe, in the streams
+of blood, which empurpled the Place de la Revolution. The fearful
+stillness of death hung round the guillotine, the people were tired
+of applauding it, and now and then from the silent ranks of the people
+thundered forth in threatening accents the word “tyrant!” which, as the
+first weapon of attack, was directed against Robespierre, who, on the
+heights of the tribune, was throned with his unmoved, calm countenance.
+
+Robespierre felt that he must strike a heavy, decisive blow against his
+foes and annihilate them. On the eighth Thermidor, he denounced a plot
+organized by his enemies for breaking up the Convention. Through St.
+Just he implicated as leaders of this conspiracy some eminent members
+of the committees, and requested their dismissal. But the time was
+past when his motions were received with jubilant acclamations, and
+unconditionally obeyed. The Convention decided to submit the motion
+of Robespierre to a vote, and the matter was postponed to the next
+morning’s session.
+
+In the night which preceded the contemplated action of the Convention,
+Robespierre went to the Jacobin Club and requested assistance against
+his enemies in the Convention. He was received with enthusiasm, and
+a general uprising of the revolutionary element was decided upon, and
+organized for the following morning.
+
+The same night, Tallien, his friends and adherents, met together, and
+the mode of attack for the following day, the ninth Thermidor, was
+discussed, and the parts assigned to each.
+
+The prisoners in the Carmelite convent did not of course suspect any
+thing of the events which were preparing beyond the walls of their
+prison. Even Therese de Fontenay was low-spirited and sad; for this day,
+the ninth Thermidor, was the last day of respite fixed by her to Tallien
+for her liberty.
+
+This was also the last day of respite which had saved Josephine from the
+tribunal of the revolution, through the decision of her physician.
+Death had spared her head, but now it belonged to the executioner. The
+captives feared the event, and they were confirmed in this fear by the
+jailer, who, on the morning of the ninth Thermidor, entered the room
+which Josephine, the Duchess d’Aiguillon, and Therese de Fontenay
+occupied, and who removed the camp-bed which Josephine had hitherto used
+as a sofa, to give it to another prisoner.
+
+“How,” exclaimed the Duchess d’Aiguillon, “do you want to give this bed
+to another prisoner? Is Madame de Beauharnais to have a better one?”
+
+The turnkey burst into a coarse laugh. “Alas! no,” said he, with a
+significant gesture, “Citoyenne Beauharnais will soon need a bed no
+more.”
+
+Her friends broke into tears; but Josephine remained composed and quite.
+At this decisive moment a fearful self-possession and calmness came over
+her; all sufferings and sorrow appeared to have sunk away, all anxiety
+and care seemed overcome, and a radiant smile illumined Josephine’s
+features, for, through a wondrous association of ideas, she suddenly
+remembered the prophecy of the negro-woman in Martinique.
+
+“Be calm, my friends,” said she, smiling; “weep not, do not consider me
+as destined to the scaffold, for I assure you I am going to live: I
+must not die, for I am destined to be one day the sovereign of France.
+Therefore, no more tears! I am the future Queen of France!”
+
+“Ah!” exclaimed the Duchess d’Aiguillon, half angry and half sad, “why
+not at once appoint your state dignitaries?”
+
+“You are right,” said Josephine, eagerly; “this is the best time to
+do so. Well, then, my dear duchess, I now appoint you to be my maid of
+honor, and I swear it will be so.”
+
+“My God! she is mad!” exclaimed the duchess, and, nearly fainting, she
+sank upon her chair.
+
+Josephine laughed, and opened the window to admit some fresh air. She
+perceived there below in the street a woman making to her all manner of
+signs and gestures. She lifted up her arms, she then took hold of her
+dress, and with her hand pointed to her robe.
+
+It was evident that she wished through these signs and motions to convey
+some word to the prisoners, whom perhaps she knew, for she repeatedly
+took hold of her robe with one hand, and pointed at it with the other.
+
+“Robe?” cried out Josephine interrogatively.
+
+The woman nodded in the affirmative, then took up a stone, which she
+held up to the prisoner’s view.
+
+“Pierre?” ask Josephine.
+
+The woman again nodded in the affirmative, and then placed the stone
+(pierre) in her robe, made several times the motion of falling, then of
+cutting off the neck, and then danced and clapped her hands.
+
+“My friends,” cried Josephine, struck with a sudden thought, “this woman
+brings us good news, she tells us Robespierre est tombe.” (Robespierre
+has fallen.)
+
+“Yes, it is so,” exclaimed Therese, triumphantly; “Tallien has kept his
+word; he conquers, and Robespierre is thrust down!”
+
+And, overpowered with joy and emotion, the three women, weeping, sank
+into each other’s arms.
+
+They now heard from without loud cries and shouts. It was the jailer,
+quarrelling with his refractory dog. The dog howled, and wanted to go
+out with his master, but the jailer kicked him back, saying: “Away, go
+to the accursed Robespierre!”
+
+Soon joyous voices resounded through the corridor; the door of their
+cell was violently opened, and a few municipal officers entered to
+announce to the Citizeness Madame Fontenay that she was free, and bade
+her accompany them into the carriage waiting below to drive her to the
+house of Citizen Tallien. Behind them pressed the prisoners who, from
+the reception-room, had followed the authorities, to entreat them to
+give them the news of the events in Paris.
+
+There was now no reason for the municipal authorities to make a secret
+of the events which at this hour occupied all Paris, and which would
+soon be welcomed throughout France as the morning dawn of a new day.
+
+Robespierre had indeed fallen! Tallien and his friends had in the
+Convention brought against the despot the accusation that he was
+striving for the sovereign power, and that he had enthroned a Supreme
+Being merely to proclaim himself afterward His visible representative,
+and to take all power in his own hands. When Robespierre had endeavored
+to justify himself, he had been dragged away from the speaker’s tribune;
+and, as he defended himself, Tallien had drawn a dagger on Robespierre,
+and was prevented from killing the tyrant by a few friends, who by
+main force turned the dagger away. Immediately after this scene, the
+Convention decided to arrest Robespierre and his friends Couthon and St.
+Just; and the prisoners, among whom Robespierre’s younger brother had
+willingly placed himself, were led away to the Luxemburg. [Footnote:
+The next day, on the tenth Thermidor, Robespierre, who in the night had
+attempted to put an end to his life with a pistol, was executed
+with twenty-one companions. His brother was among the number of the
+executed.]
+
+The prisoners welcomed this news with delight; for with the fall of
+Robespierre, had probably sounded for them the hour of deliverance, and
+they could hope that their prison’s door would soon be opened, not to be
+led to the scaffold, but to obtain their freedom.
+
+Therese de Fontenay, with the messengers sent by Tallien, left the
+Carmelite cloisters to fulfil the promise made by her to Tallien in
+her letter, to become his wife, and to pass at his side new days of
+happiness and love.
+
+She embraced Josephine tenderly as she bade her farewell, and renewed to
+her the assurance that she would consider it her dearest and most sacred
+duty to obtain her friend’s liberty.
+
+In the evening of the same day, Josephine’s camp-bed was restored to
+her; and, stretching herself upon it with intense delight, she said
+smilingly to her friends: “You see, I am not yet guillotined; I will be
+Queen of France.” [Footnote: “Memoires sur l’Imperatrice Josephine,” ch.
+xxxiii.]
+
+Therese de Fontenay, now Citoyenne Tallien, kept her word. Three days
+after obtaining her liberty, she came herself to fetch Josephine out
+of prison. Her soft, mild disposition had resumed its old spell over
+Tallien, whom the Convention had appointed president of the Committee of
+Safety. The death-warrants signed by Robespierre were annulled, and the
+prisons were opened, to restore to hundreds of accused life and liberty.
+The bloody and tearful episode of the revolution had closed with the
+fall of Robespierre, and on the ninth Thermidor the republic assumed a
+new phase.
+
+Josephine was free once more! With tears of bliss she embraced her two
+children, her dear darlings, found again! In pressing her offspring to
+her heart with deep, holy emotion, she thought of their father, who had
+loved them both so much, who had committed to her the sacred trust of
+keeping alive in the hearts of his children love for their father.
+
+Encircling still her children in her arms, she bowed them on their
+knees; and, lifting up to heaven her eyes, moist with tears, she
+whispered to them: “Let us pray, children; let us lift up our thoughts
+to heaven, where your father is, and whence he looks down upon us to
+bless his children.”
+
+Josephine delayed not much longer in Paris, where the air was yet damp
+with the blood of so many murdered ones; where the guillotine, on which
+her husband had died, lifted yet its threatening head. She hastened with
+her children to Fontainebleau, there to rest from her sorrows on the
+heart of her father-in-law, to weep with him on the loss they both had
+suffered.
+
+The dream of her first youth and of her first love had passed away, and
+to the father of her beheaded husband Josephine returned a widow; rich
+in gloomy, painful experiences, poor in hopes, but with a stout heart,
+and a determination to live, and to be at once a father and a mother to
+her children.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK II. THE WIFE OF GENERAL BONAPARTE.
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI. BONAPARTE IN CORSICA.
+
+
+The civil war which for four years had devastated France had also with
+its destruction and its terrors overspread the French colonies, and in
+Martinique as well as in Corsica two parties stood opposed to each other
+in infuriated bitterness--one fighting for the rights of the native
+land, the other for the rights of the French people, for the “liberty,
+equality, and fraternity” which the Convention in Paris had adopted
+for its motto, since it delivered to the guillotine, on the Place de
+la Revolution, the heads of those who dared lay claim for themselves to
+this liberty of thought so solemnly proclaimed.
+
+In Corsica both parties fought with the same eagerness as in France, and
+the execution of Louis XVI. had only made the contest more violent and
+more bitter.
+
+One of these parties looked with horror on this guillotine which had
+drunk the blood of the king, and this party desired to have nothing in
+common with this French republic, with this blood-streaming Convention
+which had made of terror a law, and which had destroyed so many lives in
+the name of liberty.
+
+At the head of this party stood the General Pascal Paoli, whom the
+revolution had recalled to his native isle from his exile of twenty
+years, and who objected that Corsica should bend obediently under the
+blood-stained hand of the French Convention, and whose wish it was that
+the isle should be an independent province of the great French republic.
+
+To exalt Corsica into a free, independent republic had been the idea of
+his whole life. For the sake of this idea he had passed twenty years in
+exile; for, after having made Corsica independent of Genoa, he had not
+been able to obtain for his native isle that independence for which
+he had fought with his brave Genoese troops. During eight years he had
+perseveringly maintained the conflict--during eight years he had been
+the ruler of Corsica, but immovable in his republican principles; he had
+rejected the title of king, which the Corsican people, grateful for
+the services rendered to their fatherland, had offered him. He had been
+satisfied to be the first and most zealous servant of the island, which,
+through his efforts, had been liberated from the tyrannical dominion of
+Genoa. But Genoa’s appeal for assistance had brought French troops to
+Corsica; the Genoese, harassed and defeated everywhere by Paoli’s brave
+troops, had finally transferred the island to France. This was not what
+Paoli wanted--this was not for what he had fought!
+
+Corsica was to be a free and independent republic; she was to bow no
+more to France than to Genoa; Corsica was to be free.
+
+In vain did the French government make to General Paoli the most
+brilliant offers; he rejected them; he called the Corsicans to the most
+energetic resistance to the French occupation; and when he saw that
+opposition was in vain, that Corsica had to submit, he at least would
+not yield, and he went to England.
+
+The cry for liberty which, in the year 1790, resounded from France, and
+which made the whole world tremble, brought him back from England to
+Corsica, and he took the oath of allegiance to free, democratic France.
+But the blood of the king had annulled this oath, the Convention’s
+reign of terror had filled his soul with horror; and, after solemnly
+separating himself from France, he had, in the year 1793, convoked a
+Consulta, to decide whether Corsica was to submit to the despotism of
+the French republic, or if it was to be a free and independent state.
+The Consulta chose the latter position, and named Paoli for president as
+well as for general-in-chief of the Corsicans.
+
+The National Convention at once called the culprit to its bar,
+and ordered him to Paris to justify his conduct, or to receive the
+punishment due. But General Paoli paid no attention to the imperious
+orders of the Convention, which, as the chief appeared not at its bar,
+declared him, on the 15th of May, 1793, a traitor to his country, and
+sent commissioners to Corsica to arrest the criminal.
+
+This traitor to the state, the General Pascal Paoli, was then at the
+head of the Moderate party in Corsica, and he loudly and solemnly
+declared that, in case of absolute necessity, it would be preferable to
+call England to their assistance than to accept the yoke of the French
+republic, which had desecrated her liberty, since she had soiled it with
+the blood of so many innocent victims.
+
+But in opposition to General Paoli rose up with wild clamor the other
+party, the party of young, enthusiastic heads, who were intoxicated with
+the democratic ideas which had obtained the sway in France, and which
+they imagined, so great was their impassioned devotedness to them,
+possessed the power and the ability to conquer the whole world.
+
+At the head of this second party, which claimed unconditional adherence
+to France, to the members of the Convention--at the head of this
+fanatical, Corsican, republican, and Jacobin party, stood the Bonaparte
+family, and above them all the two brothers Joseph and Napoleon.
+
+Joseph was now, in the year 1793, chief justice of the tribunal of
+Ajaccio; Napoleon, who was captain of artillery in the French army of
+Italy, had then obtained leave of absence to visit his family. Both
+brothers had been hitherto the most affectionate and intimate admirers
+of Paoli, and especially Napoleon, who, from his earliest childhood, had
+cherished the most unbounded admiration for the patriot who preferred
+exile to a dependent grandeur in Corsica. Even now, since Paoli’s return
+to Corsica, and Napoleon had had many opportunities to see him, his
+admiration for the great chief had lost nothing of its force or
+vitality. Paoli seemed sincerely to return this inclination of Napoleon
+and of his brother, and in the long evening walks, which both
+brothers made with him, Napoleon’s mind opened itself, before his old,
+experienced companion, the great general, the noble republican, with
+a freedom and a candor such as he had never manifested to others. With
+subdued admiration Paoli listened to his short, energetic explanations,
+to his descriptions, to his war-schemes, to his warm enthusiasm for the
+republic; and one day, carried away by the warmth of the young captain
+of artillery, the general, fixing his glowing eyes upon him, exclaimed:
+“Young man, you are modelled after the antique; you belong to Plutarch!”
+
+“And to General Paoli!” replied Napoleon, eagerly, as he pressed his
+friend’s hand affectionately in his own.
+
+But now this harmonious concord between General Paoli and the young men
+was destroyed by the passion of party views. Joseph as well as Napoleon
+belonged to the French party; they soon became its leaders; they were
+at the head of the club which they had organized according to the maxims
+and principles of the Jacobin Club in Paris, and to which they gave the
+same name.
+
+In this Jacobin Club at Ajaccio Napoleon made speeches full of glowing
+enthusiasm for the French republic, for the ideas of freedom; in this
+club he enjoined on the people of Corsica to adhere loyally to France,
+to keep fast and to defend with life and blood the acquired liberty of
+republican France, to regard and drive away as traitors to their country
+all those who dared guide the Corsican people on another track.
+
+But the Corsican people were not there to hear the enthusiastic speeches
+about liberty and to follow them. Only a few hundred ardent republicans
+of the same sentiment applauded the republican Napoleon, and cried aloud
+that the republic must be defended with blood and life. The majority of
+the Corsican people flocked to Paoli, and the commissioners sent by
+the Convention from Paris to Corsica, to depose and arrest Paoli, found
+co-operation and assistance only among the inhabitants of the cities
+and among the French troops. Paoli, the president of the Consulta, was
+located at Corte; the messengers of the Convention gathered in Bastia
+the adherents of France, and excited them to strenuous efforts against
+the rebellious Consulta and the insurgent Paoli. Civil war with all its horrors was there; the raging conflicts of the
+parties tore apart the holy bonds of family, friendship, and love.
+Brother fought and argued against brother, friend rose up against
+friend, and whole families were destroyed, rent asunder by the
+impassioned rivalries of sentiment and partisanship. Denunciations and
+accusations, suspicions and enmities, followed. Every one trembled at
+his own shadow; and, to turn aside the peril of death, it was necessary
+to strike. [Footnote: “Memoires du Roi Joseph,” vol. i., p. 51.]
+
+The Bonaparte brothers opposed General Paoli with violent bitterness;
+bloody conflicts took place, in which the national Corsican party
+remained victorious. Irritated and embittered by the opposition which
+some of the natives themselves were making to his patriotic efforts,
+Paoli persecuted with zealous activity the conquered, whom he resolved
+to destroy, that they might not imperil the young Corsican independence.
+Joseph and Napoleon Bonaparte were the leaders of this party, and Paoli
+knew too well the energy and the intellectual superiority of Napoleon
+not to dread his influence. Him, above all things, him and his family,
+must he render harmless, so as to weaken and to intimidate the French
+party. He sent agents to Ajaccio, to arrest the whole Bonaparte family,
+and at the same time his troops approached the town to occupy it and
+make the French commissioners prisoners. But these latter, informed in
+time of the danger, had gained time and saved themselves on board the
+French frigate lying in the harbor, and with them the whole Bonaparte
+family had embarked. Napoleon, on whom the attention of Paoli’s agents
+had been specially directed, was more than once in danger of being
+seized by them, and it was due to the advice of a friend that, disguised
+as a sailor, he saved himself in time on board the French frigate and
+joined his family. [Footnote: “Memoires de la Duchess d’Abrantes,” vol.
+i.] The commissioners of the Convention at once ordered the anchor to be
+weighed, and to steer toward France.
+
+This frigate, on board of which the Bonaparte family in its flight had
+embarked, carried to France the future emperor and his fortune.
+
+The house, the possessions of the Bonaparte family, fell a prey to
+the conquerors, and on them they gave vent to their vengeance for
+the successful escape of the fugitives. A witness of these facts is
+a certificate which Joseph Bonaparte a few months later procured from
+Corsica, and which ran as follows:
+
+“I, the undersigned, Louis Conti, procurator-syndic of the district of
+Ajaccio, department of Corsica, declare and certify: in the month of
+May of this year, when General Paoli and the administration of the
+department had sent into the city of Ajaccio armed troops, in concert
+with other traitors in the city, took possession of the fortress, drove
+away the administration of the district, incarcerated a large portion of
+the patriots, disarmed the republican forces, and, when these refused
+to give up the commissioners of the National Convention, Paoli’s troops
+fired upon the vessel which carried these commissioners:
+
+“That these rebels endeavored to seize the Bonaparte family, which had
+the good fortune to elude their pursuit:
+
+“That they destroyed, plundered, and burnt everything which belonged to
+this family, whose sole crime consisted in their unswerving fidelity to
+the republicans, and in their refusal to take any part in the scheme
+of isolation, rebellion, and disloyalty, of which Paoli and the
+administration of the department had become guilty.
+
+“I moreover declare and certify that this family, consisting of ten
+individuals, and who stood high in the esteem of the people of the
+island, possessed the largest property in the whole department, and that
+now they are on the continent of the republic.
+
+“(Signed) CONTI, Proc.-Synd. Delivered on the 5th of September, 1793,
+Year II. of the republic.” [Footnote: “Memoires du Roi Joseph,” vol. i.,
+p. 52.]
+
+Paoli, the conqueror of the French republic, the patriotic enemy of the
+Bonaparte family, drove Napoleon Bonaparte from his native soil! The
+cannon of the Corsican patriots fired upon the ship on which the future
+emperor of the French was steering toward his future empire!
+
+But this future lay still in an invisible, cloudy distance--of one
+thing, however, was the young captain of artillery fully conscious:
+from this hour he had broken with the past, and, by his dangers and
+conflicts, by the sacrifice of his family’s property, by his flight from
+Corsica, given to the world a solemn testimony that he recognized
+no other country, that he owed allegiance to no other nation than to
+France. He had proved that his feelings were not Corsican, but French.
+
+The days of his childhood and youth sank away behind him, with the
+deepening shadows of the island of Corsica, and the shores which rose
+before him on the horizon were the shores of France. There lay his
+future--his empire!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII. NAPOLEON BONAPARTE BEFORE TOULON.
+
+
+Whilst Paris, yet trembling, bowed under the bloody rule of the
+Convention, a spirit of opposition and horror began to stir in the
+provinces; fear of the terrorists, of the Convention, began to kindle
+the courage, to make defiance to these men of horror, and to put an end
+to terrorism. The province of Vendee, in her faithfulness and loyalty to
+the royal family, arose in deadly conflict against the republicans;
+the large cities of the south, with Toulon at their head, had shielded
+themselves from the horrors which the home government would have brought
+them, by uniting with the enemies who now from all sides pressed upon
+France.
+
+Toulon gave itself up to the combined fleet of England and Spain.
+Marseilles, Lyons, and Nismes, contracted an alliance together, and
+declared their independence of the Convention and of the terrorists.
+Everywhere in all the cities and communities of the south the people
+rose up, and seditions and rebellions took place. Everywhere the
+Convention had to send its troops to re-establish peace by force, and
+to compel the people to submit to its rule. Whole army corps had to be
+raised to win back to the republic the rebellious cities, and only after
+hard fighting did General Carteaux subdue Marseilles.
+
+But Toulon held out still, and within its protecting walls had the
+majority of the inhabitants of Marseilles taken refuge before the wrath
+of the Convention, which had already sent to the latter some of
+its representatives, to establish there the destructive work of the
+guillotine. Toulon offered them safety; it seemed impregnable, as much
+by its situation as by the number and strength of its defenders. It
+could also defy any siege, since the sea was open, and it could by this
+channel be provisioned through the English and Spanish fleet.
+
+No one trembled before the little army of seventeen thousand men which,
+under General Carteaux, had invested Toulon.
+
+But in this little army of the republicans was a young soldier whom yet
+none knew, none feared, but whose fame was soon to resound throughout
+the world, and before whom all Europe was soon tremblingly to bow.
+
+This young man was Napoleon Bonaparte, the captain of artillery. He had
+come from Italy (where his regiment was) to France, to make there, by
+order of his general, some purchases for the park of artillery of
+the Italian army. But some of the people’s representatives had had an
+opportunity of recognizing the sharp eye and the military acquirements
+of the young captain of artillery; they interceded in his favor, and he
+was promoted to the army corps which was before Toulon, and at once sent
+in the capacity of assistant to General Carteaux, with whom also was
+Napoleon’s brother Joseph, as chief of the general’s staff.
+
+From this moment the siege, which until now had not progressed
+favorably, was pushed on with renewed energy, and it was due to the
+cautious activity, the daring spirit of the captain of artillery, that
+marked advantages were gained over the English, and that from them many
+redoubts were taken, and the lines of the French drawn closer and closer
+to the besieged city.
+
+But yet, after many months of siege, Toulon held out still. From the
+sea came provisions and ammunition, and on the land-side Toulon was
+protected against capture by a fort occupied by English troops, and
+which, on account of its impregnable position, was called “Little
+Gibraltar.” From this position hot-balls and howitzers had free range
+all over the seaboard, for this fort stood between the two harbors
+of the city and immediately opposite Toulon. The English, fully
+appreciating the importance of the position, had occupied it with six
+thousand men, and surrounded it with intrenchments.
+
+It came to this, as Napoleon in a council of war declared to the
+general, that the English must be driven out of their position; then,
+when this fort was taken, in two days Toulon must yield.
+
+The plan was decided upon, and from this moment the besiegers directed
+all their strength no more against Toulon, but against the important
+fort, “Little Gibraltar,” “for there,” as Napoleon said, “there was the
+key to Toulon.”
+
+All Europe now watched with intense anxiety the events near Toulon; all
+France, which hitherto with divided sentiments had wished the victory
+to side now with the besieged, now with the besiegers, forgot its
+differences of opinion, and was united in the one wish to expel the
+hated enemy and rival, the English, from the French city, and to crown
+the efforts of the French army with victory.
+
+The Convention, irritated that its orders should not have been
+immediately carried out, had in its despotic power recalled from his
+command General Carteaux, who could not succeed in capturing Toulon,
+and had appointed as chief of battalion the young captain of artillery,
+Napoleon Bonaparte, on account of his bravery in capturing some
+dangerous redoubts. The successor of Carteaux, the old General
+Dugommier, recognizing the superior mind of the young chief of
+battalion, willingly followed his plans, and was readily guided and led
+by the surer insight of the young man.
+
+The position of new Gibraltar had to be conquered so as to secure the
+fall of Toulon; such was, such remained Napoleon’s unswerving judgment.
+No effort, no cost, no blood, was to be spared to attain this result. He
+placed new batteries against the fort; stormed the forts Malbosquet and
+Ronge; a terrible struggle ensued, in which the English General O’Hara
+was taken prisoner by the French, and the English had to leave the fort
+and retreat into the city.
+
+The first great advantage was won, but Little Gibraltar remained still
+in the hands of the English, and Napoleon desired, and felt it as an
+obligation, to subdue it at any price.
+
+But already the Convention began to be discouraged, and to lose energy,
+and the deputies of the people, Barras and Freron, who until now had
+remained with the besieging army, hastened to Paris to implore the
+Convention to give up the siege, and to recall the army from Toulon.
+
+But before they reached Paris the matter was to be decided before
+Toulon. The fate of the Little Gibraltar was to be fulfilled; it was to
+be taken, or in the storming of it the French army was to perish.
+
+Thousands of shells were thrown into the fort, thirty cannon thundered
+against it. Napoleon Bonaparte mixed with the artillerymen, encouraged
+by his bold words their activity, their energy, and their bravery, and
+pointed to them the spots where to direct their balls. Whilst he was
+in conversation with one of the cannoneers near whom he stood, a
+cannon-ball from the English tore away the head of the artilleryman who
+had just lifted up the match to fire his cannon.
+
+Napoleon quietly took up the burning match out of the hand of the dead
+man, and discharged the gun. Then, with all the zeal and tact of an
+experienced cannoneer, he began to load the piece, to send forth its
+balls against the enemy and for many hours he remained at this post,
+until another artilleryman was found to relieve the chief of division.
+[Footnote: This brave action of Napoleon was to have for him evil
+results. The cannoneer, from whose hand he took the match, was suffering
+from the most distressing skin-disease, generally breaking out with the
+greatest violence in the hand. The match which the cannoneer had for
+hours held in his hand was yet warm with its pressure, and imparted to
+Napoleon’s hand the poison of the contagious disease. For years he had
+to endure the eruption, which he could not conquer, as he had conquered
+nations and princes, but to its destructive and painful power he had
+to subdue his body. The nervous agitations to which he was subject, the
+shrugging of his right shoulder, the white-greenish complexion of his
+face, the leanness of his body, were all consequences of this disease.
+It was only when Napoleon had become emperor, that Corvisart succeeded,
+by his eloquence, in persuading him to follow a regular course of
+treatment. This treatment cured him; his white-greenish complexion and
+his leanness disappeared. The nervous movement of the shoulder remained,
+and became a habit.--See “Memoires de Constant,” vol. i.]
+
+But whilst Napoleon made himself a cannoneer in the service of his
+country, he remained at the same time the chief of division, whose
+attention was everywhere, whose eagle glance nothing escaped, and who
+knew how to improve every advantage.
+
+A body of troops was at a distant point, and Bonaparte wanted to send
+them an important order. Whilst loading his cannon, he called aloud
+to an under-officer to whom he might dictate the dispatch. A young man
+hastened to the call, and said he was ready to write. Upon a mound of
+sand he unfolded his pocket-book, drew out of it a piece of paper, and
+began to write what Napoleon, with a voice above the cannon’s roar,
+was dictating to him. At this very moment, as the order was written,
+a cannon-ball fell quite near the officer, burrowing the ground, and
+scattering some of the light sand over the written paper. The young man
+raised his hat and made a bow to the cannon-ball, that buried itself in
+the sand.
+
+“I thank you,” said he, “you have saved me sand for my paper.”
+
+Napoleon smiled, and looked with a joyous, sympathizing glance at the
+young officer, whose handsome pleasing countenance was radiant with bold
+daring and harmless merriment.
+
+“Now, I need a brave messenger to carry this order to that exposed
+detachment,” said Napoleon.
+
+“I will be the messenger,” cried out the officer, eagerly.
+
+“Well, I accept you, but you must remove your uniform, and put on a
+blouse, so as not to be too much exposed.”
+
+“That I will not do,” exclaimed the young man. “I am no spy.”
+
+“What! you refuse to obey?” asked Napoleon, threateningly.
+
+“No, I refuse to assume a disguise,” answered the officer “I am ready to
+obey, and even to carry the order into the very hands of the devil.
+But with my uniform I go, otherwise those cursed Englishmen might well
+imagine that I am afraid of them.”
+
+“But you imperil your life if you go in your glittering uniform.”
+
+“My life does not belong to me,” cried out gayly the young soldier. “Who
+cares if I risk it? You will not be sorry about it, for you know me
+not, citizen-officer, and it is all the same to me. Shall I not go in
+my uniform? I should be delighted to encounter those English gentlemen,
+for, with my sword and the sprightly grains in my patron’s pocket,
+the conversation will not sleep, I vow. Now, then, shall I go,
+citizen-officer?”
+
+“Go,” said Napoleon, smiling. “But you are wrong if you think I will
+not be sorry in case you pay this duty with your life. You are a brave
+fellow, and I love the brave. Go; but first tell me your name, that when
+you return I may tell General Dugommier what name he has to inscribe in
+his papers of recommendation for officers; that will be the reward for
+your message.”
+
+“My name is Junot, citizen-officer,” exclaimed the young man as,
+swinging the paper in his hand, he darted away eagerly.
+
+The roar of the cannon was still heard, when Napoleon’s messenger
+returned, after a few hours, and reported to him. The chief of division
+received him with a friendly motion of his head.
+
+“Welcome, Junot,” said he. “I am glad to see you back, and that you
+have successfully accomplished your task. I must now make a change of
+position in yonder battallion. To-morrow I will give you your commission
+of lieutenant, citizen-soldier.”
+
+“And to-day grant me a nobler reward, citizen-officer,” said the young
+man, tenderly; “give me your hand, and allow me to press it in mine.”
+
+Napoleon, smiling, gave him his hand. The eyes of both young men met in
+radiant looks, and with these looks was sealed the covenant which united
+them both in a friendship enduring to the tomb. For not one of his
+companions-in-arms remained attached to Napoleon with so warm, true,
+nearly impassioned tenderness as Junot, and none of them was by the
+general, the consul, the emperor, more implicitly trusted, more heartily
+beloved than his Junot, whom he exalted to the ranks of general,
+governor of Lisbon, Duke d’Abrantes, who was one of the few to whom
+in his days of glory he allowed to speak to him in all truth, in all
+freedom, and without reserve.
+
+But whilst the two young men were sealing this covenant of friendship
+with this look of spiritual recognition, the cannon was thundering forth
+on all sides. The earth trembled from the reports of the pieces; all the
+elements seemed unloosed; the storm howled as if to mingle the noise
+of human strife with the uproar of Nature; the sea dashed its frothy,
+mound-like waves with terrible noise on the shore; the rain poured down
+from the skies in immense torrents, and everything around was veiled in
+mists of dampness and smoke. And amid all this, crackled, thundered,
+and hissed the shells which were directed against Little Gibraltar, or
+whizzed from Toulon, to bring death and destruction among the besiegers.
+
+Night sank down, and yet Little Gibraltar was not taken. “I am lost,”
+ sighed General Dugommier. “I shall have to pay with my head, if we are
+forced to retreat.”
+
+“Then we must go forward,” cried Bonaparte; “we must have Little
+Gibraltar.”
+
+An hour after, a loud cry of victory announced to General Dugommier that
+the chief of division had reached his aim, that Little Gibraltar was
+captured by the French.
+
+As the day began to dawn, the French had already captured two other
+forts; and Bonaparte roused all his energies to fire from Little
+Gibraltar upon the enemy’s fleet. But the English admiral, Lord Hood,
+knew very well the terrible danger to which he was exposed if he did not
+at once weigh anchor.
+
+The chief of division had prophesied correctly: in Little Gibraltar was
+the key of Toulon; and since the French had now seized the keys, the
+English ships could no longer close the city against them. Toulon was
+lost--it had to surrender to the conquerors. [Footnote: Toulon fell on
+the 18th of December, 1793.]
+
+It is true, defensive operations were still carried on, but Napoleon’s
+balls scattered death and ruin into the city; the bursting of shells
+brought destruction and suffering everywhere, and in the city as well as
+in the harbor columns of flames arose from houses and ships.
+
+Toulon was subdued; and the chief of division, Napoleon Bonaparte, had
+achieved his first brilliant pass of arms before jubilant France and
+astonished Europe; he had made his name shine out from the obscurity of
+the past, and placed it on the pages of history.
+
+The Convention showed itself thankful to the daring soldier, who had
+won such a brilliant victory alike over the foreign as well as over the
+internal enemies of the republic; and Napoleon Bonaparte, the chief of
+division, was now promoted to the generalship of division.
+
+He accepted the nomination with a quiet smile. The wondrous brilliancy
+of his eyes betrayed only to a few friends and confidants the important
+resolves and thoughts which moved the soul of the young general.
+
+In virtue of the order of the Convention, the newly-appointed General
+Bonaparte was to go to the army of the republic which was now stationed
+in Italy; and he received secret instructions from the Directory
+concerning Genoa. Bonaparte left Paris, to gather, as he hoped, fresh
+laurels and new victories.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII. BONAPARTE’S IMPRISONMENT.
+
+
+On the 25th day of March, 1794. General Bonaparte entered the
+headquarters of the French army in Nice. He was welcomed with joy and
+marks of distinction, for the fame of his heroic deeds before Toulon
+had preceded him; and on Bonaparte’s pale, proud face, with its dark,
+brilliant eyes, was written that he was now come into Italy to add fresh
+laurels to the victor’s crown won before Toulon.
+
+The old commander-in-chief of the French army, General Dumerbion,
+confined oftentimes to his bed through sickness, was very willing to be
+represented by General Bonaparte, and to place every thing in his hands;
+and the two representatives of the people, Ricord and Robespierre (the
+younger brother of the all-powerful dictator)--these two representatives
+in the army corps of Italy bound themselves in intimate friendship with
+the young general, who seemed to share their glowing enthusiasm for the
+republic, and their hatred against the monarchy and the aristocrats.
+They cherished, moreover, an unreserved confidence in the military
+capacities of young Bonaparte, and always gave to his plans their
+unconditional assent and approbation. Upon Napoleon’s suggestion
+batteries were erected on the coast of Provence for the security of the
+fleet and of trading-vessels; and when this had been accomplished,
+the general began to carry out the plan which he had laid before the
+representatives of the republic, and according to which the republican
+army, with its right and left wings advancing simultaneously on the
+sea-coast, was to march through the neutral territory of Genoa into
+Italy.
+
+This plan of Bonaparte was crowned with the most unexpected success.
+Without observing the neutrality of Genoa, Generals Massena and Arena
+marched through the territory of the proud Italian republic, and thus
+began the bloody war which was to desolate the Italian soil for so many
+years.
+
+Ever faithful to Bonaparte’s war-schemes, which the general-in-chief,
+Dumerbion, and the two representatives of the people, Ricord and
+Robespierre, had sanctioned, the French columns moved from the valleys,
+within whose depths they had so long and so uselessly shed their
+blood, up to the heights and conquered the fortresses which the King of
+Sardinia had built on the mountains for the protection of his frontiers.
+Thus Fort Mirabocco, on the pass of the Cross, fell into the hands of
+General Dumas, who then conquered the intrenched Mount Cenis; thus the
+pass of Tenda, with the fortress Saorgio, was captured by the French;
+and there, in the general depot of the Piedmontese army, they found
+sixty cannon and war materials of all kinds.
+
+The French had celebrated their first victories in Italy, and both
+commanding officers of the fortresses of Mirabocco and Saorgio had to
+pay for these triumphs in Turin with the loss of their lives; whilst
+General Bonaparte, “as the one to whose well-matured plans and
+arrangements these brilliant results were due,” received from the
+Convention brilliant encomiums.
+
+But suddenly the state of affairs assumed another shape, and at one blow
+all the hopes and plans of the young, victorious general were destroyed.
+
+Maximilian Robespierre had fallen; with him fell the whole party; then
+fell his brother, who a short time before had returned to Paris, and had
+there endeavored to obtain from Maximilian new and more ample powers
+for Bonaparte, and even the appointment to the chief command of the
+army--there fell also Ricord, who had given to General Bonaparte the
+letter of secret instructions for energetic negotiations with the
+government of Genoa, and to carry out which instructions Bonaparte had
+at this time gone to that city.
+
+As he was returning to his headquarters in Saona, from Paris had arrived
+the new representatives, who came to the army of Italy as delegates of
+the Convention, and were armed with full powers.
+
+These representatives were Salicetti, Albitte, and Laporte. The first of
+these, a countryman of Bonaparte, had been thus far his friend and his
+party associate. He was in Corsica at the same time as Napoleon, in the
+year 1793; he had been, like his young friend, a member of the Jacobin
+Club of Ajaccio, and Salicetti’s speeches had not been inferior to those
+of Napoleon, either in wildness or in exalted republicanism.
+
+But now Salicetti had become the representative of the moderate party;
+and it was highly important for him to establish himself securely in his
+new position, and to give to the Convention a proof of the firmness
+of his sentiments by manifesting the hatred which he had sworn to the
+terrorists, and to all those who, under the fallen regime, had obtained
+recognition and distinction.
+
+General Bonaparte had been a friend of the young Robespierre; loudly and
+openly he had expressed his republican and democratic sentiments; he
+had been advanced under the administration of Robespierre, from
+simple lieutenant to general; he had been sent to Genoa, with secret
+instructions by the representatives of the Committee of Safety, made up
+of terrorists--all this was sufficient to make him appear suspicious
+to the moderate party, and to furnish Salicetti an opportunity to show
+himself a faithful partisan of the new system of moderation.
+
+General Bonaparte was, by order of the representatives of the people,
+Salicetti and Albitte, arrested at his headquarters in Saona, because,
+as the warrant for arrest, signed by both representatives, asserted:
+“General Bonaparte had completely lost their confidence through his
+suspicious demeanor, and especially through the journey which he had
+lately made to Genoa.” The warrant of arrest furthermore ordered
+that General Bonaparte, whose effects should be sealed and his papers
+examined, was to be sent to Paris, under sure escort, and be brought for
+examination before the Committee of Safety.
+
+If this order were carried into execution, then Bonaparte was lost; for,
+though Robespierre had fallen, yet with his fall the system of blood and
+terror had not been overthrown in Paris; it had only changed its name.
+
+The terrorists, who now called themselves the moderates, exercised the
+same system of intimidation as their predecessors; and to be brought
+before the Committee of Safety, signified the same thing as to receive a
+death-warrant.
+
+Bonaparte was lost, if it truly came to this, that he must be led to
+Paris.
+
+This was what Junot, the present adjutant of Napoleon, and his faithful
+friend and companion, feared. It was therefore necessary to anticipate
+this order, and to procure freedom to Bonaparte.
+
+A thousand schemes for the rescue of his beloved chief, crossed the soul
+of the young man. But how make them known to the general? how induce
+him to flee, since all approaches to him were forbidden? His zeal, his
+inventive friendship, succeeded at last in finding a means. One of the
+soldiers, who was placed as sentry at the door of the arrested general,
+was bribed by Junot; through him a letter from Junot reached Bonaparte’s
+hands, which laid before him a scheme of flight that the next night
+could be accomplished with Junot’s help.
+
+Not far from Bonaparte’s dwelling Junot awaited the answer, and soon a
+soldier passed by and brought it to him.
+
+This answer ran thus: “In the propositions you make, I acknowledge your
+deep friendship, my dear Junot; you are also conscious of the friendship
+I have consecrated to you for a long time, and I trust you have
+confidence in it.
+
+“Man may do wrong toward me, my dear Junot; it is enough for me to be
+innocent; my conscience is the tribunal which I recognize as sole judge
+of my conduct.
+
+“This conscience is quiet when I question it; do, therefore, nothing,
+if you do not wish to compromise me. Adieu, dear Junot. Farewell, and
+friendship.” [Footnote: Abrantes, “Memoires,” vol. i., p. 241.]
+
+Meanwhile, notwithstanding his quiet conscience, Bonaparte was not
+willing to meet his fate passively and silently, and, perchance, it
+seemed to him that it was “not enough to be innocent,” so as to be
+saved from the guillotine. He therefore addressed a protest to both
+representatives of the people who had ordered his arrest, and this
+protest, which he dictated to his friend Junot, who had finally
+succeeded in coming to Bonaparte, is so extraordinary and so peculiar
+in its terseness of style, in its expressions of political sentiment; it
+furnishes so important a testimony of the republican democratic opinions
+of the young twenty-six-year-old general, that we cannot but give here
+this document.
+
+Bonaparte then dictated to his friend Junot as follows:
+
+“To the representatives Salicetti and Albitte:
+
+“You have deprived me of my functions, you have arrested me and declared
+me suspected.
+
+“I am, then, ruined without being condemned; or else, which is much more
+correct, I am condemned without being heard.
+
+“In a revolutionary state exist two classes: the suspected and the
+patriots.
+
+“When those of the first class are accused, they are treated as the
+common law of safety provides.
+
+“The oppression of those of the second class is the ruin of public
+liberty. The judge must condemn only after mature deliberation, and when
+a series of unimpeachable facts reaches the guilty.
+
+“To denounce a patriot as guilty is a condemnation which deprives him of
+what is most dear--confidence and esteem.
+
+“In which class am I to be ranked?
+
+“Have I not been, since the beginning of the revolution, faithful to its
+principles?
+
+“Have I not always been seen at war with enemies at home, or as a
+soldier against the foreign foe?
+
+“I have sacrificed my residence in my country and my property to the
+republic; I have lost all for her.
+
+“By serving my country with some distinction at Toulon and in the
+Italian army, I have had my share in the laurels which that army has won
+at Saorgio, Queille, and Tanaro.
+
+“At the time of the discovery of Robespierre’s conspiracy, my conduct
+was that of a man who is accustomed to recognize principles only.
+
+“It is therefore impossible to refuse me the title of patriot.
+
+“Why, then, am I declared suspect without being heard? Why am I arrested
+eight days after the news of the death of the tyrant?
+
+“I am declared suspect, and my papers are sealed!
+
+“The reverse ought to have taken place: my papers ought to have been
+unsealed; I ought to have been tried; explanations ought to have been
+sought for, and then I might have been declared suspect if there were
+sufficient motives for it.
+
+“It is decided that I must go to Paris under a warrant of arrest
+which declares me suspect. In Paris they will conclude that the
+representatives have acted thus only after sufficient examination, and I
+shall be condemned with the sympathy which a man of that class deserves.
+
+“Innocent, patriotic, slandered, whatever may be the measures which the
+committee take, I cannot complain.
+
+“If three men were to declare that I have committed a crime, I could not
+complain if the jury should declare me guilty.
+
+“Salicetti, you know me. Have you, during the five years of our
+acquaintance, found in my conduct any thing which could be suspected as
+against the revolution?
+
+“Albitte, you know me not. No one can have given you convincing
+evidence against me. You have not heard me; you know, however, with what
+smoothness calumny oftentimes whispers.
+
+“Must I then be taken for an enemy of my country? Must the patriots
+ruin, without any regard, a general who has not been entirely useless
+to the republic? Must the representatives place the government under the
+necessity of acting unjustly and impolitically?
+
+“Mark my words; destroy the oppression which binds me down, and
+re-establish me in the esteem of the patriots.
+
+“If, then, at some future hour, the wicked shall still long for my
+life, well, then I consider it of so little importance--I have so often
+despised it--yes, the mere thought that it can be useful to the country,
+enables me to bear its burden with courage.” [Footnote: Bourienne,
+“Memoires sur Napoleon,” etc., vol. i., p. 63.]
+
+Whether these energetic protestations of Bonaparte, or whether some
+other motives, conduced to the result, Salicetti thought that with
+Napoleon’s arrest he had furnished sufficient proof of his patriotic
+sentiments; it seemed to him enough to have obscured the growing fame
+of the young general, and to have plunged back into obscurity and
+forgetfulness him whose first steps in life’s career promised such a
+radiant and glorious course!
+
+It matters not, however, what circumstances may have wrought out; the
+representatives Salicetti and Albitte issued a decree in virtue of
+which General Bonaparte was, after mature consideration and thorough
+examination of his papers, declared innocent and free from all
+suspicion. Consequently, Bonaparte was temporarily set at liberty; but
+he was suspended from his command in the Italian army, and was recalled
+to Paris, there to be made acquainted with his future destination.
+
+This destination was pointed out to him in a commission as
+brigadier-general of infantry in the province of Vendee, there to lead
+on the fratricidal strife against the fanatical Chouans, the faithful
+adherents of the king.
+
+Bonaparte refused this offer--first, because it seemed to him an
+insulting request to ask him to fight against his own countrymen; and
+secondly, because he did not wish to enter the infantry service, but to
+remain in the artillery.
+
+The Committee of Safety responded to this refusal of Bonaparte by
+striking his name from the list of generals appointed for promotion,
+because he had declined to go to the post assigned him.
+
+This decision fell upon the ambitious, heroic young man like a
+thunderbolt. He had dreamed of brilliant war deeds, of laurels, of fame,
+of a glorious future, won for him by his own sword; and now, all at
+once, he saw himself dragged away from this luminous track of fame upon
+which he had so brilliantly entered--he saw himself thrust back into
+obscurity, forgetfulness, and inactivity.
+
+A gloomy, misanthropic sentiment took possession of him; and, though a
+prophetic voice within said that the future still belonged to him, with
+its fame, its laurels, its victories, yet inactivity, care, and the
+wants of the present, hung with oppressive weight upon his mind.
+
+He withdrew from all social joys and recreations, he avoided his
+acquaintances, and only to a few friends did he open his foreboding
+heart; only with these did he associate, and to them alone he made his
+complaints of broken hopes, of life’s career destroyed.
+
+To these few friends, whom Bonaparte in his misfortune found faithful
+and unchanged, belonged the Ferment family, and above all belonged
+Junot, who had come to Paris at the same time as Bonaparte, and who,
+though the latter was dismissed from the service, continued to call
+himself the adjutant of General Bonaparte.
+
+In the Permont family Napoleon was received with the same friendship and
+attention as in former days; Madame de Permont retained ever for the son
+of the friend of her youth, Letitia, a kindly smile, a genial sympathy,
+an intelligent appreciation of his plans and wishes; her husband
+manifested toward him all the interest of a parental regard; her son
+Albert was full of tenderness and admiration for him; and her younger
+daughter Laura jested and conversed with him as with a beloved brother.
+
+In this house every thing seemed pleasant and friendly to Bonaparte;
+thither he came every day, and mixed with the social circles, which
+gathered in the evening in the drawing-rooms of the beautiful, witty
+Madame de Permont; and where men even of diverging political sentiments,
+aristocrats and ci-devants of the first water, were to be found. But
+Madame de Permont had forbidden all political discussion in her saloon;
+and General Bonaparte, now compelled to inactivity, dared no more show
+his anger against the Committee of Safety, or against the Convention,
+than the Count de Montmorency or any of the proud ladies of the former
+quarter of St. Germain.
+
+Not only the inactivity to which he was condemned, not only the
+destruction of all his ambitious hopes, burdened the mind of Bonaparte,
+but also the material pressure under which he now and then found
+himself, and which seemed to him a shame and a humiliation. With gloomy
+grudge he gazed at those young elegants whom he met on the Boulevards
+in splendid toilet, on superb horses--at these incroyables who, in the
+first rays of the sun of peace, from the soil of the republic, yet moist
+with blood, had sprung up as so many mushrooms of divers colors and
+varied hues.
+
+“And such men enjoy their happiness!” exclaimed Bonaparte,
+contemptuously, as once in the Champs Elysees he sat before a
+coffee-house, near one of those incroyables, and with violent emotion
+starting up, he pushed his seat back and nearly broke the feet of his
+exquisitely dressed neighbor.
+
+To be forgotten, to be set in the background, to be limited in means,
+was always to him a source of anger, which manifested itself now in
+impassioned vehemence, now in vague, gloomy dreaminess, from which
+he would rise up again with some violent sarcasm or some epigrammatic
+remark.
+
+But whilst he thus suffered, was in want, and had so much to endure, his
+mind and heart were always busy. His mind was framing new plans to
+bring to an end these days of inactivity, to open a new path of fame and
+glory; his heart dreamed of a sweet bliss, of another new love!
+
+The object of this love was the sister of his brother’s wife, the
+young Desiree Clary. Joseph Bonaparte, who was now in Marseilles as
+war-commissioner, had married there one of the daughters of the rich
+merchant Clary; and her younger sister Desiree was the one to whom
+Napoleon had devoted his heart. The whole Bonaparte family was now in
+Marseilles, and had decided to make their permanent residence in France,
+as their return to Corsica was still impossible; for General Paoli, no
+longer able to hold the island, had called the English to his help, and
+the assembled Consulta, over which Paoli presided, had invited the King
+of England to become sovereign of the island. The French party, at whose
+head had been the Bonaparte family, was overcome, and could no longer
+lift up head or voice.
+
+Bonaparte came often to Marseilles to visit his family, which consisted
+of his mother Letitia, her three daughters, her two younger sons, and
+her brother, the Abbe Fesch. There, he had seen every day, in the house
+of his brother, Desiree Clary, and the beautiful, charming maid had not
+failed to leave in the heart of the young general a deep impression.
+Desiree seemed to return this inclination, and a union of the two young
+lovers might soon have taken place, if fate, in the shape of accident,
+had not prevented it.
+
+Joseph was sent by the Committee of Safety to Genoa, with instructions;
+his young wife and her sister Desiree accompanied him. Perhaps the
+new, variable impressions of the journey, perhaps her separation from
+Bonaparte, and her association with other officers less gloomy than the
+saturnine Napoleon, all this seemed to cool the love of Desiree Clary;
+she no more answered Napoleon’s letters, and, in writing to his brother
+Joseph, he made bitter complaints: “It seems that to reach Genoa the
+River Lethe must first be crossed, and therefore Desiree writes no
+more.” [Footnote: See “Memoires du Roi Joseph,” vol. i.]
+
+The only confidant to whom Bonaparte imparted these heart-complaints,
+was Junot. He had for him no secrecy of his innermost and deepest
+inclinations; to him he complained with grave and impassioned words
+of Desiree’s changeableness; and Junot, whose worshipful love for his
+friend could not understand that any maiden, were she the most beautiful
+and glorious on earth, could ever slight the inclination of General
+Bonaparte, Junot shared his wrath against Desiree, who had begun the
+rupture between them by leaving unanswered two of Napoleon’s letters.
+
+After having been angry and having complained in concert with Bonaparte,
+Junot’s turn to be confidential had come. Bewildered, and blushing like
+a young maid, he avowed to his dear general that he also loved, and that
+he could hope for happiness and joy only if Napoleon’s younger sister,
+the beautiful little Pauline, would be his wife.
+
+Bonaparte listened to him with a frowning countenance, and when Junot
+ended by asking his mediation with Pauline’s mother, Napoleon asked in
+a grave tone, “But, what have you to live upon? Can you support Pauline?
+Can you, with her, establish a household which will be safe against
+want?”
+
+Junot, radiant with joy, told him how, anticipating this question of
+Napoleon, he had written to his father, and had asked for information
+in regard to his means; and that his father had just now answered his
+questions, and had replied that for the present he could not give him
+anything, but that after his death the inheritance of his son would
+amount to twenty thousand francs.
+
+“I shall be one day rich,” exclaimed Junot, gayly, as he handed to
+Napoleon the letter of his father, “for with my pay I will have an
+income of twelve hundred livres. My general, I beseech you, write to
+the Citoyenne Bonaparte; tell her that you have read the letter of my
+father, and say a good word in my favor.”
+
+Bonaparte did not at once reply. He attentively read the letter of
+Junot, senior, then returned it to his friend, and with head sunk down
+upon his breast he stared gloomily, with contracted eyebrows.
+
+“You answer not, general,” exclaimed Junot, in extreme anguish. “You do
+not wish to be my mediator?”
+
+Bonaparte raised his head; his cheeks were paler than before, and a
+gloomy expression was in his eyes.
+
+“I cannot write to my mother to make her this proposition,” said he, in
+a rough, severe tone. “That is impossible, my friend. You say that one
+day you will have an income of twelve hundred livres. That is, indeed,
+very fair, but you have them not now. Besides, your father’s health is
+remarkably good, and he will make you wait a long time. For the present
+you have nothing; for your lieutenant’s epaulets can be reckoned as
+nothing. As regards Pauline, she has not even that much. Let us then
+sum up: you have nothing; she has nothing! What is the total amount?
+Nothing. You cannot, therefore, be married now: let us wait. We shall,
+perhaps, friend, outlive these evil days. Yes, we shall outlive them,
+even if I have to become an exile, to seek for them in another portion
+of the world! Let us, then, wait!” [Footnote: Bonaparte’s words.--See
+Abrantes, “Memoires,” vol. i., p. 284.]
+
+And a wondrous, mysterious brilliancy and flash filled the eyes of
+General Bonaparte, as with a commanding voice he repeated, “Let us
+wait!”
+
+Was this one of those few and pregnant moments in which the mind with
+prophetic power gazes into the future? Had a corner of the veil which
+hid the future been lifted up before the glowing eagle-eye of Napoleon,
+and did he see the splendor and the glory of that future which were to
+be his? However great his imagination, however ambitious his dreams,
+however wide his hopes, yet they all were to be one day surpassed by
+the reality. For would he not have considered a madman him, who, at this
+hour, would have told him: “Smooth the furrows on your brow, Bonaparte;
+be not downcast about the present. You are now in want, you are thrust
+aside; forgetfulness and obscurity are now your lot; but be of good
+cheer, you will be emperor, and all Europe will lie trembling at your
+feet. You love the young Desiree Clary, and her indifference troubles
+you; but be of good cheer, you will one day marry the daughter of
+a Caesar, and the little Desiree, the daughter of a merchant from
+Marseilles, will one day be Sweden’s queen! You refuse to Junot, your
+friend, the gratification of his wishes, because he possesses nothing
+but his officer’s epaulets: but be of good cheer, for you will one day
+convert the little Lieutenant Junot into a duke, and give him a kingdom
+for a dowry! You feel downhearted and ashamed, because your sister
+Pauline is not rich, because she possesses nothing but her beauty and
+her name: but be of good cheer, she will one day be the wife of the
+wealthiest prince of Italy; all the treasures of art will be gathered
+in her palace, and yet she will be the most precious ornament of that
+palace!”
+
+Surely the General Bonaparte would have laughed at the madman, who, in
+the year 1795, should have thus spoken to him--and yet a mere decade of
+years was to suffice for the realization of all these prophecies, and to
+turn the incredible into a reality.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX. THE THIRTEENTH VENDEMIAIRE.
+
+
+The days of terror, and of blood, under which France has sighed so long,
+were not to end with the fall of Robespierre. Another enemy of the rest
+and peace of France had now made its entrance into Paris--hunger began
+to exercise its dreary rale of horror, and to fill the hearts of men
+with rage and despair.
+
+Everywhere throughout France the crops had failed, and the republic had
+too much to do with the guillotine, with the political struggles in the
+interior, with the enemies on the frontier, she had been so busy with
+the heads of her children, that she could have no care for the welfare
+of their stomachs.
+
+The corn-magazines were empty, and in the treasury of the republican
+government there was no money to buy grain in foreign markets. Very soon
+the want of bread, the cry for food, made itself felt everywhere; soon
+hunger goaded into new struggles of despair the poor Parisian people,
+already so weary with political storms, longing for rest, and exhausted
+by conflicts. Hunger drove them again into politics, hunger converted
+the women into demons, and their husbands into fanatical Jacobins. Every
+day, tumults and seditious gatherings took place in Paris; the murmuring
+and howling crowd threatened to rise up. Every day appeared at the bar
+of the Convention the sections of Paris, entreating with wild cries for
+a remedy for their distress. At every step in the streets one was met by
+intoxicated women, who tried to find oblivion of their hunger in wine,
+and to whom, notwithstanding their drunkenness, the consciousness of
+their calamity remained. These drunken women, with the gestures of
+madness, shouted: “Bread! give us bread! We had bread at least in the
+year ‘93! Bread! Down with the republic! Down with the Convention, which
+leaves us to starve!”
+
+To these shouts responded other masses of the people: “Down with the
+constitutionalists! Long live the Mountain! Long live the Convention!”
+
+Civil war, which in its exhaustion had remained subdued for a moment,
+threatened to break out with renewed rage, for the parties stood
+face to face in determined hostility, and “Down with the
+constitutionalists!--down with the republicans!” was the watchword of
+these parties.
+
+For a moment it seemed as if the Mountain, as if the revolution, would
+regain the ascendency, as if the terrorists would once more seize
+the rudder which had slipped from their blood-stained hands. But the
+Convention, which for a time had remained undecided, trembling and
+vacillating, rose at length from its lethargy to firm, energetic
+measures, and came to the determination to restore peace at any price.
+
+The people, stirred up by the terrorists, the furious men of the
+Mountain, had to be reduced to silence, and the cry, “Long live the
+constitution of ‘93!--down with the Convention!”--this cry, which every
+day rolled on through the streets of Paris like the vague thunderings
+of the war-drum,--had to be put down by armed force. Barrere,
+Collot d’Herbois, Billaud Varennes, the remnant of the sanguinary
+administration of Robespierre, the terrorists who excited the people
+against the Convention, who pressed on the Thermidorists, and wanted
+to occupy their place, these were the ones who with their adherents
+and friends threatened the Convention and imperilled its existence. The
+Convention rose up in its might and punished these leaders of sedition,
+so as through fear and horror to disperse the masses of the people.
+
+Barrere, Collot d’Herbois, and Billaud Varennes, were arrested and sent
+to Cayenne; six of their friends, six republicans and terrorists, were
+also seized, and as they were convicted of forging plots against the
+Convention and the actual administration, they were sentenced to death.
+A seventh had also been at the head of this conspiracy; and this seventh
+one, who with the others had been sentenced to death, and whom the
+Committee of Safety had watched for everywhere, to bring down upon him
+the chastisement due, this seventh one was Salicetti--the same Salicetti
+who after the fall of Robespierre had arrested General Bonaparte as
+suspect. Bonaparte had never forgiven him, and though he often met him
+in the house of Madame de Permont, and appeared to be reconciled with
+him, yet he could not forget that he was the one who had stopped him
+in the midst of his course of fame, that it was he who had debarred him
+from his whole career.
+
+“Salicetti has done me much harm,” said Bonaparte to Madame de Permont,
+and a strange look from his eyes met her face--“Salicetti has destroyed
+my future in its dawn. He has blighted my plans of fame in their bud.
+I repeat, he has done me much harm. He has been my evil spirit. I
+can never forget it,” but added he, thoughtfully, “I will now try to
+forgive.” [Footnote: Abrantes, vol. i, p. 300.]
+
+And again a peculiar, searching look of his eyes met the face of Madame
+de Permont.
+
+She, however, turned aside, she avoided his look, for she dared not tell
+him that Salicetti, for whom the Convention searched throughout Paris so
+as to bring upon him the execution of his death-warrant--that Salicetti,
+whom Bonaparte so fiercely hated, was hid a few steps from him in the
+little cabinet near the drawing-room.
+
+Like Bonaparte, Salicetti was the countryman of Madame de Permont; in
+the days of his power, he had saved the husband and the son of Panonia
+from the persecution of the terrorists, and lie had now come to ask
+safety from those whom he had once saved.
+
+Madame de Permont had not had the courage to refuse an asylum to
+Salicetti; she kept him secreted in her house for weeks; and during all
+these weeks, Bonaparte came daily to visit Madame de Permont and her
+children, and every day he turned the conversation upon Salicetti, and
+asked if they knew not yet where he was secreted. And every time, when
+Madame de Permont answered him in the negative, he gazed at her with a
+piercing look, and with his light, sarcastic smile.
+
+Meanwhile Salicetti’s danger for himself, and those who secreted him,
+increased every day, and Madame de Permont resolved to quit Paris.
+The sickness of her husband, who was in Toulon, furnished her with the
+welcomed opportunity of a journey. She made known to the friends and
+acquaintances who visited her house, and especially to Bonaparte, that
+she had received a letter from the physician in Toulon, requesting her
+presence at her husband’s bed of sickness. Bonaparte read the letter,
+and again the same strange look met the face of Madame de Permont.
+
+“It is, indeed, important,” said he, “that you should travel, and I
+advise you to do so as soon as possible. Fatal consequences might ensue
+to M. de Permont, were you to delay any longer in going to Toulon.”
+
+Madame de Permont made, therefore, all her arrangements for this
+journey. Salicetti, disguised as a servant, was to accompany her.
+Bonaparte still came as usual every day, and took great interest in
+the preparations for her journey, and conversed with her in the most
+friendly and pleasant manner. On the day of departure, he saluted her
+most cordially, assured her of his true, unswerving attachment, and,
+with a final, significant look, expressed a wish that her journey might
+be accomplished without danger.
+
+When Madame de Permont had overcome all difficulties, and she and her
+daughter had left Paris and passed the barriere, as the carriage rolled
+on without interruption (Salicetti, disguised as a servant, sitting
+near the postilion on the driver’s seat), the housemaid handed to her
+a letter which General Bonaparte had given her, with positive orders to
+hand it to her mistress only when they should be beyond the outer gates
+of Paris.
+
+The letter ran thus: “I have never been deceived: I would seem to be in
+your estimation, if I did not tell you that, for the last twenty days, I
+knew that Salicetti was secreted in your house. Remember what I told
+you on the first day, Prairial, Madame de Permont--I had then the mental
+conviction of this secrecy. Now it is a matter of fact.--Salicetti, you
+see I could have returned to you the wrong which you perpetrated against
+me, and by so doing I should have revenged myself, whilst you wronged
+me without any offence on my part. Who plays at this moment the nobler
+part, you or I? Yes, I could have revenged myself, and I have not done
+it. You will, perhaps, say that your benefactress acted as a protecting
+shield. That is true, and it also is taken into consideration. Yet,
+even without this consideration, such as you were--alone, disarmed,
+sentenced--your head would even then have been sacred to me. Go, seek in
+peace a refuge where you can rise to nobler sentiments for your country.
+My mouth remains closed in reference to your name, and will no more
+utter it. Repent, and, above all things, do justice to my intentions. I
+deserve it, for they are noble and generous.
+
+“Madame de Permont, my best wishes accompany you and your daughter. You
+are two frail beings, without protection. Providence and prayers will
+accompany you. Be prudent, and during your journey never stop in large
+towns. Farewell, and receive the assurance of my friendship.” [Footnote:
+Abrantes, “Memoires,” vol. i., p. 351.]
+
+The nobility of mind which Bonaparte displayed toward his enemy was
+soon to receive its reward; for, whilst Salicetti, a fugitive, sick,
+and sentenced to death, was compelled to remain hidden, Bonaparte was
+emerging from the oblivion to which the ambitious zeal of Salicetti
+would have consigned him.
+
+When Napoleon, dismissed from his position, arrived in Paris, and
+appealed to Aubry, the chief of the war department, to be re-established
+in his command, he was told: “Bonaparte is too young to command an army
+as general-in-chief;” and Bonaparte answered: “One soon becomes old on
+the battle-field, and I come from it.” [Footnote: Norvins, “Histoire de
+Napoleon,” vol. i., p. 60.]
+
+But Aubry, in his functions of chief of the war department, was soon
+superseded by the representative Douclet de Ponte-Coulant, and this
+event gave to the position of the young general a different aspect.
+Ponte-Coulant had for some time followed with attention the course of
+the young general, whose military talents and warlike reputation had
+filled him with astonishment. He had especially been surprised at
+the plan for the conduct of the war and the conquest of Italy which
+Bonaparte had laid before the war committee. Now that Ponte-Coulant had
+been promoted to be chief of the war department, he sent for General
+Bonaparte, and attached him to the topographic committee, where the
+plans of campaigns were decided and the movements of each separate corps
+delineated.
+
+The forgotten one, doomed to inactivity, General Napoleon Bonaparte, now
+arose from his obscurity, and before him again opened life, the world,
+and fame’s pathway, which was to lead him up to a throne. But the envy
+and jealousy of the party-men of the Convention ever threw obstacles
+before him on his glorious course, and the war-scheme which he
+now unfolded to the committee for the campaign did not receive the
+approbation of the successor of Ponte-Coulant in the war department, and
+it was thrust aside. A new political crisis was needed to place in the
+hands of Napoleon the command of the army, the ruling authority over
+France, and this crisis was at hand.
+
+Paris, diseased, still bleeding in its innermost life with a thousand
+wounds, was devoured by hunger. The unfortunate people, wretched from
+want and pain, during many past years, were now driven to despair. The
+political party leaders understood but too well how to take advantage of
+this, and to prey upon it. The royalists were busy instilling into the
+people’s minds the idea that the return of the Bourbons would restore
+to miserable France peace and happiness. The terrorists told the people
+that the Convention was the sole obstacle to their rest and to their
+peace, that it was necessary to scatter it to the winds, and to
+re-establish the Constitution of 1793. The whole population of Paris was
+divided and broken into factions, struggling one against the other with
+infuriated passions. The royalists, strengthened by daily accessions
+of emigrants, who, under fictitious names and with false passports,
+returned to Paris to claim the benefit of the milder laws passed in
+their favor, constituted a formidable power in that city. Whole sections
+were devoted to them, and were secretly supplied by them with arms and
+provisions, so as finally to be prepared to act against the Convention.
+An occasion soon presented itself.
+
+The Convention had, through eleven of its committee members, prepared
+a new constitution, and had laid it before the people for adoption or
+rejection, according to the majority of votes. The whole country, with
+the exception of Paris, was in favor of this new constitution--she
+alone in her popular assemblies rejected it, declared the Convention
+dissolved, and the armed sections arose to make new elections. The
+Convection declared these assemblies to be illegal, and ordered their
+dissolution. The armed sections made resistance, congregated together,
+and by force opposed the troops of the Convention--the National
+Guards--commanded by General Menou. On the 12th Vendemiaire all Paris
+was under arms again; barricades were thrown up by the people, who
+swore to die in their defence sooner than to submit to the will of the
+Convention; the noise of drums and trumpets was heard in every street;
+all the horrors and cruelties of a civil war once more filled the
+capital of the revolution, and the city was drunk with blood!
+
+The people fought with the courage of despair, pressed on victoriously,
+and won from General Menou a few streets; whole battalions of the
+National Guards abandoned the troops of the Convention and went over to
+the sections. General Menou found himself in so dangerous a position
+as to be forced to conclude an armistice until the next day with the
+Section Lepelletier, which was opposed to him, up to which time the
+troops on either side were to suspend operations.
+
+The Section Lepelletier declared itself at once en permanence, sent
+her delegates to all the other sections, and called upon “the sovereign
+people, whose rights the Convention wished to usurp,” to make a last and
+decisive struggle.
+
+The Convention found itself in the most alarming position; it trembled
+for its very existence, and already in fancy saw again the days of
+terror, the guillotine rising and claiming for its first victims the
+heads of the members of the Convention. A pallid fear overspread all
+faces as constantly fresh news of the advance of the sections reached
+them, when General Menou sent news of the concluded armistice.
+
+At this moment a pale young man rushed into the hall of session, and
+with glowing eloquence and persuasive manner entreated the Convention
+not to accept the armistice, not to give time to the sections to
+increase their strength, nor to recognize them as a hostile power to war
+against the government.
+
+This pale young man--whose impassioned language filled the minds of all
+his hearers with animosity against General Menou, and with fresh courage
+and desire to fight--was Napoleon Bonaparte.
+
+After he had spoken, other representatives rushed to the tribune, to
+make propositions to the Assembly, all their motions converging to the
+same end--all desired to have General Menou placed under arrest, and
+Bonaparte appointed in his place, and intrusted with the defence of the
+Convention and of the legislative power against the people.
+
+The Assembly accepted this motion, and appointed Bonaparte commanding
+officer of the troops of the Convention, and, for form’s sake, named
+Barras, president of the Convention, commander-in-chief.
+
+Bonaparte accepted the commission; and now, at last, after so much
+waiting, so many painful months of inactivity, he found himself called
+to action; he stood again at the head of an army, however small it might
+be, and could again lift up the sword as the signal for the march to the
+fight.
+
+It is true this fight had a sad, horrible purpose; it was directed
+against the people, against the sections which declared themselves to be
+the committee of the sovereign people, and that they were fighting the
+holy fight of freedom against those who usurped their rights.
+
+General Bonaparte had refused to go to Vendee, because he wished not
+to fight against his own countrymen, and could not take part in a
+civil war; but now, at this hour of extreme peril, he placed himself
+in opposition to the people’s sovereignty, and assumed command over the
+troops of the Convention, whose mission it was to subdue the people.
+
+Every thing now assumed a more earnest attitude; during the night the
+newly-appointed commanding officer sent three hundred chasseurs, under
+Murat, to bring to Paris forty cannon from the park of artillery in
+Sablons, and, when the morning of the 13th Vendemiaire began to dawn,
+the pieces were already in position in the court of the Tuileries and
+pointed against the people. Besides which, General Bonaparte had taken
+advantage of the night to occupy all the important points and places,
+and to arm them; even into the hall of session of the Convention he
+ordered arms and ammunition to be brought, that the representatives
+might defend themselves, in case they were pressed upon by the people.
+
+As the sun of the 13th Vendemiaire rose over Paris, a terrible
+street-fight began--the fight of the sovereign people against the
+Convention. It was carried on by both sides with the utmost bitterness
+and fierceness, the sections rushing with fanatic courage, with all the
+energy of hatred, against these soldiers who dared slay their brothers
+and bind their liberty in chains; the soldiers of the Convention fought
+with all the bitterness which the consciousness of their hated position
+instilled into them.
+
+The cannon thundered in every street and mingled their sounds with the
+cries of rage from the sectionnaires--the howlings of the women, the
+whiz of the howitzers, the loud clangs of the bells, which incessantly
+called the people to arms. Streams of blood flowed again through the
+streets; everywhere, near the scattered barricades, near the houses
+captured by storm, lay bloody corpses; everywhere resounded the cries of
+the dying, the shrieks and groans of the wounded, the wild shouts of the
+combatants. In the Church of St. Roche, and in the Theatre Francaise,
+the sectionnaires, driven from the neighboring streets by the troops of
+General Bonaparte, had gathered together and endeavored to defend these
+places with the courage of despair. But the howitzers of Bonaparte soon
+scattered them, and the contest was decided.
+
+The sections were defeated; the people, conquered by the Convention, had
+to recognize its authority; they were no more the sovereigns of France;
+they had found a ruler before whom they must bow.
+
+This ruler was yet called the Convention, but behind the Convention
+stood another ruler--General Bonaparte!
+
+It was he who had defeated the people, who had secured the authority to
+the Convention, and it was therefore natural that it should be thankful
+and exhibit its gratitude. General Bonaparte, in acknowledgment for
+the great services done to his country, was by the Convention appointed
+commander-in-chief of the army of the interior, and thus suddenly he
+saw himself raised from degrading obscurity to pomp and influence,
+surrounded by a brilliant staff, installed in a handsome palace by
+virtue of his office as chief officer, entitled to and justified in
+maintaining an establishment wherein to represent worthily the dignity
+of his new position.
+
+The 13th Vendemiaire, which dethroned the sovereign people, brought
+General Bonaparte a step nearer to the throne.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX. THE WIDOW JOSEPHINE BEAUHARNAIS.
+
+
+Meanwhile Josephine had passed the first months of her newly-obtained
+freedom in quiet contentment with her children in Fontainebleau, at the
+house of her father-in-law. Her soul, bowed down by so much misery
+and pain, needed quietness and solitude to allow her wounds to cease
+bleeding and to heal; her heart, which had experienced so much anguish
+and so many deceptions, needed to rest on the bosom of her children and
+her relatives, so as to be quickened into new life. Only in the solitude
+and stillness of Fontainebleau did she feel well and satisfied; every
+other distraction, every interruption of this quiet, orderly existence
+brought on a nervous trembling, which mastered her whole body, as if
+some other adversity was about to break upon her. The days of terror
+which she had passed in Paris, and especially the days she had outlived
+in prison, were ever fresh before her mind, and tormented her with their
+reminiscences alike in her vigils and in her dreams.
+
+She wanted to hear nothing of the world’s events, nothing from Paris,
+the mention of which place filled her with fear and horror; and with
+tears in her eyes she entreated her father-in-law to omit all mention of
+the political changes and revolutions which took place there.
+
+But, alas! the politics from which Josephine fled, to which she closed
+her ears, rushed upon her against her will--they came to her in the
+shape of want and privation.
+
+Josephine, who wished to have nothing more to do with the affairs of
+this world, learned, through the deprivations which she had to endure,
+the want to which she and her family were exposed, that the world
+had not yet been pushed back into the old grooves, out of which
+the revolution had so violently lifted it up; that the republic yet
+exercised a despotic authority, and was not prepared to return to the
+heirs the property of the victims of the guillotine! The income
+and property of General Beauharnais had all been confiscated by
+the republic, for he had been executed as a state criminal, and
+the procedure had this in common with the ordinary actions of the
+government, that it never returned what it had once usurped. Even
+Josephine’s father-in-law, as well as her aunt--Madame de Renaudin,
+who, after her husband’s death, had been married to the Marquis de
+Beauharnais--had both in the revolutionary storms lost all their
+property, and saw themselves reduced to the last extremity. They lived
+from day to day with the greatest economy, upon the smallest means, and
+flattered themselves with the hope that justice would be done to the
+innocent victims of the revolution; that at last to the widow and
+children of the murdered General Beauharnais his income and property
+would be returned.
+
+Another hope remained to Josephine: reliance upon her relatives,
+especially upon her mother in Martinique. She had written to her as soon
+as she had obtained her liberty; she had entreated her mother, who had
+been a widow for two years, to rent all her property in Martinique, and
+to come to France, and at her daughter’s side to enjoy a few quiet years
+of domestic happiness.
+
+But this hope also was to be destroyed, for the revolution in Martinique
+had committed the same devastations as in France, and the burning houses
+of their masters had been the bonfires whose flames were sent up to
+heaven by the newly-freed slaves in the name of the republic and of the
+rights of man. Madame Tascher de la Pagerie had experienced the same
+fate as all the planters in Martinique; her house and outbuildings had
+been burnt, her plantations destroyed, and a long time would be required
+before the fields could again be made to produce a harvest. Until then,
+Madame Tascher would be sorely limited in her means, and, if she did
+not succeed in selling some of her property and raising funds, would be
+without the money necessary to bring under cultivation the remnant of
+her large plantation. She was, therefore, not immediately prepared to
+supply her daughter with any considerable assistance, and Josephine
+endured the anguish of seeing not only herself and children, but also
+her dear mother, suffer through want and privation.
+
+To the need of gold to procure bare necessaries, was soon added the very
+lack of them. Famine, with all its horrors, was at hand; the people
+were clamoring for food, and the land-owners as well as the rich were
+suffering from the want of that prime necessary of life-bread! The
+Convention had adopted no measures to satisfy the demands of the howling
+populace, and it had to remain contented with making accessible to all
+such provisions as were in the land. One law, therefore, ordered all
+land-owners to deliver to the state their stores of meal; a second law
+prohibited any person from buying more than one pound of bread on the
+same day. The greatest delicacy in those days of common wretchedness
+was white bread, and there were many families that for a long time were
+unable to procure this luxury.
+
+Josephine herself had with many others to endure this privation: the
+costly white loaf was beyond her reach. In her depressed and sad lot the
+unfortunate widowed viscountess remained in possession of a treasure
+for which many of the wealthy and high-born longed in vain, and which
+neither gold nor wealth could procure--Josephine possessed friends,
+true, devoted friends, who forsook her not in the day of need, but stood
+the more closely at her side, helping and loving.
+
+Among these friends were, above all, Madame Dumoulin and M. Emery.
+Madame Dumoulin, the wife of a wealthy purveyor of the republican army,
+was at heart a true royalist, and had made it her mission, as much as
+was within her power, to assist with her means the most destitute from
+whom the revolution had taken their family joys and property. She aided
+with money and clothing the unfortunate emigrants, who, as prominent and
+influential friends of the king and of Old France, had abandoned their
+country, and who now, as nameless, wretched beggars, returned home to
+beg of New France the privilege at least to hunger and starve, and at
+last to die in their motherland. Madame Dumoulin had always an open
+house for those aristocrats and ci-devants who had the courage not to
+emigrate and to bow their despised heads to all the fluctuations of the
+republic, and had remained in France, though deprived by the republic of
+their ancestral names, property, and rank. Those aristocrats who had
+not migrated found a friendly reception in the house of the witty and
+amiable Madame Dumoulin, and twice a week she gathered those friends of
+the ancient regime to a dinner, which was prepared with all the luxury
+of former days, and which offered to her friends, besides material
+enjoyment, the pleasures of an agreeable and attractive company.
+
+Among Madame Dumoulin’s friends who never failed to be present at these
+dinners was Josephine de Beauharnais, of whom Madame Dumoulin said she
+was the sunbeam of her drawing-room, for she warmed and vitalized all
+hearts. But this sunbeam had not the power to bring forth out of the
+unfruitful soil of the fatherland a few ears of wheat to turn its flour
+into white bread. As every one was allowed to buy bread only according
+to the numbers in the household, Madame Dumoulin could not give to her
+guests at dinner any white bread, and on her cards of invitation was the
+then usual form, “You are invited to bring a loaf of white bread.”
+
+But it was beyond the means of the poor Viscountess de Beauharnais to
+fulfil this invitation; her purse was not sufficient to afford her twice
+a week the luxury of white bread. Madame Dumoulin, who knew this, came
+kindly to the rescue of Josephine’s distress, and entreated her not to
+trouble herself with bringing bread, but to allow her to procure it for
+her friend.
+
+Josephine accepted this offer with tears of emotion, and she never
+forgot the goodness and kindness of Madame Dumoulin. In the days of her
+highest glory she remembered her, and once, when empress, radiant with
+jewels and ornaments of gold, as she stood in the midst of her court,
+related with a bewitching smile, to the ladies around her, that there
+was a time when she would have given a year of her life to possess but
+one of those jewels, not to adorn herself therewith, but to sell it, so
+as to buy bread for her children, and that in those days the excellent
+Madame Dumoulin had been a benefactress to her, and that she had
+received at her hands the bread of charity. [Footnote: “Memoires sur
+l’Imperatrice Josephine,” par Mad. Ducrest, chap XXXVI.]
+
+The same abiding friendship was shown to Josephine by M. Emery, a banker
+who had a considerable business in Dunkirk, and who for many years had
+been in mercantile relations with the family of Tascher de la Pagerie in
+Martinique. Madame de la Pagerie had every year sent him the produce of
+her sugar plantations, and he had attended to the sale to the largest
+houses in Germany. He knew better than any one else the pecuniary
+circumstances of the Pagerie family; he knew that, if at present Madame
+de la Pagerie could not repay his advanced sums, her plantations would
+soon produce a rich harvest, and even now be a sufficient security. M.
+Emery was therefore willing to assist the daughter of Madame Tascher de
+la Pagerie, and several times he advanced to Josephine considerable sums
+which she had drawn upon her mother.
+
+The cares of every-day life, its physical necessities, lifted Josephine
+out of the sad melancholy in which she had lulled her sick, wounded
+heart, within the solitude of Fontainebleau. She must not settle down in
+this inactive twilight, nor wrap herself up in the gloomy gray veil of
+widowhood! Life had still claims upon her; it called to her through
+her children’s voices, for whom she had a future to provide, as well
+as through the voice of her own youth, which she must not intrust
+hopelessly to the gloomy Fontainebleau.
+
+And the young mother dared not and wanted not to close her ears to these
+calls; she arose from her supineness, and courageously resolved to
+begin anew life’s battle, and to claim her share from the enjoyments and
+pleasures of this world.
+
+She first, by the advice of M. Emery, undertook a journey to Hamburg,
+to make some arrangements with the rich and highly respectable
+banking-house of Mathiesen and Sissen. Mathiesen, the banker, who had
+married a niece of Madame de Genlis, had always shown the greatest
+hospitality to all Frenchmen who had applied to him, and he had assisted
+them with advice and deeds. To him Josephine appealed, at the request
+of M. Emery, so as to procure a safe opportunity to send letters to her
+mother in Martinique, and also to obtain from him funds on bills drawn
+upon her mother.
+
+M. Mathiesen met her wishes with a generous pleasure, and through him
+Josephine received sufficient sums of money to protect her from further
+embarrassments and anxieties, at least until her mother, who was on the
+eve of selling a portion of her plantation, could send her some money.
+
+On her return from her business-journey to Hamburg, as she was no longer
+a poor widow without means, she adopted the courageous resolution of
+leaving her asylum and returning to dangerous and deserted Paris, there
+to prepare for her son an honorable future, and endeavor to procure for
+her daughter an education suited to her rank and capacities.
+
+At the end of the year 1795, Josephine returned with her two children
+to Paris, which one year before she had left so sorrowfully and so
+dispirited.
+
+What changes had been wrought during this one year! How the face
+of things had been altered! The revolution had bled to death. The
+thirteenth Vendemiaire had scattered to the winds the seditious elements
+of revolution, and the republic was beginning quietly and peacefully to
+grow into stature. The Convention, with its Mountain, its terrorists,
+its Committee of Safety, its persecutions and executions, had outlived
+its power, which it had consigned to the pages of history with so many
+tears and so much blood. In a strange contradiction with its own bloody
+deeds, it celebrated the last day of its existence by a law which, as a
+farewell to the thousand corpses it had sacrificed to the revolution,
+it had printed on its gory brow. On the day of its dissolution the
+Convention gave to France this last law: “Capital punishment is forever
+abolished.” [Footnote: Norvins, “Histoire de Napoleon,” vol. i., p. 82.]
+
+With this farewell kiss, this love-salutation to the France of the
+future, to the new self-informing France, the Convention dissolved
+itself, and in its stead came the Council of Elders, the Council of Five
+Hundred, and lastly the Directory, composed of five members, among whom
+had been elected the more eminent members of the Convention, namely,
+Barras and Carnot.
+
+Josephine’s first movement in Paris was to find the lovely friend whom
+she made in the Carmelite prison, and to whom she in some measure owed
+her life, to visit Therese de Fontenay and see if the heart of the
+beautiful, celebrated woman had in its days of happiness and power
+retained its remembrances of those of wretchedness and mortal fears.
+
+Therese de Fontenay was now the wife of Tallien, who, elected to the
+Council of the Five Hundred, continued to play an influential
+and important part, and therefore had his court of flatterers and
+time-serving friends as well as any ruling prince. His house was one
+of the most splendid in Paris; the feasts and banquets which took place
+there reminded one, by their extravagant magnificence, of the days of
+ancient Rome, and that this remembrance might still be more striking,
+ladies in the rich, costly costumes of patrician matrons of ancient
+Rome appeared at those festivities not unworthy of a Lucullus. Madame
+Tallien--in the ample robe of wrought gold of a Roman empress, shod with
+light sandals, from which issued the beautiful naked feet, and the toes
+adorned with costly rings, her exquisitely moulded arms ornamented with
+massive gold bracelets; her short curly hair fastened together by a
+gold bandelet, which rose over the forehead in the shape of a diadem,
+bejewelled with precious diamonds; the mantle of purple, fringed
+with gold and placed on the shoulders--was in this costume of such a
+wonderful beauty, that men gazed at her with astonishment and women with
+envy.
+
+And this beautiful woman, often worshipped and adored, though sometimes
+slandered, had amid her triumphs kept a faithful remembrance of the
+past. She received Josephine with the affection of a true friend. In
+her generosity she allowed her no time to proffer any request, but came
+forward herself with offers to intercede for her friend, and to use all
+the means at her disposal, omitting nothing that would help Josephine to
+recover her fortune, her lost property. With all the eagerness of true
+love she took the arm of her friend and led her to Tallien, and with the
+enchanting smile and attitude of a commanding princess she told him that
+he must help Josephine to become happy again, that every thing he could
+do for her would be rewarded by an increasing love; that if he did not
+do justice to Josephine, she would punish him by her anger and coldness.
+
+Tallien listened with complacency to the praiseworthy commands of
+his worshipped Therese, and promised to use all his influence to have
+justice done to the will of the sacrificed General de Beauharnais. He
+himself accompanied Josephine to Barras, that she might present her
+application to him personally and request at his hands restitution of
+her property. She was received by Barras, as well as by the other four
+directors, with the greatest politeness; each promised to attend to
+her case and to return to the widow and to the children of Alexandre de
+Beauharnais the property which had been so unjustly taken from them.
+
+It is true, weeks and months of waiting and uncertainty passed away,
+but Josephine had hope for a comforter; she had, besides, her beautiful
+friend Therese Tallien, who with affectionate eloquence endeavored to
+instil courage into Josephine, and by her constant petitions and
+prayers did not allow the Directory, amid its many important affairs
+of government, to forget the case of the poor young widow. Therese took
+care also that Josephine should appear in society at the receptions and
+balls given by the members of the new government; and when made timid
+through misfortune, and depressed at heart by the uncertainty of her
+narrow lot, she desired to keep aloof from these rejoicings, Therese
+knew how to convince her that she must sacrifice her love of retirement
+to her children; that it was her duty to accept the invitations of the
+Directory, so as to keep alive their interest and favor in her behalf;
+and that, were she to retreat into solitude and obscurity, she would
+thereby imperil her future and that of her children.
+
+Josephine submitted to this law of necessity, and appeared in society.
+She screened her cares and her heartsores under the covert of smiles,
+she forced herself into cheerfulness, and when now and then the smile
+vanished from her lip and tears filled her eyes, she thought of her
+children, and, mastering her sorrows, she was again the beautiful,
+lovely woman, whose elegant manners and lively and witty conversation
+charmed and astonished every one.
+
+At last, after long months of uncertainty, Therese Tallien, her face
+beaming with joy, came one morning to visit her friend Josephine, and
+presented to her a paper with a large seal, which Tallien had given her
+that very morning.
+
+It was an order, signed by the five directors, instructing the
+administrator of the domains to relieve the capital and the property of
+General Beauharnais from the sequestration laid upon them, and also to
+remove the seals from his furniture and his movables, and to reinstate
+the Widow Beauharnais in possession of all the property left by her
+husband.
+
+Josephine received this paper with tears of joy, and, full of religious,
+devout gratitude, she fell on her knees and cried:
+
+“I thank Thee, my God! I thank Thee! My children will no more suffer
+from want, and now I can give them a suitable education.”
+
+She then fell upon her friend’s neck, thanking her for her faithfulness,
+and swore her everlasting friendship and affection.
+
+The dark clouds which had so long overshadowed Josephine’s life were now
+gone, and in its place dawned day, bright and clear.
+
+But the sun which was to illumine this day with wondrous glory had
+not yet appeared. Therese at this hour reminded her friend of a day in
+prison when Josephine had assured her friends trembling for her life
+that she was not going to die, that she would one day be Queen of
+France.
+
+“Yes,” said Josephine, smiling and thoughtful, “who knows if this
+prophecy will not be fulfilled? To-day begins for me a new life. I have
+done with the past, and it will sink behind me in the abyss of oblivion.
+I trust in the future! It must repay me for all the tears and anxieties
+of my past life, and who knows if it will not erect me a throne?”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI. THE NEW PARIS.
+
+
+Yes, they were now ended, the days of sufferings and privations! The
+wife of General Beauharnais was no more the poor widow who appeared as
+a petitioner in the drawing-rooms of the members of the Directory, and
+often obliged, even in the worst kind of weather, to go on foot to the
+festivals of Madame Tallien, because she lacked the means to pay for
+a cab; she was no longer the poor mother who had to be satisfied to
+procure inferior teachers for her children, because she could not
+possibly pay superior ones.
+
+Now, as by a spell, all was changed, and gold was the magic wand which
+had produced it. Thanks to this talisman, the Viscountess de Beauharnais
+could now quit the small, remote, gloomy dwelling in which she had
+hitherto resided, and could again procure a house, gather society round
+about her, and, above all things, provide for the education of her
+children.
+
+This was her dearest duty, her most important obligation, with which
+she busied herself even before she rented a modestly-furnished room.
+Her Eugene, the darling of her heart, desired like his father to devote
+himself to a military life, and his mother took him to a boarding-school
+in St. Germain, where young men of distinguished families received their
+education. Her twelve-year-old daughter Hortense, of whom Josephine had
+said, “She is my angel with the gold locks, who alone can smile away
+the tears from my eyes and sorrow from my heart”--Hortense entered
+the newly-opened educational establishment of Madame Campan, once the
+lady-in-waiting of Marie Antoinette. Josephine wept hot tears as she
+accompanied her Hortense into the boarding-school, and, embracing her
+blond curly-haired angel, she closely pressed her to her heart, and
+said:
+
+“Judge how much I love you, my daughter, since I have the courage to
+leave you and to deprive myself of the greatest of my life’s enjoyments!
+Ah, I shall be very lonesome, Hortense, but my thoughts will be with you
+continually--with you and your brother Eugene. Live to be an honor to
+your father, grow and prosper to be your mother’s happiness!”
+
+Then with a kiss she took leave of her daughter, and comfortless and
+alone she returned to her solitary apartments in Paris.
+
+During the next eight days her doors were shut; she opened them to none,
+not even to her friend Therese, and not once did Josephine leave her
+dwelling during this time, nor did she accept any of the invitations
+which came to her from all sides.
+
+Her heart was yet wrapped in mourning for her separation from her
+children, and, with all the intensity of an affectionate mother’s love,
+she preferred leaving her anguish to die out of itself than to suppress
+it with amusements and pleasures.
+
+But after this last sorrow had been overcome, Josephine, with serenity
+and a smile of cheerfulness, came again from her solitude into the
+world which called her forth with all its voices of joy, pleasure,
+and flattery. And Josephine no longer closed her ears to these sweet
+attractive voices. She had long enough suffered, wept, fasted; now
+she ought to reap enjoyments, and gather her portion of this life’s
+pleasures; now she must live! The past had set behind her, and, as one
+new-born or risen from the dead, Josephine walked into the world with a
+young maiden heart, and a mind opened to all that is beautiful, great,
+and good; her soul filled with visions, hopes, desires, and dreams.
+Out of the widow’s veil came forth the young, charming Creole, and her
+radiant eyes saluted the world with intelligent looks and an expression
+of the most attractive goodness.
+
+Her next care was to procure a pleasant, convenient home suited to her
+rank. She purchased from the actor Talma a house which he possessed
+in the Street Chautereine, and where he had, during the storms of the
+revolution, received his friends as well as all the literary, artistic,
+and political notables of the day with the kindest hospitality. It
+was not a brilliant, distinguished hotel, no splendid building, but a
+small, tastefully and conveniently arranged house, with pretty rooms, a
+cheerful drawing-room, lovely garden, exactly suited to have therein a
+quiet, agreeable, informal pastime. Josephine possessed in the highest
+degree the art of her sex to furnish rooms with elegance and taste,
+so as to make every one in them comfortable, satisfied, at ease, and
+cheerful.
+
+The drawing-room of the widow of General Beauharnais became soon the
+central point where all her friends of former days found themselves
+together again, and all the remnants of the good old society found
+reception; where the learned, the artist, the poet, met with a refuge,
+there to rest for a few hours from political strife, to put aside the
+serpent’s skin of assumed republican manners, and again assume the
+tone and forms of the higher society. Such drawing-rooms in these
+revolutionary days were extremely few; no one dared to become
+conspicuous; every one was reserved and quiet; every one shrank from
+making himself suspected of being a ci-devant, even if under the
+republican toga he left visible his dress-coat of the upper society with
+its embroidery of gold. Men had entirely broken with the past, wishing
+to deny it, and not be under the yoke of its forms and rules; it was
+therefore necessary, out of the chaos of the republic, to create a
+new world, a new society, new forms of etiquette, and new fashions.
+Meanwhile, until these new fashions for republican France should be
+found, men had recourse (so as not to go back to the days of the late
+monarchy of France) to the republics of olden times; the ladies dressed
+according to the patterns of the old statues of the deities of Greece
+and Rome, giving receptions in the style of ancient Greece, and banquets
+laid out in all the extravagant splendors of a Lucullus.
+
+The members of the republican Directory, whose residence was in the
+palace of the Luxemburg, took the lead in all these neo-Grecian and
+neo-Roman festivities; and, whereas they loudly proclaimed that it was
+necessary to furnish opportunities to the working-classes and laborers
+to gain money, and that it was incumbent on all to promote industry,
+they rivalled each other in their efforts to exhibit an extravagant
+pomp and a brilliant display. On reception-days of the members of the
+Directory the public streamed in masses toward the Luxemburg, there to
+admire the splendors of the five monarchs, and to rejoice that the days
+of the carmagnoles, the sans-culottes, the dirty blouse, and the bonnet
+rouge were at least gone by. The five directors, to the delight of the
+Parisian people, wore costly silk and velvet garments embroidered
+with gold, and on their hats, trimmed also with gold lace, waved large
+ostrich-plumes.
+
+Luxury celebrated its return to Paris, after having had to secrete
+itself, so long from the blood-stained hands of the sans-culottes,
+in the most obscure corners of the deserted palaces of St. Germain.
+Pleasure, which had fled away horrified from the guillotine and from the
+terrorists, dared once more to show its rose-wreathed brow and smiling
+countenance, and here and there make its cheerful festivities resound.
+
+Men became glad, and dared to laugh again; they came out from the
+stillness of their homes, which anxiety had kept closed, to search for
+amusement, pleasure, and recreation; but no citizen dared to be select,
+none dared to assume aristocratic exclusiveness. One had to be pleased
+with a dinner at a tavern; with a glass of ice-water in a cafe, or to
+take part in a public ball which was opened to every one who could pay
+his fee of admission; and especially in the evening the public rushed to
+the theatre with the same eagerness that was exhibited in the morning
+to reach the shops of the bakers and butchers, where each received
+his portion of meat or bread by producing a card signed by the circuit
+commissioners. In front of these shops, as well as in front of the
+theatres, the pressure was so great that for hours it was necessary to
+fall into line, and sometimes go away dissatisfied; for the republic
+had yet retained the system of equality, so that the rich and the
+influential were not served any sooner than the poor and the unknown;
+there was only one exception: only one condition received distinction
+before the baker’s shop and the theatre: it was that of the mothers of
+the future, those women whose external appearance revealed that they
+would soon bring forth a future citizen, a new soldier for the republic,
+which had lost so many of its sons upon the scaffold and on the
+battle-field.
+
+It was so long that one had been deprived of laughter and merriment, and
+had walked with sad countenance and grave solemnity through the days
+of blood and terror, that now every occasion for hilarity was received
+eagerly and thankfully, and every opportunity for mirth and amusement
+sought out. The theatres were therefore filled every evening with an
+attentive, thankful audience; every jest of the actor, every part well
+performed, elicited enthusiastic approbation. It is true no one yet
+dared act any other pieces than those which had reference to the
+revolution, and in some shape or other celebrated the republic, accusing
+and vilifying the royalists. The pieces represented were--“The Perfect
+Equality,” or else “Thee and Thou,” “The Last Trial of the Queen,”
+ “Tarquin, or the Fall of the Monarchy,” “Marat’s Apotheosis,” and
+similar dramas, all infused with republicanism; still, men faint at
+heart and satiated with the republic, hastened notwithstanding to the
+theatre, to enjoy an hour of recreation and merriment.
+
+To be cheerful, happy, and joyous, seemed now to the Parisians the
+highest duty of life, and every thing was made subservient to it.
+The people had wept and mourned so long, that now, to shake off this
+oppressive heaviness of mind, they rushed with fanatical precipitancy
+into pleasure; they gave themselves up to the wildest orgies and
+bacchanals, and without disgust or shame abandoned themselves to the
+most immoral conduct. All tears were dried up as if by magic; honest
+poverty began to be ashamed of itself; and the wealth so carefully hid
+until now, was again brought to light; even those who in the days
+of revolutionary terror had become rich through the property of the
+sacrificed victims, exposed themselves to public gaze with impunity
+and without shame. They plundered and adorned themselves with a wealth
+acquired only through cunning, treachery, and murder. Everywhere feasts,
+banquets, and balls, were organized; and it was an ordinary event to
+find in the same company the accuser and the accused, the executioner
+and his victim, the murderer near the daughter of the man whose head he
+had given over to the guillotine!
+
+This was especially the case at the so-called victim balls (bals a la
+victime) which were given by the heirs, the sons and fathers of
+those who had perished by the guillotine. People gathered together
+in brilliant entertainments and balls to the honor and memory of the
+executed ones. Every one who could pay the large fee of admission to
+these bals a la victime were permitted to enter. Those who came there,
+not for pleasure, but to honor their dead, showed this intention by
+their clothing, and especially by the arrangement of their hair. To
+remind them that those who had been led to the guillotine had had their
+hair cut close, gentlemen now had theirs cut short, and the dressing
+of the hair a la victime was for gentlemen as much a fashion as the
+dressing of the hair a la Titus (the Roman emperor) was for the ladies.
+Besides this, the heirs of the victims wore some token of the departed
+ones, and ladies and gentlemen were seen in the blood-stained garments
+which their relatives had worn on their way to the scaffold, and which
+they had purchased with large sums of money from the executioner, that
+lord of Paris. It often happened that a lady in the blood-stained dress
+of her mother danced with the son of the man who had delivered her
+mother to the guillotine; that a son of a member of the Convention of
+1793 led, in the minuet, the graceful “pas de chale,” with the daughter
+of an emigrant marquis. The most fanatical men of the days of terror,
+now exalted into wealthy land-owners, led on in the gay waltz the
+daughters of their former landlords; and these women pressed the hand
+soiled with the blood of their relatives because now, as amends for
+their traffic in blood, they could offer future wealth and distinction.
+
+It seemed that all Paris and all France had gone mad--that the whole
+nation was drunk with blood as with intoxicating wine, and wanted
+to stifle the voice of conscience in the horrible revelry of the
+saturnalia.
+
+Josephine never took part in these public balls and festivities;
+never did the widow of General Beauharnais, one of the victims of the
+revolution, attend these bals a la victime, where man prided himself on
+his misfortune and gloried in his sorrows. The Moniteur--which then gave
+daily notices of the balls and amusements that were to take place in
+Paris, so as to let the world know how cheerful and happy every one
+felt there, and which made it its business to publish the names of the
+ci-devants and ex-nobles who had partaken in these festivities--never
+in its long and correct list mentions the name of the widow of General
+Beauharnais.
+
+Josephine kept aloof from all these wild dissipations--these balls and
+banquets. She would neither dance, nor adorn herself in the memory of
+her husband; she would not take a part in the splendid festivities of
+a republic which had murdered him, and had pierced her loyal heart with
+the deepest wounds.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII. THE FIRST INTERVIEW.
+
+
+In the midst of these joys and amusements of the new-growing Paris,
+the storm of the thirteenth Vendemiaire launched forth its destructive
+thunderbolts, and another rent was made in the lofty structure of the
+republic. The royalists, who had cunningly frequented these bals a
+la victime, to weave intrigues and conspiracies, found their webs
+scattered, and the republic assumed a new form.
+
+Napoleon with his sword had cut to pieces the webs and snares of the
+royalists as well as of the revolutionists, and France had to bow to the
+constitution. In the Tuileries now sat the Council of the Elders; in
+the Salle du Manege sat the Five Hundred; and in the palace of Luxemburg
+resided the five directors of the republic.
+
+On the thirteenth Vendemiaire Paris had passed through a crisis of its
+revolutionary disease; and, to prevent its falling immediately into
+another, it permitted the newly-appointed commander-in-chief of the army
+of the interior of France, General Napoleon Bonaparte, to have every
+house strictly searched, and to confiscate all weapons found.
+
+Even into the house of the Viscountess de Beauharnais, in the rue
+Chantereine, came the soldiers of the republic to search for secreted
+weapons. They found there the sword of Alexandre de Beauharnais, which
+certainly Josephine had not hidden, for it was the chief ornament of her
+son’s room. When Eugene, on the next Saturday, came to Paris from St.
+Germain, as he did every week, to pass the Sunday in his mother’s house,
+to his great distress he saw vacant on the wall the place where the
+sword of his father had been hanging. With trembling voice and tears
+in her eyes his mother told him that General Bonaparte, the new
+commander-in-chief, had ordered the sword to be carried away by his
+soldiers.
+
+A cry of anger and of malediction was Eugene’s answer; then with
+flaming eyes and cheeks burning with rage he rushed out, despite the
+supplications of his affrighted and anxious mother. Without pausing,
+without thinking--conscious only of this, that he must have again his
+father’s sword, he rushed on. It was impossible, thought he, that the
+republic which had deprived his father of the honors due to him, his
+property, his money--that now, after his death, she should also take
+away his sword.
+
+He must have this sword again! This was Eugene’s firm determination,
+and this made him bold and resolute. He rushed into the palace where the
+general-in-chief, Bonaparte, resided, and with daring vehemence demanded
+an interview with the general; and, as the door-keeper hesitated, and
+even tried to push away the bold boy from the door of the drawing-room,
+Eugene turned about with so much energy, spoke, scolded, and raged so
+loudly and so freely, that the noise reached even the cabinet where
+General Bonaparte was. He opened the door, and in his short, imperious
+manner asked the cause of this uproar; and when the servant had told
+him, with a sign of the hand he beckoned the young man to come in.
+
+Eugene de Beauharnais entered the drawing-room with a triumphant
+smile, and the eye of General Bonaparte was fixed with pleasure on the
+beautiful, intelligent countenance, on the tall, powerful figure of the
+fifteen-year-old boy. In that strange, soft accent which won hearts to
+Napoleon, he asked Eugene his business. The young man’s cheeks became
+pallid, and with tremulous lips and angry looks, the vehement eloquence
+of youth and suffering, Eugene spoke of the loss he had sustained, and
+of the pain which had been added to it by despoiling him of the sword of
+his father, murdered by the republic.
+
+At these last words of Eugene, Bonaparte’s brow was overshadowed, and an
+appalling look met the face of the brave boy.
+
+“You dare say that the republic has murdered your father?” asked he, in
+a loud, angry voice.
+
+“I say it, and I say the truth!” exclaimed Eugene, who did not turn away
+his eyes from the flaming looks of the general. “Yes, the republic has
+murdered my father, for it has executed him as a criminal, as a traitor
+to his country, and he was innocent; he ever was a faithful servant of
+his country and of the republic.”
+
+“Who told you that it was so?” asked Bonaparte, abruptly.
+
+“My heart and the republic itself tell me that my father was no
+traitor,” exclaimed Eugene, warmly. “My mother loved him much, and she
+regrets him still. She would not do so had he been a traitor, and then
+the republic would not have done what it has done--it would not have
+returned to my mother the confiscated property of my father, but would,
+had he been considered guilty, have gladly kept it back.”
+
+The grave countenance of Bonaparte was overspread by a genial smile, and
+his eyes rested with the expression of innermost sympathy on the son of
+Josephine.
+
+“You think, then, that the republic gladly keeps what it has?” asked he.
+
+“I see that it gladly takes what belongs not to it,” exclaimed Eugene,
+eagerly. “It has taken away my father’s sword, which belonged to me, his
+son, and my mother has made me swear on that sword to hold my father’s
+memory sacred, and to strive to be like him.”
+
+“Your mother is, it seems, a very virtuous old lady,” said Bonaparte, in
+a friendly tone.
+
+“My mother is a virtuous, young, and beautiful lady,” said Eugene,
+sturdily; “and I am certain, general, that if you knew her, you would
+not in your heart have caused her so much pain.”
+
+“She has, then, suffered much on account of this sword being taken
+away?” asked Bonaparte, interested.
+
+“Yes, general, she has wept bitterly over this our loss, as I have.
+I cannot bear to see my mother weep; it breaks my heart. I therefore
+implore you to give me back my father’s sword; and I swear to you that
+when I am a man, I will carry that sword only for the defence of my
+country, as my father had done.”
+
+General Bonaparte nodded kindly to the boy. “You are a brave defender of
+your cause,” said he, “and I cannot refuse you--I must do as you wish.”
+
+He gave orders to an ordnance officer present in the room to bring
+General de Beauharnais’s sword; and when the officer had gone to fetch
+it, Bonaparte, in a friendly and sympathizing manner, conversed with the
+boy. At last the ordnance officer returned, and handed the sword to the
+general.
+
+With solemn gravity Bonaparte gave it to Eugene. “Take it, young man,”
+ said he, “but never forget that you have sworn to carry it only for the
+honor and defence of your country.”
+
+Eugene could not answer: tears started from his eyes, and with deep
+affection he pressed to his lips the recovered sword of his father.
+
+This manifestation of true childish emotion moved Bonaparte to tender
+sympathy, and an expression of affectionate interest passed over his
+features as he offered his hand to Eugene.
+
+“By Heaven, you are a good son,” exclaimed he from his heart, “and you
+will be one day a good son to your country! Go, my boy, take to your
+mother your father’s sword. Tell her that I salute her, though unknown
+to her--that I congratulate her in being the mother of so good and brave
+a son.”
+
+Such was the beginning of an acquaintance to which Josephine was
+indebted for an imperial crown, and, for what is still greater, an
+undying fame and an undying love.
+
+Beaming with joy, Eugene returned to Josephine with his father’s sword,
+and with all the glowing sentiments of thankfulness he related to her
+how kindly and obligingly General Bonaparte had received him, what
+friendly and affectionate words he had spoken to him, and how much
+forbearance and patience he had manifested to his impassioned request.
+
+Josephine’s maternal heart was sensitive and grateful for every
+expression of sympathy toward her son, and the goodness and forbearance
+of the general affected her the more, that she knew how bold and wild
+the boy, smarting under pain, must have been. She therefore hastened
+to perform a duty of politeness by calling the next day on General
+Bonaparte, to thank him for the kindness he had shown Eugene.
+
+For the first time General Bonaparte stood in the presence of the woman
+who one day was to share his fame and greatness, and this first moment
+was decisive as to his and her future. Josephine’s grace and elegance,
+her sweetness of disposition, her genial cheerfulness, the expression of
+lofty womanhood which permeated her whole being, and which protected
+her securely from any rough intrusion or familiarity; her fine, truly
+aristocratic bearing, which revealed at once a lady of the court and of
+the great world; her whole graceful and beautiful appearance captivated
+the heart of Napoleon at the first interview, and the very next day
+after receiving her short call he hastened to return it.
+
+Josephine was not alone when General Bonaparte was announced; and when
+the servant named him she could not suppress an inward fear, without
+knowing why she was afraid. Her friends, who noticed her tremor and
+blush, laughed jestingly at the timidity which made her tremble at the
+name of the conqueror of Paris, and this was, perhaps, the reason why
+Josephine received General Bonaparte with less complacency than she
+generally showed to her visitors.
+
+Amid the general silence of all those present the young general
+(twenty-six years old) entered the drawing-room of the Viscountess de
+Beauharnais; and this silence, however flattering it might be to his
+pride, caused him a slight embarrassment. He therefore approached the
+beautiful widow with a certain abrupt and perplexed manner, and spoke
+to her in that hasty, imperious tone which might become a general, but
+which did not seem appropriate in a lady’s saloon. General Pichegru,
+who stood near Josephine, smiled, and even her amiable countenance was
+overspread with a slight expression of scorn, as she fixed her beautiful
+eyes on this pale, thin little man, whose long, smooth hair fell in
+tangled disorder on either side of his temples over his sallow,
+hollow cheeks; whose whole sickly and gloomy appearance bore so little
+resemblance to the majestic figure of the lion to which he had been so
+often compared after his success of the thirteenth Vendemiaire.
+
+“I perceive, general,” suddenly exclaimed Josephine, “that you are sorry
+it was your duty to fill Paris once more with blood and horror. You
+would undoubtedly have preferred not to be obliged to carry out the
+bloody orders of the affrighted Convention?”
+
+Bonaparte shrugged his shoulders somewhat. “That is very possible,” said
+he, perfectly quiet. “But what can you expect, madame? We military men
+are but the automatons which the government sets in motion according
+to its good pleasure; we know only how to obey; the sections, however,
+cannot but congratulate themselves that I have spared them so much.
+Nearly all my cannon were loaded only with powder. I wanted to give a
+little lesson to the Parisians. The whole affair was nothing but the
+impress of my seal on France. Such skirmishes are only the vespers of my
+fame.” [Footnote: Napoleon’s words.--See Le Normand, vol. i., p. 214.]
+
+Josephine felt irritated, excited by the coldness with which Napoleon
+spoke of the slaughter of that day; and her eyes, otherwise so full of
+gentleness, were now animated with flashes of anger.
+
+“Oh,” cried she, “if you must purchase fame at such a price, I would
+sooner you were one of the victims!”
+
+Bonaparte looked at her with astonishment, but as he perceived her
+flushed cheeks and flashing eyes, the sight of her grace and beauty
+ravished him, and a soft, pleasant smile suddenly illumined his
+countenance. He answered her violent attack by a light pleasantry, and
+with gladsome unaffectedness he gave to the conversation another turn.
+The small, pale, gloomy general was at once changed into a young,
+impassioned, amiable cavalier, whose countenance grew beautiful under
+the sparkling intelligence which animated it, and whose enchanting
+eloquence made his conversation attractive and lively, carrying with it
+the conviction of a superior mind.
+
+After the visitors who had met that morning in Josephine’s drawing-room
+had departed the general still remained, notwithstanding the astonished
+and questioning looks of the viscountess, paying no attention to her
+remarks about the fine weather, or her intention to enjoy a promenade.
+With rapid steps, and hands folded behind his back, he paced a few times
+to and fro the room, then standing before Josephine he fixed on her face
+a searching look.
+
+“Madame,” said he, suddenly, with a kind of rough tone, “I have a
+proposition to make: give me your hand. Be my wife!”
+
+Josephine looked at him, half-astonished, half-irritated. “Is it a joke
+you are indulging in?” said she.
+
+“I speak in all earnestness,” said Bonaparte, warmly. “Will you do me
+the honor of giving me your hand?”
+
+The gravity with which Bonaparte spoke, the deep earnestness imprinted
+on his features, convinced Josephine that the general would not
+condescend to indulge in a joke of so unseemly a character, and a lovely
+blush overspread the face of the viscountess.
+
+“Sir,” said she, “who knows if I might not be inclined to accept your
+distinguished offer, if, unfortunately, fate stood not in the way of
+your wishes?”
+
+“Fate?” asked Bonaparte, with animation.
+
+“Yes, fate! my general,” repeated Josephine, smiling. “But let us speak
+no more of this. It is enough that fate forbids me to be the wife of
+General Bonaparte. I can say no more, for you would laugh at me.”
+
+“But you would laugh at me if you could turn me away with so vague
+an answer,” cried Bonaparte, with vivacity. “I pray you, explain the
+meaning of your words.”
+
+“Well, then, general, I cannot be your wife, for I am destined to be
+Queen of France--yes, perhaps more than queen!”
+
+It was now Bonaparte’s turn to appear astonished and irritated, and
+using her own words he said, shrugging his shoulders, “Madame, is it a
+joke you are indulging in?”
+
+“I speak in all earnestness,” said Josephine, shaking her head. “Listen,
+then: a negro-woman in Martinique foretold my fortune, and as her
+oracular words have thus far been all fulfilled, I must conclude that
+the rest of her prophecies concerning me will be realized.”
+
+“And what has she prophesied to you?” asked Bonaparte, eagerly.
+
+“She has told me: ‘You will one day be Queen of France! you will be
+still more than queen!’”
+
+The general was silent. He had remained standing; but now slowly paced
+the room a few times, his hands folded on his back and his head inclined
+on his breast. Then again he stood before the viscountess, and his eyes
+rested upon her with a wondrous bright and genial expression.
+
+“I bid defiance to fate,” said he, somewhat solemnly. “This prophecy
+does not frighten me away, and in defiance of your prophetic
+negro-woman, I, the republican general, address my prayer to the future
+Queen of France: be my wife!--give me your hand.”
+
+Josephine felt almost affrighted at this pertinacity of the general, and
+a sentiment of apprehension overcame her as she looked into the pale,
+decided countenance of this man, a stranger to her, and who claimed her
+for his wife.
+
+“Oh, sir,” exclaimed she, with some anguish, “you offer me your hand
+with as much carelessness as if the whole matter were merely for a
+contra-dance. But I can assure you that marriage is a very grave matter,
+which has no resemblance whatever to a gay dance. I know it is so. I
+have had my sad experience, and I cannot so easily decide upon marrying
+a second time.”
+
+“You refuse my hand, then?” said Bonaparte, with a threatening tone.
+
+Josephine smiled. “On the contrary, general,” said she, “give me your
+hand and accompany me to my carriage, which has been waiting for me this
+long time.”
+
+“That means you dismiss me! You close upon me the door of your
+drawing-room?” exclaimed Bonaparte, with warmth.
+
+She shook her head, and, bowing before him with her own irresistible
+grace, she said in a friendly manner: “I am too good a patriot not to be
+proud of seeing the conqueror of Toulon in my drawing-room. To-morrow I
+have an evening reception, and I invite you to be present, general.”
+
+From this day Bonaparte visited Josephine daily; she was certain to meet
+him everywhere. At first she sought to avoid him, but he always knew
+with cunning foresight how to baffle her efforts, and to overcome
+all difficulties which she threw in his way. Was she at her friend
+Therese’s, she could safely reckon that General Bonaparte would soon
+make his appearance and come near her with eyes beaming with joy, and in
+his own energetic language speak to her of his love and hopes. Was she
+to be present at the receptions of the five monarchs of Paris, it was
+General Bonaparte who waited for her at the door of the hall to offer
+his arm, and lead her amid the respectful, retreating, and gently
+applauding crowd to her seat, where he stood by her, drawing upon her
+the attention of all. Did she take a drive, at the accustomed hour, in
+the Champs Elysees, she was confident soon to see General Bonaparte
+on his gray horse gallop at her side, followed by his brilliant staff,
+himself the object of public admiration and universal respect; and
+finally, if she went to the theatre, General Bonaparte never failed to
+appear in her loge, to remain near her during the performance; and when
+she left, to offer his arm to accompany her to her carriage.
+
+It could not fail that this persevering homage of the renowned and
+universally admired young general should make a deep and flattering
+impression on Josephine’s heart, and fill her with pride and joy. But
+Josephine made resistance to this feeling; she endeavored to shield
+herself from it by maternal love.
+
+She sent for her two children from their respective schools, and with
+her nearly grown-up son on one side and her daughter budding into
+maidenhood on the other, she thus presented herself to the general,
+and with an enchanting smile said: “See, general, how old I am, with a
+grown-up son and daughter who soon can make of me a grandmother.”
+
+But Bonaparte with heart-felt emotion reached his hand to Eugene and
+said, “A man who can call so worthy a youth as this his son, is to be
+envied.”
+
+A cunning, smiling expression of the eye revealed to Josephine that he
+had understood her war-stratagem--that neither the grown-up son nor the
+marriageable daughter could deter him from his object.
+
+Josephine at last was won by so much love and tenderness, but she could
+not yet acknowledge that the wounds of her heart were closed; that once
+more she could trust in happiness, and devote her life to a new love,
+to a new future. She shrank timidly away from such a shaping of her
+destiny; and even the persuasions of her friends and relatives, even of
+the father of her deceased husband, could not bring her to a decision.
+
+The state of her mind is depicted in a letter which Josephine wrote
+to her friend Madame de Chateau Renaud, and which describes in a great
+measure the strange uncertainty of her heart:
+
+“You have seen General Bonaparte at my house! Well, then, he is the one
+who wishes to be the father of the orphans of Alexandre de Beauharnais
+and the husband of his widow. ‘Do you love him?’ you will ask. Well,
+no!--‘Do you feel any repugnance toward him?’ No, but I feel in a state
+of vacillation and doubt, a state very disagreeable to me, and which
+the devout in religious matters consider to be the most scandalizing. As
+love is a kind of worship, one ought in its presence to feel animated
+by other feelings than those I now experience, and therefore I long for
+your advice, which might bring the constant indecision of my mind to
+a fixed conclusion. To adopt a firm course has always appeared to my
+Creole nonchalance something beyond reach, and I find it infinitely more
+convenient to be led by the will of another.
+
+“I admire the courage of the general; I am surprised at his ample
+knowledge, which enables him to speak fluently on every subject; at the
+vivacity of his genius, which enables him to guess at the thoughts of
+others before they are expressed; but I avow, I am frightened at the
+power he seems to exercise over every one who comes near him. His
+searching look has something strange, which I cannot explain, but which
+has a controlling influence even upon our directors; judge, therefore,
+of his influence over a woman. Finally, the very thing which might
+please--the violence of his passion--of which he speaks with so much
+energy, and which admits of no doubt, that passion is exactly what
+creates in me the unwillingness I have so often been ready to express.
+
+“The first bloom of youth lies behind me. Can I therefore hope that this
+passion, which in General Bonaparte resembles an attack of madness, will
+last long? If after our union he should cease to love me, would he not
+reproach me for what he had done? Would he not regret that he had not
+made another and more brilliant union? What could I then answer? What
+could I do? I could weep. ‘A splendid remedy!’ I hear you say. I know
+well that weeping is useless, but to weep has been the only resource
+which I could find when my poor heart, so easily wounded, has been hurt.
+Write to me a long letter, and do not fear to scold me if you think
+that I am wrong. You know well that everything which comes from you is
+agreeable to me.” [Footnote: “Memoires sur l’Imperatrice Josephine,” par
+Madame Ducrest p. 362.]
+
+While Josephine was writing this letter to her friend, General Bonaparte
+received one which produced upon him the deepest impression, though it
+consisted only of a few words. But these words expressed the innermost
+thought of his soul, and revealed to him perhaps for the first time its
+secret wishes.
+
+One evening as the general, returning home from a visit to the
+Viscountess Josephine, entered into his drawing-room, followed by some
+of his officers and adjutants, he observed on a large timepiece, which
+stood on the mantel-piece, a letter, the deep-red paper and black seal
+of which attracted his attention.
+
+“Whence this letter?” asked he, with animation, of the servant-man
+walking before him with a silver candlestick, as he pointed to the red
+envelope.
+
+But the waiter declared that he had not seen the letter, and that he
+knew not where it came from.
+
+“Ask the other servants, or the porter, who brought this red letter with
+the black seal,” ordered Bonaparte.
+
+The servant hurried from the room, but soon returned, with the news that
+no one knew any thing about the letter; no one had seen it, no one knew
+who had placed it there.
+
+“Well, then, let us see what it contains,” said Bonaparte, and he was
+going to break the seal, when Junot suddenly seized his hand and tore
+the letter away from him.
+
+“Do not read it, general,” implored Junot; “I beseech you do not open
+this letter. Who knows if some of your enemies have not sent you a
+letter a la Catharine de Medicis? Who knows if it is not poisoned--that
+the mere touch of it may not produce death?”
+
+Bonaparte smiled at this solicitude of his tender friend, yet he
+listened to his pressing alarms, and, instead of opening and reading the
+letter, he passed it to Junot.
+
+“Read it yourself, if you have the courage to do so,” said be,
+familiarly shaking his head.
+
+Junot rapidly broke the black seal and tore the red paper. Then, fixing
+his eyes on it, he threw it aside, and broke into loud, merry laughter.
+
+“Well,” asked Bonaparte, “what does the letter contain?”
+
+“A mystery, my general--nothing more than a mystery,” cried Junot,
+presenting the letter to Bonaparte.
+
+The letter contained but these words:
+
+“Macbeth, you will be king.
+
+“THE RED MAN.”
+
+Junot laughed over this mysterious note, but Bonaparte shared not in
+his merriment. With compressed lips and frowning brow he looked at
+these strange, prophetic words, as if in their characters he wanted to
+discover the features of him who had dared to look into the most hidden
+recesses of his soul; then he threw the paper into the chimney-fire,
+and slowly and thoughtfully paced the room, while in a low voice he
+murmured, “Macbeth, you will be king.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII. MARRIAGE.
+
+
+At last the conqueror of Toulon conquered also the heart of the young
+widow who had so anxiously struggled against him; at last Josephine
+overcame all her fears, all her terror, and, with joyous trust in the
+future, was betrothed to General Bonaparte. But even then, after having
+taken this decisive step, after love had cast away fear, even then she
+had not the courage to reveal to her children that she had contracted
+a new marriage-tie, that she was going to give to the orphans of the
+Viscount de Beauharnais a new father. Ashamed and timid as a young maid,
+she could not force herself into acknowledging to the children of
+her deceased husband that a new love had grown in her heart--that the
+mourning widow was to become again a happy woman.
+
+Josephine, therefore, commissioned Madame de Campan to communicate this
+news to her Eugene and Hortense; to tell them that she desired not only
+to have a husband, but also to give to her children a faithful, loving
+father, who had promised to their mother with sacred oaths to regard,
+love, and protect them as his own children.
+
+The children of General Beauharnais received this news with tears in
+their eyes; they complained loudly and sorrowfully that their mother was
+giving up the name of their father and changing it for another; that the
+memory of their father would be forever lost in their mother’s heart.
+But, through pure love for their mother, they soon dried up these tears;
+and when next day Josephine, accompanied by General Bonaparte, came to
+St. Germain, to visit Madame de Campan’s institution, she met there her
+daughter and son, who both embraced her with the most tender affection,
+and, smiling under their tears, offered their hands to General
+Bonaparte, who, with all the sincerity and honesty of a deep, heart-felt
+emotion, embraced them in his arms, and solemnly promised to treat them
+as a father and a friend.
+
+All Josephine’s friends did not gladly give their approbation to her
+marriage with this small, insignificant general, as yet so little known,
+whose success before Toulon was already forgotten, and whose victory of
+the thirteenth Vendemiaire had brought him but little fame and made him
+many enemies.
+
+Among the friends who in this union with Bonaparte saw very little
+happiness for Josephine was her lawyer, the advocate Ragideau, who for
+many years had been her family’s agent, whose distinguished talent for
+pleading and whose small figure had made him known through all Paris,
+and of whom it was said that as a man he was but a dwarf; but as a
+lawyer, he was a giant.
+
+One day, in virtue of an invitation from the Viscountess de Beauharnais,
+Ragideau came to the small hotel of the rue Chautereine, and sent his
+name to the viscountess. She received his visit, and at his entrance
+into her cabinet all those present retreated into the drawing-room
+contiguous thereto, as they well knew that Josephine had some business
+transactions with her lawyer.
+
+Only one small, pale man, in modest gray clothing, whom Ragideau did
+not condescend to notice, remained in the cabinet, who retired quietly
+within the recess of a window.
+
+Josephine received her business agent with a friendly smile, and spoke
+long and in detail with him concerning a few important transactions
+which had reference to her approaching marriage. Then suddenly passing
+from the coldness of a business conversation to the tone of a friendly
+one, she asked M. Ragideau what the world said of her second marriage.
+
+Ragideau shrugged his shoulders and assumed a thoughtful attitude. “Your
+friends, madame,” said he, “see with sorrow that you are going to marry
+a soldier, who is younger than yourself, who possesses nothing but his
+salary, and therefore cannot leave the service; or, if he is killed in
+battle, leaves you perhaps with children, and without an inheritance.”
+
+“Do you share the opinion of my friends, my dear M. Ragidean?” asked
+Josephine, smiling.
+
+“Yes,” said the lawyer, earnestly, “yes, I share them--yes. I am not
+satisfied that you should contract such a marriage. You are rich,
+madame; you possess a capital which secures you a yearly income of
+twenty-five thousand francs; with such an income you had claims to a
+brilliant marriage; and I feel conscientiously obliged, as your friend
+and business agent, in whom you have trusted, and who has for you the
+deepest interest, to earnestly remonstrate with you while there is
+yet time. Consider it well, viscountess; it is a reckless step you are
+taking, and I entreat you not to do it. I speak to your own advantage.
+General Bonaparte may be a very good man, possibly quite a distinguished
+soldier, but certain it is he has only his hat and his sword to offer
+you.”
+
+Josephine now broke into a joyous laugh, and her beaming eyes turned to
+the young man there who, with his back turned to the party, stood at the
+window beating the panes with his fingers, apparently heedless of their
+conversation.
+
+“General,” cried out Josephine, cheerfully, “have you heard what M.
+Ragideau says?”
+
+Bonaparte turned slowly round, and his large eyes fell with a flaming
+look upon the little advocate.
+
+“Yes,” said he, gravely, “I have heard all. M. Ragideau has spoken as an
+honest man, and every thing he has said fills me with esteem for him. I
+trust he will continue to be our agent, for I feel inclined to give him
+full confidence.”
+
+He bowed kindly to the little lawyer, who stood there bewildered and
+ashamed, and, offering his arm to Josephine, Bonaparte led her into the
+drawing-room. [Footnote: The little advocate Ragideau remained after
+this Josephine’s agent. When Bonaparte had become emperor, he appointed
+Ragideau notary of the civil list, and always manifested the greatest
+interest in his behalf, and never by a word or a look did he remind him
+of the strange circumstance which brought about their acquaintance.--See
+Meneval. “Napoleon et Marie Louise,” vol. i., p. 202.]
+
+The decisive word had been spoken: Josephine de Beauharnais was now the
+bride of General Bonaparte. His hitherto pale, gloomy countenance was
+all radiant with the bright light of love and happiness. The days of
+solitude and privations were forgotten; the young, beautiful Desiree
+Clary, whom Bonaparte so much loved a few months ago, and the amiable
+Madame Permont, were also forgotten (and yet to the latter, in her loge
+at the theatre, as a farce between acts, he had offered his hand); all
+the little love-intrigues of former days were forgotten; to Josephine
+alone belonged his heart, her alone he loved with all the impassioned
+glow and depth of a first exclusive love.
+
+But yet, now and then, clouds darkened his large pensive brow; even her
+smile could not always illumine the gloomy expression on his features;
+it would happen that, plunged in deep, sad cogitations, he heard not the
+question which she addressed him in her remarkably soft and clear voice
+which Bonaparte so much loved.
+
+His lofty pride felt humiliated and disgraced by the part he was now
+performing.
+
+He was the general of the army of the interior, but beyond the frontiers
+of France there stood another French army, whose soldiers had not the
+sad mission to maintain peace and quietness at home, to fight against
+brothers; but an army seeking for the foe, whose blood and victories
+were to secure them laurels.
+
+General Bonaparte longed to be with this army, and to obliterate the
+remembrance of the 13th Vendemiaire and its sad victory by brilliant
+exploits beyond the Alps. It was also to him a humiliating and
+depressing feeling to become the husband of a wealthy woman, and not
+bring her as a glorious gift or a wedding-present the fame and laurels
+of a husband.
+
+It has often been said that Josephine obtained for her husband, as
+a wedding-gift, his appointment of commanding general of the army in
+Italy; that she procured this appointment from Barras, with whom, before
+her acquaintance with Bonaparte, she had been in closer relationship
+than that of mere friendship. Even such historians as Schlosser have
+accepted this calumny as truth, without taking pains to investigate
+whether the facts justified this supposition. In the great historical
+events which have shaken nations, it is really of little importance if,
+under the light which illumines and brings out such events, a shadow
+should fall and darken an individual. Even the hatred and scorn with
+which a nation, trodden down in the dust, curses a tyrant, and endeavors
+to take vengeance on his fame, ask not if the stone flung at the hated
+one falls upon other heads than the one aimed at.
+
+Not Josephine, but Bonaparte, did they wish to injure when stating she
+had been the beloved of Barras. It was Bonaparte whom they wished to
+humble and mortify, when historians published that, not to his merits,
+but to the petitions of his wife, he was indebted for his commission as
+general of the army in Italy.
+
+But truth justifies not this calumny; and when with the light of truth
+the path of the widow of General Beauharnais is lighted, it will be
+found that this path led to solitude and quietness; that at none of the
+great and brilliant banquets which Barras then gave, and which in the
+Moniteur are described with so much pomp, not once is, the name of
+Viscountess de Beauharnais mentioned; that in the numerous pasquinades
+and lampoons which then appeared in Paris and in all France, and in
+which all private life was fathomed, not once is the name of Josephine
+brought out, neither is there any indirect allusion to her.
+
+Calumny has placed this stain on Josephine’s brow, but truth takes it
+away. And that truth is, that not Josephine, but Bonaparte, was the
+friend of Barras; that it was not Barras, but Carnot, who promoted
+Bonaparte to the rank of commanding general of the army in Italy.
+
+Carnot, the minister of war of the republic, the noble, incorruptible
+republican, whose character, pure, bright, and true as steel, turned
+aside all the darts of wickedness and calumny, which could not inflict
+even a wound, or leave a stain on the brilliancy of his spotless
+character, has given upon this point his testimony in a refutation. At
+a later period, when the hatred of parties, and the events of the 18th
+Fructidor, had forced him to flee from France, he defended himself
+against the accusation launched at him in the Council of the Five
+Hundred, which pointed him out as a traitor to the republic; and this
+defence gave a detailed account of the whole time of his administration,
+and especially what he achieved for the republic, claiming as one of his
+services the appointment of Bonaparte.
+
+“It is not true,” says he, “that Barras proposed Bonaparte for the chief
+command of the army in Italy. I myself did it. But time was allowed to
+intervene, so as to ascertain whether Bonaparte would succeed before
+Barras congratulated himself, and then only to his confidants, that it
+was he who had made this proposition to the Directory. Had Bonaparte
+not answered the expectations, then I should have been the one to
+blame: then it would have been I who had chosen a young, inexperienced,
+intriguing man; and I who had betrayed the nation, for the other members
+did not interfere in war-matters; upon me all responsibility would
+have fallen. But as Bonaparte is victorious, then it must be Barras
+who appointed him! To Barras alone are the people indebted for this
+nomination! He is Bonaparte’s protector, his defender against my
+attacks! I am jealous of Bonaparte; I cross him in all his plans; I
+lower his character; I persecute him; I refuse him all assistance; I, in
+all probability, am to plunge him into ruin!”--such were the calumnies
+which at that time filled the journals bribed by Barras. [Footnote:
+“Response de L. N. M. Carnot, citoyen francais, l’un des fondateurs
+de la republique, et membre constitutionnel du Directoire executif an
+rapport fait sur la conjuration du 18 Fructidor an conseil des Cinq
+Cents.”]
+
+To Carnot, the secretary of war of the republic, did Bonaparte go, to
+ask of him the command of the army in Italy. But Carnot answered him, as
+he had already before Aubry, the minister of war, “You are too young.”
+
+“Let us put appearances and age aside,” said Bonaparte, impatiently.
+“Alexander, Scipio, Conde, and many others, though still younger than
+I, marched armies to brilliant conquests, and decided the fate of whole
+kingdoms. I believe I have given a few proofs of what I can achieve, if
+I am set at the right place; and I burn with great longing to serve my
+country, to obtain victories over despots who hate France because they
+fear, calumniate, and envy her!”
+
+“I know you are a good patriot,” said Carnot, slowly turning his head;
+“I know and appreciate your services, and you may rest assured that
+the obstacles which I place in your path are not directed against you
+personally. But do you know the situation of our army? It is devoured
+by the quartermaster; betrayed and sold, I fear, by its general, and
+demoralized, notwithstanding its successes! That army needs every thing,
+even discipline, whilst the enemy’s army has all that we need. We want
+nearly a miracle to be victorious. Whoever is to lead to success our
+disordered, famished, disorganized army must, above all things, possess
+its full confidence. Besides which, without further events, I cannot
+dismiss the commanding general, Scherer, but I must wait until some
+new disgrace furnishes me the right to do so. You know all. Judge for
+yourself.”
+
+“I have already made all these objections within my own mind,” replied
+Bonaparte, quietly; “yet I do not despair that if you will give me your
+advice and assistance, I will overcome all these difficulties. Listen to
+me, and I will let you know my plan for the arrangement of the war, and
+I am convinced you will give it your sanction.”
+
+With glowing eloquence, complete clearness and assurance, and the
+convincing quietude of a persuaded, all-embracing, all-weighing mind,
+Bonaparte unfolded the daring and astounding plan of his campaign. As he
+spoke, his face brightened more and more, his eyes glowed with the
+fire of inspiration, his countenance beamed with that exalted, wondrous
+beauty which is granted to genius alone in the highest moments of its
+ecstasy; the small, insignificant, pale young man became the bold,
+daring hero, who was fully prepared gladly to tread a world under his
+feet.
+
+Carnot, who had looked on in astonishment, was finally carried away,
+inspired by the persuasive eloquence of the young general, who in a
+few words understood how to map out battle-fields, to measure whole
+engagements, and to give to every one the needful and appropriate place.
+
+“You are right,” cried Carnot, delighted, and offering his hand to
+Bonaparte. “This plan must be carried out, and then we shall conquer our
+enemies. I no longer doubt of the result, and from this moment you can
+rely upon me. You shall be commander-in-chief of the army in Italy. I
+will myself propose you to the Directory, and I will so warmly speak
+in your favor, that my request will be granted.” [Footnote: “Memoires
+historiques et militaires, sur Carnot,” vol. ii.]
+
+On this day the face of General Bonaparte was irradiated with a still
+deeper lustre than when Josephine avowed that his love was returned, and
+when she consented to be his.
+
+Josephine’s affianced, in the depths of his heart, retained a deep,
+unfulfilled desire, an unreached aim of his existence. The commanding
+general of the army in Italy had nothing more to wish, or to long
+for; he now stood at hope’s summit, and saw before him the brilliant,
+glorious goal of ambition toward which the path lay open before him.
+
+Love alone could not satisfy the heart of Napoleon; the larger portion
+of it belonged to ambition--to the lust for a warrior’s fame.
+
+“I am going to live only for the future,” said Bonaparte, that day, to
+Junot, as he related to him the successful result of his interview with
+Carnot. “None of you know me yet, but you will soon. You will see what
+I can do: I feel within me something which urges me onward. Too long has
+the war been limited to a single district; I will take it into the heart
+of the continent, I will bring it on fresh soil, and so carry it out
+that the men of habit will lose their footing, and the old officers
+their heads, so that they will no more know where they are. The soldiers
+will see what one man, with a will of iron, can accomplish. All this
+I will do--and from this day I strike out from the dictionary the word
+‘impossible!’”
+
+Carnot was true to his word. On the 23d day of February, 1796, Bonaparte
+was appointed by the Directory commander-in-chief of the army of Italy.
+
+From the face of the young general beamed forth the smile of victory;
+he was now certain of the future! He now knew that to his Josephine he
+could offer more than a hat and a sword, that he would bring her undying
+fame and victory’s brilliant crown. This was to be the dowry before
+which the twenty-five thousand francs’ yearly income, which the little
+giant Ragideau had so highly prized, would fall into the background.
+
+On the 9th of March the marriage between General Bonaparte and the widow
+Viscountess Josephine de Beauharnais took place. Barras, as member of
+the government, was Bonaparte’s first witness; his second was Captain
+Lemarrois, his adjutant; and the choice of this witness was a delicate
+homage which Napoleon paid to his dear Josephine: for Lemarrois was the
+one who had first led the boy Eugene to Bonaparte, and had thus been the
+means of his acquaintance with Josephine.
+
+The two witnesses of Josephine were Tallien, who had delivered her from
+prison, and to whom she owed the restoration of her property, and a
+M. Calmelet, an old friend and counsellor of the Beauharnais family.
+[Footnote: “Souvenirs historiques du Baron de Meneval,” vol. i., p.
+340.]
+
+In the pure modesty of her heart, Josephine had not desired that the two
+children of her deceased husband should be the witnesses of her second
+marriage, and Bonaparte was glad that Josephine’s bridal wreath would
+not be bedewed with the tears of memory.
+
+On this happy day of Bonaparte’s marriage, so much of the past was set
+aside, that the certificate of baptism of the betrothed was forgotten,
+and the number of years which made Josephine older than Bonaparte was
+struck out.
+
+The civil record, which M. Leclerc received of the marriage of Bonaparte
+and Josephine, describes them as being nearly of the same age, for it
+ran thus: “Napoleon Bonaparte, born in Ajaccio, on the 5th of February,
+1768; and Marie Josephe Rosa Tascher de la Pagerie, born in Martinique,
+the 23d of June, 1767.”
+
+Bonaparte’s glowing and impassioned love led him--in order to spare his
+Josephine the smallest, degree of humiliation--to alter and destroy the
+dates of the certificate of their baptism; for Bonaparte was born on the
+15th of August, 1769, and Josephine on the 23d of June, 1763. She was
+consequently six years older than he; but she knew not that these six
+years would, one day, be the abyss which was to swallow her happiness,
+her love, her grandeur.
+
+Two days after his marriage with Josephine, Bonaparte left Paris for the
+army, to travel in haste, an uninterrupted journey toward Italy.
+
+“I must hasten to my post,” said he smiling to Josephine, “for an
+army without a chief is like a widow who can commit foolish deeds and
+endanger her reputation. I am responsible for the army’s conduct from
+the moment of my appointment.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV. BONAPARTE’S LOVE-LETTERS.
+
+
+Carnot had told Bonaparte the truth concerning the state of the army in
+Italy. His statements were sustained by the proclamation which the new
+commander-in-chief of the army in Italy addressed to his soldiers, as
+for the first time he welcomed them at Nice.
+
+“Soldiers,” said he, “you are naked and badly fed; the government owes
+you much, and can give you nothing. Your patience and the courage you
+have exhibited amid these rocks are worthy of admiration; but you gain
+no fame: no glory falls upon you here. I will lead you into the fertile
+plains of the world; rich provinces and large cities will fall into
+your power; there you will find honor, fame, and abundance. Soldiers of
+Italy, would you fail in courage and perseverance?” [Footnote: Norvins,
+“Histoire de Napoleon,” vol. i., p. 89.]
+
+The mangled, ragged, half-starved soldiers answered with loud
+enthusiastic shouts. When the vivats had died away, an old veteran
+came out of the ranks, and with countenance half-defiant, half-smiling,
+looking at the little general, he asked: “General, what must we do
+that the roasted partridges, which are promised to us, may fly into our
+mouths?”
+
+“Conquer,” cried Bonaparte, with a loud resounding voice--“conquer!
+To the brave, glory and good repasts! To the coward, disgrace! To the
+faint-hearted, misery! I will lead you into the path of victory. Will
+you follow?”
+
+“We will, we will!” shouted the soldiers. “Long live the little general
+who is to deliver us from our wretchedness, who is to lead us into
+victory’s path!”
+
+Bonaparte kept his word. He led them to Voltri, to the bridge of Arcola,
+to Lodi. But amid his wild career of fights, hardships, vigils, studies, and
+perils, the thought of Josephine was the guiding star of his heart.
+His mind was with her amid the battle’s storm; he thought of her in
+the camp, on the march, in the greatest conflict, and after the most
+brilliant victories. This was shown in the letters he wrote every day
+to Josephine; and in the brilliant hymns which the warrior, amid the
+carnage of war, sung with the enthusiastic fervor of a poet to his love
+and to his happiness.
+
+It is the mission of eminent historians, when describing his victorious
+campaign of Italy, to narrate his conquests; our mission is simply to
+observe him in his conduct toward Josephine, and to show how under the
+uniform of the warrior beat the heart of the lover.
+
+The letters which Bonaparte then wrote to Josephine are consequently
+what concerns us most, and from which we will select a few as a proof of
+the impassioned love which Napoleon felt for his young wife.
+
+LETTERS OF GENERAL BONAPARTE TO JOSEPHINE.
+
+I. “PORT MAURICE, the 14th Germinal (April 3), 1796.
+
+“I have received all your letters, but none has made so much impression
+on me as the last one. How can you, my adored friend, speak to me in
+that way? Do you not believe that my situation here is already horrible
+enough, without your exciting my longings, and still more setting my
+soul in rebellion? What a style! what emotions you describe! They glow
+like fire, they burn my poor heart! My own Josephine, away from you,
+there is no joy; away from you, the world is a wilderness in which I
+feel alone, and have no one in whom I can confide. You have taken from
+me more than my soul; you are the only thought of my life. When I feel
+weary with the burden of affairs, when I dread some inauspicious result,
+when men oppose me, when I am ready to curse life itself, I place my
+hand upon my heart, your image beats there; I gaze on it, and love is
+for me absolute bliss, and everything smiles except when I am away from
+my beloved.
+
+“By what art have you been able to enchain all my powers, and to
+concentrate in yourself all my mental existence? It is an enchantment,
+my dear friend, which is to end only with my life. To live for
+Josephine, such is the history of my life! I am working to return to
+you, I am dying to approach you! Fool that I am, I see not that I am
+more and more drifting away from you! How much space, how many mountains
+separate us! how long before you can read these words, the feeble
+expression of a throbbing soul in which you rule! Ah, my adored wife, I
+know not what future awaits me, but if it keeps me much longer away from
+you, it will be intolerable; my courage reaches not that far. There was
+a time when I was proud of my reputation; and sometimes when I cast
+my eyes on the wrong which men could have done me, on the fate which
+Providence might have in reserve for me, I prepared myself for the most
+unheard-of adversities without wrinkling the brow or suffering fear; but
+now the thought that my Josephine should be uncomfortable, or sick,
+or, above all, the cruel, horrible thought that she might love me
+less, makes my soul tremble, and my blood to remain still, bringing
+on sadness, despondency, and taking away even the courage of anger and
+despair. In times past I used to say, ‘Men have no power over him who
+dies without regret.’ But now to die without being loved by you, to die
+without the certainty of being loved, is for me the pains of hell, the
+living, fearful feeling of complete annihilation. It is as if I were
+going to suffocate! My own companion, you whom fate has given me, to
+make life’s painful journey, the day when no more I can call your heart
+mine, when nature will be for me without warmth, without vitality. ... I
+will give way, my sweet friend (ma douce amie); my soul is sorrowful, my
+body languishes; men weary me. I have a good right to detest them, for
+they keep me away from my heart.
+
+“I am now in Port Maurice, near to Oneglia; to-morrow I go to Albenga.
+Both armies are moving forward; we are endeavoring to deceive each
+other. Victory belongs to the swiftest. I am well satisfied with General
+Beaulieu, he manoeuvres well; he is a stronger man than his predecessor.
+I trust to beat him soundly. Be without care; love me as your eyes;
+but no, that is not enough, as yourself, more than yourself, as your
+thoughts, as your spirit, your life, your all! Sweet friend, pardon me;
+I am beyond myself; nature is too weak for him who feels with passion,
+for him whom you love.
+
+“To Barras, Sucy, Madame Tallien, my heart-felt friendship; to Madame
+Chateau Renaud, kindest regards; for Eugene and Hortense, my true love.
+N. B.”
+
+II. “ALBENGA, the 18th Germinal (April 7), 1796 [Footnote: The three
+following letters have never been published until recently, and are not
+to be found in any collection of letters from Napoleon and Josephine,
+not even among those published by Queen Hortense: “Lettres de Napoleon a
+Josephine, et de Josephine a Napoleon.” They are published for the first
+time in the “Histoire de l’Imperatrice Josephine,” by Aubenas, and were
+communicated to this author in Napoleon’s manuscript by the well-known
+and famous gatherer of autographs, Feuillet de Couches.]
+
+“I have just now received your letter, which you break off, as you say,
+to go to the country; and then, you assume a tone as if you were envious
+of me, who am here nearly overwhelmed by affairs and by exertion! Ah, my
+dear friend, ... it is true, I am wrong. In the spring it is so pleasant
+in the country; and then the beloved one of eighteen years will be so
+happy there; how would it be possible to lose one moment for the sake
+of writing to him who is three hundred miles away from you, who lives,
+breathes, exists only in remembering you, who reads your letters as a
+man, after hunting for six hours, devours a meal he is fond of.
+
+“I am satisfied. Your last letter is cold, like friendship. I have not
+found in it the fire which glows in your eyes, the fire which I have
+at least imagined to be there. So far runs my fancy. I found that your
+first letters oppressed my soul too much; the revolution which they
+created in me disturbed my peace and bewildered my senses. I wanted
+letters more cold, and now they bring on me the chill of death. The
+fear of being no more loved by Josephine--the thought of having her
+inconstant--of seeing her ... But I martyrize myself with anguish! There
+is enough in the reality, without imagining any more! You cannot have
+inspired me with this immeasurable love without sharing it; and with
+such a soul, such thoughts, such an understanding as you possess, it
+is impossible that, as a reward for the most glowing attachment and
+devotion, you should return a mortal blow. ...
+
+“You say nothing of your bodily sufferings; they have my regret.
+Farewell till to-morrow, mio dolce amor. From my own wife a thought--and
+from fate a victory; these are all my wishes: one sole, undivided
+thought from you, worthy of him who every moment thinks of you.
+
+“My brother is here. He has heard of my marriage with pleasure. He longs
+to become acquainted with you. I am endeavoring to persuade him to go to
+Paris, His wife has recently given birth to a daughter. They send you
+a box of bonbons from Genoa as a present. You will receive oranges,
+perfumes, and water of orange-flowers, which I send you. Junot and Murat
+send their best wishes.
+
+“N. B.”
+
+The victory which Bonaparte implored from his destiny was soon to take
+place; and the battle of Mondovi, which followed the capitulation of
+Cherasco, made Bonaparte master of Piedmont and of the passes of the
+Alps. He sent his brother Joseph to Paris, to lay before the Directory
+pressing considerations concerning the necessity and importance of
+concluding a permanent peace with the King of Sardinia, so as to isolate
+Austria entirely in Italy. At the same time Junot was to take to the
+Directory the conquered standards. Joseph and Junot travelled together
+from Nice by means of post-horses, and they made so rapid a journey that
+in one hundred and twenty hours they reached Paris.
+
+The victor’s messengers and the conquered flags were received in Paris
+with shouts of rapture, and with a glowing enthusiasm for General
+Bonaparte. His name was on every tongue. In the streets and on the
+squares crowds gathered together to talk of the glorious news, and to
+shout their acclamations to the brave army and its general. Even the
+Directory, the five monarchs of France, shared the universal joy and
+enthusiasm. They received Joseph and Junot with affable complacency, and
+communicated to the army and to its general public eulogies. In honor
+of the messengers who had brought the standards and the propositions of
+peace, they gave a brilliant banquet; and Carnot, proud of having been
+the one who had brought about Bonaparte’s appointment, went so far in
+his enthusiasm as at the close of the banquet to tear his garments open
+and exhibit to the assembled guests Napoleon’s portrait which he carried
+on his breast.
+
+“Tell your brother,” cried he to Joseph, “that I carry him here on my
+heart, for I foresee he will be the deliverer of France, and therefore
+he must know that in the Directory he has only admirers and friends.”
+ [Footnote: “Memoires du Roi Joseph,” vol. i., p. 62.]
+
+But something else, more glorious than these salutations of love from
+France and from the Directory, was to be brought back by his messengers
+to the victorious commander-his wife, his Josephine; he claimed her
+as the reward of battles won. Joseph was not only the messenger of the
+general, he was also the messenger of the lover; and before delivering
+his papers to the Directory, he had first, as Bonaparte had ordered him,
+to deliver to Josephine his letter which called her to Milan. Napoleon
+had thus written to her:
+
+III. “TO MY SWEET FRIEND!
+
+“CAEN, the 3rd Floreal (May 24), 1796.
+
+“My brother will hand you this letter. I cherish for him the most
+intimate friendship. I trust he will also gain your affection. He
+deserves it. Nature has gifted him with a tender and inexhaustibly good
+character; he is full of rare qualities. I write to Barras to have
+him appointed consul to some Italian port. He desires to live with his
+little wife away from the world’s great stream of events. I recommend
+him to you.
+
+“I have received your letters of the 16th and of the 21st. You have
+indeed for many days forgotten to write. What, then, are you doing? Yes,
+my dear friend, I am not exactly jealous, but I am sometimes uneasy.
+Hasten, then, for I tell you beforehand that if you delay I shall be
+sick. So great exertion, combined with your absence, is too much.
+
+“Your letters are the joys of my days, and my happy days are not too
+many. Junot takes to Paris twenty-two standards. You will come back with
+him, will you not? .... Misery without remedy, sorrow without comfort,
+unmitigated anguish, will be my portion if it is my misfortune to
+see him come back alone, my own adored wife! He will see you, he will
+breathe at your shrine, and perhaps you will even grant him the special
+and unsurpassed privilege of kissing your cheeks, and I, I will be far,
+far away! You will come here, at my side, to my heart, in my arms!
+Take wings, come, come! Yet, journey slowly; the road is long, bad,
+fatiguing! If your carriage were to upset, if some calamity were to
+happen, if the exertion. ... Set out at once, my beloved one, but travel
+slowly!
+
+“I have received a letter from Hortense, a very acceptable one indeed.
+I am going to answer it. I love her much, and will soon send her the
+perfumes she desires. N. B.”
+
+But Josephine could not meet at once the ardent wishes of her husband.
+She had, on the receipt of his letter, made with Joseph all the
+necessary preparations for the journey; but the ailment which had so
+long troubled her, broke out, and a violent illness prostrated her.
+
+Bonaparte’s suffering and anger at this news were unbounded; a terrible
+restlessness and anxiety took possession of him, and, to obtain speedy
+and reliable news from Josephine, he sent from Milan to Paris a special
+courier, whose only business it was to carry a letter to Josephine.
+
+The general had nothing to communicate to the Directory; it was only
+the lover writing to his beloved! What fire, what energy of passion,
+penetrated him, is evident from the following letter:
+
+IV. “TORTONA, at noon, the 27th Prairial,
+
+“In the Year IV. of the Republic (15th June, 1796).
+
+“To Josephine: My life is a ceaseless Alpine burden. An oppressive
+foreboding prevents me from breathing. I live no more, I have lost more
+than life, more than happiness, more than rest! I am without hope. I
+send you a courier. He will remain only four hours in Paris, and return
+with your answer. Write me only ten lines; they will be some comfort
+to me. ... You are sick, you love me, I have troubled you; you are
+pregnant, and I cannot see you. This thought bewilders me. I have done
+you so much wrong, that I know not how to make amends for it. I found
+fault because you remained in Paris, and you were sick! Forgive me, my
+beloved. The passion you have inspired in me has taken my reason away; I
+cannot find it again. One is never cured of this evil. My contemplations
+are so horrible, that it would be a satisfaction to see you; to press
+you for two hours to my heart, and then, to die together! Who takes care
+of you? I imagine that you have sent for Hortense. I love this child
+a thousand times more, when I think she can comfort you somewhat. As
+regards myself, there will be no solace, no rest, no hope, before the
+courier whom I have sent to you has returned, and you have told me in a
+long letter the cause of your illness, and how serious it is. I tell
+you beforehand that if it is dangerous I will at once go to Paris.
+My presence would be called for by your sickness. I have always been
+fortunate. Never has Fate stood against my wishes, and to-day it strikes
+me where only wounds are possible. Josephine, how can you delay so long
+in writing to me? Your last laconic note is dated the 3d of this month,
+and this adds to my sorrow. Yet I have it always in my pocket. Your
+portrait and your letters are always under my eyes.
+
+“I am nothing without you. I can scarcely understand how I have lived
+without knowing you. Ah, Josephine, if you know my heart, could you
+remain without writing from the 29th of May to the 16th of June, and not
+travel hither? Have you lent an ear to faithless friends, who wish to
+keep you away from me? I am angry with the whole world; I accuse every
+one round about you. I had calculated that you would leave on the 5th,
+and be at Milan on the 15th.
+
+“Josephine, if you love me, if you believe that all depends on the
+recovery of your health, take good care of yourself. I dare not tell you
+not to undertake so long a journey--not to travel in the heat, if
+you possibly can move. Make small journeys; write to me at every
+stopping-place, and send me each time your letters by a courier. ...
+Your sickness troubles me by night and by day. Without appetite or
+sleep, without regard for friendship, reputation, or country!--you and
+you alone! The rest of the world exists no more for me than if it were
+sunk into oblivion. I still cling to honor, for you hold to it; to fame,
+for it is a joy to you; if it were not for this, I would have abandoned
+every thing to hasten to your feet.
+
+“Sometimes, I say to myself: ‘I trouble myself without cause, she is
+already well, she has left Paris and is on the way, she is perhaps in
+Lyons.’ ... Fruitless deception! You are in your bed, suffering--more
+interesting--more worthy of adoration; you are pale, and your eyes are
+more languishing than ever! when you are well again, if one of us is
+to be sick, cannot I be the one? for I am stronger, I have more vital
+power, and would therefore sooner conquer sickness. Fate is cruel, it
+strikes me through you.
+
+“What sometimes comforts me is to know that on fate depends your
+sickness, but that it depends on no one to oblige me to outlive you.
+
+“Be careful, my dearly-beloved one, to tell me in your letter that you
+are convinced that I love you above all that can be conceived; that
+never has it come to me to think of other women; that they are all in my
+eyes without grace, beauty, or wit; that you, you entirely, you as I
+see you, as you are, can please me and fetter all the powers of my soul;
+that you have grasped it in all its immeasurableness; that my heart has
+no folds closed from your eyes, no thoughts which belong not to you;
+that my energies, arms, mind, every thing in me, is subject to you; that
+my spirit lives in your body; that the day when you will be inconstant
+or when you will cease to live, will be the day of my death, and that
+nature and earth are beautiful to my eyes only because you live in them.
+If you do not believe all this, if your soul is not convinced of it,
+penetrated with it, then I am deceived in you, then you love me no more.
+A magnetic fluid runs between persons who love one another. You know
+that I could never see, much less could I endure, a lover: to see him
+and to tear his heart would be one and the same thing; and then I might
+even lay hands on your sacred person.... no, I would never dare do it,
+but I would fly from a world where those I deem the most virtuous have
+deceived me.
+
+“But I am certain of your love, and proud of it. Accidents are
+probations which keep alive all the energies of our mutual affections.
+My adored one, you will give birth to a child resembling his mother;
+it will pass many years in your arms. Unfortunate that I am, I would be
+satisfied with one day! A thousand kisses on your eyes and lips! ....
+adored wife, how mighty is your spell! I am ill on account of your
+illness. I have a burning fever. Retain the courier no longer than
+six hours; then let him return, that he may bring me a letter from my
+sovereign. N. B.”
+
+These were the first letters which Josephine received from her loving,
+tender husband. They are a splendid monument of affection with which
+love adorns the solitary grave of the departed empress; and surely in
+the dark hours of her life, the remembrance of these days of happiness,
+of these letters so full of passionate ardor, must have alleviated the
+bitterness of her grief and given her the consolation that at least she
+was once loved as perhaps no other woman on earth can boast! All these
+letters of Bonaparte, during the days of his first prosperity, and of
+his earnest cravings, Josephine had carefully gathered; they were to be,
+amid the precious and costly treasures which the future was to lay at
+her feet, the most glorious and most prized, and which she preserved
+with sacred loyalty as long as she lived.
+
+This is the reason that, out of all the letters which Bonaparte wrote
+to Josephine during long years, not one is lost; that there is no gap in
+the correspondence, and that we can with complete certainty, from week
+to week and year to year, follow the relations which existed between
+them, and that the thermometer can be placed on Bonaparte’s heart
+to observe how by degrees the heat diminishes, the warmth of passion
+disappears into the cool temperature of a quiet friendship, and how it
+never sinks to cold indifference, even when Josephine had to yield to
+the young and proud daughter of Austria, and give up her place at the
+side of the emperor.
+
+Of all the letters of Josephine to Bonaparte, which were now so glowing
+that they seemed to devour him with flames of fire and bewildered his
+senses, and then so cold and indifferent that they caused the chill of
+death to pass over his frame--of all these, not one has been preserved
+to posterity. Perhaps the Emperor Napoleon destroyed them; when in the
+Tuileries he received Josephine’s successor, his second wife, and
+when he endeavored to destroy in his own proud heart the memory of the
+beautiful, happy past, he there destroyed those letters, that they might
+return to dust, even as his own love had returned.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV. JOSEPHINE IN ITALY.
+
+
+Bonaparte’s letter, which the courier brought to Josephine, found her
+recovered, and ready to follow her husband’s call, and go to Milan.
+But she was deprived of one precious and joyous hope: the child, which
+Bonaparte so much envied because it would pass many years in Josephine’s
+arms, was never to be born.
+
+In the last days of the month of June Josephine arrived in Milan. Her
+whole journey had been one uninterrupted triumph. In Turin, at the court
+of the King of Sardinia, she had received the homage of the people as
+if she were the wife of a mighty ruler; and wherever she went, she was
+received with honors and distinction. To Turin Bonaparte had sent before
+him one of his adjutants, General Marmont, afterward Duke de Ragusa, to
+convey to her his kindest regards and to accompany her with a military
+escort as far as Milan. In the palace de Serbelloni, his residence in
+Milan, adorned as for a feast, Bonaparte received her with a countenance
+radiant with joy and happy smiles such as seldom brightened his pale,
+gloomy features.
+
+But Bonaparte had neither much time nor leisure to devote to his
+domestic happiness, to his long-expected reunion with Josephine. Only
+three days could the happy lover obtain from the restless commander;
+then he had to tear himself away from his sweet repose, to carry
+on further the deadly strife which he had begun in Italy against
+Austria--which had decided not to give away one foot of Lombardy without
+a struggle--and not to submit to the conqueror of Lodi. A new army
+was marched into Italy under the command of General Wurmser, the same
+against whom, three years before, on the shores of the Rhine, Alexandre
+de Beauharnais had fought in vain. At the head of sixty thousand men
+Wurmser moved into Italy to relieve Mantua, besieged by the French.
+
+This alarming news awoke Bonaparte out of his dream of love, and neither
+Josephine’s tears nor prayers could keep him back. He sent couriers to
+Paris, to implore from the Directory fresh troops and more money, to
+continue the campaign. The Directory answered him with the proposition
+to divide the army of Italy into two columns, one of which would act
+under the commander-in-chief, General Kellermann, the other under
+Bonaparte.
+
+But this proposition, which the jealous Directory made for the sake of
+breaking the growing power of Bonaparte, only served to lift him a step
+higher in his path to the brilliant career which he alone, in the depths
+of his heart, had traced, and the secret of which his closed lips would
+reveal to no one.
+
+Bonaparte’s answer to this proposition of the Directory was, that if
+the power were to be divided, he could only refuse the half of this
+division, and would retire entirely from command.
+
+He wrote to Carnot: “It is a matter of indifference to me whether I
+carry on the war here or elsewhere. To serve my country, and deserve
+from posterity one page of history, is all my ambition! If both I and
+Kellermann command in Italy, then all is lost. General Kellermann has
+more experience than I, and will carry on the war more ably. But the
+matter can only be badly managed if we both command. It is no pleasure
+for me to serve with a man whom Europe considers the first general of
+the age.”
+
+Carnot showed this letter to the Directory, and declared that if
+Bonaparte were to be given up, he would himself resign his position of
+secretary of war. The Directory was not prepared to accept this twofold
+responsibility, and they sacrificed Kellermann to the threats of
+Napoleon and Carnot.
+
+General Bonaparte was confirmed in his position of commander-in-chief of
+the army in Italy, even for the future, and the conduct of the war was
+left in his hands alone.
+
+With this fresh triumph over his enemies at home, Bonaparte marched from
+Milan to fight the re-enforced enemy of France in Italy.
+
+On this new war-path, amid dangers and conflicts, the tumults of the
+fight, the noise of the camp, the confusion of the bivouac, the young
+general did not for one moment forget the wife he so passionately loved.
+Nearly every day he wrote to her, and those letters, which were often
+written between the dictation of the battle’s plan, the dispatches to
+the Directory, and the impending conflict, were faithful waymarks, whose
+directions it is easy to follow, and thus trace the whole successful
+course of the hero of Italy.
+
+To refer here to Bonaparte’s letters to Josephine, implies at once the
+mention of Bonaparte’s deeds and of Josephine’s happiness. The first
+letter which he wrote after the interview in Milan is from Roverbella,
+and it tells her in a few words that he has just now beaten the foe,
+and that he is going to Verona. The second is also short and hastily
+written, but is full of many delicate assurances of love, and also that
+he has met and defeated the foe at Verona. The third letter is from
+Marmirolo, and shows that Bonaparte, notwithstanding his constant
+changes of position, had taken the precautions that Josephine’s letters
+should everywhere follow him; for in Marmirolo he received one, and this
+tender letter filled him with so much joy, thanks, and longings, that,
+in virtue of it, he forgets conquests and triumphs entirely, and is only
+the longing, tender lover. He writes:
+
+“MARMIROLO, the 29th Messidor, 9 in the evening” (July 17), 1796.
+
+“I am just now in receipt of your letter, my adored one; it has filled
+my heart with joy. I am thankful for the pains you have taken to send me
+news about yourself; with your improved health, all will be well; I am
+convinced that you have now recovered. I would impress upon you the duty
+of riding often; this will be a healthy exercise for you.
+
+“Since I left you I am forever sorrowful. My happiness consists in being
+near you. Constantly does my memory renew your kisses, your tears, your
+amiable jealousy; and the charms of the incomparable Josephine kindle
+incessantly a burning flame within my heart and throughout my senses.
+When shall I, free from all disturbance and care, pass all my moments
+with you, and have nothing to do but to love, nothing to think of but
+the happiness to tell it and prove it to you? I am going to send you
+your horse, and I trust you will soon be able to be with me. A few days
+ago I thought I loved you, but since I have seen you again, I feel that
+I love you a thousand times more. Since I knew you, I worship you more
+and more every day; this proves the falsity of La Bruyere’s maxim, which
+says that love springs up all at once. Every thing in nature has its
+growth in different degrees. Ah, I implore you, let me see some of your
+faults; be then less beautiful, less graceful, less tender, less good;
+especially be never tender, never weep: your tears deprive me of my
+reason, and change my blood into fire. Believe me, that it is not in my
+power to have a single thought which concerns you not, or an idea which
+is not subservient to you.
+
+“Keep very quiet. Recover soon your health. Come to me, that at least
+before dying we may say, ‘We were happy so many, many days!’
+
+“Millions of kisses even for Fortune, notwithstanding its naughtiness.
+[Footnote: Fortune was that little peevish dog which, when Josephine
+was in prison, served as love-messenger between her and her children.]
+BONAPARTE.”
+
+But this letter, full of tenderness and warmth, is not yet enough for
+the ardent lover; it does not express sufficiently his longing, his
+love. The very next day, from the same quarters of Marmirolo, he writes
+something like a postscript to the missive of the previous day. He tells
+her that he has made an attack upon Mantua, but that a sudden fall of
+the waters of the lake had delayed his troops already embarked, and that
+this day he is going to try again in some other way; that the enemy a
+few days past had made a sortie and killed a few hundred men, but that
+they themselves, with considerable loss, had to retreat rapidly into the
+fortress, and that three Neapolitan regiments had entered Brescia. But
+between each of these sentences intervene some strong assurance of his
+love, some tender or flattering words; and finally, at the end of the
+letter, comes the principal object, the cause why it was written. The
+tender lover wanted some token from his beloved: it is not enough for
+him always to carry her portrait and her letters, he must also have a
+lock of her hair. He writes:
+
+“I have lost my snuffbox; I pray you find me another, somewhat more
+flat, and pray have something pretty written upon it, with a lock
+of your hair. A thousand burning kisses, since you are so cold, love
+unbounded, and faithfulness beyond all proof.”
+
+Two days afterward he writes again from Marmirolo, at first hastily, a
+few words about the war, then he comes to the main point. He has been
+guilty, toward Josephine, of a want of politeness, and, with all the
+tenderness and humility of a lover, he asks forgiveness. Her pardon and
+her constant tardiness in answering his letters, are to him more weighty
+matters than all the battles and victories of his restless camp-life,
+and therefore he begins at once with a complaint at his separation from
+her.
+
+“MARMIROLO, the 1st Thermidor, Year IV. (July 19, 1796.)” For the last
+two days I am without letters from you. This remark I have repeated
+thirty times; you feel that this for me is sad. You cannot, however,
+doubt of the tenderness and undivided solicitude with which you inspire
+me.”
+
+“We attacked Mantua yesterday. We opened upon it, from two batteries, a
+fire of shells and red-hot balls. The whole night the unfortunate city
+was burning. The spectacle was terrible and sublime. We have taken
+possession of numerous outworks, and we open the trenches to-night.
+To-morrow we make our headquarters at Castiglione, and think of passing
+* the night there.”
+
+“I have received a courier from Paris. He brought two letters for you: I
+have read them. Though this action seems to me very simple, as you
+gave me permission so to do, yet, I fear, it will annoy you, and that
+troubles me exceedingly. I wanted at first to seal them over again; but,
+pshaw! that would have been horrible. If I am guilty, I beg your pardon.
+I swear to you I did it not through jealousy; no, certainly not; I have
+of my adored one too high an opinion to indulge in such a feeling. I
+wish you would once for all allow me to read your letters; then I should
+not have any twittings of conscience or fear.”
+
+“Achilles, the courier, has arrived from Milan; no letter from my adored
+one! Farewell, my sole happiness! When will you come, and be with me? I
+shall have to fetch you from Milan myself.”
+
+“A thousand kisses, burning as my heart, pure as yours!”
+
+“I have sent for the courier; he says he was at your residence, and that
+you had nothing to say, nothing to order! Fie! wicked, hateful, cruel
+tyrant!--pretty little monster! You laugh at my threats and my madness;
+ah, you know very well that if I could shut you up in my heart, I would
+keep you there a prisoner.”
+
+“Let me know that you are cheerful, right well, and loving!”
+
+“BONAPARTE.”
+
+But Josephine seems not to have answered this letter as Napoleon
+desired. She knew that it was nothing but unfounded jealousy which had
+induced him to read the letters sent to her, and to punish him for this
+jealousy she forbade him to read her letters in the future.
+
+But while she reproached him in a jesting manner, and punished him for
+this jealousy, she, herself, with all the inconsistency of a lover, fell
+into the same fault, and could not hide from him the jealous fears which
+the ladies from Brescia, especially the beautiful Madame de Te----,
+had created within her mind. Bonaparte answered this letter as general,
+lover, and husband; he gives an account of his war operations, submits
+to her will as a lover, and commands her as a husband to come to him in
+Brescia.
+
+“CASTIGLIONE, the 4th Thermidor, Year IV. (July 22, 1796).
+
+“The wants of the army require my presence in these parts; it is
+impossible for me to go so far away as Milan; it would require for that
+purpose five or six days, and during that time circumstances might arise
+which would make my presence here absolutely necessary.
+
+“You assure me that your health is now good; consequently, I pray you
+to come to Brescia. At this moment I am sending Murat into the city to
+prepare you such a house as you wish.
+
+“I believe that you can very well sleep in Cassano on the 6th, if you
+leave Milan late, so as to be in Brescia on the 7th, where the most
+tender of lovers awaits you. I am in despair that you can believe, my
+dear friend, that my heart can be drawn toward any one but yourself;
+it belongs to you by right of conquest, and will be enduring and
+ever-lasting. I do not understand why you speak of Madame de Te----. I
+trouble myself no more about her than any other woman in Brescia. Since
+it annoys you that I open your letters, the enclosed one will be the
+last that I open; your letter did not reach me till after I had opened
+this.
+
+“Farewell, my tender one; send me often your news. Break up at once and
+come to me, and be happy without disquietude; all is well, and my heart
+belongs to you for life.
+
+“Be sure to return to the Adjutant Miollis the box of medallions which,
+as he writes, he has given you. There are so many babbling and bad
+tongues, that it is necessary to be always on one’s guard.
+
+“Health, love, and speedy arrival in Brescia!
+
+“I have in Milan a carriage which is suited for city and country; use it
+on your journey. Bring your silver and a few necessary things. Travel by
+short stages, and during the cool of the morning and evening, so as not
+to weary you too much. The troops need only three days to reach Brescia,
+a distance of fourteen miles. I beg of you to pass the night of the 6th
+in Cassano; on the 7th I will come to meet you as far as possible.
+
+“Farewell, my Josephine; a thousand tender kisses!
+
+“BONAPARTE.”
+
+Josephine gladly obeyed the wishes of her husband, and exactly on the
+7th Thermidor (July 25) she entered Brescia. Bonaparte had ridden an
+hour’s distance to meet her, and, amid the shouts of the population, he
+led her in triumph into the house prepared for her reception.
+
+Three days were allowed to the general to enjoy his happiness and
+Josephine’s presence. On the 28th of July he received the intelligence
+that Wurmser was advancing, and that he was in Marmirolo. At once
+Bonaparte broke up from Brescia, to meet him and offer battle.
+
+Brescia was no longer a dwelling-place for Josephine now that the enemy
+threatened it; she therefore accompanied her husband, and the effeminate
+creole, the tender Parisian, accustomed to all the comforts of life,
+the lady surrounded by numerous attendants in Milan, saw herself at once
+obliged, as the true wife of a soldier, to share with her husband all
+the hardships, inconveniences, and dangers of a campaign.
+
+The news of the advance of the Austrians became more and more precise.
+No sooner had Bonaparte arrived in Peschiera with his Josephine, than he
+learned that Montevaldo was attacked by the enemy. In great haste they
+pursued their journey; the next day they reached Verona, but Wurmser
+had been equally swift in his movements, and on the heights surrounding
+Verona were seen the light troops of Austria.
+
+Even a serious skirmish at the outposts took place, and Josephine,
+against her will, had to be the witness of this horrible, cannibal
+murder, which we are pleased to call war.
+
+Bonaparte, who had preceded his army, was forced to retreat from Verona,
+and went with Josephine to Castel Nuovo, where the majority of his
+troops were stationed. But it was a fearful journey, beset with dangers.
+Everywhere on the road lay the dying and the wounded who had remained
+behind after the different conflicts, and who with difficulty were
+crawling along to meet the army. Josephine’s sensitive heart was
+painfully moved by the spectacle of these sufferings and these bleeding
+wounds. Napoleon noticed it on her pale cheeks and trembling lips, and
+in the tears which stood in her eyes. Besides which, a great battle
+was at hand, threatening her with new horrors. To guard her from them,
+Bonaparte made another sacrifice to his love, and resolved to part from
+her.
+
+She was to return to Brescia, while Napoleon, with his army, would meet
+the foe. With a thousand assurances of love, and the most tender vows,
+he took leave of Josephine, and she mastered herself so as to repress
+her anxiety and timidity, and to appear collected and brave. With
+a smile on her lip she bade him farewell, and began the journey,
+accompanied by a few well-armed horsemen, whom Bonaparte, in the most
+stringent terms, commanded not to leave his wife’s carriage for an
+instant, and in case of attack to defend her with their lives.
+
+At first the journey was attended with no danger, and Josephine’s heart
+began to beat with less anxiety; she already believed herself in safety.
+Suddenly, from a neighboring coppice, there rushed out a division of the
+enemy’s cavalry; already were distinctly heard the shouts and cries with
+which they dashed toward the advancing carriage. To oppose this vast
+number of assailants was not to be thought of; only the most rapid
+flight could save them.
+
+The carriage was turned; the driver jumped upon the horses, and, in a
+mad gallop, onward it sped. To the swiftness of the horses Josephine
+owed her escape. She reached headquarters safely, and was received by
+Bonaparte with loud demonstrations of joy at her unexpected return.
+
+But Josephine had not the strength to conceal the anxiety of her heart,
+her fears and alarms. These horrible scenes of war, the sight of the
+wounded, the dangers she had lately incurred, the fearful preparations
+for fresh murders and massacres--all this troubled her mind so violently
+that she lost at once all courage and composure. A nervous trembling
+agitated her whole frame, and, not being able to control her agony, she
+broke into loud weeping.
+
+Bonaparte embraced her tenderly, and as he kissed the tears from her
+cheeks, he cried out, with a threatening flash in his eyes, “Wurmser
+will pay dearly for the tears he has caused!” [Footnote: Bonaparte’s
+words.--“Memorial de Ste. Helene,” vol. i., p. 174.]
+
+It was, however, a fortunate accident that the enemy’s cavalry had
+hindered Josephine from reaching Brescia. A quarter of an hour after her
+return to headquarters the news arrived that the Austrians had advanced
+into Brescia. Meanwhile Josephine had already regained all her courage
+and steadfastness; she declared herself ready to abide by her husband,
+to bear with him the dangers and the fatigues of the campaign; that she
+wished to be with him, as it behooved the wife of a soldier.
+
+But Bonaparte felt that her company would cripple his courage and
+embarrass his movements. Josephine once more had to leave him, so that
+the tender lover might not disturb the keen commanding general, and that
+his head and not his heart might decide the necessary measures.
+
+He persuaded Josephine to leave him, and to retire into one of the
+central cities of Italy. She acceded to his wishes, and travelled away
+toward Florence. But, to reach that city, it was necessary to pass
+Mantua, which the French were investing. Her road passed near the walls
+of the besieged city, and one of the balls, which were whizzing around
+the carriage, struck one of the soldiers of her escort and wounded
+him mortally. It was a dangerous, fearful journey--war’s confusion
+everywhere, wild shouts, fleeing, complaining farmers, constant cries of
+distress, anxiety, and want.
+
+But Josephine had armed her heart with great courage and resolution; she
+shrank from no danger, she overcame it all; she already had an undaunted
+confidence in her husband’s destiny, and believed in the star of his
+prosperity.
+
+And this star led her on happily through all dangers, and protected
+her throughout this reckless and daring journey. Through Bologna and
+Ferrara, she came at last to Lucca; there to rest a few days from her
+hardships and anxieties. There, in Lucca, she was to experience the
+proud satisfaction of being witness of the deep confidence which had
+struck root in the heart of the Italians, in reference to the success
+of the French commander-in-chief. Though it was well known that Wurmser,
+with a superior force, was advancing against General Bonaparte, and
+his hungry, tattered troops, and that they were on the eve of a battle
+which, according to all appearances, promised to Napoleon a complete
+defeat, and to the Austrians a decisive victory, the town of Lucca
+was not afraid to give to the wife of Bonaparte a grand and public
+reception. The senate of Lucca received her with all the marks of
+distinction shown only to princesses; the senate came to her in official
+ceremony, and brought her as a gift of honor, in costly gold flasks, the
+produce of their land, the fine oil of Lucca.
+
+Josephine received these marks of honor with that grace and amiability
+with which she won all hearts, and, with her enchanting smile, thanking
+the senators, she told them, with all the confidence of a lover, that
+her victorious husband would, for the magnificent hospitality thus shown
+her, manifest his gratitude to the town of Lucca by the prosperity and
+liberty which he was ready to conquer for Italy.
+
+This confidence was shortly to be justified. No sooner had Josephine
+arrived in Florence, whither she had come from Lucca, than the news of
+the victory of the French army, commanded by her husband, reached there
+also.
+
+Suddenly abandoning the siege of Mantua, Bonaparte had gathered together
+all his forces, and with them he dealt blow after blow upon the three
+divisions of the army corps of Wurmser, until he had completely defeated
+them. The battles of Lonato and Castiglione were the fresh trophies of
+his fame. On the 10th of August Bonaparte made his victorious entry into
+Brescia, which only twelve days before he had been suddenly obliged to
+abandon with his Josephine, to whom he had then been barely reunited,
+and was still luxuriating in the bliss of her presence.
+
+Bonaparte had fulfilled his word: he had revenged Josephine, and Wurmser
+had indeed paid dearly for the tears which he had caused Josephine to
+shed!
+
+But after these days of storm and danger, the two lovers were to enjoy a
+few weeks of mutual happiness and of splendid triumphs.
+
+Josephine had returned from Florence to Milan, and thither Bonaparte
+came also in the middle of August, to rest in her arms after his battles
+and victories.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI. BONAPARTE AND JOSEPHINE IN MILAN.
+
+
+The days of armistice which Bonaparte passed in Milan were accompanied
+by festivities, enjoyments, and triumphs of all kinds. All Milan and
+Lombardy streamed forth to present their homage to the deliverer of
+Italy and to his charming, gracious wife; to give feasts in their
+honor, to praise them in enthusiastic songs, to celebrate their fame in
+concerts, serenades, and illuminations.
+
+The palace Serbelloni served Italy’s deliverer once more as a residence,
+and it was well calculated for this on account of its vastness and
+elegance. This was one of the most beautiful buildings among the palaces
+of Milan. Over its massive lower structure, and its rez-de chaussee of
+red granite, sparkling in the sun with its play of many colors, arose
+bold and steep its light and graceful facade. The interior of this
+beautiful palace of the Dukes of Serbelloni was adorned with all the
+splendors which sculpture and painting gathered into the palaces of the
+Italian nobility.
+
+In those halls, whose roofs were richly decorated and gilded, and
+supported by white columns of marble, and whose walls were covered with
+those splendid and enormous mirrors which the republic of Venice alone
+then manufactured; and from whose tall windows hung down in long, heavy
+folds curtains of purple velvet, embroidered with gold, the work of the
+famous artisans of Milan--in those brilliant halls the happy couple,
+Bonaparte and Josephine, received the deputies of applauding Italy and
+the high aristocracy of all Lombardy.
+
+An eye-witness thus describes a reception-evening in the Serbelloni
+palace: “The hall in which the general received his visitors was a long
+gallery divided by marble columns into three smaller rooms; the two
+extreme divisions formed two large drawing-rooms, perfectly square, and
+the middle partition formed a long and wide promenade apartment. In the
+drawing-room, into which I entered, was Madame Bonaparte, the beautiful
+Madame Visconti, Madame Leopold Berthier, and Madame Ivan. Under the
+arches, at the entrance of the middle room, stood the general;
+around him, but at a distance, the chiefs of the war department,
+the magistrates of the city, with a few ministers of the Italian
+governments, all in respectful attitude before him. Nothing seemed to be
+more striking than the bearing of this little man among the dignitaries
+overawed by his character. His attitude had nothing of pride, but it had
+the dignity of a man conscious of his worth, and who feels that he is in
+the right place. Bonaparte tried not to increase his stature, so as to
+be on the same level with those around him; they already spared him that
+trouble, and bowed to him. None of those who conversed with him appeared
+taller than he. Berthier, Silmaine, Clarke, Augerean, awaited silently
+till he should address them, an honor which this evening was not
+conferred upon all. Never were headquarters so much like a court: they
+were the prelude to the Tuileries.” [Footnote: Arnold, “Souvenirs d’un
+Sexagenaire,” vol. iii., p. 10.]
+
+To Milan came the ambassadors of princes, of the free cities, and of
+the Italian republics. They all claimed Bonaparte’s assistance and
+protection; they came bearers of good-will, of utterances of hope and
+fear, and expecting from him help and succor. The princes trembled for
+their thrones; the cities and republics for their independence; they
+wanted to conciliate by their submission the general whose sword could
+either threaten them all or give them ample protection. Bonaparte
+received this homage with the composure of a protector, and sometimes
+also with the proud reserve of a conqueror.
+
+He granted to the Duke of Parma the protection which he had sought, and
+permitted him to remain on his territory as prince and ruler, though the
+strongest expostulations had been made to Bonaparte on that point.
+
+“He is a Bourbon,” they said; “he must no longer rule.”
+
+“He is an unfortunate man,” replied Bonaparte, proudly; “it is not worth
+while to attack him. If we leave him on his lands, he will rule only in
+our name; if we drive him away, he will be weaving intrigues everywhere.
+Let him remain where he is, I wish him no wrong; his presence can be
+useful, his absence would surely he hurtful.”
+
+“But he is a Bourbon, citizen general, a Bourbon!” exclaimed Augereau,
+with animation.
+
+Bonaparte’s countenance darkened, and his brow was overspread with
+frowns. “Well, then,” cried he, with threatening tone, “he is a Bourbon!
+Is he therefore by nature of so despicable a family? Because three
+Bourbons have been killed in France, must we therefore hunt down all the
+others? I cannot approve of proscriptions which thus fall upon a whole
+family, a whole class of people. An absurd law has prohibited all the
+nobles from serving the republic, and yet Barras is in the Directory,
+and I am at the head of the army in Italy. We are consequently liable
+to punishment in virtue of your absurd and cruel system! Hunt down those
+who do wrong, but not masses who are innocent. Can you punish Paris
+and France for the crimes of the sans-culottes? The Bourbons are, it is
+said, the enemies of freedom; they have been led to the scaffold under
+the action of a right which I do not acknowledge. The Duke of Parma is
+weak, and a poltroon,--he will not stir. His people seem to love him,
+for we are here, and they rise not, they utter no complaint. Let him,
+then, continue to rule as long as he pays all that I exact from him.”
+ [Footnote: Napoleon’s words.--See Hazlitt, “Histoire de Napoleon,” vol.
+v., p. 1.]
+
+Thanks to the good-will and protection of the republican general, the
+Duke of Parma remained on his little throne--on the same throne which
+was one day to be to Napoleon’s second wife a compensation for her lost
+imperial crown. The Empress of France was to become a Duchess of Parma;
+and now to her husband, the present general of the republic, the actual
+Duke of Parma was indebted that his little dukedom was not converted
+into a republic.
+
+It is true that the duke had to pay dearly for the protection which
+Bonaparte granted. He had to pay a war-subsidy of two million francs,
+and, besides, give from his collection his most beautiful painting,
+that of St. Jerome by Correggio, for the Museum of the Louvre in Paris.
+[Footnote: This splendid picture is now in the Vatican at Rome.] The
+duke, as a lover of art, was more distressed at the loss of this picture
+than at the enormous contribution he had to pay; for he soon caused the
+proposition to be made to General Bonaparte, to redeem from the French
+government that painting, for the sum of two hundred thousand francs, a
+proposition which Bonaparte, without any further consultation with the
+authorities in Paris, rejected with some degree of irritation.
+
+The Duke of Parma remained therefore the sovereign of his duchy, because
+it so pleased Bonaparte; but Bonaparte was led into error when he
+thought that, as his people rebelled not, they therefore loved their
+duke, and were satisfied with him. The women and the priests controlled
+entirely the feeble duke; and not only the people, but the better
+classes and the aristocracy, submitted to all this with great
+unwillingness. Once, when Joseph Bonaparte, whom the French republic had
+sent to give assurance of protection and recognition to the little Duke
+of Parma, was walking with a few cavaliers in the gardens around the
+duke’s palace in Colorno, he expressed his admiration at the symmetry
+and beauty of the buildings.
+
+“That is true,” was the answer, “but just look at the buildings of the
+neighboring cloister! do you not see how superior that dwelling is
+to that of the sovereign? Wretched is the country where this can take
+place!” [Footnote: “Memoires du Roi Joseph,” vol. i., p. 65.]
+
+Even the representatives of the republic of Venice came to Bonaparte.
+They came not only to secure his friendship, but also to complain that
+the French army, in its advance upon Brescia, had done injury to the
+neutral territory of Venice.
+
+Bonaparte directed at them a look of imperious severity, and, instead
+of laying stress on their neutrality, he asked in a sharp tone, “Are you
+for us, or against us?”
+
+“Signor, we are neutral, and--”
+
+“Do not be neutral,” interrupted Bonaparte, with vehemence, “be strong,
+otherwise your friendship is useful to none.”
+
+And, with imperious tone, he reproached them for the vacillating,
+perfidious conduct which, since 1792, had been the policy of Venice,
+and he threatened to punish and destroy that republic if she did not
+immediately prove herself to be the loyal friend of the French.
+
+While Bonaparte used the few short weeks of rest to bring Italy more and
+more under the yoke of France, it was Josephine’s privilege to draw to
+herself and toward her husband the minds of the Italians, to win their
+hearts to her husband, and through him to the French republic, which
+he represented. She did this with all the grace and affability, all
+the genial tact and large-heartedness of a noble heart, which were the
+attributes of her beautiful and amiable person. She was unwearied
+in well-doing, in listening to all the petitions with which she was
+approached; she had for every complaint and every request an open ear;
+she not only promised to every applicant her intercession, but she made
+him presents, and was ever ready, by solicitations, flatteries, and
+expostulations, and, if necessary, even with tears, to entreat from her
+husband a mitigation of the punishment and sentence which he had decided
+upon in his just severity; and seldom had Bonaparte the courage to
+oppose her wishes. These were for Josephine glorious days of love and
+triumph. She depicts them herself in a letter to her aunt in plain,
+short words.
+
+“The Duke de Serbelloni,” writes she, “will tell you, my dear aunt, how
+I have been received in Italy; how, wherever I passed, they celebrated
+my arrival; how all the Italian princes, even the Duke of Tuscany, the
+emperor’s brother, gave festivities in my honor. Well, then, I would
+prefer to live as a plain citizeness of France. I like not the honorable
+distinctions of this country. They weary me. It is true, my health
+inclines me to be sad. I often feel very ill. If fate would bring me
+good health, then I should be entirely happy. I possess the most amiable
+husband that can be found. I have no occasion to desire anything. My
+wishes are his. The whole day he is worshipping me as if I were a
+deity; it is impossible to find a better husband. He writes often to
+my children--he loves them much. He sent to Hortense, through M.
+Serbelloni, a beautiful enamelled repeating watch, ornamented with fine
+pearls; to Eugene he sent also a fine gold watch.” [Footnote: Aubenas,
+“Histoire de l’Imperatrice Josephine,” vol. i., p. 349.]
+
+But soon these days of quietness and happiness were to be broken;
+the armistice was drawing to a close, when, with redoubled energy,
+Bonaparte, who had received from the government the wished-for
+re-enforcements, longed to resume the war with Austria, which on her
+side had sent another army into Italy, under General Alvinzi, to relieve
+Mantua, and to deliver Wurmser from his peril.
+
+On the 13th of August Bonaparte left Milan and returned to Brescia,
+where he established his headquarters, and where, with all the speed and
+restlessness of a warrior longing for victory, he made his preparations
+for the coming conflict.
+
+But amid the anxieties, the cares, the chances of this new campaign,
+his heart remained behind in Milan with his Josephine; when the
+general began to rest, the lover began to breathe. No sooner were
+the battle-plans, the fight, the preparations and the dispositions
+accomplished, than all his thoughts returned to Josephine, and he had
+again recourse to his written correspondence with his adored wife; for
+although he longed so much to have her with him, yet he was unwilling to
+occasion her so much inconvenience and so many privations.
+
+Bonaparte’s letters are again way-marks during his glorious path of
+victory and triumph, while he was over-running Italy with wondrous
+rapidity--but, instead of relating these conquests, we turn to his
+letters to Josephine. Already, on his way to Brescia, he had written her
+several times. The very day after reaching there, after having made the
+necessary military arrangements, Bonaparte wrote to her:
+
+“BRESCIA, the 14th Fructidor, Year IV. (August 31, 1795).
+
+“I am leaving for Verona. I have hoped in vain to receive a letter from
+you; this makes me wretched and restless. At the time of my departure,
+you were somewhat suffering; I pray you, do not leave me in such a state
+of disquietude. You had promised me a greater punctuality; your tongue,
+then, chimed in with your heart...; you, whom Nature has gifted with a
+sweet disposition, with joyousness, and every thing which is agreeable,
+how can you forget him who loves you so warmly? Three days without
+a letter from you! I have during that time written to you several.
+Separation is horrible; the nights are long, tiresome, and insipid; the
+days are monotonous.”
+
+“To-day, alone with thoughts, works, men, and their destructive schemes,
+I have not received from you a single note that I can press to my
+heart.”
+
+“Headquarters are broken up; I leave in one hour. I have this night
+received expresses from Paris; there was nothing for you but the
+enclosed letter, which will afford you some pleasure.”
+
+“Think on me; live for me; be often with your beloved, and believe that
+there is for him but one sorrow; that he shrinks only from this--to be
+no more loved by his Josephine. A thousand right sweet kisses, right
+tender, right exclusive kisses.”
+
+“BONAPARTE.”
+
+Three days after he tells her that he is now in the midst of war
+operations; that hostilities have begun again, and that he hopes in a
+few days to advance upon Trieste. But this occupied his mind less than
+his solicitude for Josephine. After a short paragraph on his military
+affairs, he continues:
+
+“No letter from you yet; I am really anxious; but I am assured that you
+are well, and that you have made an excursion on the Como Lake. Every
+day I wait impatiently for the courier who is to bring me news from you;
+you know how precious this is to me. I live no longer when away from
+you; the joy of my life is to be near my sweet Josephine. Think of me;
+write often, very often; this is the only remedy for separation; it is
+cruel, but I trust it will soon be over.”
+
+“BONAPARTE.”
+
+Meanwhile this separation was to last longer than Bonaparte had
+imagined. War held him entangled in its web so fast, that he had not
+time even to write to Josephine. In the next two letters he could only
+tell her, in a few lines, what had happened at the theatre of war; that
+he had again defeated Wurmser, and had surrounded him, and that he
+hopes to take Mantua. Even for his constant complaint about Josephine’s
+slothfullness in writing, he finds no room in these short letters. In
+the next letter, however, it appears the more violently. He has no
+time to give her, as was his usual practice, any account of the war.
+He begins at once with the main object, which is--“Josephine has not
+written:”
+
+“VERONA, 1st day of Complementaires in Year V,” “(September 17, 1796).
+
+“I write to you often, my beloved one, but you write seldom to me. You
+are wicked and hateful, very hateful--as hateful as you are inconstant.
+It is indeed faithlessness to deceive a wretched man, a tender lover!
+Must he lose his rights because he is away, burdened with hardship and
+labor? Without his Josephine, without the certainty of her love, what is
+there on earth for him? What would he do here?
+
+“We had yesterday a very bloody affair; the enemy has lost many men, and
+is well beaten. We have taken his advanced works before Mantua.
+
+“Farewell, adored Josephine! One of these nights the doors will open
+with a loud crash: as a jealous man, I am in your arms!
+
+“A thousand dear kisses! BONAPARTE.”
+
+But the doors were not to be opened on any of the following nights for
+the jealous one! The events of war were to keep him away a long time
+from his Josephine. The Austrian Generals Wurmser and Alvinzi, with
+their two armies, demanded all the energy and activity of Bonaparte.
+Meanwhile, as he was preparing for the great battles which were to
+decide the fate of Italy, his thoughts were always turned to his
+Josephine; his deep longings grew day by day, still he had no longer
+cause to complain that Josephine did not write, that she had forgotten
+him! Contrariwise, Josephine did write; she had, while he was writing
+her angry letters about her silence, written several times, for
+Bonaparte in the following letter says that he has received many
+letters from her, which, probably on account of the difficulties of
+communication, had been delayed. He had received them with the highest
+delight, and pressed them to his lips and heart. But no sooner had he
+rejoiced over them, than he complains that they are cold, reserved, and
+old. No word, no expression, satisfies his ardent love. He complains
+that her letters are cold, and then, when she dips her pen in the fire
+of tender love, he complains again that her glowing letters “turn
+his blood into fire, and stir up his whole being.” Love, with all its
+wantonness and all its pains, holds him captive in its hands, and the
+general has no means of appeasing the lover.
+
+The letter which complains of Josephine’s coldness is dated
+
+“MODENA, 26th Vendemiaire of the Year V.” (October 17, 1796),
+
+“I was yesterday the whole day on the field. To-day I have kept my bed.
+Fever and a violent headache have debarred me from writing to my adored
+one; but I have received her letters, I pressed them to my lips and
+to my heart, and the anguish of a separation of hundreds of miles
+disappeared. At this moment I see you at my side, neither capricious
+nor angry, but soft, tender, and wrapped in that goodness which is
+exclusively the attribute of my Josephine. It was a dream--judge if
+it could drive the fever away. Your letters are as cold as if you were
+fifty years old; they seem to have been composed after a marriage of
+fifteen years. One can see in them the friendship and sentiments of
+the winter of life. Pshaw! Josephine, ... that is very naughty, very
+abominable, very treasonable on your part. What more remains to make
+me worthy of pity? All is already done! To love me no more! To hate
+me! Well, then, let it be so! Every thing humiliates but hatred,
+and indifference with its marmoreal pulse, its staring eyes, and its
+measured steps. A thousand thousand kisses as tender as my heart! I
+am somewhat better. I leave to-morrow. The English are cruising on the
+Mediterranean. Corsica is ours. Good news for France and for the army.
+
+“BONAPARTE.”
+
+Bonaparte had gone to wage the last decisive battle. He writes to her
+from Verona a few lines that he has arrived there, and that he is just
+going to mount his horse to pursue the march. In this letter, however,
+he does not tell Josephine that General Vaubois, with his fugitive
+regiments, has been beaten by the Tyrolese, and that, driven from their
+mountains, he has arrived in Verona; that Alvinzi occupies the Tyrol and
+has pushed on to Brenta and to Etsch. Bonaparte was gathering his troops
+to drive away General Alvinzi, who had occupied the heights of Caldiero,
+from these important positions, and to take possession of them by main
+force. A violent and desperate struggle ensued, and the day ended with
+victory on the side of the Austrians. Bonaparte had to return to Verona;
+Alvinzi maintained himself on the heights.
+
+To the irritated general, disappointed in his plans and humiliated, his
+love becomes his “bete de souffrance,” upon which he takes vengeance
+for the defeat of Caldiero. Josephine has to endure the flaming wrath of
+Bonaparte, in whom now general and lover are fused into one; but in his
+expressions of anger the general has no complaints--it is the lover who
+murmurs, who reprimands, and is irritated.
+
+On the evening of the 12th November, the day of the defeat of Caldiero,
+Bonaparte returned to Verona. The next day he wrote to Josephine:
+
+“VERONA, the 3d Frimaire, Year V.” (November 13, 1796)
+
+“I love you no more; on the contrary, I hate you. You are a wicked
+creature, very inconsistent, very stupid, very silly. You do not write
+to me. You do not love your husband. You know how much pleasure your
+letters would afford, and you do not write to him even six lines, which
+you can readily scribble out.”
+
+“How, then, do you begin the day, madame? What important occupation
+takes away your time from writing to your very excellent lover? What new
+inclination chokes and thrusts aside the tender, abiding love which you
+have promised him? What can this wonderful, this new love be, which lays
+claim to all your time, and rules over your days, and hinders you from
+occupying yourself with your husband? Josephine, be on your guard; on
+some evil night the doors will be burst open and I shall stand before
+you!”
+
+“In truth, I am restless, my dear one, because I receive no news from
+you. Write me at once four pages about those things, which fill my heart
+with emotion and pleasure.
+
+“I trust soon to fold you in my arms, and then I will overwhelm you with
+a million of kisses burning like the equator.”
+
+“BONAPARTE.”
+
+Whilst Bonaparte was pursuing and engaging with Wurmser and Alvinzi in
+bloody hostilities, and writing to Josephine tender and angry letters
+of a lover ever jealous, ever dissatisfied and envious, Josephine was
+leading in Milan a life full of pleasure and amusement, full of splendor
+and triumphs, of receptions and festivities. Every new victory, every
+onward movement, was for the inhabitants of Milan, and her proud and
+rich nobles, a fresh and welcome occasion to celebrate and glorify the
+wife of General Bonaparte, and, through her, the hero who was to take
+away from their necks the yoke of the Austrian, and who suspected not
+that he was so soon to place upon them another yoke.
+
+Josephine, true to the wishes and commands of Bonaparte, accepted these
+festivities and this homage with all the affability and grace which
+distinguished her. She had by degrees become familiar with this
+ceaseless homage, which at first seemed so wearisome; by degrees she
+took delight in this life of pleasure, in the incense of adulation, and
+the brilliancies of fame. All the indolence, the dreamy carelessness,
+the graceful abandonment of the creole had been again awakened in her.
+She cradled herself playfully on the lulling, bright waves of pleasure
+as an insect with golden wings, and she smiled complacently at the
+stream of encircling festivities.
+
+Bonaparte had told her to use all the arts of a woman to bind the
+Milanese and the Lombards to herself and to her husband. With her smiles
+she was to continue the conquest begun by Bonaparte’s sword.
+
+She could not, therefore, live alone in quiet solitude; she could not
+remain in obscurity while her husband was performing his part on the
+theatre of war; she could not, by an appearance of gravity, or by a
+clouded brow, furnish occasion to the suspicion that there existed doubt
+in the future success of her husband, or in his prosperity and victory.
+
+Roses were to crown her brow--a cheerful smile was to beam on her
+countenance; with joyous spirit, she was to take part in the festivities
+and pleasures--that the Milanese might see with what earnest confidence
+she believed in Napoleon’s star! But Bonaparte, with all the instinct of
+a genuine lover, had read the deepest secret of her soul; he was envious
+and jealous, because he felt that Josephine did not belong to him with
+her whole heart, her whole being, all her emotions and thoughts. Her
+heart, which had received from the past so many scars and wounds,
+could not yet have blossomed anew; it had been warmed by the glow of
+Bonaparte’s love, but it was not yet thoroughly penetrated with that
+passion which Bonaparte so painfully missed, so intensely craved.
+
+The earnest, unfettered nature of his love intimidated her, while it
+ravished and flattered her vanity; but her heart was not entirely his,
+it had yet room for her children, for her friends, for the things of
+this world!
+
+Josephine loved Bonaparte with that soft, modest, and retiring
+affection, which only by degrees--by the storms of anguish, jealousy,
+agony, and the possibility of losing him--was to be fanned into that
+vitality and glow which never cooled again in her heart, and which at
+last gave her the death-stroke.
+
+She therefore thought she was fulfilling her task when she, while
+Bonaparte was fighting with weapons, conquered with smiles, and received
+the homage of the conquered only as a tribute which they brought through
+her to the warlike genius of her husband.
+
+Meanwhile Bonaparte had taken vengeance for his defeat at Caldiero.
+Through a ruse of war, he had decoyed Alvinzi from his safe and
+impregnable position into one where he could meet him with his army
+anxious for the fray, and give him battle.
+
+The gigantic struggle lasted three days--and the close of the third day
+brought to the conqueror, Bonaparte, the laurel-wreath of undying glory,
+which, more enduring and dazzling than an imperial crown, surrounded
+with a halo the hero’s brow long after that crown had fallen from it.
+
+This was the victory of Arcola, which Bonaparte himself decided by
+snatching from the flag-bearer the standard of the retreating regiment,
+and rushing with it, through a shower of balls, over the bridge of death
+and destruction, and, with a voice heard above the thundering cannon,
+shouting jubilant to his soldiers--“En avant, mes amis!” And bravely the
+soldiers followed him--a brilliant victory was the result.
+
+Elevated by this deed, the grandest and most glorious of his heroic
+career, Napoleon returned to Verona on the 19th November. The whole
+city--all Lombardy--sang to his praise their inspired hymns, and greeted
+with enthusiasm the conqueror of Arcola. He, however, wanted a sweeter
+reward; and after obtaining a second victory, on the 23d of November,
+by defeating Wurmser near Mantua, he longed to rest and enjoy an hour’s
+happiness in the arms of his Josephine.
+
+From Verona he wrote to her on the day after the battle of Mantua, on
+the 24th of November:
+
+“I hope soon to be in your arms, my beloved one; I love you to madness!
+I write by this courier for Paris. All is well. Wurmser was defeated
+yesterday under Mantua. Your husband needs nothing but the love of his
+Josephine to be happy. BONAPARTE.”
+
+But the most terrible doubts hung yet over this love. The letter in
+which Napoleon announced his coming had not reached Josephine; and, as
+the next day he came to Milan with all the cravings and impatience of a
+lover, he did not find Josephine there.
+
+She had not suspected his coming; she had not dreamed that the
+commanding officer could stop in his victorious course and give way to
+the lover. She thought him far away; and, ever faithful to Bonaparte’s
+direction to assist him in the conquest of Italy, she had accepted an
+invitation from the city of Genoa, which had lately and gladly entered
+into alliance with France. The most brilliant festivities welcomed her
+in this city of wealth and palaces, and “Genova la superba” gathered
+all its magnificence, all the splendor of its glory, to offer, under the
+eyes of all Europe, her solemn homage to the wife of the celebrated hero
+of Arcola.
+
+While Josephine, with joyous pride was receiving this homage, Bonaparte,
+gloomy and murmuring, sat in his cabinet at Milan, and wrote to her:
+
+“MILAN, the 7th Frimaire, Year V.,” Three o’clock. afternoon (November
+27, 1796).
+
+“I have just arrived in Milan, and rush to your apartments. I have left
+every thing to see you, to press you in my arms; .... you are not there!
+You are pursuing a circle of festivities through the cities. You go away
+from me at my approach; you trouble yourself no more about your dear
+Napoleon. A spleen has made you love him; inconstancy renders you
+indifferent.
+
+“Accustomed to dangers, I know a remedy against ennui and the troubles
+of life. The wretchedness I endure is not to be measured; I am entitled
+not to expect it.
+
+“I will wait here until the 9th. Do not trouble yourself. Pursue your
+pleasures; happiness is made for you. The whole world is too happy when
+it can please you, and your husband alone is very, very unhappy.
+
+“BONAPARTE.”
+
+But this cry of anguish from this crushed heart did not reach Josephine;
+and the courier, who next day came to Milan from Genoa, brought
+from Josephine only a letter with numerous commissions for Berthier.
+Bonaparte’s anger and sorrow knew no bounds, and he at once writes to
+her with all the utterances of despair and complaint of a lover, and the
+proud wrath of an injured husband:
+
+“MILAN, the 8th Frimaire, Year V., eight o’clock, evening.
+
+“The courier whom Berthier had sent to Milan has just arrived. You have
+had no time to write to me; that I can understand very well. In the
+midst of pleasures and amusements it would have been too much for you to
+make the smallest sacrifice for me. Berthier has shown me the letter you
+wrote to him. It is not my purpose to trouble you in your arrangements
+or in the festivities which you are enjoying; I am not worth the
+trouble; the happiness or the misery of a man you love no longer has not
+the right to interest you.
+
+“As regards myself, to love you and you alone, to make you happy, to do
+nothing that can wrong you in any way, is the desire and object of my
+life.
+
+“Be happy, have nothing to reproach me, trouble not yourself about the
+felicity of a man who only breathes in your life, who finds enjoyment
+only in your happiness. When I claim from you a love which would
+approach mine, I am wrong: how can one expect that a cobweb should weigh
+as much as gold? When I sacrifice to you all my wishes, all my thoughts,
+all the moments of my life, I merely obey the spell which your charms,
+your character, your whole person, exercise over my wretched heart. I
+am wrong, for Nature has not endowed me with the power of binding you
+to me; but I deserve from Josephine in return at least consideration and
+esteem, for I love her unto madness, and love her exclusively.
+
+“Farewell, adorable wife! farewell, my Josephine! May fate pour into my
+heart every trouble and every sorrow; but may it send to my Josephine
+serene and happy days! Who deserves it more than she? When it is well
+understood that she loves me no more, I will garner up into my heart my
+deep anguish, and be content to be in many things at least useful and
+good to her.
+
+“I open this letter once more to send you a kiss.... ah! Josephine. ...
+Josephine! BONAPARTE.”
+
+Meanwhile it was not yet well understood that Josephine loved him no
+more; for as soon as she knew of Bonaparte’s presence in Milan, she
+hastened to dispatch him a courier, and to apprise him of her sudden
+departure.
+
+Bonaparte did not leave Milan on the 9th; he remained there, waiting for
+Josephine, to lift her up in his arms from her carriage, and to bear
+her into her apartments; to enjoy with her a few happy days of a quiet,
+domestic, and mutual love, all to themselves.
+
+His presence with the army, however, soon became a matter of necessity;
+for Alvinzi was advancing with considerable re-enforcements, with two
+army corps to the relief of Mantua, and Bonaparte, notwithstanding
+his pressing remonstrances to the Directory, having received but few
+re-enforcements and very little money, had to exert all his powers and
+energy to press a few advantages from the superior forces of the enemy.
+Everywhere his presence and personal action were needed; and, constantly
+busy with war, ever sword in hand, he could not, for long weeks, even
+once take pen IN HAND and write to his Josephine. His longings had to
+subside before the force of circumstances, which claimed the general’s
+whole time.
+
+On the 3d of February, 1797, he again finds time to send her a few
+lines, to say that he is breaking up and going to Rimini. Then, after
+Alvinzi had been again defeated, after the fortress of Mantua had
+capitulated, Bonaparte had to break up again and go to Rome, to require
+from the pope the reason why he had made common cause with Austria, and
+shown himself the enemy of the French republic. In Bologna he lingered a
+few days, as Josephine, in compliance with his wishes, had come there to
+make amends by her presence for so long a separation.
+
+She remained in Bologna, while Bonaparte advanced toward the city of
+the Church. But the gloomy quietude, the constant rumors of war, the
+threatening dangers, the intrigues with which she was surrounded, the
+hostile exertions of the priests, the want of society, of friendly
+faces, every thing had a tendency to make Josephine’s residence in
+Bologna very disagreeable, and to bring on sadness and nervousness.
+
+In this gloomy state of mind she writes to Bonaparte that she feels
+sick, exhausted and helpless; that she is anxious to return to Paris. He
+answers her from Ancona:
+
+“The 8th Pluviose, Year V. (February 16, 1797).
+
+“You are sad, you are sick, you write to me no longer, you wish to
+return to Paris! Do you no longer love your friend? This thought makes
+me very unhappy. My dear friend, life is intolerable to me, since I have
+heard of your sadness.
+
+“I send you at once Moscati to take care of you. My health is somewhat
+feeble; my cold hangs on. I pray you spare yourself, and love me as much
+as I love you, and do write every day. My restlessness is horrible.
+
+“I have given orders to Moscati to accompany you to Ancona, if you will
+come. I will write to you and let you know where I am.
+
+“I may perhaps make peace with the pope, and then will soon be with you;
+it is the most intense desire of my life.
+
+“I send a hundred kisses. Think not that any thing can equal my love,
+unless it be my solicitude for you. Write to me every day yourself, my
+dearly-beloved one!
+
+“BONAPARTE.”
+
+But Josephine, in her depressed state of mind, and her nervous
+irritability, did not have the courage to draw nearer the scenes of war,
+and she dreaded to face again such dangers as once she had encountered
+in Brescia and on her journey to Florence. She had not been able to
+overcome the indolence of the Creole so much as to write to Bonaparte.
+Fully conscious of his love and pardon, she relied upon them when, in
+her reluctance to every exertion, she announced to him, through the
+physician Moscati, that she would not come to Ancona, but would wait for
+him in Bologna.
+
+This news made a very painful impression upon Bonaparte, and filled him
+with sorrow, though it reached him on a day in which he had obtained
+a new triumph, a spiritual victory without any shedding of blood. The
+pope, frightened at the army detachments approaching Rome, as well as at
+the menacing language of the victor of Arcola, signed a peace with the
+French republic, and with the general whose sword had bowed into the
+dust all the princes of Italy, and freed all the population from their
+duties as subjects. Bonaparte announced this to Josephine, and it is
+evident how important it was to him that this news should precede even
+his love-murmurings and reproaches. His letter was dated
+
+“TOLONTINO, the 1st Ventose, Year V. (February 19,1797).
+
+“Peace with Rome is signed. Bologna, Ferrara, Romagna fall into the
+hands of the French republic. The pope has to pay us in a short time
+thirty millions, and gives us many precious objects of art.
+
+“I leave to-morrow for Ancona, and then for Rimini, Ravenna, and
+Bologna. If your health permits, come over to meet me in Ravenna, but, I
+implore you, spare yourself.
+
+“Not a word from your hand! What have I done? To think only of you,
+to love but you, to live but for my wife, to enjoy only my beloved’s
+happiness, does this deserve such a cruel treatment from her? My friend,
+I implore you, think of me, and write to me every day. Either you are
+sick, or you love me no longer. Do you imagine, then, that my heart is
+of marble? Why do you have so little sympathy with my sorrow? You must
+have a very poor idea of me! That I cannot believe. You, to whom Nature
+has imparted so much understanding, so much amiability, and so much
+beauty, you, who alone can rule in my heart, you know, without doubt,
+what power you have over me!
+
+“Write to me, think of me, and love me.
+
+“Yours entirely, yours for life,
+
+“BONAPARTE.”
+
+This is the last letter of Bonaparte to Josephine during his first
+Italian campaign--the last at least in the series of letters which
+Queen Hortense has made public, as the most beautiful and most glorious
+monument to her mother. [Footnote: “Lettres de Napoleon a Josephine et
+de Josephine a Napoleon et a sa fille. Londres et Leipzic, 1833.”]
+
+We have dwelt upon them because these letters, like sunbeams, throw a
+bright light on the new pathway of Josephine’s life--because they are an
+eloquent and splendid testimony to the love which Josephine had inspired
+in her young husband, and also to her amiableness, to her sweetness of
+disposition, to her grace, and to all the noble and charming qualities
+which procured her so much admiration and affection, and which still
+caused her to be loved, sought for and celebrated, when she had to
+descend from the height of a throne, and became the deserted, divorced
+wife of the man who loved her immeasurably, and who so often had sworn
+to her that this love would only end with his life!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII. THE COURT OF MONTEBELLO.
+
+
+On the 18th of April were finally signed, in Leoben, the preliminaries
+of peace between Austria and France, and which finally put an end to
+this cruel war. Austria was compelled to acknowledge herself defeated,
+for even the Archduke Charles, who had pushed forward from the Rhine
+with his army to oppose the conqueror of Wurmser and of Alvinzi, had not
+been able to arrest Bonaparte in his victorious career.
+
+Bonaparte had publicly declared he would march toward Vienna, and
+dictate to the Emperor of Germany, in his very palace, terms of peace.
+He was at the point of carrying into execution this bold plan. Since the
+battle of Tagliamento, on the 16th of March, the army of the archduke
+was broken, and he could no longer prevent Bonaparte from marching with
+his army over Laybach and Trieste into Germany. On the 25th of March,
+Bonaparte entered into Klagenfurt; and now that he was but forty miles
+from the capital, the Austrian court began to tremble at the approach
+of this army of sans-culottes who, under the leadership of General
+Bonaparte, had been transformed into heroes. She therefore accepted
+the propositions of peace made by Bonaparte, and, as already said, its
+preliminaries were signed in Leoben.
+
+Now Bonaparte could rest after such constant and bloody work, now he
+could again hasten to his Josephine, who was waiting for him in the
+palace of Serbelloni. The whole city--all Lombardy--was with her, awaiting him. His journey
+from Leoben to Milan was a continuous triumph, which, however, reached
+its culminating point at his entrance into the city. Milan had adorned
+herself for this day as a bride to receive her hero. From every balcony
+waved the united French and Italian standards, costly tapestries
+were hanging down, every window was occupied by beautiful women
+gayly attired, and who, with large bouquets of flowers and waving
+handkerchiefs, greeted the conqueror. All the dignitaries of the city
+went to meet him in processional pomp; from every tower sounded the
+welcome chimes, and the compact masses of the people in the streets and
+on the roofs of the houses filled the air with the jubilant shout: “Long
+live the deliverer of Italy! the conqueror of Austria!”
+
+Josephine, surrounded by ladies of the highest aristocracy of Lombardy,
+received her husband in the Palace Serbelloni. With radiant smiles, and
+yet with tears in her eyes, she received him, her heart swelling with a
+lofty joy at this ovation to Bonaparte; and through the glorification
+of this victory he appeared to her more beautiful, more worthy of love,
+than ever before. On this day of his return from so many battles
+and victories her heart gave itself up with all its power, all its
+unreservedness and fulness, to this wondrous man who had won so
+many important battles, and who bowed before her alone with all the
+submissive humility of a conquered man! From this day she loved him with
+that warm, strong love which was to end only with her death.
+
+Josephine had good reason to be happy on this day, for it brought her
+not only her husband, but also a new source of happiness, her son, her
+dear Eugene. Bonaparte had sent for him from Paris, and given him a
+commission of second lieutenant in the first regiment of hussars, and
+had also appointed him adjutant of the commanding general of the army of
+Italy, perhaps as much to give to Josephine a new proof of his affection
+as to attach Eugene to his person, for whom he felt the love of a
+father.
+
+Near the returned general, Josephine, to her supreme delight, saw her
+dear son, from whom she had been separated so long; and Eugene, whom she
+had left in Paris a mere boy, presented himself to her in Milan, in his
+officer’s uniform, as a youth, with countenance beaming with joy and
+eyes full of lustre, ready to enter upon fame’s pathway, on which his
+step-father, so brilliant a model, was walking before him. The maternal
+heart of Josephine felt both love and pride at the sight of this young
+man, so remarkable for his healthy appearance, and his youthful vigor
+and genius, and she thanked Bonaparte with redoubled love for the joyous
+surprise which his considerate affection had prepared for her.
+
+Now began for Josephine and Bonaparte happy days, illumined by all the
+splendor of festivities, of fealty exhibited, of triumphs realized.
+After lingering a few days in Milan, Bonaparte, with his wife, the
+whole train of his friends, his adjutants and servants, removed to the
+pleasure-castle of Montebello, near Milan.
+
+Here, amid rich natural scenery, in this large, imposing castle, which,
+built on the summit of a hill, mantled with olive-groves and vineyards,
+afforded on all sides a view of the surrounding, smiling plains of
+Lombardy--here Bonaparte wished to rest from the hardships and dangers
+of his last campaign; here, he wished to organize the great Italian
+republic which was then the object of his exertions, and whose iron
+crown he afterward coveted to place on his head. At Montebello he wished
+to enact new laws for Italy, create new institutious, reduce to silence,
+with threatening voice, the opposition of those who dared to oppose to
+the new law of liberty the old centennial rights of possession and of
+citizenship.
+
+Italy was to be free, such was the will of her deliverer; and he took
+great care not to let any one suspect or read the secret thoughts
+which he kept hid behind the pompous proclamations of his authority. He
+therefore answered evasively and vaguely those who came to fathom his
+designs, and to become acquainted with his plans.
+
+The Grand-duke of Tuscany sent to Montebello for this purpose, the
+Marquis Manfredini. He was instructed to ask General Bonaparte if it was
+his intention to destroy the grand-duchy of Tuscany, and to incorporate
+its territory into the great Italian republic. The marquis implored
+Bonaparte with persuasive, touching accents, to tell him what his plans
+were, and if he would allow Tuscany to subsist as an independent state.
+
+Bonaparte, smiling, shrugged his shoulders: “Signor marquis,” said he,
+“you remind me of that creditor who once asked the Cardinal de Rohan
+when he wished to pay him. The cardinal simply answered: ‘My dear sir,
+do not be so curious.’ If your grand-duke will keep quiet, he will
+suffer no injury.”
+
+Napoleon exhibited less friendliness and good-nature toward the republic
+of Venice, which had also sent her delegates to Montebello for the
+sake of reconciling the general, who had sworn vengeance against the
+republic, because a sort of Sicilian Vespers had been organized there
+against the French; and because, especially in Verona, and throughout
+the Venetian provinces, thousands of Frenchmen had been murdered by
+the revolted peasants, whom the fanatical priesthood had stirred to
+sedition.
+
+Now, that Bonaparte had defeated the Grand-duke Charles, the hope of
+the rebels, Venice humbly sent her most distinguished sons to plead for
+forgiveness and indulgence, and to promise full reparation. But Napoleon
+received them with contempt and threatening anger, and to their humble
+petitions replied in a thundering voice, “I will be an Attila to
+Venice!”
+
+Meanwhile the same general, who swore the ruin of Venice, showed himself
+conciliating and lenient toward Rome, and instead of being an Attila, he
+endeavored to be a preserver and a protector.
+
+The Directory in Paris was not fully satisfied with the peace which
+Bonaparte had concluded with the pope. They thought Napoleon had been
+too lenient with him; that he ought to have taken Rome from him, as he
+tore away Milan from the Emperor of Germany. The five rulers of France
+went so far as to make reproaches against Bonaparte for his leniency,
+and to require from him the downfall of the pope, and with him that of
+Catholicism.
+
+But Bonaparte had the boldness to oppose these demands of the Directory,
+and to set up his will in defiance to their supreme authority.
+
+He wrote to the Directory: “You say with reason that the Roman religion
+will long be the enemy of the republic; that is very true, but it is
+equally true that, on account of the great distance you are from the
+scene of events, you cannot measure the amount of difficulty there is in
+carrying out your orders.
+
+“You wish to destroy the Catholic Church in a city where it has ruled so
+many years. Believe me, it is useless to burden ourselves with fruitless
+labor. We have already enough to do; to defeat our enemies on the field
+of battle, it is not necessary to arouse all Europe against us--even the
+heretics, through policy, would defend the cause of the Holy See. Are
+you fully convinced that France would calmly look on? France needs a
+religious worship: that which you propose cannot, on account of its
+simplicity, replace this one. Follow my advice: let the pope be pope!
+If you bury his earthly power, acknowledge at least his spiritual
+authority. Force him not to seek refuge at a foreign court, where by his
+mere presence it would gain an immense ascendency. Italy wants religion
+and the pope. If she is wounded in her faith, she will be hostile to us,
+while now she is peaceably inclined. I repeat, the present difficulties
+are too weighty, to add new ones. Who can fathom the future? Who can
+assume the responsibility of such a deed as the one you propose? I shall
+not, therefore, do it, since you leave it with me to inform you on the
+subject. I consider it dangerous to conjure up fanaticism. The Catholic
+religion is that of the arts, and the arts are absolutely necessary
+to Italy’s welfare. Be sure that if you destroy the former, you give a
+fatal blow to the latter, and that the Italians are good accountants.
+Ponder well these matters, then, and be sure that Catholicism has ceased
+to exist in France. Are you well satisfied that no one there will go
+back to it?”
+
+While in Montebello, though the sword had been laid aside, Bonaparte was
+still busy with war affairs, and the quarrels of princes and nations.
+Josephine at the same time passed there the honored life of a mighty
+princess, whose favors and intercessions the great and the powerful of
+earth endeavored to obtain by every conceivable means. The ladies of the
+aristocracy of Milan were eager to pay their homage to the wife of the
+deliverer; the courts of Italy, as well as other parts of Europe, sent
+ambassadors to General Bonaparte; and these gentlemen were naturally
+zealous in offering their incense to Josephine, in surrounding her with
+courtly and flattering attentions. The Marquis de Gallo, the ambassador
+of Spain at the court of Verona, came with the Austrian ambassador, the
+Count von Meerfeld, to Montebello, to enter into negotiations about the
+peace which was to form the precious key-stone to the preliminaries of
+Leobeu; and these two gentlemen, who opposed to the plain manners of
+Bonaparte’s companions-in-arms the very essence of refined, polished,
+and witty courtiers, rivalled each other in showing to Josephine their
+highest consideration by their festivities and amusements; to win her
+favor and interest through the most complacent and considerate attention
+to all her views, wishes, and plans.
+
+Josephine received all this homage with the enchanting and smiling
+quietude of a woman who, without exaltation or pride, feels no surprise
+at any flattery or homage, but kindly and thankfully accepts what is
+due to her. Among this brilliant Italian aristocracy which surrounded
+her--among the ambassadors of the powers who sued not so much for
+alliance with France as for General Bonaparte’s favor--among the
+generals and superior officers who had shared with Bonaparte the dangers
+of the battle-field and the laurels of victory--among learned
+men, artists, and poets, whom Bonaparte had often invited to
+Montebello--among so brilliant, so wealthy, so superior, so intelligent
+a society, Josephine shone as the resplendent sun around which all
+these planets moved, and from which they all received life, light, and
+happiness. She received the ambassadors of sovereigns with the dignity
+and affability of a princess; she conversed with the most distinguished
+ladies in cheerful simplicity, and with the unaffected joyousness and
+harmless innocency of a young maiden; she conversed with men of learning
+and artists in profound and serious tones, about their labors, their
+efforts, and success; she allowed the generals to relate the momentous
+events of the late great battles, and her eye shone with deeper pride
+and pleasure when from the mouth of the brave she heard the enthusiastic
+praise of her husband.
+
+Then her keen looks would be directed toward Bonaparte, who perchance
+stood in a window recess, engaged in some grave, solemn conversation
+with an eminent ambassador; her eyes again would glance from her husband
+to her son, to this young officer of seventeen years, who now laughed,
+jested, and played, as a boy, and then with respectful attention
+listened to the conversation of the generals, and whose countenance
+beamed with inspiration as they spoke to him of the mighty deeds of war
+and the plans of battle of his step-father, whom Eugene loved with the
+affection of a son, and the enthusiasm of a disciple who looks up to and
+reveres his master.
+
+Yes, Josephine was happy in these days of Montebello. The past, with
+its sad memories, its deceptions and errors, had sunk behind her, and
+a luminous future sent its rays upon her at the side of the man whom
+jubilant Italy proclaimed “her deliverer,” and whom Josephine’s joyous
+heart acknowledged to be her hero, her beloved. For now she loved him
+truly, not with that love of fifteen years past, with the marmoreal
+pulse, of which Bonaparte had spoken to her in his letters, but with
+all the depth and glow of which a woman’s heart is capable, with all
+the passion and jealousy of which the heart of a creole alone is
+susceptible.
+
+Happy, sunny days of Montebello! days full of love, of poetry, of
+beauty, of happiness!--full of the first, genial, undisturbed, mutual
+communion!--days of the first triumphs, of the first homage, of the
+first dawn of a brilliant future! Never could the memory of those days
+fade away from Josephine’s heart; never could the empress, in the long
+series of her triumphs and rejoicings, point to an hour like one of
+those she had, as the wife of the general, enjoyed at Montebello!
+
+Every day brought new festivities, new joys, new receptions: balls,
+official banquets, select friendly dinners, came by turns; in
+brilliant soirees, they received the aristocracy of Lombardy, who, with
+ever-growing zeal, struggled for the honor of being received at the
+court of Montebello, and to see the doors of the drawing-room of the
+wife of General Bonaparte open to them. Sometimes parties were made up
+for a chase, of which Berthier acted as master, and who was not a whit
+behind in organizing hunting-parties in the style of those of the former
+court of Versailles, where he once had acted as page.
+
+At times, in the warm days of May, the whole company went out together
+on the large and splendid piazza which ran along the castle, on the
+garden side, and which was supported by slender marble columns, and
+whose roof, made of thin wire-work, was thickly shaded by the foliage of
+the vine, the ivy, and the delicate leaves of the passion-flower. Here,
+resting on the marble settees, one listened in blessed happiness to
+the music of bands secreted in some myrtle-grove and playing military
+symphonies or patriotic melodies. Then, as the evening faded away, when
+the court of Montebello, as the Italians now called the residence of the
+general of the republic, had no brilliant reception, they gathered in
+the drawing-room, where Josephine, with all the affability of a lady
+from the great world, received her guests, and with all the modesty and
+grace of a simple housewife served herself the tea.
+
+These quiet social evenings in the little drawing-room of Josephine,
+away from excitement, were among Bonaparte’s happiest moments; there,
+for a few hours at least, he forgot the mighty cares and schemes which
+occupied his mind, and abandoned himself to the joys of society, and
+to a cheerful intercourse with his family and friends. In these quiet
+evenings Josephine exerted all the art and refinement of her great
+social nature to render Bonaparte cheerful and to amuse him. She
+sometimes organized a party of vingtet-un, and Bonaparte with his
+cards was as eager for the victory as in days past he had been with his
+soldiers. Very often, when success did not favor him, and his cards were
+not such as suited him, the great general would condescend to correct
+fate (de corriger la fortune); and he was much delighted when in his
+expertness he succeeded, and, thanks to his correction of fate, obtained
+the victory over his play-mates. When the parti was ended, they went
+out on the terrace to enjoy the balmy air and refreshing coolness of
+the evening, and to take delight in witnessing the enchanting spectacle
+afforded by the thousands of little stars with which the fire-flies
+illumined the darkness of the summer night and encircled the lake as
+with a coronet of emeralds.
+
+When they grew tired of this, they returned to the drawing-room to
+listen to Josephine’s fine, full, soul-like voice singing the songs of
+her island-home, or else to find amusement in the recital of fairy tales
+and marvellous stories. None understood this last accomplishment better
+than Bonaparte; and it required only the gracious request, the lovely
+smiles of his Josephine, to convert the general into one of those
+improvisatores who with their stories, more resembling a dramatic
+representation than a narrative, could exalt the Italian mind into
+ecstasy, and be ever sure to attract an attentive audience.
+
+Bonaparte understood the art of holding his audience in suspense, and
+keeping them in breathless attention, quite as well as an improvisator
+of the Place of St. Mark or of Toledo Street. His stories were always
+full of the highest dramatic action and thrilling effect; and it was his
+greatest triumph when he saw his hearers turn pale, and when Josephine,
+shuddering, clung anxiously to him, as if seeking from the soldier’s
+hand protection against the fearful ghosts he had evoked.
+
+After the marvellous stories came grave scientific conversations with
+men of learning, whom Bonaparte had invited for the sake of deriving
+from their intercourse both interest and instruction. Among these were
+the renowned mathematicians Maria Fontana, Monge, and Berthelet; and
+the famous astronomer Oriani, whom Bonaparte, through a very flattering
+autographic note, had invited to Montebello.
+
+But Oriani, little accustomed to society and to conversation with any
+one but learned men, was very reluctant to come to Montebello, and would
+gladly have avoided it had he not been afraid of exciting the wrath
+of the great warrior. Bonaparte, surrounded by his generals, his
+staff-officers and adjutants, was in the large and splendidly-illumined
+drawing-room when Oriani made his appearance.
+
+The savant, timid and embarrassed, remained near the door, and dared not
+advance a single step farther on this brilliant floor, where the lights
+of the chandeliers were reflected, and which filled the savant with more
+bewilderment than the star-bespangled firmament.
+
+But Bonaparte’s keen eye understood at once his newly-arrived guest; he
+advanced eagerly toward him, and as Oriani, stammering and embarrassed,
+was endeavoring to say something, but grew silent in the midst of his
+speech, the former smilingly asked:
+
+“What troubles you so much? You are among your friends; we honor
+science, and I willingly bow to it.”
+
+“Ah, general,” sighed Oriani, sorrowfully, “this magnificence dazzles
+me.”
+
+Bonaparte shrugged his shoulders. “What!” said he, looking around with a
+contemptuous glance on the mirrors and rich tapestries which adorned the
+walls, and on the glittering chandeliers, the embroidered uniforms of
+the generals, and the costly toilets of the ladies--“what, do you call
+this magnificence? Can these miserable splendors blind the man who every
+night contemplates the far more lofty and impressive glories of the
+skies?”
+
+The savant, recalled by these warning words of Bonaparte to the
+consciousness of his own dignity, soon recovered his quiet demeanor
+and conversed long and gladly with the general, who never grew tired of
+putting questions to him, and of gaining from him information.
+
+But there were also cloudy moments in Montebello, oftentimes
+overshadowing the serene sunshine. They came from France--from Rome--and
+there were even some which had their origin in Montebello. These clouds
+which were formed in Montebello, and which caused slight showers of
+tears with Josephine, and little tempests of anger with Bonaparte, were
+certainly not of a very serious nature; they owed their origin to a
+lapdog, and this pet dog was Fortune, the same which in days gone by had
+been the letter-carrier between Josephine and her children when she
+was in the Carmelite prison. Notwithstanding Fortune had become old
+and peevish, Josephine and her children loved him for the sake of past
+reminiscences, while Bonaparte simply hated and detested him. Bonaparte
+had, however, perhaps without wishing it, erected for him an abiding
+monument in the “Memorial de Ste. Helene,” where he gave a report of his
+hostilities with the lapdog Fortune, along with those of his wars with
+the European powers.
+
+“I was then,” says Bonaparte, in his “Memorial,” “the ruler of Italy,
+but in my own house I had nothing to say; there Josephine’s will was
+supreme. There was an ugly, growling personage, at war with everybody,
+whose bad qualities made him intolerable to me and to others, yet he was
+an important individual, who was by Josephine and her children flattered
+from morning till evening, and who was the object of their most delicate
+attentions. Fortune, to me a hateful beast, was a horrible lapdog,
+with crooked legs and deformed body, without the slightest beauty or
+kindness, but of a most malicious disposition. I would gladly have
+killed him, and often prayed Heaven to deliver me from him. This
+happiness was, however, reserved for me in Montebello. A bull-dog which
+belonged to my cook became tired of his churlish incivilities, and not
+having the same considerateness as the rest of the inmates of the palace
+of Montebello, he attacked the detestable animal so violently as to
+kill him on the spot. Then began tears and sighs in the house. Josephine
+could not be comforted; Eugene wept, and I myself against my will put
+on a sorrowful countenance. But I gained nothing by this fortunate
+accident. After Fortune had been stuffed, sung in sonnets, and made
+immortal by funeral discourses, he was replaced by two setters, male
+and female. Then came the amiable displays and the bickerings of this
+love-couple, and afterward their progeny. So that I knew not what to do.
+
+“Soon after this, as I was walking in the park, I noticed my cook, who,
+as soon as he saw me, disappeared on a side-path.
+
+“‘Are you afraid of me?’ said I. “’ Ah, general,’ replied he, timidly, ‘you have good reason to be angry
+with me.’
+
+“‘I? What have you done?’
+
+“‘My unfortunate dog has indeed killed poor little Fortune.’
+
+“‘Where is your dog?’
+
+“‘He is in the city. God have mercy on us! he dares not come here.’
+
+“‘Listen, my good fellow’ (but I spoke in a low voice, for fear of being
+heard), ‘let your dog run about just as he likes--perhaps he may deliver
+me from the others.’
+
+“But this happiness was not in reserve for me. Josephine, not satisfied
+with dogs, soon after this procured a cat, which brought me into a state
+of despair; for this detestable animal was the most vicious of its race.
+....” [Footnote: Memorial de Ste. Helene.]
+
+The strifes with Fortune, with the setters, and with the cat, troubled
+Bonaparte less than the intrigues which his enemies in Italy, as well
+as in France, stirred up against him, and through them endeavored to
+destroy him.
+
+In Italy it was the priests who had sworn deadly enmity to Bonaparte,
+and who, with all the weapons which the arsenal of the Church,
+fanaticism, and superstition, furnished them, fought against the general
+who had dared to break the power of the pope, and to restrict within
+narrower limits the rule of the priests. It was these priests who
+continually made the most furious opposition to the ascendency which
+Bonaparte had won over the Italian mind, and sought constantly to rouse
+up, within the minds of the people, opposition to him.
+
+One day, Marmont announced that a certain Abbe Sergi was exciting the
+peasants against the French, and especially against Bonaparte; that he
+was preaching sedition and rebellion in Christ’s name, and was showing
+to the ignorant laborers a letter, which he had received from Christ,
+in which it was declared that General Bonaparte was an atheist and a
+heretic, whom one ought to destroy and drive away from Italy’s sacred
+soil.
+
+Bonaparte at once ordered Marmont to arrest this Abbe Sergi, who lived
+in Poncino, and to bring him to Montebello. His orders were followed,
+and, after a few days, the captive abbe was brought before the general.
+He seemed cheerful, unaffected, and assumed the appearance of being
+unconscious of guilt.
+
+“Are you the man,” exclaimed Bonaparte, “to whom Christ writes letters
+from Paradise?”
+
+“Ah! signor general, you are joking,” replied the abbe, smiling--but
+one of Bonaparte’s angry looks fell upon his broad, well-fed face, and
+forced the priest into silence.
+
+“I am not joking,” answered Bonaparte, angrily; “you, however,
+are joking with the peasants, since you are telling these poor,
+superstitious men that you are in correspondence with Christ.”
+
+“Alas! signor general,” sighed the abbe, with contrite mien, “I wanted
+to do something in the defence of our cause, and what can a poor
+clergyman do?--he has no weapons--”
+
+“Mind that in future you procure other weapons!” interrupted Bonaparte,
+vehemently. “That will be better for you than to dare use the Deity for
+your schemes of wickedness. I order you to receive no more letters from
+Paradise, not even from Christ. Correspond with your equals, and be on
+your guard, or you will soon find that I can punish the disobedient!”
+
+The abbe bowed penitently, and with tears in his eyes. Bonaparte turned
+his back to him, and ordered him to be taken to Poncino.
+
+From that day, however, much as he hated General Bonaparte, the Abbe
+Sergi received no more letters from Paradise.
+
+Nevertheless, the letters of the Abbe Sergi were not those which gave
+the most solicitude to Bonaparte; much worse were those he received from
+Paris, which gave him an account of the persevering intrigues of his
+enemies, and the malicious slanders that were circulated against him by
+the Directory, who were envious of his power and superiority, and which
+mischievous and poisonous calumnies were re-echoed in the newspapers.
+
+These insidious attacks of the journals, more than any thing else,
+excited Bonaparte’s vehement anger. The hero who, on the battle-field,
+trembled not before the balls which whizzed about his head, had a
+violent dislike to those insect-stings of critics who, like wasps
+humming round about the laurel-wreath on his brow, ever found between
+the leaves of his fame some place where with their stings they could
+wound him, and who was as sensitive as a young blameless maiden would be
+against the wasp-stings of slander.
+
+This irritable sensitiveness led him to consider those detestable
+attacks of the journals worth a threatening denunciation to the
+Directory.
+
+“Citizen-directors,” wrote he to them, “I owe you an open confession; my
+heart is depressed and filled with horror through the constant attacks
+of the Parisian journals. Sold to the enemies of the republic, they
+rush upon me, who am boldly defending the republic. ‘I am keeping the
+plunder,’ whilst I am defeating them; ‘I affect despotism,’ whilst I
+speak only as general-in-chief; ‘I assume supreme power,’ and yet I
+submit to law! Every thing I do is turned to a crime against me; the
+poison streams over me.
+
+“Were any one in Italy to dare give utterance to the one-thousandth part
+of those calumnies, I would impose upon him an awful silence!
+
+“In Paris, this is allowed to go on unpunished, and your tolerance is an
+encouragement. The Directory is thus producing the impression that it is
+opposed to me. If the directors suspect me, let them say so, and I will
+justify myself. If they are convinced of my uprightness, let them defend
+me.
+
+“In this circle of argument, I include the Directory with me, and cannot
+go beyond it. My desire is, to be useful to my country. Must I, for
+reward, drink the cup of poison?
+
+“I can no longer be satisfied with empty, evasive arguments; and if
+justice is not done to me, then I must take it myself. Therefore, I am
+yours. Salutation and brotherly love. BONAPAKTE.”
+
+But all these vexations, hostilities, and calumnies, were, however,
+as already said, mere clouds, which now and then obscured the bright
+sunshine at the court of Montebello. At a smile or a loving word from
+Josephine, they flew away rapidly, and the sunshine again in all
+its splendor, the pleasures, feasts, and joys, continued in their
+undisturbed course. All Italy did homage to the conqueror, and it was
+therefore very natural that sculptors and painters should endeavor to
+draw some advantage from this enthusiasm for its deliverer, and that
+they should endeavor to represent to the admirers of Bonaparte his
+peculiar form and countenance.
+
+But Bonaparte did not like to have his portrait painted. The staring,
+watchful gaze of an artist was an annoyance to him; it made him restless
+and anxious, as if he feared that the scrutinizing look at his face
+might read the secrets of his soul. Yet at Josephine’s tender and
+pressing request he had consented to its being taken by a young painter,
+Le Gros, whose distinguished talent had been brought to his notice.
+
+Le Gros came therefore to Montebello, happy in the thought that he could
+immortalize himself through a successful portrait of the hero whom he
+honored with all the enthusiasm of a young heart. But he waited in vain
+three days for Bonaparte to give him a sitting. The general had not one
+instant to spare for the unfortunate young artist.
+
+At last, at Josephine’s pressing request, Bonaparte consented on the
+fourth day to sit for him one-quarter of an hour after breakfast. Le
+Gros came therefore delighted, at the time appointed, into the cabinet
+of Josephine, and had his easel ready, awaiting the moment when
+Bonaparte would sit in the arm-chair opposite. But, alas! the painter’s
+hopes were not to be realized. The general could not bring himself to
+sit in that arm-chair, doing nothing but keeping his head quiet, so
+that the painter might copy his features. He had no sooner been seated,
+than he sprang up suddenly, and declared it was quite impossible to
+endure such martyrdom.
+
+Le Gros dared not repeat his request, but with tears in his eyes
+gathered up his painting-materials. Josephine smiled. “I see very well,”
+ said she, “that I must have recourse to some extraordinary means to save
+for me and for posterity a portrait of the hero of Arcola.”
+
+She sat down in the arm-chair, and beckoned to Le Gros to have his easel
+in readiness. Then with a tender voice she called Napoleon to her, and
+opening both arms she drew him down on her lap, and in this way she
+induced him to sit down quietly a few moments and allow the painter the
+sight of his face, thus enabling him to sketch the portrait. [Footnote:
+“Memoires et Souvenirs du Comte Lavalette,” vol. i., p. 168.]
+
+At the end of this peculiar sitting, Bonaparte smilingly promised that
+he would next day grant the painter a second one, provided Josephine
+would again have the “extraordinary means” ready. She consented, and for
+four days in succession Le Gros was enabled to sit before him a quarter
+of an hour, and throw upon his canvas the features of the general, while
+he quietly sat on Josephine’s lap.
+
+This picture, which Le Gros thus painted, thanks to the sweet ruse of
+Josephine, and which was scattered throughout Europe in copperplate
+prints, represented Bonaparte, with uncovered head, holding a standard
+in his hand, and with his face turned toward his soldiers, calling on
+them to follow him as he dashed on the bridge of Arcola, amid a shower
+of Austrian balls.
+
+It is a beautiful, imposing picture, and contemporaries praised it for
+its likeness to the hero, but no one could believe that this pale, grave
+countenance, these gloomy eyes, and earnest lips, which seemed incapable
+of a smile, were those of Bonaparte as he sat on the lap of his beloved
+Josephine when Le Gros was painting it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII. THE PEACE OF CAMPO FORMIO.
+
+
+After three months the time drew nigh when the peace negotiations
+were to reach a final conclusion, and when it was to be decided if the
+Emperor of Germany would make peace with the French republic or if he
+would renew the war.
+
+For three months had the negotiations continued in Montebello--three
+months of feasts, pleasures, and receptions. To the official and public
+rejoicings had been also added domestic joys. Madame Letitia came to
+Italy to warm her happy, proud mother’s heart at the triumphs of her
+darling son; and she brought with her her daughter Pauline, while the
+youngest, Caroline, remained behind in Madame Campan’s
+boarding-school. It could not be otherwise than that the sisters of
+the commander-in-chief, whose true beauty reminded one of the classic
+features of ancient Greece, should find among the officers of the army
+of Italy most enthusiastic admirers and worshippers, and that many
+should long for the favor of being more intimately connected by the ties
+of affection with the celebrated general.
+
+Bonaparte left his sisters entirely free to make a choice among their
+suitors, and he hesitated not to give his consent when Pauline became
+affianced to General Leclerc. After a few weeks, the marriage was
+celebrated in Montebello; and, soon after, the happy couple left that
+city to return to Paris, whither Madame Letitia had preceded them.
+
+Josephine, however, remained with her husband; she accompanied him from
+Montebello to Milan, where Bonaparte, now that the Austrian envoys had
+taken their leave, tarried some time, awaiting the final decision of the
+Austrian court upon his propositions. Meanwhile, the imperial court,
+for good reasons, still hesitated. It was known that in France there was
+secretly preparing an event which in a short time might bring on a new
+order of things, putting an end to the hateful republic, and once more
+placing the Bourbons on the throne of the lilies.
+
+General Pichegru, a zealous royalist, and intimate friend of the Prince
+de Conde, with whom he had been in secret correspondence for several
+months, had organized a conspiracy which had for its object the downfall
+of the Directory, the ruin of the republican administration, the recall
+of the monarchy to Paris, and the re-establishment of the Bourbons.
+
+But General Moreau, who, with his army on the Rhine, stood opposite to
+that of the royalists, had the good fortune to discover the conspiracy,
+by intercepting Pichegru’s whole correspondence. The Directory, informed
+by Moreau, took secretly precautionary measures, and on the 18th
+Fructidor, Pichegru, with all his real or supposed guilty companions,
+was arrested. To these guilty ones belonged also, according to
+the opinion of the Directory, two out of their number, Carnot and
+Barthelemy, besides twenty-two deputies and one hundred and twenty-eight
+others, all among the educated classes of society. These were exiled
+to Cayenne; Carnot alone escaped from this distant and cruel exile by a
+timely flight to Geneva.
+
+The 18th Fructidor, which disarmed the royalists and destroyed their
+plans, had a great influence upon the negotiations carried on between
+France and Austria, which were entangled with so many difficulties.
+Austria, which had vacillated and delayed--for she was informed of the
+schemes of the royalists, and hoped that if Louis XVIII. should ascend
+the throne, she would be delivered from all the burdensome exactions
+of the republic--now saw that this abortive attempt had removed the
+royalists still further from their object and more firmly consolidated
+the republic; she was therefore inclined to push on negotiations more
+speedily, and to show greater readiness to bring on a final settlement.
+
+The conferences broken off in Montebello were resumed in Udine. Thither
+came the Austrian and French plenipotentiaries. Bonaparte, however,
+felt that his presence was also necessary, so as not to allow these
+conferences again to remain in abeyance. He therefore, accompanied by
+Josephine, went to Passeriano, a beautiful residence of the Doge
+Marini, not far from Udine, charmingly situated on the shores of the
+Tagliamento, and in the midst of a splendid park. But the residence
+in Passeriano was not enlivened by the pleasures, recreations, and
+festivities of Montebello. Politics alone occupied Bonaparte’s mind, and
+not only the peace negotiations, but also the Directory of the republic,
+furnished him with too many occasions for ill-will and anger.
+
+Austria, which had added the Count von Coblentz to her
+plenipotentiaries, adhered obstinately to her former claims; and the
+Directory, which now felt stronger and more secure by their victory of
+the 18th Fructidor, were so determined not to accept these claims,
+that they wrote to General Bonaparte that they would sooner resume
+hostilities than concede to “the overpowered, treacherous Austria,
+sworn into all the conspiracies of the royalists, her unreasonable
+pretensions.”
+
+But Bonaparte knew better than the proud lords of the Directory, that
+France needed peace as well as Austria; that France lacked gold,
+men, and ammunition, for the vigorous prosecution of the war. While,
+therefore, the Directory, enthroned in the Luxemburg, amid peace and
+luxury, desired a renewal of hostilities, it was the man of battles who
+desired peace, and who was inclined to make to Austria insignificant
+concessions sooner than see the work of peace dashed to pieces.
+
+The sole recreation in Passeriano consisted in the banquets which
+were interchanged between it and Udine, and where Josephine found much
+pleasure, at least in the conversation of the Count von Coblentz,
+who could speak to her with spirit and grace of his sojourn in
+Petersburg--of Catharine the Great, at whose court he had been
+accredited so long as ambassador from Austria, and who had even granted
+him the privilege of being present at her private evening circles at the
+Hermitage.
+
+Bonaparte was still busy with the glowing tenderness of a worshipping
+lover, in procuring for his Josephine pleasures and recreations, as each
+favorable opportunity presented itself.
+
+The republic of Venice, now laboring under the greatest anxiety and fear
+on account of Bonaparte’s anger at her perfidy and enmity, had descended
+from the height of her proud attitude to the most abject humility. Her
+solicitude for mere existence made her so far forget her dignity, that
+she humbly invited Bonaparte, whose loud voice of anger pronounced only
+vengeance and destruction, to come and receive in person their homage
+and the assurance of their loyalty.
+
+Bonaparte refused this invitation as regarded his own person, for in
+his secret thoughts the ruin of Venice was a settled matter; and as
+the death-warrant of this republic of terror and secret government was
+already signed in his thoughts, he could not accept her feasts and her
+homage. But he did not wish before the time to betray to the republic
+his own conclusions, and his refusal to accept their invitation ought
+not to have the appearance of a hostile demonstration. He therefore sent
+to Venice a representative, who, in his name, was to receive the
+humble homage and the assurances of friendship from the republic. This
+representative was Josephine, and she gladly undertook this mission,
+without foreseeing that Venice, which adorned itself for her sake with
+flowers and festivities, was but the crowned victim at the eve of the
+sacrifice.
+
+As Bonaparte himself could not accompany his wife, he sent with her
+as an escort the ex-magistrate Marmont; and in his memoirs the latter
+relates with enthusiasm the feasts which the republic of Venice gave
+in honor of the general upon whom, as she well knew, her future fate
+depended.
+
+“Madame Bonaparte,” says he, “was four days in Venice. I accompanied
+her hither. Three days were devoted to the most splendid feasts. On
+the first day there was a regatta, a species of amusement which
+seems reserved only to Venice, the queen of the sea. ... Six or seven
+gondolas, each manned by one or two oarsmen, perform a race which begins
+at St. Mark’s Square, and ends at the Rialto bridge. These gondolas
+seem to fly; persons who have never seen them can form no idea of their
+swiftness. The beauty of the representation consists especially in the
+immense gatherings of the spectators. The Italians are extremely fond of
+this spectacle; they come from great distances on the continent to see
+it; there is not in Venice an individual who rushes not to the Canal
+Grande to enjoy the spectacle; and during the time of the regatta of
+which I am speaking, the wharves on the Canal Grande were covered with
+at least one hundred and fifty thousand persons, all full of curiosity.
+More than five hundred small and large barges, adorned with flowers,
+flags, and tapestries, followed the contesting gondolas.
+
+“The second day we had a sea-excursion; a banquet had been prepared on
+the Lido: the population followed in barges adorned with wreaths and
+flowers, and to the sound of music re-echoing far and near.
+
+“The third day, a night promenade took place. The palace of the doge,
+and the houses along the Canal Grande, were illuminated in the most
+brilliant manner, and gave light to hundreds of gondolas, which also
+were made luminous with divers-colored lamps. After a promenade of two
+hours, and a splendid display of fireworks in the midst of the waters,
+the ball opened in the palace of the doge. When we think of the means
+which the situation of Venice offers, the beauty of her architecture,
+the wonderful animation of the thousand gondolas closely pressed
+together, causing the impression of a city in motion; and when we think
+of the great exertions which such an occasion would naturally call
+forth, the brilliant imagination of this people so remarkable for its
+refined taste, and its burning lusts for pleasure--then we can form some
+idea of the wondrous spectacle presented by Venice in those days. It was
+no more the mighty Venice, it was the elegant, the luxurious Venice.”
+ [Footnote: “Memoires du Due de Raguse,” vol. i., p. 287.]
+
+After those days of festivities, Josephine, the queen of them, returned
+to the quietude of Passeriano, which, after the sunshine of Venice, must
+have appeared to her still more gloomy and sad.
+
+But Bonaparte himself was weary of all this useless repose, and he
+resolved with a daring blow to cut into shreds those diplomatic knots of
+so many thousand interwoven threads.
+
+The instrument with which he was to give the blow was not the sword--it
+was not that which Alexander had used, but it was a cup. This cup, at a
+dejeuner given to him by the Count von Coblentz, where was displayed the
+costly porcelain service presented to him by the Empress Catharine, was
+dashed at the feet of the Count von Coblentz by Bonaparte, who, with a
+thundering voice, exclaimed: “In fourteen days I will dash to pieces the
+Austrian monarchy as I now break this!”
+
+The Count von Coblentz, infuriated at this, was still staring in
+bewilderment at the fragments of the imperial gift, when Bonaparte left
+the room, to enter his carriage. With a loud voice he called to one of
+the officers of his suite, and gave him orders to go at once to the
+camp of the Archduke Charles, and to tell him, in the name of General
+Bonaparte, that the peace negotiations were broken, and that hostilities
+would be resumed next day.
+
+But as Bonaparte was going toward his carriage, he met the Marquis de
+Gallo, who besought him to re-enter the room; he assured him that it
+had been resolved to accept Bonaparte’s ultimatum--that is to say, to
+renounce all claims to the fortress of Mantua.
+
+On the next day [Footnote: The 17th of October, 1797.] the treaty of
+peace between Austria and France was signed. It had been decided that
+the ceremony of signing it should take place in the village of Campo
+Formio, which for this reason was declared to be neutral ground. It lay
+midway between Udine and Passeriano; and Bonaparte sent his adjutant,
+Marmont, into the village to select a house where the ceremony might
+take place. But there was not a single building which was in any way
+fitted to receive such distinguished guests. The Austrian diplomats,
+therefore, consented to come to Passeriano to ratify the terms of
+peace, provided, it should be named after the neutral territory of Campo
+Formio.
+
+The Count von Coblentz and the Marquis de Gallo passed the whole day at
+Passeriano, in the company of Bonaparte and Josephine. In Josephine’s
+drawing-room each abandoned himself to the most cheerful and unaffected
+conversation, while at the same time the secretaries of both the
+Austrian and French embassies were in the cabinet of the French general,
+writing two copies of the mutual agreements of peace which were to be
+signed by Bonaparte and by the Austrian plenipotentiaries.
+
+During the whole day Bonaparte was in high spirits. He had reached his
+aim: the strife was over; diplomatic bickerings were at rest; the small
+as well as the great war was ended; peace was gained at last! Bonaparte
+had, not only on the battle-field, but also at the green-table, been
+victorious; he had not only overcome Austria, but also the Directory.
+During the whole day he remained in the drawing-room with Josephine and
+his Austrian guests, and without any affectation he took his part in
+the conversation. It was so pleasant to him to be thus in confidential
+intercourse, that, as the evening came on, he would not allow lights to
+be brought into the drawing-room. As if they were in a sociable family
+circle, in some old remote castle, they amused themselves in relating
+ghost-stories, and here, too, Bonaparte won a victory. His story
+surpassed all others in horrors and thrilling fears, and the dramatic
+mode of its delivery increased its effect. Josephine became excited
+as if by some living reality; and while Bonaparte, with an affrighted,
+trembling voice, was describing how the door opened, how the
+blood-stained ghost with hollow eyes entered, she screamed aloud, and
+tremblingly clung to his arm.
+
+At this moment it was announced that the secretaries had prepared
+the documents of the treaty, and that nothing was wanting to make it
+operative but the signatures.
+
+Bonaparte laughingly thanked his Josephine with a kiss for the
+flattering effect produced by his ghost-story, and then he hastened
+into his cabinet to attach his signature to the peace of Campo Formio.
+[Footnote: Lavalette, “Memoires,” vol. i., p. 250.]
+
+This peace gave to France the left bank of the Rhine, with the fortress
+of Mayence: it delivered Italy from the rule of Austria, but it repaid
+Austria by giving her possession of the beautiful city of the lagoons,
+Venice, which made Austria mistress of the Adriatic Sea.
+
+Peace was concluded, and now Bonaparte, with his laurels and victories,
+could return to Paris; now he could hope that he had swept away,
+from the memory even of his adversaries, the sad success of the 13th
+Vendemiaire, by the series of brilliant victories and conquests which he
+had obtained in the name of their common country.
+
+Bonaparte prepared himself therefore to return home to France. But the
+Emperor of Germany, full of admiration for the hero of Arcola, and of
+joy at a peace which had given him Venice, and which gave to France
+little more than the captured cannon, standards, and prisoners, but
+undying glory, wished to show himself thankful to Bonaparte. He offered
+to the general millions of treasure, and, still more, a magnificent
+estate, and promised him the title of duke.
+
+But Bonaparte refused alike the money and the title. As a simple French
+general he wished to return to France, and, though in future days he
+created at his will many dukes, he now disdained to become a duke by
+the grace of the Emperor of Germany. He accepted nothing out of all the
+offered presents, but six splendid gray horses which the Emperor Francis
+had sent him from his own stalls. Bonaparte had won too many victories,
+to need the title of a German duke; he had obtained a sufficiently
+ample share of the war-booty not to need the wealth and the treasures of
+sovereign gifts. He was no longer the poor general, of whom his enemies
+could say that he had married the widow of General de Beauharnais
+on account of her riches and of her influence; he now, besides fame,
+possessed a few millions of francs, which, as a small portion of his
+share of the victory’s rewards, he brought home with him.
+
+His work in Italy was accomplished; and in Milan, whither Bonaparte had
+returned with Josephine, they bade each other farewell: they wished to
+return to Paris by different routes.
+
+Bonaparte desired first to go to Rastadt, there to attend the great
+peace congress of Germany and France. His journey thither was a complete
+triumph. He was everywhere received with enthusiasm; everywhere the
+people applauded the conqueror of so many battles, the hero who,
+only twenty-eight years old, had, by his series of victories, gained
+immortality. His reception in Berne, especially, was enthusiastic
+and flattering; both sides of his pathway were lined with brilliant
+equipages, and the beautiful, richly apparelled ladies who sat in them
+threw him kisses, crowns of flowers and bouquets, shouting, “Long live
+the peace-maker!”
+
+He travelled over Mount Cenis to Rastadt, where he found in the crowd of
+German and French diplomats many generals and learned men, who had come
+there to see the man whom his very enemies admired, amongst whom he was
+nearly as popular as with his friends. However, Bonaparte remained but a
+few days there; for, after having attended the opening of the Congress,
+he pursued his journey to Paris, where he arrived on the 6th of
+December.
+
+Josephine, as we have already said, did not accompany her husband to
+Paris. Before leaving Italy, she desired to accomplish two objects of
+her heart. She wished to see Rome, the everlasting city of fame and of
+arts, the city of the ancient gods, and of the seat of St. Peter; and
+she wished also to embrace her son Eugene, who was there as an attache
+of Joseph Bonaparte, the ambassador of the French republic. Wherever she
+went, she was received with enthusiasm, not only as the wife of Italy’s
+deliverer, but also on account of her personal merits. Through her
+affability, her amiableness, and her sweet disposition, which shunned
+every haughty exaltation, and yet was never lacking in dignity or in
+reserve--through the goodness of her heart, which was ever ready to help
+the unfortunate--through all those exquisite and praiseworthy qualities
+which adorned and beautified her, she had won the love and admiration
+of all Italy; and long afterward, when the deliverer of Italy had
+become her lord and her oppressor, when she had no longer cause to love
+Bonaparte, but only to curse him, Italy preserved for Josephine a memory
+full of admiration and love.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX. DAYS OF TRIUMPH.
+
+
+On the 5th of December, 1797, Bonaparte returned to Paris; and, a few
+days after, Josephine arrived also. In her little hotel, in the Street
+Chautereine, where she had passed so many bright and happy days, she
+hoped, after so many storms and hardships, to enjoy again new and
+cheerful sunny days of domestic enjoyments--she hoped to rest from
+all those triumphs which had accompanied at each step both her and her
+husband.
+
+This hope, however, was not to be realized, for greater triumphs still
+than those she had enjoyed in Italy awaited Bonaparte in Paris. The days
+of quietude, and the pleasures of home, which Josephine so much loved,
+and which she so well understood how to embellish with friendships and
+joys, were now forever past away. Placed at the side of a hero whose
+fame already filled all Europe, she could no longer calculate upon
+living in modest retirement, as she would have wished to do: it was
+her lot to share his burden of glory, as she also was illumined by its
+beams.
+
+From this moment nothing of former days remained; all was changed, all
+was altered by Bonaparte’s laurels and victories. He was no more the
+servant of the republic, he was nearly its master; he had not only
+defeated Austria in Italy, but he had also defeated in France the
+Directory, which had sent him as its general to Italy, and which now saw
+him return home as the master of the five monarchs of France.
+
+Every thing now, as already said, assumed a new shape: even the house
+in which they lived, the street in which this house stood, had to be
+changed. Hitherto this street had been called “Rue Chautereine;” since
+Bonaparte’s return the municipality of Paris gave it the name “Rue de
+la Victoire,” and now to this Street of Victory the people of Paris
+streamed forth to see the conqueror; to stand there patiently for hours
+before the little hotel, and watch for the moment when at one of the
+windows the pale countenance of Bonaparte, with his long, smooth hair,
+might appear.
+
+Even the little hotel was to be altered. Bonaparte--who, in earlier
+days, had described, as his dream of happiness, the possession of a
+house, of a cabriolet, and to have at his table the company of a few
+friends, with his Josephine--now found that the little house in the Rue
+de la Victoire was too small for him; that it must be altered even as
+the street had been. The modest and tasteful arrangements which had
+sufficed the Widow Josephine de Beauharnais, appeared now to her young
+husband as insufficient; the little saloon, in which at one time he had
+felt so happy at the side of the viscountess, was no longer suited to
+his actual wants. Large reception-rooms and vestibules were needed,
+magnificent furniture was necessary, for the residence of the conqueror
+of Italy, in the Rue de la Victoire.
+
+Architects were engaged to enlarge and transform the small house into
+a large hotel, and it was left to Josephine’s taste to convert the
+hitherto elegant private dwelling into a magnificent residence for the
+renowned general who had to be daily in readiness to receive
+official visits, delegations of welcome from the authorities, and the
+institutions of Paris, and from the other cities of France.
+
+For France was desirous to pay her homage to the hero of Arcola, and to
+celebrate his genius--to wish him prosperity, and to applaud him. The
+Directory had to adapt themselves to the universal sentiment; to pay
+their respects to the general with a cheerful mien and with friendly
+alacrity, while at heart they looked on him with vexation and envy.
+Bonaparte’s popularity filled them with anxiety and fearful misgivings.
+
+But it was necessary to submit to this; the public sentiment required
+those festivities in honor of the general of the republic, and the five
+directors in the Luxemburg had no longer the power to guillotine the
+public sentiment, the true king of Paris, as once they had guillotined
+King Louis.
+
+The directors, therefore, inaugurated brilliant festivities;
+they received the conqueror of Italy in the Luxemburg with great
+demonstrations of solemnity, in which the Parisians took a part. In
+the immense court in front of the residence of the directors this
+celebration took place. In the midst of the open place a lofty platform
+was erected; it was the country’s altar, on which the gigantic statues
+of Freedom, Equality, and of Peace, were lifted up. Around this altar
+was a second platform, with seats for the five hundred, the deputies,
+and the authorities; the standards conquered in the Italian war formed
+over the seats of the five directors a sort of canopy: they were,
+however, to them as the sword of Damocles, ready to fall upon them at
+any moment and destroy them.
+
+The directors, dressed in brilliant antique robes, created no
+impression, notwithstanding their theatrical splendor, in comparison
+with the sensation produced by the simple, unaffected appearance of
+General Bonaparte. He wore the plain green uniform which he had worn at
+Arcola and Lodi; his suite was limited to a few officers only, who, like
+himself, appeared in their ordinary uniforms, which they had worn on
+the battle-field. The two generals, Andreossy and Joubert, carried
+the standards which the Legislative Assembly, two years before, had
+presented to the army of Italy, and upon which could now be read the
+names of sixty-seven battles won.
+
+At one of the windows of the palace of the Luxemburg, Josephine watched
+this strange celebration, the splendors of which made her heart beat
+with delight, and filled her eyes with tears of joy. Near her was her
+daughter Hortense, lately withdrawn from Madame Campan’s institution,
+to be with her mother, who, full of ecstasy and pride, gazed at the
+charming maiden at her side, just blooming into a young lady; and then
+beyond, at that pale young man with pensive eyes standing near yonder
+altar, and before whom all the authorities of Paris bowed--who was her
+husband, her Bonaparte, everywhere conqueror! Before her only was he the
+conquered! She listened with a happy smile to the long speech with which
+Talleyrand saluted Bonaparte in the name of his country; she heard how
+Barras, concealing within himself his jealousy and his envy, welcomed
+him; how with admiration he praised him; how he said that Nature, in
+one of her most exalted and greatest moments, had resolved to produce a
+masterpiece, and had given to the wondering world Bonaparte!
+
+And then, after this affected harangue, Josephine saw how Barras, with
+tears of emotion, embraced Bonaparte, and how the other Directors of
+France followed his example. A slight sarcastic smile for a moment
+played on Josephine’s lips, for she well knew how little this friendship
+and this love of the Directory were to be trusted, how little sincerity
+was contained in the sentiments which they so publicly manifested toward
+the conqueror.
+
+With love’s anxiety and a woman’s instinct, she watched over her hero;
+she was ever busy to track out the meandering paths of his foes, to
+destroy the nets wherein they wished to entangle his feet. She had even
+braved the jealous wrath of Bonaparte when it was necessary to ferret
+out some intrigue of the Directory. The special spy, whom Barras had
+sent to Italy to watch the movements of Bonaparte, and to give him early
+reports of every word, Botot, had been received by Josephine with a
+friendly smile and with great attention; she manifested toward him a
+confiding friendship, and thus succeeded in discovering his secret,
+and behind the seeming friend to unveil the cunning spy of Bonaparte’s
+enemies. She could therefore meet Bonaparte’s anger with serene brow
+and pure conscience; and when he accused her of frivolity and
+unfaithfulness, she justified herself before him by unveiling the secret
+schemes and machinations of his foes. And these foes were chiefly the
+five directors. He therefore knew very well what he was to expect from
+the embraces, the tears, the kisses of Barras; and the flattering
+words which he spoke to him in the presence of the Parisians made no
+impression whatever on Bonaparte’s heart.
+
+But the applause with which the people of Paris received him was not
+deceitful, like that of the Directory; the respect they paid him was not
+forced, and their applause therefore filled the hearts of Josephine
+and Bonaparte with joy. Wherever he appeared, he was greeted with
+loud demonstrations of joy; the poets praised him in their songs, the
+musicians sang hymns in his honor, and the men of science brought to him
+proofs of their esteem. The Institute of Sciences named him one of their
+members in the place of Carnot; the painters and architects paid him
+homage with their works. The renowned painter David requested the honor
+of taking Bonaparte’s portrait, and the general acceded to his wishes
+because Josephine had promised that the painter’s request should be
+granted. David desired to paint him on horseback near the bridge of Lodi
+or of Arcola, and he placed before him a sketch he had made for this
+picture. But Bonaparte rejected it.
+
+“No,” said he, “I was not there alone, I conquered only with the whole
+army. Place me there, quiet and calm, seated upon a fiery horse.”
+
+What did Bonaparte mean by this “fiery horse”? Are his words to be
+understood in all their beauty and simplicity? or did he, by the
+restless horse, which he so calmly reins in, already think of the
+republic which, under the guidance of his masterly hand, was one day
+to be converted into an empire? Who could read the depths of this man’s
+heart, which screened itself so carefully, and whose secrets in regard
+to the future he dared not divulge even to his beloved Josephine?
+
+The first few weeks after their return from Italy were passed away amid
+festivities and demonstrations of respect. Josephine abandoned herself
+to this pomp with a high spirit, and with a deep love for enjoyment. Her
+whole being was thoroughly interpenetrated with the warmth of this new
+sun, which had risen over her in so wondrous a light, and surrounded her
+with its lustrous rays. All these festivities, banquets, representations
+at the grand opera, and at the Theatre Francais, these public ovations
+which accompanied Bonaparte at every step, at every promenade, at every
+attendance at the theatre,--all these marks of honor elated Josephine,
+filling her with an enthusiastic pride for the hero, the man whom she
+now loved with all the excitability of a woman’s heart, and over whom
+fame rested as a halo, and which made him appear to Josephine still
+greater and more exalted. To him alone now belonged her whole heart and
+being; and now for the first time she experienced those nervous spasms
+of jealousy which at a later date were to mix so many bitter drops of
+gall in the golden cup of her greatness.
+
+At the ovations, the tokens of affection on the part of gentlemen
+delighted her, but she had no thanks for the ladies when, with their
+enthusiasm, brilliant eyes, bewitching smiles, and flattering words,
+they endeavored to manifest their adoration and gratitude to the hero of
+Italy; she could barely keep back her tears when, at the reception which
+Talleyrand, the minister of foreign affairs, gave to Bonaparte, the
+beautiful songstress Grassini appeared, and, with her entrancing voice,
+sang the fame of the conqueror who had bound captive to his triumphal
+car, as the most precious booty, the proud songstress herself.
+
+The Directory, however, would have gladly allowed the ladies to take
+part in this enthusiasm if the men had taken no share in it; but
+the admiration which they had everywhere manifested so strongly
+for Bonaparte, had completely overshadowed their own greatness and
+importance. They were no longer the monarchs of France--Bonaparte alone
+seemed to be its ruler--and their envious jealousy told them that
+it would require but a sign from his hand to impart to the French
+government a new form, to disenthrone the five directors, and to place
+himself in their position. The sole aim was, therefore, to remove
+Bonaparte as soon as practicable from Paris, and if possible from
+France, so as to check his popularity, and to oppose his ever-growing
+power.
+
+Bonaparte was but little inclined to meet these views of the Directory,
+and to accept the propositions made to him. He declined at once to go
+to Rastadt, there to attend to the discussions of the congress, with
+as much resolution as he had refused to go to Rome to punish the
+papal government for the enmity it had shown to Prance. He left it to
+diplomats to prattle in Rastadt over the green-table, and to General
+Berthier to punish the papal government, and to drive Pius out of the
+Eternal City, the seat of St. Peter, and erect there the altar of the
+republic of Rome.
+
+There were greater and loftier aims which Bonaparte now sought--and
+fame, which he loved quite as much as Josephine did, and was soon to
+love even more, was enticing him on to paths yet untrodden, where no
+hero of past ages had sought for it.
+
+In Egypt, near the pyramids of four thousand years, he desired to gather
+fresh laurels; from thence the astonished world was to hear the wondrous
+recitals of his victories. His lively fancy already imagined his name
+written on those gigantic monuments of past ages, the only earthly
+creations which have in themselves nearly the character of immortality.
+With his mighty deeds he wished to surpass all the heroes of modern
+times; he desired to rival Caesar and Alexander.
+
+Caesar had won fifty battles, Bonaparte wanted to win a hundred.
+Alexander had gone from Macedonia to the temple of Jupiter Ammon,
+Bonaparte wished to leave Paris to obtain victories at the cataracts of
+the Nile.
+
+The bitterness which existed between the Directory and Bonaparte was
+increasing more and more. He no longer spoke to the five monarchs as
+an obedient, submissive son of the republic; he spoke as their lord and
+master; he threatened when his will was not obeyed; he was wroth when he
+met with opposition. And the Directory had not the courage to reproach
+him for his undutiful conduct, or to enter the lists with him to dispute
+for the sovereignty, for they well knew that public sentiment would
+declare itself in his favor, that Paris would side with the general if
+matters were to come to a crisis between them. It was therefore better
+and wiser to avoid this strife, and, under some good pretext, remove
+Bonaparte and open to him some distant pathway to fame, so as to be rid
+of him.
+
+Egypt was far enough from Paris to give to the Directory guaranties
+of security, and it fell in with Bonaparte’s plans. It was resolved
+therefore to send an expedition to Egypt, and he was appointed its
+commander-in-chief.
+
+Bonaparte had directed his eyes to the East when in Passeriano he was
+making peace with Austria. In Egypt were the battle-fields which were to
+surround his name with a fresh halo of glory.
+
+Josephine learned this resolution of Bonaparte with fear and anxiety,
+but she dared not betray this to any one, since this expedition was to
+remain a secret to all the world. Only in private could her tears flow,
+only before Bonaparte could she complain. Once, as she encircled him
+convulsively with her arms, her mind full of misgivings and her eyes of
+tears she asked him how many years he thought of remaining in Egypt.
+
+She had put this question only in a jesting form. He took it in full
+earnestness, and answered:
+
+“Either a few months or six years. All depends upon circumstances. I
+must win Egypt to civilization. I will gather there artists, learned
+men, mechanics of all trades, even women--dancers, songstresses, and
+actresses. I want to mould Egypt into a second France. One can do a
+great deal in six years. I am now twenty-nine years old, I shall be
+thirty-five when I return--that is not old. But I shall want more than
+six years if I go to India.” [Footnote: Bourrienne, vol. ii., p. 49.]
+
+Josephine cried aloud with anguish and horror, and, embracing him in
+her arms, implored him with all the delicate tenderness of her anxious
+affection not to thrust her aside, but to allow her to accompany him to
+Egypt.
+
+But Bonaparte refused, and this time her tears, which he had never
+before denied, were fruitless. He felt that Josephine’s presence would
+damp his ardent courage, retard his onward march, and that he would
+not have the necessary fearless energy to incur risks and perils if
+Josephine were to be threatened by their consequences. He could not
+expose her to the privations and restless wanderings of a campaign, and
+his burning love for her was too real for him to yield to her wishes.
+
+Josephine, meanwhile, was not silenced by his refusal; she persevered in
+her supplications, and Bonaparte, at last softened by her prayers, was
+obliged to come to terms. It was decided that Josephine should follow
+him to Egypt, that he would select a place of residence and prepare
+every thing for her reception there, so that she might without danger or
+too much inconvenience undertake the journey.
+
+But before commencing such an undertaking, Josephine’s health needed
+recruiting; she was to go to the baths of Plombieres, and Bonaparte was
+to hold a ship in readiness in Toulon to bring her to Egypt.
+
+The ship which was chosen to transport her was the Pomona, the same
+in which, when only sixteen years old, she had come from Martinique to
+France. Then she had gone forth to an unknown world and to an unknown
+husband; now she was on the same ship to undertake a journey to an
+unknown world, but it was a beloved husband whom she was going to meet,
+and love gave her the strength to do so.
+
+Josephine, full of the sweetest confidence that she was soon to follow
+Bonaparte, and hereafter to see him again, accompanied him to Toulon.
+She had the strength to repress her tears as she bade him farewell, and
+to smile as he entreated her to keep her heart faithful to him.
+
+She showed herself at this separation stronger than Bonaparte himself,
+for while her eyes were bright with joyous love, his were sad and
+obscured by tears.
+
+The difference was this: Bonaparte knew that he was bidding farewell to
+Josephine for long years; she trusted that in a few months she would be
+reunited to him.
+
+Bonaparte imprinted a last kiss on the lips of Josephine. She embraced
+him tenderly in her arms, and, to shield herself against the deep
+anguish of the separation, she cried aloud:
+
+“In three months we meet again! The Pomona, which brought me to France,
+will bear me back to my hero, to my Achilles! In three months I shall be
+with you again. You have often called me the star of your fortune. How
+could this star abandon you when you are going to fight against your
+foes?”
+
+He gazed at her with a look at once full of deep love and sorrow:
+
+“Josephine,” said he, solemnly, “my enemies are neither in Asia nor
+in Africa, but they are all in France. I leave you behind me in their
+midst, for you to watch them, and to unravel their schemes. Think
+of this, and be my strong and prudent wife.” [Footnote: Bonaparte’s
+words.--See Le Normand, vol. i., p. 278.]
+
+Deeply moved, he turned away, and hastened from her to the boat that was
+to bear him to the flag-ship, which was waiting only for the commanding
+general to come aboard before weighing anchor.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK III. THE EMPRESS AND THE DIVORCED.
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX. PLOMBIERES AND HALMAISON.
+
+
+While Bonaparte with the French fleet was sailing toward the East,
+there, in the wide valley of the Nile, to win a new fame, Josephine
+started for Plombieres, where she had requested her daughter Hortense
+to meet her. The splendid scenery and pleasant quietude of Plombieres
+offered at least some comfort and satisfaction to Josephine, whose
+heart was not yet healed from the anguish of separation. Her greatest
+consolation was the thought that in a few months she would go to her
+husband; that the Pomona would bear her to him who now possessed her
+whole soul, and surrounded her whole being with an enchantment which was
+to cease only with her life.
+
+She counted the days, the weeks, which separated her from the wished-for
+journey; she waited with impatient longing for the news that the Pomona,
+which needed a few repairs, was ready and all prepared for the distant
+but welcome voyage.
+
+Her sole recreation consisted in the company of, and in the cordial
+fellowship with Hortense, now grown up a young lady, and the
+companionship of a few intimate ladies who had followed her to
+Plombieres. Surrounded by these, she either sat in her drawing-room,
+busy with some manual labor, or else, followed by a single servant, she
+and Hortense made long walks in the wonderfully romantic vicinity of
+Plombieres.
+
+One morning she was in the drawing-room with her friends, working with
+the needle, conversing, and finding recreation in stepping through the
+wide-open folding-doors upon the balcony, from which a most enchanting
+view could be had of the lovely valley, and the mountains which stood
+round about it. While there, busily embroidering a rose, one of her
+friends, who had gone to the balcony, called her to come quickly to
+admire a remarkably small greyhound which was passing down the street.
+Josephine, whose love for dogs had made Napoleon pass many a restless
+hour, hastened to obey her friend’s call, and went out upon the balcony,
+whither the rest of the ladies followed her, all curious to see the
+greyhound which had set Madame de Cambis into such an excitement. But
+the weight of these six ladies, gathered close together on the balcony,
+was too heavy for the plank and joist-work loosely put together. A
+fearful crash was heard; and as Hortense, who had remained in the
+drawing-room, busy with her painting, looked out, she saw neither the
+ladies nor the balcony. All had disappeared--nothing but a cloud of
+dust arose from the street, amidst a confusion of cries of distress, of
+shouts for help, and groans of pain.
+
+The balcony, with the ladies, had been precipitated into the street, and
+all those who were on it were more or less severely injured. Josephine
+recognized it as a providential protection that she had not paid
+with broken limbs, like her friends, for the curiosity of seeing the
+beautiful little greyhound, but had only received violent contusions and
+sprained joints. For weeks she had to suffer from the consequences of
+this fall, and was confined to her bed, not being able to lift herself
+up, nor with her bruised, swollen hands to bring the food to her mouth
+during this time. Hortense had to wait upon her mother as she had waited
+upon her when she was only a small, helpless child.
+
+While Josephine was thus for these weeks suffering, the Pomona,
+fully equipped, was sent to sea, for she was intrusted with important
+instructions for the commanding general Bonaparte, and could not
+possibly be detained for Josephine’s recovery. She received this news
+with bitter tears, and resolutely declared that no sooner should she be
+recovered than she would sail for Egypt in any kind of vessel; that she
+was firmly decided to follow her husband and share his dangers.
+
+She had, however, twice received letters from Bonaparte. In the first of
+these he had, full of tender solicitude, entreated her not to undertake
+the fatiguing and dangerous voyage; in the second he had commanded
+her with all the earnestness of love to give up the enterprise, and
+requested as a proof of her affection and faithfulness, that she would
+listen to reason, remain in Paris, and watch over his interests, and be
+his guardian angel.
+
+Josephine read this last letter with a sorrowful smile, and, as she
+handed it to her friend Madame de Chateau-Renaud, she said, sighing:
+
+“The days of happiness are over. While in Italy, Bonaparte required that
+I should bid defiance to all dangers, so as to be at his side, for his
+letters then demanded my presence. Now he orders me to avoid dangers,
+and to remain quietly at home.”
+
+“But it is out of pure love he does this!” exclaimed her friend. “See
+how affectionate and how tender his letter is! Certainly no man can love
+his wife more warmly than Bonaparte loves you.”
+
+“Oh, yes,” sighed Josephine, “he loves me yet, but I am no longer
+absolutely necessary--he can live without me; once love ruled over his
+reason, now his reason rules over his love. It will be as I fear: I
+shall day by day love him more fondly and more passionately, for he is
+my last love, but he will every day love me less, for perhaps I am his
+first love, and his heart will be young long after he reads upon my face
+that I am six years older than he.”
+
+However, she conformed to the wishes of her husband; she was resigned,
+and gave up the thought of going to Egypt. At first she did it only
+with tears, but soon after there came news which made her accept her
+husband’s wishes as the commands of Fate.
+
+The Pomona, the vessel which had once brought her from Martinique to
+France, and on board of which she was to go to Egypt, had been captured
+by an English man-of-war, and all her passengers sent as prisoners to
+England.
+
+The fall from the balcony had therefore saved Josephine from being
+carried into captivity to England. To this fall she owed her liberty!
+With all the levity and superstition of a creole, Josephine looked upon
+this fortunate mishap as a warning from Fate, and it seemed to her as if
+this had taken place to hinder her journey to Egypt. She therefore dried
+her tears and submitted to the orders alike of Fate and of her husband.
+
+She remained in France, and accepted her mission to watch, as a true
+friend and beloved one, over the interests of her husband, to observe
+his friends and foes, and to send him news of every thing which it was
+important for him to know.
+
+Once her fate decided, and she resolved to remain in France, she
+determined to make her life comfortable and pleasant; she wished to
+prepare for herself and her children a joyous existence, and procure
+also for her returning husband a gift which she knew would meet a
+long-cherished wish of his.
+
+She bought a residence, situated not far from Paris, the Castle
+Malmaison, if the name of castle can be properly given to a pretty,
+tastefully-built country residence, tolerably large and plain, but
+surrounded by a beautiful park.
+
+Their wishes and wants were yet simple, and the country residence,
+Malmaison, was amply sufficient to receive the family and the friends of
+General Bonaparte and his wife; it became too small and too narrow only
+when it had to accommodate the Emperor Napoleon, the empress, and their
+court-attendants and suite.
+
+But if the Castle Malmaison was not large, the park which surrounded
+it was all the larger and handsomer, and, with its shady walks, its
+wondrous beds of flowers, its majestic avenues, its splendid groves and
+lawns, it had for Josephine pleasures and joys ever new and fresh; and
+it furnished her, moreover, with the welcome opportunity of following
+the inclinations of her youth amidst the flowers, birds, trees, and
+plants.
+
+Josephine loved botany; it was natural that she should endeavor to
+collect together in Malmaison the most beautiful plants and flowers, and
+to arrange them in this her little earthly paradise. She enlisted the
+most able architects and the most skilful gardeners, and, under their
+direction, with the hands of hundreds of workmen, there soon arose one
+of the most beautiful hot-houses, wherein all these glories of earth,
+splendid flowers, and fruits of distant climes, would find a home!
+
+Josephine herself, with her fine taste and her deep knowledge of botany,
+directed all these arrangements and improvements; the builders as well
+as the gardeners had to submit their plans for her approbation, and it
+was not seldom that her keen, practised eye discovered in them defects
+which her ingenuity at once found means to correct.
+
+In Malmaison, Josephine created around her a new world, a quiet paradise
+of happiness, where she could dream, with blissful cheerfulness and
+with all the youthful energy of her heart, of a peaceful future, of
+delightful contentment, in the quiet enjoyment of Nature and of home.
+
+But the old world outside did not cease its own march; it fought its
+battles, spun its intrigues, and continued its hostilities. Josephine
+could not withdraw herself from this old world; she dared not place the
+paradise of Malmaison as a wall of partition between her and the
+wild stir and tumult of Paris; she had to rush away from the world of
+innocence, from this country-life, into the whirlpool of the agitated,
+restless life of Paris.
+
+Bonaparte had made it a duty for her to watch his friends as well as his
+foes, and there were then happening in Paris events which appeared to
+the wife of General Bonaparte worthy of close observation. His long
+absence had diminished the number of his friends, and at the same time
+gave strength to and increased his enemies, who were ever busy to
+defame and vilify his heroic deeds, and to turn them into a crime; they
+represented that the expedition to Egypt, notwithstanding the glorious
+exploits of the French army, should have had more striking results, and
+the louder they cried out, the more feeble and timid were the voices
+of his friends. The latter daily found their position becoming more
+precarious, for they were the moderate republicans, the supporters of
+the actual order of things, and of the constitution which France had
+adopted. Against this constitution arose, with loud cries, two hostile
+parties, which increased every day, and assumed toward it a more and
+more threatening attitude.
+
+These parties were, on the one hand, the royalists, who saw their hopes
+increase every day, because the armies of the European powers, allied
+against France, were approaching nearer and nearer the French
+frontiers; and, on the other, the republicans of the past, who hoped to
+re-establish the old days of the Convention and of the red republic.
+
+Both parties tried to undermine society and the existing authorities;
+they organized conspiracies, seditions, and tumults, and were constantly
+inventing new intrigues, so as to destroy the government, and set
+themselves up in its place.
+
+The royalists trusted to the combined powers of the princes of Europe,
+with whom the exiled Bourbons were approaching; and in La Vendee the
+guerilla warfare had already begun against the republic.
+
+The red republicans dreamed of re-establishing the guillotine, which was
+to restore France to health by delivering her from all the adversaries
+of the republic and bring back the glorious days of 1793; they left
+nothing untried to excite the people into dissatisfaction and open
+rebellion.
+
+Against both parties stood the Directory, who in these days of tumult
+and sedition, were themselves feeble and without energy, seeking only to
+prolong their existence. They were satisfied to live on day by day, and
+shrank from every decided action which might increase the wrath of the
+parties or destroy the brilliant present of the mighty directors, in
+whose ears the title of “the five monarchs” sounded so sweetly.
+
+In the interior of France, anarchy, with all its horrors and confusion,
+prevailed, and, on the frontier, its enemies were taking advantage of
+this anarchy to give to the republic its mortal stroke.
+
+Turkey, Russia, the Kings of Sardinia, Naples, and Sweden, were allied
+with Austria, England, and Prussia, and they had begun to make immense
+preparations. A Russian army, led by Suwarrow, was marching toward
+Italy, to the help of Austria--to reconquer Lombardy. The Rastadt
+congress, from which a universal peace had been expected, had dissolved,
+and the only result was an increased enmity between Germany and
+France, the deputies of the latter, as they were returning home, being
+shamefully murdered in the open street, immediately before the gates of
+Rastadt, at the instigation of the Austrian Count Lehrbach.
+
+The murder of these ambassadors became the signal for the renewal of
+war, which was now to be prosecuted with increased bitterness.
+
+At this important, critical moment, when all Europe was buckling on
+its armor against France, which so much needed the guidance of her
+victorious general--at this moment, Bonaparte was not only away from
+Paris, but no news had been received from him for some months. Only
+a vague rumor was spread through Paris: “Bonaparte had fallen at the
+desperate attack on Acre,” and this sufficed to discourage entirely his
+friends, and to make his enemies still more audacious and overbearing.
+
+At first Josephine was entirely cast down by the terrible news; but
+afterward came the reflection, the doubt, the hope, that all this
+might be a rumor spread by his enemies. She hastened to Paris to obtain
+information from the Directory, so as to find out if there were any
+foundation for the report of Bonaparte’s death. But the Directory had
+as uncertain news as Josephine herself, and the absence of information
+seemed to confirm its truth.
+
+As she came one day to Barras to ask him if there were any news from
+the army, she heard him say to Rewbell, one of the five directors: “Here
+comes the wife of that hypocrite Bonaparte! If he is not dead to Europe,
+he is at least dead to France.”
+
+This expression proved to her that Barras himself did not believe in his
+death, and gave to Josephine all her energy and presence of mind. She
+busied herself in endeavoring to find a clew to this horrible rumor; and
+she found that Bonaparte’s enemies had spread it, and that only those
+to whom his death would be welcome, and his return be objectionable, had
+circulated this report.
+
+Her heart again beat with hope; she now felt, in the blissful joy which
+penetrated her whole being, that Bonaparte was not dead; that he lived
+still; that he would return home, to her great delight and to the terror
+of his foes. A cheerful assurance sustained her whole nature. While
+all those, who in the days of her happiness had rivalled each other in
+assuring her of their friendship and devotedness, the Directory, the
+ministers, the majority of the generals, turned away from her, cold and
+indifferent; and her few true friends, low-spirited and depressed, bowed
+their heads, while her foes and those of Bonaparte scornfully said in
+their joy, “Now the new King of Jerusalem and Cyprus has fallen under
+the blows of a new savage Omar.” While every thing was against her,
+Josephine alone was cheerful, and confidingly looked into the future,
+for she felt and knew that the future would soon bring back her husband,
+her beloved.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI. THE FIRST FAITHLESSNESS.
+
+
+Josephines prophetic heart had not deceived her. Bonaparte lived! But
+his was a life of danger, of constantly renewed battles and hardships--a
+life in which he had constantly to guard against not only enemies, but
+also against sickness.
+
+Bonaparte had traversed the deserts with his army, visited the pyramids,
+conquered Cairo, and, in warmly-contested and fearful combats, had
+defeated and subdued the Mussulman. But these numerous victories had
+been followed by some defeats, and all his successes were more than
+counterbalanced by the fruitless storming of the impregnable Acre, and
+the failure to conquer Syria. The English admiral, Sidney Smith, with
+his vessels, anchored in the harbor of Acre, protected the besieged,
+and constantly provided them with provisions and ammunition, and so
+efficiently supported the pacha and his mercenary European soldiers,
+that Bonaparte, after two months of fruitless efforts, abandoned the
+siege on the 10th of May, 1799, and retreated into Egypt.
+
+This is not, however, the place to recall the stupendous enterprises of
+Bonaparte, which remind one of the deeds of the heroes and demi-gods of
+ancient Greece, or the nursery tales of extraordinary beings.
+
+His heroic deeds are engraven on history’s page: there can be read
+the wondrous events of his Egyptian campaign, of his march through
+the wilderness, of the capture of Cairo, of his successful battles of
+Aboukir and Tabor, which led the heroic General Kleber, forgetting all
+rivalry, to embrace Bonaparte, exclaiming: “General Bonaparte, you are
+as great as the world, but the world is too small for you!”
+
+There, also, one can read of the cruel massacre of three thousand
+captive Mussulmen, of the revolt of Cairo; there are depicted the
+blood-stained laurels which Bonaparte won in this expedition, the
+original plan of which seems to have been conceived in the brain of one
+who was at once a demi-god and an adventurer.
+
+We leave, therefore, to history the exclusive privilege of narrating
+Bonaparte’s career as a warrior; our task is with something
+superior--with his thoughts, feelings, and sufferings, in the days of
+his Egyptian campaign. It is not with the soldier, the captain, or his
+plans of battle, that we have to do, but with the man, and especially
+with the husband of Josephine--the woman who for his sake suffered,
+was full of solicitude, contended for him, and struggled with love and
+loyalty, while he fought only with sword and cannon.
+
+It is true, Bonaparte also had to suffer, and his anxieties for the
+success of his plans did not alone hang heavily on his heart, while with
+his army he besieged the impregnable Acre. At this very time his heart
+received a deep wound from his friend and confidant Junot, who drove
+the sting of jealousy into his sensitive heart. It is the privilege of
+friendship to pass by in silence nothing which calumny or ill-will may
+imagine or circulate, but truly to make known to our friend every thing
+which the public says of him, without regard to the sufferings which
+such communications may entail upon his heart. Junot made full use of
+this privilege. Bourrienne in his memoirs relates as follows:
+
+“While we were in the vicinity of the springs of Messoudiah, I saw one
+day Bonaparte, with his friend Junot, pacing to and fro, as he often
+did. I was not very far from them, and I know not why during this
+conversation my eyes were fixed on him. The face of the general was
+paler than usual, though I knew not the cause. There was a strange
+nervousness; his eyes seemed bewildered, and he often struck his head
+with his hand.
+
+“After a quarter of an hour, he left Junot and came toward me. I had
+noticed his angry, thoughtful expression. I went to meet him, and as I
+stood before him, Bonaparte, with a harsh and severe tone, exclaimed:
+‘You have no affection for me. The women! ... Josephine! ... Had you any
+affection for me, you would long ago have given me the information which
+Junot has now told me: he is a true friend! Josephine! ... and I am six
+hundred miles away! ... You ought to have told me! ... Josephine! ...
+so to deceive me! ... You! ... “Woe to you all! I will uproot
+that detestable race of seducers and blondins! As regards
+her--separation!--yes: divorce, public separation before the eyes
+of all! ... I must write! I know every thing! ... It is her fault,
+Bourrienne! You ought to have told me.’
+
+“These vehement, broken utterances, the strange expression on his face,
+and his excited tone of voice, revealed only too clearly what had been
+the subject of the conversation he had had with Junot. I saw that Junot
+had been drawn into a fatal indiscretion, and that if he had really
+believed that charges could be made against Madame Bonaparte, he had
+exaggerated them in an unpardonable manner. My situation was one of
+extreme delicacy: I had, however, the good fortune to remain cool, and
+as soon as his first excitement had subsided, I began to tell him that
+I knew nothing about what Junot had told him; that if even such rumors,
+which often were circulated only by slander, had reached me, and if I
+had thought it my duty to communicate them to him, I should certainly
+not have chosen the moment when he was six hundred miles away from
+France to do so. I did not hesitate to tell him how blameworthy Junot’s
+conduct appeared to me, and how ungenerous it was to accuse a woman
+thoughtlessly, when she was not present to justify or to defend herself;
+I told him that it was no proof of affection for Junot to add domestic
+troubles to the grave anxieties which already overburdened him.
+Notwithstanding my observations, to which, however, he listened with
+composure, the word ‘separation’ fell often from his lips, and one must
+understand to what a pitch the excitement of his feelings could carry
+him, to be able to imagine how Bonaparte appeared during this painful
+scene. I did not, however, give up the point; I came back to what I had
+said. I reminded him with what carelessness men received and circulated
+such reckless stories, suited only to the idle curiosity of gossips, and
+unworthy the attention of strong minds. I spoke to him of his fame: ‘My
+fame?’ cried he, ‘ah, I know not what I would give if what Junot has
+told me is not true--so much do I love this woman ... if Josephine
+is guilty, I must be divorced from her forever. ... I will not be
+the ridicule of the idle babblers of Paris! I must write to Joseph to
+procure this separation.’
+
+“Though he was still much excited, yet he was somewhat more quiet. I
+took advantage of a moment’s pause to combat this idea of separation
+which seemed to overrule him. I called his attention to the
+unreasonableness it would be, on such vague and probably false rumors,
+to write to his brother. ‘If you send a letter,’ said I, ‘it will
+bear the impress of the excitement which has dictated it; as regards
+a separation, it will be time, after mature consideration, to speak of
+it.’
+
+“These last words made an impression on him which I had not expected so
+soon to see; he became perfectly calm, and listened to me as if he
+felt the need of receiving words of encouragement, and after this
+conversation he never again alluded to the subject. Fourteen days after,
+before Acre, he manifested to me the most violent displeasure against
+Junot, complained of the sufferings which such indiscreet revelations
+had caused him, and which he now considered as purely an invention
+of malice. I afterward noticed that he did not forgive Junot this
+stupidity. It is easy to understand why Josephine, when she learned from
+Napoleon this conduct of Junot, never could feel for him a very warm
+interest, or intercede in his favor.” [Footnote: Bourrienne, “Memoires,”
+ vol. ii., p. 212.]
+
+It will be seen that the very sensitive heart of Bonaparte had again
+been kindled into jealousy, as it so often had happened before in Italy.
+Absence--a momentary separation--was enough to enkindle these flames. We
+have seen in the letters which Bonaparte wrote to Josephine during the
+Italian campaign, how her silence--the least delay in her answering
+his letters--was enough for him to incriminate her, on account of his
+jealous affections; how, because she does not constantly write, he
+threatens to rush in some night unexpectedly, and with the rage of
+jealousy force the doors open, and murder “the young lover of eighteen,
+and curse Josephine because he must love her without bounds.”
+
+Now he swears to root out this detestable race of seducers and blondins
+who have beguiled from him the heart of his Josephine. Full of passion
+and jealousy, he believes in the calumnies which Junot, with all the
+cruel inconsiderateness of a trusty friend, has whispered to him, and at
+once Josephine is guilty! She has had a love-correspondence with Charles
+Botot, the blond private secretary of Barras, for Charles Botot comes
+sometimes to Malmaison, and has often been seen near Josephine and her
+daughter Hortense in her loge! But by degrees comes reflection, and a
+fortnight after he believes that malice alone can have invented these
+calumnies. This noble conviction, however, was soon to be shaken by the
+enemy, for Josephine had enemies quite near Bonaparte, who longed to
+draw away from her a husband’s heart and to drive him into a divorce.
+
+First of all there were the whole family of Bonaparte, who had seen with
+unwillingness Napoleon’s marriage, for he was thereby much less under
+their influence, and they had wished that he would at all events have
+married Desiree Clary, the sister of Joseph’s wife, and thus have been
+more closely united to the family.
+
+But, while he was in Egypt, another powerful enemy had been added to
+these. This was a young and beautiful woman, Madame Foures, the beloved
+of the ardent general.
+
+While Bonaparte, with all the madness of jealousy at a mere groundless
+calumny, which had come across the sea distorted and magnified,
+wished to be divorced from Josephine; while he complained of woman’s
+faithlessness, frivolity, and inconstancy; while he cursed all women as
+coquettes, he himself was guilty of faithlessness. Forgetting his vows
+and his protestations of love for his wife, he had abandoned himself to
+a new affection without any regard to public opinion, and even made no
+secret of his intrigues.
+
+Unfortunate Josephine! The fears she had anticipated and dreaded before
+accepting Bonaparte’s proffered hand were too soon to be realized. His
+heart began to grow cold while her love increased every day with deeper
+intensity; he had perchance already read in her amiable countenance the
+first signs of age, and he thought it might well be allowed to the young
+general not to maintain so strict a fealty to that faithfulness which he
+claimed from her.
+
+But Bonaparte still loved Josephine, although he was unfaithful to her.
+Surely this new love might well bear the guilt of the credulousness with
+which he judged Josephine, and the word of separation might thus easily
+come upon his lips, because the newly-loved one, amid the vows of her
+affection, might have whispered it in his ear.
+
+Madame Foures had an immense advantage over Josephine; she was barely
+twenty years old, was bewitchingly beautiful, was a coquette, and--she
+was there in Bonaparte’s immediate presence, while the Mediterranean
+separated him from Josephine.
+
+Bonaparte abandoned himself to this new love with all his passionate
+nature. Not only did the whole army in Egypt know this, but his foes
+also became acquainted with it; and Sir Sidney Smith made use of this
+fact to attack his enemy in a way little known to the annals of warfare.
+Bonaparte had removed from the Egyptian army Madame Foures’ injured
+husband, who held there the rank of a cavalry officer, by sending him
+with a message to the Directory. But the vessel in which he had sailed
+for France was captured by the English, and Admiral Sidney Smith
+undertook, with all the careless, open manner of an Englishman, to make
+him fully acquainted with the relations existing between his wife and
+General Bonaparte.
+
+He then gave to M. Foures, who was beside himself with anger and wrath,
+and who threatened bloody vengeance, his freedom, and exhibited his
+good-will toward him so far as to have him landed near Cairo, where
+Bonaparte then was with his beautiful mistress.
+
+Enraged with jealousy, M. Foures rushed to his wife, to make to her the
+most violent demonstrations. Perhaps too weak to part with an adored,
+beautiful wife, he simply ordered her to return with him to France.
+
+But Madame Foures made resistance. She called her mighty lover to her
+help; she claimed a separation; and the war-commissioner Duprat, who
+in the army was invested with the functions of a civil magistrate,
+pronounced, at the request of Madame Foures and at the order of
+Bonaparte, the decree of separation.
+
+Madame Foures was free, but this did not satisfy the secret wishes of
+her heart. The most important point was, that Bonaparte should be free
+also, that he also should desire to be divorced. Josephine must be
+removed from him and thrust aside, so that the beautiful Pauline Foures
+might take her place.
+
+No means, either of coquetry, tears, flatteries, or promises of enduring
+love, remained untried to induce Bonaparte to take the decisive step.
+Sometimes Pauline would pout; sometimes her eyes shed the tears of
+repentance over her own faithlessness, and she vowed she would take
+refuge in a cloister if Bonaparte would not restore her to honor by
+exalting her to the position of being his wife; sometimes she sought by
+her cheerful humor, her genial abandonment, to bind him to her, to amuse
+him; and sometimes, when dressed as a general, on a fiery horse, and
+surrounded by a vast number of adjutants, she would ride up to him and
+win by her smiles and flatteries friends, who calumniated Josephine,
+and represented to him the necessity of a separation from his inconstant
+wife.
+
+But, notwithstanding all the calumnies, and all the deceiving arts of
+his beloved, there existed in Bonaparte’s heart something which spoke
+in favor of the poor, slandered, and forgotten Josephine; and, amid
+the exciting pleasures of his new passion, he remembered with longing,
+sorrowful heart the charming, gracious woman whom he once had tenderly
+loved, and whom he still so loved that he could not sacrifice her to
+his beautiful mistress. Still he persevered in showing to the latter the
+deepest, most tender, and undivided attention; and when the chances of
+war kept him away from her for a long time, when he went to Syria and
+left her in Cairo, Bonaparte wrote to her every day the most touching
+letters, which were forwarded by a special courier.
+
+This was occurring at the same time that Josephine in Paris was hoping
+in vain with painful longing for letters from her husband, and was
+watching over his interests with the kindest attention, while his
+enemies were spreading news of his death.
+
+Bonaparte had now no time to write to his wife, for the beautiful
+Pauline Foures laid claim to the little leisure which remained to the
+commanding general, and to her he addressed warm and glowing words of
+love, such as while in Italy he had addressed to Josephine when he swore
+to her never to love another woman.
+
+Meanwhile Fate rendered fruitless all the efforts of the beautiful
+Madame Foures to draw Bonaparte into a separation; Fate came to
+Josephine’s rescue, and, strange to say, it came in the shape of the
+Frankfort Journal.
+
+The victorious battle of Aboukir, which Bonaparte, on the 25th of July,
+1799, had with his army won over the enemy, gave occasion to parleying
+negotiations between the French commander-in-chief and the English
+admiral, Sidney Smith. Bonaparte sent a commissioner on board the
+English flag-ship, and Sir Sidney Smith was cunning enough to send
+through this commissioner to the French general a few newspapers
+recently received from Europe. For ten months the French army and
+Bonaparte were without news from France, and this present of the English
+admiral was received by Bonaparte and his generals with the deepest joy
+and curiosity.
+
+Among these papers was a copy of the Journal de Frankfort of the 10th of
+June, 1799. This was the first newspaper which furnished Bonaparte with
+news from France for ten long months, and the natural consequence was
+that he glanced over it with the most inquisitive impatience. Suddenly
+he uttered a cry; the pallor of death overspread his face, and, fixing
+his flaming eyes on Bourrienne, who at this moment was alone with
+him--“My presentiments have not deceived me,” exclaimed Bonaparte.
+“Italy is lost! The wretched creatures! All the results of our
+victories have vanished! I must go to France at once--this very moment!”
+ [Footnote: Bourrienne, “Memoires,” vol. ii., p. 305.]
+
+This newspaper informed Bonaparte of the late events in France. It told
+him that the French Directory had experienced a change, that only one of
+them, Barras, had remained in it, and that four new directors--Sieyes,
+Grohier, Moulins, and Ducos--were now its members. It told him much
+more--that the French army in Italy had suffered the most disastrous
+reverses; that all Italy had been reconquered by the combined armies of
+Russia and Austria under Suwarrow and the Archduke Charles, who were
+now advancing upon France, which was on every side surrounded by the
+revengeful enemies of the republic.
+
+No sooner had Bonaparte read this news than his decision was taken.
+Berthier was called into his tent, and under the seal of silence
+Bonaparte communicated to him his unwavering resolution of going
+immediately to France, but that this was to remain a secret to his
+whole army as well as all the generals. Berthier, Gautheaume, Eugene
+Beauharnais, Monge, and Bourrienne, were alone to accompany him, but the
+last two were not to be made acquainted with their departure for Europe
+before they had left Cairo with Bonaparte. As he noticed gleams of joy
+in Berthier’s face at the news of returning to France, Bonaparte once
+more impressed upon him the duty of preserving silence and not to betray
+the secret by word or deed, and to do nothing which might induce friends
+or acquaintances to believe that a voyage was contemplated. The secret
+was indeed faithfully kept, and the few confidants intrusted with it
+took great care to divulge nothing, for fear he might punish them by
+leaving them in Egypt.
+
+Bonaparte himself maintained the most absolute secrecy; neither his
+beloved, the beautiful Pauline Foures, nor General Kleber, whom he had
+chosen to be his successor in the chief command of the army of Egypt,
+suspected any thing.
+
+To his beloved, Bonaparte said he was leaving Cairo for the sake of
+making a tour through the Delta, and that in a few weeks he would be
+with her again. The news he had received from Europe had suddenly cooled
+the glow of his passion, and, at the thought of returning to France,
+rose up again before his mind the image of Josephine in all her grace
+and loveliness. For a long time, while she was not at his side, he had
+been unfaithful to her, but he did not wish, for his own sake, to add
+scandal to faithlessness. He did not wish to bring to France with him,
+as sole booty from Egypt, a mistress.
+
+Pauline Foures, therefore, suspected as little of his plans as General
+Kleber. It was only after Bonaparte, with his small suite of five
+confidants and the Mameluke Roustan, had embarked at Alexandria, that
+Pauline learned that he had deserted--that he had abandoned her. In
+a short note which his master of the stall, Vigogne, handed to her,
+Bonaparte took leave of her, and made her a present of every thing he
+left behind in Cairo, including the house he occupied, with all its
+costly and luxurious furniture. [Footnote: The departure of Bonaparte
+made Madame Foures comfortless, and she now watched for an opportunity
+to hasten back to him in France. Touched by her tears and prayers,
+Junot furnished her with an opportunity, and Pauline reached Paris in
+November, 1799. But Bonaparte would no longer see her; he now sacrificed
+the mistress to the wife, as he had nearly sacrificed the wife to the
+mistress. Pauline received orders to leave Paris immediately; at the
+same time Bonaparte sent her a large sum of money, which he afterward
+repeated.--See Saint Elsne, “Les Amours et Galanteries des Rois de
+France,” vol. ii., p. 320.]
+
+General Kleber learned Bonaparte’s departure, only through the orders
+sent to him by the latter to assume the chief command of the army; his
+troops learned his absence by the order of the day, in which Bonaparte
+bade them farewell.
+
+After four weeks of a long voyage against tempestuous and contrary
+winds, the two frigates, upon one of which Bonaparte and Eugene and his
+other followers had embarked, touched at Ajaccio. The whole population
+had no sooner learned that Bonaparte was in the harbor, than they rushed
+out to see him, and to salute him with enthusiastic demonstrations;
+and it was in vain that their attention was drawn to the fact that both
+frigates had come directly from Egypt, and had to observe quarantine
+before any communication with the population could be allowed.
+
+“Pestilence sooner than the Austrians!” shouted the people, and hundreds
+and hundreds of boats surrounded the French vessels. Every one wanted
+to see the general, their famous countryman, Bonaparte. But Bonaparte’s
+heart was sorrowful amid the general rejoicing, for in Ajaccio he had
+learned of the great battle of Novi, where the Austrians had gained the
+victory, and which had cost General Joubert’s life.
+
+“It is too great an evil,” said he, with a sigh; “there is no help for
+it.” But as he gave up Italy, all his thoughts were more strongly bent
+upon Paris, and his desire to be there as soon as possible increased
+more and more.
+
+After a short stay in Ajaccio, the voyage to France, despite all
+quarantine regulations, was continued, and the star of fortune, which
+had hitherto protected him, still guided Bonaparte safely into the
+harbor of Frejus, though the English fleet had watched and pursued the
+French vessels. A courier was at once dispatched to the Directory in
+Paris to announce the arrival of Bonaparte, and that he would, without
+any delay, come to Paris.
+
+Josephine was at a dinner at Gohier’s, one of the five directors, when
+this courier arrived, and with a shout of joy she received the news of
+her husband’s coming. Her longing was such that she could not wait for
+him in Paris, in her house of the Rue de la Victoire. She resolved to
+meet him, and to be the first to bid him welcome, and to show him her
+unutterable love.
+
+No sooner was this resolution taken than it was carried out. She began
+her journey with the expectation of meeting her husband at Lyons, for
+in his letter to the Directory he stated that he would come by way of
+Lyons. In great haste, without rest or delay, Josephine travelled the
+road to that city, her heart beating, her luminous eyes gazing onward,
+looking with inexpressible expectancy at every approaching carriage, for
+it might bring her the husband so long absent from her!
+
+She little suspected that while she was hastening toward Lyons,
+Bonaparte had already arrived in Paris. He had changed the plan of
+his journey, and, entirely controlled by his impatient desires, he
+had driven to Paris by the shortest route. Josephine was not there to
+receive him in her house; she was not there to welcome the returning
+one--and the old serpent of jealousy and mistrust awoke again within
+him. To add to this, his brothers and sisters had seized the occasion to
+give vent to their ill-will by suspicions and accusations against their
+unwelcome sister-in-law. Bonaparte, full of sad apprehension at her
+absence, perhaps secretly wishing to find her guilty, listened to the
+whisperings of her enemies.
+
+He therefore did not go to meet Josephine the next day on her return
+from her unsuccessful journey. A few hours after, he opened his closed
+doors and went to see her. She advanced toward him with looks full of
+love and tenderness, and opened her arms to him, and wanted to press him
+closely to her heart.
+
+But he coldly held her back, and with deliberate severity and an
+expression of the highest indifference, he saluted her, and asked if she
+had returned happy and satisfied from her pleasure excursion with her
+light-haired friend.
+
+Josephine’s tears gushed forth, and, as if annihilated, she sank down,
+but she had not a word of defence or of justification against the cruel
+accusation. Her heart had been too deeply wounded, her love too
+much insulted, to allow her to defend herself. Her tearful eyes only
+responded to Bonaparte’s cruel question, and then in silence she retired
+to her apartments.
+
+For three days they did not see each other. Josephine remained in her
+rooms and wept. Bonaparte remained in his rooms and complained. To
+Bourrienne, who then was not only his private secretary but also his
+confidant, he complained bitterly of the faithlessness and inconstancy
+of Josephine, of the unheard-of indifference that she should undertake
+a pleasure-journey when she knew that he was soon to be in Paris. It
+was in vain that Bourrienne assured him that Josephine had undertaken no
+pleasure-excursion, that she had left Paris only to meet him, and to
+be the first to bid him welcome. He would not believe him, for in the
+melancholy gloominess of his jealousy he believed in the slanders which
+Josephine’s enemies, and his brothers and sisters, had whispered in his
+ear, that Josephine had left Paris for a parti de plaisir with Charles
+Botot, the beautiful blondin whom Bonaparte so deeply hated. How
+profound his sadness was, may be seen by a letter which at this time he
+wrote to his brother Joseph, and in which he says:
+
+“I have a great deal of domestic sorrow ... your friendship to me is
+very dear; to become a misanthrope, there was nothing further needed
+than to lose her and to be betrayed by you. It is a sad situation indeed
+to have in one single heart all these emotions for the same person.
+
+“I will purchase a country residence either near Paris or in Burgundy;
+I am thinking of passing the winter there and of shutting myself up;
+I feel weary with human nature; I need solitude; I want to be alone;
+grandeur oppresses me, my feelings are distorted. Fame appears insipid
+at my twenty-nine years; I have tried every thing; nothing remains but
+to become an egotist.” [Footnote: “Memoires du Roi Joseph.” vol. i., p.
+189.]
+
+But, according to himself, “he cherished in his heart, at the same
+time; all manner of emotions for the same person;” that is, he hated and
+detested Josephine, but he also loved and admired her; was angry with
+her, and yet longed for her; he found her frivolous and faithless, and
+yet something in his heart ever spoke in her favor, and assured him that
+she was a noble and faithful being.
+
+Fortunately, there was one who confirmed into full conviction these low
+whisperings of his heart; fortunately, Bourrienne ceased not to argue
+against this jealousy of Bonaparte, and to assure him again and again
+that Josephine was innocent, that she had committed nothing to excite
+his anger.
+
+Finally, after three days of complaints and dreary accusations, love
+conquered in the heart of Bonaparte. He went to Josephine. She advanced
+to meet him with tears in her eyes, but with a soft, tender smile. The
+sight of her gracious appearance, her blanched cheeks, moved him, and,
+instead of explanations and mutual recriminations, he opened his arms to
+her, and she threw herself on his breast with a loud cry of exultation.
+
+Then came the explanations. He now believed that she had left Paris
+hurriedly for the sake of meeting him; and, as regarded the dangerous
+“blond,” the private secretary of Barras, M. Charles Botot, Josephine
+smilingly handed to her husband a letter she had received from him a
+few days before. In this letter Charles Botot acknowledged his
+long-cherished affection for her daughter Hortense, and he claimed her
+hand in due form.
+
+“And you have doubtless accepted his offer?” asked Bonaparte, his face
+overcast again. “Since, unfortunately, you are married yourself, and he
+cannot be your husband, then of course he must marry the daughter, so
+as to be always near the mother. M. Charles Botot is no doubt to be your
+son-in-law? You have accepted his hand?”
+
+“No,” said she, softly, “we have refused it, for Hortense does not love
+him, and she will follow her mother’s example, and marry only through
+love. Besides,” continued Josephine, with a sweet smile, “I wanted him
+no longer.”
+
+“You wanted him no longer! How is this?” asked General Bonaparte,
+eagerly.
+
+“Barras has sent him his dismissal,” said she, looking at her husband
+with an expression of cunning roguery. “M. Botot could no longer, as he
+has hitherto been--without, however, being conscious of it--be my spy in
+the Directory; I could no longer learn from him what the Directory were
+undertaking against my Bonaparte, against the hero whom they envy and
+caluminate so much, nor in what new snares they wished to entangle him!
+What had I to do with Botot, since he could not furnish me news of the
+intrigues of your enemies, nor afford me the chance of counteracting
+them? Charles Botot was nothing more to me than a mere lemon, which I
+squeezed for your sake; when there was nothing left in it I threw it
+away.”
+
+“And is such the truth?” asked Bonaparte, eagerly. “This is no invention
+to raise my hopes, only to be cast down again?”
+
+Josephine smiled. “I have daily taken notes of what Charles Botot
+brought me,” said she, gently; “I always hoped to find a safe
+opportunity to send this diary to you in Egypt, that you might be
+informed of what the Directory thought, and what was the public opinion,
+so that you might take your measures accordingly. But, for the last
+eight months, I knew not where you were, and so I have kept my diary:
+here it is.”
+
+She gave the diary to Bonaparte, who, with impatient looks, ran over the
+pages, and was fully convinced of her devotedness and care. Josephine
+had well served his interests, and closely watched over his affairs.
+Then, ashamed and repentant, he looked at her, who, in return, smiled at
+him with gracious complacency.
+
+“Josephine,” asked he, quietly, “can you forgive me? I have been
+foolish, but I swear to you that never again will I mistrust you, I will
+believe no one but you. Can you forgive me?”
+
+She embraced him in her arms, and tenderly said: “Love me, Bonaparte; I
+well deserve it!”
+
+Peace, therefore, was re-established, and Josephine’s enemies had the
+bitter disappointment to see that their efforts had all been in vain;
+that again the most perfect unanimity and affection existed between
+them; that the cloud which their enmity had conjured up, had brought
+forth but a few tear-drops, a few thunderings; and that the love which
+Bonaparte carried in his heart for Josephine was not scattered into
+atoms.
+
+The cloud had passed away; the sun of happiness had reappeared; but it
+had yet some spots which were never to fade away. The word “separation”
+ which Bonaparte, so often in Egypt, and now in Paris, had launched
+against Josephine, was to be henceforth the sword of Damocles, ever
+suspended over her head: like a dark, shadowy spectre it was to follow
+her everywhere; even amid scenes of happiness, joy, and glory, it was
+to be there to terrify her by its sinister presence, and by its gloomy
+warnings of the past!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII. THE EIGHTEENTH BRUMAIRE.
+
+
+Bonaparte’s journey from Frejus to Paris, on his return from Egypt, had
+been a continued triumph. All France had applauded him. Everywhere he
+had been welcomed as a deliverer and savior; everywhere he had been
+hailed as the hope of the future, as the man from whom was to be
+expected assistance in distress, the restoration of peace, help, and
+salvation.
+
+For France was alarmed; she stood on the edge of a precipice, from which
+only the strong hand of a hero could save her. In the interior, anarchy
+prevailed amongst the authorities as well as the people. In La Vendee
+civil war raged, with all its sanguinary horrors, and the authorities
+endeavored to protect themselves against it by tyrannical laws, by
+despotic measures, which threatened both property and freedom. There
+existed no security either for person or for property, and a horrible,
+fanatical party-spirit penetrated all classes of society. The royalists
+had been defeated on the 18th Fructidor, but that very fact had again
+given the vantage-ground to the most decided opponents of the royalists,
+the red republicans, the terrorists of the past, who now intrigued and
+formed plots and counterplots, even as the royalists had done. They
+sought to create enmity and bitterness amongst the people, and hoped
+to re-establish on the ruins of the present administration the days of
+terror and of the guillotine.
+
+These red republicans, ever ready for the struggle, organized themselves
+into clubs and “constitutional circles,” where the ruin of the actual
+state of things, and the severe and bloody republic of Robespierre,
+formed the substance of their harangues; and their numbers were
+constantly increased by new members being sworn in.
+
+The ballot in May, 1799, had been in favor of the Directory, and
+unfavorable to the moderate party, for only fanatical republicans had
+been elected to the Council of Five Hundred.
+
+Against these factions and republican clubs the Directory had to make a
+perpetual war: but their power and means failed to give them the victory
+in the strife. It was a constant oscillation and vacillation, a
+constant compromising and capitulating with all parties--and the natural
+consequence was, that these parties, as soon as they had secured the
+ear of the Directory, and gained an advantage, strove hard to obtain the
+ruling authority. Corruption and mistrust universally prevailed.
+Every thing had the appearance of dissolution and disorder. Highwaymen
+rendered the roads unsafe; and the authorities, instead of carrying out
+the severity of the law, were so corrupt and avaricious as to sell their
+silence and indulgence. The upright citizen sighed under the weight
+of tyrannical laws from which the thief and the seditious knew how to
+escape.
+
+The nation, reduced to despair by this arbitrary rule and corruption,
+longed for some one to deliver it from this dreadful state of
+dissolution; and the enthusiasm which was manifested at the return of
+General Bonaparte, was a confession that in him the people foresaw and
+recognized a deliverer. Exhausted and wearied, France sought for a man
+who would restore to her peace again--who would crush the foes within,
+and drive away the enemy from without.
+
+Bonaparte appeared to the people with all the prestige of his former and
+recent victories; he had planted the victorious French tricolor upon the
+summit of the capitol, and of the pyramids; he had given to France the
+most acceptable of presents, “glory;” he had adorned her brow with so
+many laurels, that he himself seemed to the people as if radiant with
+glory. All felt the need of a hero, of a dictator, to put an end to the
+prevailing anarchy and disturbances, and they knew that Bonaparte was
+the only one who could achieve this gigantic work.
+
+Bonaparte understood but too well these applauding and welcoming voices
+of the people, and his own breast responded favorably to them. The
+secret thoughts of his heart were now to be turned into deeds, and the
+ambitious dreams of his earlier days were to become realities. All
+that he had hitherto wanted was a bridge to throw over the abyss which
+separated the republicans, the defenders of liberty, equality, and
+fraternity, from rule, power, and dictatorship. Anarchy and exhaustion
+laid down this bridge, and on the 18th Brumaire, General Bonaparte, the
+hero of “liberal ideas,” passed over it to exalt himself into dictator,
+consul, emperor, and tyrant of France.
+
+But the Directory also understood the voices of the applauding people;
+they also saw in him the man who had come to deprive them of power and
+to assume their authority. This was secretly yet violently discussed by
+the Directory, the Council of the Elders, and of the Five Hundred.
+
+One day, at a dinner given to a few friends by the Abbe Sieyes, one of
+the members of the Directory, the abbe, Cabanis, and Joseph Bonaparte,
+were conversing together, standing on the side of the drawing-room, near
+the chimney. It was conceded that undoubtedly a crisis was near at hand,
+that the republic had now reached its limit, and that, instead of five
+directors, only three would be elected, and that, without any doubt,
+Bonaparte would be one of the three.
+
+“Yes,” cried Sieyes, with animation, “I am for General Bonaparte, for of
+all military men he is the most civil; but then I know very well what
+is in reserve for me: once elected, the general, casting aside his two
+colleagues, will do as I do now.” And Sieyes, standing between Canabis
+and Joseph, placed his two arms on their shoulders, then, pushing them
+with a powerful jerk, he leaped forward and bounded into the middle
+of the room, to the great astonishment of his guests, who knew not the
+cause of this gymnastic performance of the abbe. [Footnote: “Memoires du
+Roi Joseph,” vol. i., p. 77.]
+
+The other directors were also conscious of this movement of Bonaparte,
+and they secretly resolved to save themselves by causing his ruin.
+Either the Directory or Bonaparte had to fall! One had to perish, that
+the other might have the power! In order that the Directory might exist,
+Bonaparte must fall.
+
+The Directory had secretly come to this conclusion on Bonaparte’s
+return. They were fully aware that a daring act alone could save them,
+and they were determined not to shrink from it.
+
+The deed was to take place on the 2d Brumaire. On that day he was to be
+arrested, and accused of having premeditated a coup d’etat against the
+Directory. Indeed, one M. de Mounier had come to Director Gohier and had
+denounced Bonaparte, whom he positively knew was conspiring to destroy
+the existing government. Gohier received these accusations with much
+gravity, and sent at once for the other directors to hasten to him,
+but only one, Moulins, was then in Paris to answer Gohier’s summons. He
+came, and after a long conference both directors agreed that the next
+day they would have Bonaparte arrested on his return to Paris from
+Malmaison, where they knew he was to give a large banquet that day. They
+sent for the chief of police, and quietly gave him the order to station
+himself the next day with twelve resolute men on the road to Malmaison,
+and to arrest Bonaparte as he should drive that evening toward Paris.
+
+On this very day Josephine, who did not wish to be present at the
+banquet of gentlemen in Malmaison, had come to Paris to attend a party
+at the house of one of her friends. The conversation went on; they
+talked and jested, when a gentleman near Josephine told a friend that
+some striking event would probably take place that day in Paris, for he
+had just now met a friend who held an important office in the police. He
+had invited him to go to the theatre, but he declined, stating that he
+was to be on duty this evening, as some important affair was about being
+transacted--the arrest, as he thought, of some influential personage.
+
+Josephine’s heart trembled with horrible misgivings at these words.
+Love’s instinct convinced her that her husband was the one to be
+arrested, and she thought within herself that it was Destiny itself
+which sent her this intelligence, that she might save her husband from
+the fearful blow which awaited him. Thus persuaded, she gathered all her
+strength and presence of mind, and determined to act with energy,
+and battle against the enemies of her husband. Without betraying the
+slightest emotion, or exciting any suspicion that she had heard or
+noticed what was said, Josephine rose from her seat with a cheerful
+and composed countenance, and pleasantly took leave of the lady of the
+house. But once past the threshold of the house, once in her carriage,
+her anxious nature woke up again, and she began to act with energy and
+resolution. She pulled the string, to give her directions to the driver.
+As fast as the horses could speed, he was to drive his mistress to
+Colonel Perrin, the commanding officer of the guards of the Directory.
+In ten minutes she was there, and knowing well how devoted a guard he
+and all his soldiers would be to Bonaparte, she communicated to him her
+fears, and requested from him immediate and speedy assistance to remove
+the danger.
+
+Colonel Perrin was prepared to enter into her plans, and he promised to
+send to Malmaison a company of grenadiers, provided she would, as
+soon as possible, have General Murat send him an order to that effect.
+Josephine at once went to one of her true, reliable friends, who
+belonged to the Council of the Elders, and, making him acquainted with
+the danger which threatened her husband, requested him to gather a few
+devoted friends, and to attend to the orders which Murat would send
+them.
+
+After having made all these preparations, Josephine drove in full gallop
+toward Malmaison.
+
+The dinner, to which Bonaparte had invited gentlemen from all classes
+of society, was just over, and the guests were scattered, some in the
+drawing-rooms, and some in the garden, where Bonaparte was walking up
+and down in animated conversation with the secretary, Roger Ducos.
+
+At this moment the carriage of Josephine drove into the yard; and Murat,
+who, with a few gentlemen, stood under the porch, hastened to offer his
+hand so as to help Josephine to alight. An eye-witness who was present
+at this scene relates as follows:
+
+“‘Where is the general?’ asked Josephine, hastily, of General Murat.
+
+“‘I do not know,’ was the answer; ‘he is gone with Roger, but Lucien is
+here.’
+
+“‘Look at once for the general!’ exclaimed Josephine, breathless, ‘I
+must speak to him immediately.’
+
+“I approached her and said that he was in the garden. She ran--she
+flew! I placed myself at a window in the first story, from which I could
+easily see into the garden-walks. My expectations had not deceived me.
+
+“No sooner did Bonaparte see Josephine approach, than he left Roger
+Ducos and hurried to meet her. Both then walked into a path near by. I
+could see them well. Josephine spoke with animation; the general walked
+on; now and then she held him back. At last they took the path leading
+to the castle. I went down to meet them on the steps near the door.
+
+“Madame Bonaparte held her husband by the left hand. Her animated,
+expressive features had a bewitching pride and softness; it was a most
+delightful admixture of tenderness and heroism. Bonaparte looked around,
+pale and grave, but his eyes ever rested with pleasure on his wife. She
+refused to enter into the large hall, and retired to her room. Bonaparte
+called for Roger, and entered the saloon with him. His guests were
+awaiting his arrival, to take their leave. The carriages drove up, and
+the gentlemen left Malmaison to return to Paris. Only Lucien and Murat
+remained with Bonaparte; Madame Bonaparte joined them as they entered
+the vestibule. When she saw Murat, she exclaimed:
+
+“‘How, general, you still here!--Do you not consider,’ continued she,
+turning to Bonaparte, ‘that Murat ought to be already in Paris with
+Perrin?--Away! quick! to horse, to the Rue Varennes, or I drive thither
+myself.’
+
+“Murat laughed; but four minutes after he was riding at a gallop on
+the road to the city. The three others returned to their rooms. I was
+curious to know what was the conversation; but as I had nothing more to
+do in the castle, I was about leaping on my horse to ride to Paris, when
+I saw a detachment of infantry marching toward the castle.
+
+“I thought it my duty to announce them to the general; he sat between
+his wife and his brother. ‘How!’ cried he, as he rose up hastily.
+‘Troops?’
+
+“‘What of them?’ answered Madame Bonaparte, smiling. ‘Your company has
+left you, now comes mine. It is a rendezvous; but be comforted--they are
+not too many.’
+
+“All three walked into the yard, where the troops were placing
+themselves in line without the sound of a drum.
+
+“‘You are an extraordinary man, sir,’ said Madame Bonaparte to the
+captain. ‘Nearly as soon as I?’
+
+“‘Madame,’ replied the officer, ‘we have been ready for the march these
+four hours.’
+
+“The officers followed the general into the drawing-room, and
+refreshments were distributed to the soldiers; it was a company of
+grenadiers.
+
+“At nine o’clock in the evening, a courier arrived, bearing dispatches
+to Bonaparte. At once he, his wife, and his brother, drove to Paris.
+The grenadiers were ordered to follow immediately and in silence.”
+ [Footnote: “Memoires secretes,” vol. i., p. 26.]
+
+These dispatches, which Bonaparte had received from Paris, brought him
+the news that this time the danger was over--that the directors had
+abandoned their plan. Some fortunate accident may have warned them, even
+as Josephine herself had been warned. The spies who everywhere tracked
+Josephine, as well as Bonaparte, had carried to Gohier intelligence of
+all the strange movements of the wife of Bonaparte, and the director at
+once perceived that she was informed of the danger which threatened her
+husband, and that she was bent upon preventing it.
+
+But now that the plan of the directors had been unveiled, danger
+threatened them in their turn, and they immediately adopted measures to
+face this new peril. In place of Bonaparte, they must find some one
+whom they could arrest, without withdrawing their orders. They found a
+substitute in a wealthy merchant from Hamburg, who now resided in Paris.
+Gohier had him arrested, and accused him of having had relations with
+the enemies of France.
+
+Bonaparte assumed the appearance of having no doubts as to the sincerity
+of Gohier, of suspecting nothing as to his own arrest, which had been
+prevented by the timely and energetic action of Josephine. He thanked
+her with increased tenderness for her love and faithfulness, and as he
+pressed her affectionately to his breast, he swore to her that he would
+never again doubt her; that he would, by the most unreserved confidence,
+share with her his schemes and designs, and that henceforth he would
+look upon her as the good angel who watched over the pathway of his
+life.
+
+And Bonaparte kept his word. From this day his Josephine was not only
+his wife, but his confidante, his friend, who knew all his plans, and
+who could assist him with her advice and her exquisite practical
+tact. She it was who brought about a reconciliation with Moreau and
+Bernadotte; and by her amiable nature, attractive and dignified
+manner, and great social talents, she bound even his friends closer to
+Bonaparte; or with a smile, a kind word, some flattering observation, or
+some of those little attentions which often-times tell more effectually
+with those who receive them than great services, she would often win
+over to him his foes and opponents.
+
+“It is known but to few persons,” says the author of the “Memoires
+secretes,” “that Bonaparte always consulted his wife in civil matters,
+even when they were of the highest importance. This fact is entirely
+true, but Bonaparte would have been extremely mortified had he known
+that those around him suspected it. Had it been possible for me to
+divide my being, with what delight I should have followed this noble
+woman! I would relate a few traits of hers if I did not know that M.
+D. B., who is much better acquainted with her than I, is to write a
+biography. [Footnote: The “Memoires secretes” appeared in 1815. The
+biography spoken of by the author is probably that of Madame Ducrest,
+and which appeared in 1818.] I know not what were the events of the
+first years of Madame de Beauharnais, but if they were like those of her
+last fifteen years, we should have the history of a perfect woman. She
+has known but little of me, and therefore no interested motive guides
+my pen, no other sentiment than that of truth.” [Footnote: “Memoires
+secretes,” vol. i., p. 36.]
+
+The 2d Brumaire afforded sufficient reasons for Bonaparte to put into
+execution his resolutions. He now knew the enmity of the Directory;
+he knew he must cause their downfall if he himself did not wish to
+be destroyed by them. He knew that, during his last triumphal journey
+through France, he had heard sufficient to convince him that the voice
+of the people was for him, that every one longed for a change, that
+France was heartily wearied of revolutionary commotions, and above
+all things craved for rest and peace; that it wished to lay aside all
+political strife, and, like him, preferred to have nothing more to do
+with a republican majority.
+
+“Every one desires a more central government,” said Napoleon to his
+brother Joseph. “Our dreams of a republic are the illusions of youth.
+Since the 9th Thermidor the republican party has dwindled away more and
+more; the efforts of the Bourbons and the foreigners, coupled with the
+memories of ‘93, have called forth against the republican system an
+imposing majority. If it had not been for the 13th Vendemiaire and the
+18th Fructidor, this majority would long ago have won the ascendency;
+the weaknesses, the imperiousness of the Directory, have done the rest.
+To-day the people are turning their hopes toward me, to-morrow it will
+be toward some one else.”
+
+Bonaparte did not wish to wait until to-morrow. He had made all his
+preparations; he had made sure of his generals and officers; he knew
+also that the soldiers were for him, and that it required but a signal
+from him to bring about the catastrophe.
+
+He gave the signal by inviting on the 18th Brumaire, to a dejeuner in
+his house, all his confidants and friends, all the generals and superior
+officers, and also the commanding general of the National Guards. Nearly
+all of them came at this invitation; only General Bernadotte kept aloof,
+as he perceived that the breakfast had other objects than to converse
+and to eat. Sieyes and Ducos were the only directors who made their
+appearance; Gohier, that morning, had sent to Bonaparte an invitation
+to dinner, so as to deceive the more securely him whom he knew was his
+enemy; Barras and Moulins, suspecting Bonaparte’s schemes, remained in
+the background, silently awaiting the result.
+
+While the guests were assembling in Bonaparte’s house, and filling all
+the space in it, a friend and confidant of Bonaparte, in the Council of
+the Elders, made the following motion: “In consideration of the intense
+political excitement which prevails in Paris, it is necessary to remove
+the sessions to St. Cloud, and to give to General Bonaparte the supreme
+command of the troops.”
+
+After a violent debate, the motion was suddenly adopted; and, when it
+was brought to Bonaparte, he saw that the moment for action had come.
+
+He told all those about him that at last the time was at hand to restore
+to France rest and peace, that he was decided to do this, and he called
+upon them to follow him. Every one was ready, and, surrounded by a
+brilliant suite, Bonaparte went first to the Council of the Elders, to
+express his thanks for his nomination, and solemnly to swear that he
+would adopt every measure necessary to save the country.
+
+Immediately after this he went to the Tuileries to hold a review of the
+troops stationed there. The soldiers and the people, who had streamed
+thither in masses to see him, received him with loud acclamations,
+assuring him of their loyalty and devotedness.
+
+No one this day rose in favor of the deputies, no one seemed to desire
+that their sittings should as heretofore take place in Paris, nor to
+think that force would have to be used to remove them.
+
+The palace of Luxemburg, in which their sittings had hitherto taken
+place, and St. Cloud, in which they were to meet in the future, were
+both, by orders of Bonaparte, surrounded with troops, and the deputies
+as well as the Council of the Elders adjourned that very day to St.
+Cloud.
+
+Moulins and Gohier alone had the courage to offer opposition, and, in
+a letter to the Council of the Elders, to describe Bonaparte as a
+criminal, who threatened the republic, and to demand of them his arrest;
+and also that they should immediately decree that the republic was in
+danger, and that it must be defended with all energy. But this letter
+fell into Bonaparte’s hands; and the directors, when they saw that their
+request was unheeded, resigned, as Barras had done.
+
+The republic now had but two legitimate rulers, Sieyes and Ducos; and at
+their side stood Bonaparte, soon to exalt himself above them.
+
+The following day, the 19th Brumaire, was actually the decisive day.
+The Five Hundred, who now, like the Council of the Elders, held their
+deliberations in St. Cloud, were discussing under great excitement the
+abdication of the Directory and the necessity of a new election. The
+debates were so vehement and so full of passion that the president,
+Lucien Bonaparte, could not command order. A wild uproar arose, and at
+this moment Napoleon entered the hall. Every one rushed at him with wild
+frenzy; and the most violent recriminations were launched at him. “He
+is a traitor!” they cried out. “He is a Cromwell, who wants to seize
+the sovereign power!” What Bonaparte had never experienced on the
+battle-field, in the thickest of the fight, he now felt. He became
+bewildered by this violent strife of words, by this hailstorm of
+accusations which whizzed around his ears. He tried to speak; he
+tried to address the audience, but he could not--he could merely
+give utterance to a few broken sentences; he made charges against the
+Directory, with assurances of his own loyalty and devotedness, which
+the audience received with loud murmurs, and then with wild shouts.
+Bonaparte became more embarrassed and bewildered. Suddenly turning
+toward the door of the hall, he exclaimed, “Who loves me, let him follow
+me!” and he walked out hastily.
+
+The soldiers outside received him with great cheers, and this brought
+back Bonaparte’s presence of mind. “General,” whispered Augereau, as
+they mounted their horses, “you are in a critical position.”
+
+“Think of Arcola,” replied Bonaparte, calmly. “There the position seemed
+still more critical. Have patience for half an hour, and you will see
+how things change.”
+
+Bonaparte made good use of this half hour. At its expiration he
+re-entered the hall of deliberation of the Five Hundred, surrounded by
+his officers, at the very moment when, on a motion of a member, they
+were renewing their oaths to the constitution. Again they received
+him with shouts: “Down with the tyrant!--down with the dictator! The
+sanctity of the law is violated! Death to the tyrant who brings soldiers
+here to do us violence!”
+
+One of the deputies rushed upon Bonaparte and seized him, but at that
+instant the grenadiers also entered the room, delivered their general,
+and carried him in triumph out of the hall.
+
+After his departure, the waves of wrath and political frenzy rose higher
+and higher. Shouts and imprecations filled the room with confusion;
+reproaches fell on all sides upon the president, Lucien Bonaparte, for
+not having immediately ordered the arrest of the traitor, who by his
+appearance, as well as by his armed escort, had insulted the assembly.
+When Lucien endeavored to defend Napoleon’s conduct, he was interrupted
+by the cries: “He is a stain on the republic! He has tarnished his
+reputation!” Louder and wilder rose the cry to declare Napoleon an
+outlaw. [Footnote: “Memoires du Roi Joseph.”]
+
+Lucien refused, and, as they urged their demand with increasing
+violence, he left the presidential chair, and with deep emotion put
+off the insignia of his office--his mantle and his sash--and was at the
+point of making for himself an outlet through the wild crowd pressing
+in frenzy around him, when the doors opened, and a company of grenadiers
+rushed in, who by main force carried him away out of the hall.
+
+Lucien, whom Napoleon awaited outside with his troops, immediately
+mounted his horse, and in this moment of deepest danger kept his
+presence of mind, being fully aware that he must now be decided to save
+himself and his brother or perish with him. He turned to the troops, and
+ordered them to protect the president of the Five Hundred, to defend the
+constitution attacked by a few fanatics, and to obey General Bonaparte,
+who was empowered by the Council of the Elders to arrest the seditious,
+and to protect the republic and its laws.
+
+The soldiers answered him with the acclamation, “Long live Bonaparte!”
+ But a certain shudder was visible. A few warning voices were lifted
+up; they thought it strange that weapons should be directed against the
+representatives of the country.
+
+By a dramatic action Lucien brought the matter to a close, though it
+was at the time meant by him in all sincerity. He drew his sword, and,
+directing its point toward Napoleon’s breast, he exclaimed: “I swear
+to pierce even my brother’s heart if he ever dares touch the liberty of
+France!”
+
+These words had an electric effect; every one felt inspired, lifted up,
+and swore to obey Bonaparte, and to remain loyal to him even unto death.
+At a sign from Napoleon, Murat, with his grenadiers, dashed into the
+hall and drove away the assembly of the Five Hundred. At ten o’clock
+that evening St. Cloud was vacant; only a few deputies, like homeless
+night-birds, wandered around the palace out of which they had been so
+violently ejected.
+
+In the interior of St. Cloud, Bonaparte was busy preparing for the
+people of Paris a proclamation, in which he justified his deed, and
+repeated the sacred assurance “that he would protect liberty and the
+republic against all her enemies at home as well as abroad.” When this
+was done, it was necessary to think of giving to the French people a new
+government, instead of the one which had been broken up. Napoleon had
+been in conference until the dawn of day with Talleyrand, Roderer, and
+Sieyes. Meanwhile Lucien had gathered around him in a room the members
+of the Five Hundred who were devoted to him, and had resumed the
+presidential chair; Napoleon’s friends among the members of the Council
+of the Elders also gathered together, and both assemblies issued a
+decree, in which they declared there was no longer a Directory, and in
+which they excluded from the assembly as rebellious and factious a
+vast number of deputies. And more, they decreed the nomination of a
+provisional commission, and decided that it should consist of three
+members, who should bear the title of Consuls of the Republic, and they
+appointed as consuls Sieyes, Ducos, and Bonaparte.
+
+At three o’clock in the morning every thing was ready, and Napoleon,
+accompanied by Bourrienne, went to Paris. He had reached his goal; he
+was at the head of the administration, but his countenance betrayed no
+joyous excitement; he was taciturn and pensive, and during the whole
+journey to Paris he spoke not a word, but quietly leaned in a corner
+of the carriage. Perhaps he dreamed of a great and brilliant future;
+perhaps he was busy with the thought how he could ascend higher on this
+ladder to a throne, whose first step he had now ascended, since he had
+exalted himself into a consul of the republic.
+
+Not till he arrived at his residence in the Rue de la Victoire did
+Bonaparte’s cheerfulness return, when, with countenance beaming
+with joy, and followed by Bourrienne, he hastened to Josephine, who,
+exhausted by anxiety and care during this day full of danger, had
+finally gone to rest. Near her bed Bonaparte sank into an arm-chair,
+and, gazing at her and seizing her hand, he turned smilingly to
+Bourrienne:
+
+“Is it not true,” said he--“I said many foolish things?”
+
+“Well, yes, general, that cannot be denied,” replied Bourrienne,
+shrugging his shoulders, while Josephine broke out into loud, joyous
+laughter.
+
+“I would sooner speak to soldiers than to lawyers,” said Bonaparte,
+cheerfully. “These honorable fools made me timid. I am not accustomed to
+speak to an audience--but that will come in time.”
+
+With affectionate sympathy Josephine requested him to relate in detail
+all the events of the day; and she listened with breathless attention to
+the descriptions which Bonaparte made in his own terse, brief, and lucid
+manner.
+
+“And Gohier?” said she, at last--“you know I love his wife, and when you
+were in Egypt he was ever kind and attentive to me. You will not touch
+him, will you, mon ami?”
+
+Bonaparte shrugged his shoulders. “What of it, my love?” said he; “it is
+not my fault if he is pushed aside. Why has he not wished it otherwise?
+He is a good-natured man, but a blockhead. He does not understand me....
+I would do much better to have him transported. He wrote against me to
+the Council of the Elders, but his letter fell into my hands, and the
+council has heard nothing of it. The unfortunate man!... Yesterday he
+expected me to dinner.... And that is called statesmanship.... Let us
+speak no more of this matter.” [Footnote: Bonaparte’s own words.--See
+Bourrienne, vol. iii., p. 106.]
+
+Then he began to relate to his Josephine how Bernadotte had acted,
+refusing to take any part in the events of the day, and how, when
+Bonaparte had requested him at least to undertake nothing against him,
+he answered: “As a citizen, I will keep quiet; but if the Directory
+gives me the order to act, I will fight against every disturber of the
+peace and every conspirator, whoever he may be.”
+
+Bonaparte then suddenly turned to Bourrienne to dismiss him, that he
+might himself take some rest; and when he extended his hand to bid him
+farewell, he added, carelessly:
+
+“Apropos, to-morrow we sleep in the Luxemburg.” It was decided!--the
+long-premeditated deed was done! With the 18th Brumaire, Bonaparte had
+made an important step forward on the path of fame and power whose end
+was seen by him alone.
+
+Bonaparte was no longer a general receiving orders from a superior
+authority; he was no longer the servant of the Directory; but he was now
+the one who would give orders--he was the master and ruler; he stood at
+the head of the French nation; he made the laws, and his deep, clear eye
+looked far beyond both consuls who stood at his side, into that future
+when he alone would be at the head of France; when, instead of the
+uprooted throne of the lilies, he would sit in the Tuileries, in the
+chair of the First Consul, this chair of a Caesar, which could so easily
+become an emperor’s throne!
+
+On the 20th Brumaire, Napoleon occupied the residence of the Directory
+in the palace of the Luxemburg, after he had, through his brother Louis,
+made Gohier prisoner, the only one of the directors who still lingered
+there, and whom he afterward released. Josephine’s intercession procured
+the liberty of the husband of her friend, and this generous pardon
+of the furious letter which Gohier had written against him was the
+thank-offering which Bonaparte presented to the gods as he made his
+entrance into the Luxemburg.
+
+The Luxemburg itself was, however, but a relay for a change of horses
+in the wondrous journey which Bonaparte had to travel from the lawyer’s
+house on the island of Corsica to the throne-room of the Bourbons in the
+palace of the Tuileries.
+
+In simple equipage, he with Josephine made his entrance into the
+Luxemburg, but after the rest of a few weeks he left this station, to
+make his entrance into the Tuileries in a magnificent carriage, drawn
+by the six splendid grays which the Emperor of Austria had presented to
+General Bonaparte in Campo Formio. For already another change had taken
+place in the government of France, and the trefoil-leaf of the consuls
+had assumed another form.
+
+The two consuls, who had stood at the side of Bonaparte, invested with
+equal powers, had been set aside by the new constitution of the year
+VIII., which the people had adopted on the 17th of February, 1800 (18th
+Pluviose, year VIII.). This constitution named Bonaparte as consul for
+ten years, and with him two other consuls, who were more his secretaries
+than his colleagues. Next to him was Cambaceres, as second consul for
+ten years, and then Lebrun, as third consul for five years.
+
+With these two consuls, Bonaparte, on the 19th of February, 1800, made
+his solemn entry into the Tuileries. The old century, with its Bourbon
+throne, its bloody revolution, its horrors, its party passions, had
+passed away, and the new century found in the Tuileries a hero who
+wanted to crush all parties with a hand of iron, and to place his foot
+on the head of the revolution, so as to close the abyss which it had
+opened, in order to build himself an emperor’s throne over it.
+
+He was for the present satisfied to hear himself called “First Consul;”
+ he was willing for a short time to grant to the two men who sat at his
+side in the carriage drawn by the six imperial grays, that they should
+share the power with him, and should consider themselves vested with the
+same authority. But Cambaceres and Lebrun had a keen ear for the joyful
+shouts with which the people followed their triumphal march from the
+Luxemburg to the Tuileries. They knew very well that these shouts and
+acclamations were not addressed to them, but only to General Bonaparte,
+the conqueror of Lodi and Arcola, the hero of the pyramids, the “savior
+of society,” who, on the 18th Brumaire, had rescued France from the
+terrorists. Both consuls were shrewd enough to draw a lesson from this
+enthusiasm of the people, and willingly to fall back into the shade
+rather than to be forced into it. The Tuileries had been appointed
+for the residence of the three consuls, but the next day after their
+triumphal entry Cambaceres left the royal palace to take up his abode in
+the Hotel Elboeuf, on the Place de Carrousel. Lebrun, who at first made
+the Flora Pavilion his headquarters, soon found it more advisable to
+take his lodgings elsewhere, and he left the Tuileries, to make his
+residence in the Faubourg St. Honore.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII. THE TUILERIES.
+
+
+The Tuileries had again found a master; the halls where Marie Antoinette
+received her joyous guests, her beautiful lady-friends, were now again
+alive with elegant female figures, and resounded with gay voices,
+cheerful laughter, and unaffected pleasantry. The apartments in which
+Louis XVI. had passed such sad and fearful days, where he had laid with
+his ministers such nefarious schemes, and where royalty had been trodden
+down under the feet of the infuriated populace--these rooms were now
+occupied by the hero who had subdued the people, slain the revolution
+and restored to France peace and glory.
+
+The Tuileries had again found a master--the throne-room was still vacant
+and empty, for the first consul of the republic dared not yet lay
+claim to this throne which the revolution had destroyed, and which the
+republic had forever removed from France. But if there was no throne
+in the Tuileries, there was at least a court; and “Madame Etiquette,”
+ driven away from the royal palace since the days of the unfortunate
+Marie Antoinette, had again, though with modest and timid step, slipped
+into the Tuileries. It is true, she now clandestinely occupied a
+servant’s room; but the day was not far distant when, as Egeria,
+she would whisper advice and dictate laws to the ear of the new Numa
+Pompilius; when all doors would be open to her, and when she alone
+would, at all times, have access to the mighty lord of France.
+
+In the Luxemburg, the fraternity and the equality of the revolution had
+been set aside, as, long before, on the 13th Vendemiaire, the liberty
+of the revolution had been cast away. In the Luxemburg the “citoyenne”
+ Bonaparte had become “Madame” Bonaparte, and the young daughter of the
+citizeness Josephine heard herself called “Mademoiselle” Hortense!
+
+After the entrance into the Tuileries, fraternity and equality
+disappeared rapidly, and the distinctions of gentlemen and servants,
+rulers and subjects, superiors and subordinates, were again introduced.
+The chief of the administration was surrounded with honors and
+distinctions; the court, with all its grades, degrees, and titles, was
+there; it had its courtiers, flatterers, and defamers; and also its
+brilliant festivities, splendors, and pomp!
+
+It is true this was not the work of a moment, nor so rapid an
+achievement as the transition from the Luxemburg to the Tuileries, but
+the introduction of the words “madame” and “monsieur” removed the first
+obstacle which held the whole French nation bound to the same platform;
+and a second obstacle had fallen, when permission was granted to all
+the emigres, with the exception of the royal family, to return to their
+native country.
+
+The aristocrats of old France returned in vast numbers; they, the
+bearers of old names of glory, the legitimists, who had fled before the
+guillotine, now hoped to win again the throne from the consulate.
+
+They kept themselves, however, aloof from the consul, whose greatness
+and power were derived from the revolution, and who was to them a
+representative of the rebellious, criminal republic; but they presented
+themselves to his wife, they brought their homage to Josephine, the born
+aristocrat, the relative and friend of so many emigrant families, and
+they hoped, through her influence, to obtain what they dared not
+ask from the first consul--the re-establishment of the throne of the
+Bourbons.
+
+These aristocrats knew very well that Josephine longed for the return
+of the royal family; that in her heart she cherished love and loyalty to
+the unfortunate royal couple; and that, without any personal ambition,
+without any desire for fame, but with the devotedness of a royalist, and
+the affection of a noble, sensitive woman, she sighed for the time when
+Bonaparte would again restore to the heir of Louis XVI. the throne of
+the lilies, and recall to France the Count de Lille, to replace him as
+king on his brother’s throne.
+
+In fact, Josephine had faith in this fairy-tale of her royal heart; she
+believed in those dreams with which her tender conscience lulled her
+to repose, whenever she reproached herself, that she, the subject, now
+walked and gave orders as mistress in this palace of royalty! “Why,
+indeed, could she not believe in the realization of those dreams, since
+Bonaparte himself seemed to cherish no further wishes than to rest on
+his laurels, and to enjoy, in delightful privacy, the peace he had given
+to France?
+
+“I am looked upon as ambitious,” said Bonaparte one day, in the
+confidential evening conversations with his friends in Josephine’s
+drawing-rooms, “I am looked upon as ambitious, and why? Listen, my
+friends, to what I am going to tell you, and which you may repeat to
+all. In three years I shall retire from public life; I shall then have
+about fifty thousand livres income, and that is sufficient for my mode
+of living. I will get a country residence, since Josephine loves a
+country life. One thing only I need, and this I claim--I want to be the
+justice of the peace for my circuit. Now, say, am I ambitious?”
+
+Every one laughed at the strange conceit of Bonaparte, who wished to
+exchange his present course for the position of a justice of the peace,
+and Bonaparte chimed in heartily with the laughter.
+
+But Josephine believed those words of Bonaparte, and their echoes had
+perchance penetrated even to Russia, to the ears of the pretender to
+the French throne, the Count de Lille, and to the ears of the Count
+d’Artois, his brother, and they both therefore based their hopes on
+Josephine’s winning her husband to the cause of the Bourbons.
+
+Both sent their secret emissaries to Paris, to enter into some compact
+with Josephine, and to prepare their pathway to the throne, after having
+failed to negotiate directly with Bonaparte, who had repelled all their
+efforts, and with haughty pride had answered the autograph letter of the
+Count de Lille.
+
+The Count d’Artois, enlightened by the fruitless efforts of his brother,
+resorted to another scheme. He sent a female emissary to Paris--not
+to Bonaparte, but to Josephine. Napoleon himself speaks of it, in his
+Memorial of St. Helena, as follows:
+
+“The Count d’Artois made his advances in a more eloquent and refined
+manner. He sent to Paris the Duchess de Guiche, a charming woman, who
+by the elegance of her manners and by her personal attractions was well
+calculated to bring to a favorable result the object of her mission. She
+easily obtained an introduction to Madame Bonaparte, who was acquainted
+with all the persons of the old court. The beautiful duchess was
+therefore invited to a dejeuner at Malmaison; and during breakfast, when
+the conversation ran upon London, the emigrants, and the princes, Madame
+de Guiche stated that a few days before she had called upon the Count
+d’Artois. They had spoken of current events, of the future of France,
+of the royal family, and one of the confidants had asked the prince
+what would be the reward of the first consul if he re-established
+the Bourbons! The prince answered: ‘First of all he would be created
+connetable, with all the privileges attached to that rank, if that were
+agreeable to him. But that would not be enough; we would erect to him
+on the Place de Carrousel a tall and costly column, and on it we would
+raise the statue of Bonaparte crowning the Bourbons.’ A short time after
+the dejeuner the consul entered, and Josephine had nothing more pressing
+to do than to relate to him all these details. ‘And have you inquired,’
+asked her husband, ‘whether this column would have for a pedestal the
+corpse of the first consul?’ The beautiful duchess was still present,
+and with her winning ways she was well calculated to carry her point. ‘I
+shall ever be happy,’ said she, ‘and grateful for the kindness of
+Madame Bonaparte in having granted me the opportunity of gazing upon and
+listening to a great man--a hero.’ But it was all in vain; the Duchess
+de Guiche the same night received orders to depart immediately; and
+the beauty of this emissary appeared to Josephine too dangerous for her
+urgently to intercede in her behalf. Early next morning Madame de Guiche
+was on her way to the frontier.” [Footnote: “Memorial de Ste. Helene,”
+ vol. i., p. 34.]
+
+The Count de Lille chose for his mediator a very devoted servant, the
+most skilful of all his agents, the Marquis de Clermont Gallerande. He
+also was kindly received by Josephine, and he found access to her ear.
+With intense sympathy, and tears in her eyes, she bade him tell her
+the sad wanderings of that unfortunate man, “his majesty the King of
+France,” and who as a fugitive was barely tolerated, roaming from court
+to court, a protege of the good-will of foreign potentates. Drawn away
+by her generous heart, and by her unswerving loyalty to the faith of her
+childhood, she spoke enthusiastically of the young royal couple who once
+had ruled in the Tuileries; and she went so far as to express the hope
+that Bonaparte would again make good what the revolution had destroyed,
+and that he would restore to the King of France his lost throne.
+
+The Marquis de Clermont, to prove to her what confidence he reposed in
+her, and what consideration the King of France entertained for the first
+consul and his adored wife, communicated to her a letter from the Count
+de Lille to him, which was in itself a masterpiece, well calculated to
+move the heart of Josephine.
+
+The Count de Lille portrayed in this letter first the dangers which
+would threaten Bonaparte if he should allow himself to be drawn into the
+inconsiderate and criminal step of placing the crown of France on his
+own head, and then continued:
+
+“Sitting upon a volcano, Bonaparte would sooner or later be destroyed by
+it if he hastens not in due time to close the crater. Sitting upon
+the first step of the throne restored by his own hand, he would be
+the object of a monarch’s gratitude; he would receive from France the
+highest regards, the more pure since they would be the result of his
+administration and of public esteem. No one can convince him of these
+truths better than she whose fortune is bound up with his, who can
+be happy only in his happiness and honored only in his reputation. I
+consider it a great point gained if you can come into some relation
+with her. I know her sentiments from days of old. The Count de Vermeuil,
+ex-governor of the Antilles, whose judgment as you know is most
+excellent, has told me more than once that in Martinique he had often
+noticed how her fealty to the crown deepened nearly to distraction; and
+the protection which she grants to my faithful subjects who appeal
+to her, entitles her justly to the name you give her, ‘an angel of
+goodness.’ Let my sentiments be known to Madame Bonaparte. You will not
+surprise her, but I flatter myself that her soul will rejoice to know
+them.” [Footnote: Thibaudeau, “Histoire de la France, et de Napoleon
+Bonaparte,” vol. ii., p. 202.]
+
+The Count de Lille was not deceived. Josephine’s heart was filled with
+joy at this confidence of the “King of France;” she was pleased that the
+Marquis de Clermont had fulfilled his wishes, and that he should with
+this letter have sent her a present. She read it with a countenance full
+of enthusiasm, and with a tremulous voice, to her daughter Hortense,
+whom she had educated to be as good a royalist as herself; and both
+mother and daughter besieged, with earnest petitions, with tears and
+prayers, and every expression of love, the first consul to realize the
+hopes of the Count de Lille, and to recall the exiled prince to his
+kingdom.
+
+Bonaparte usually replied to all these requests with a silent smile;
+sometimes also, when they were too violent and pressing, he repelled
+them with unwilling vehemence.
+
+“These women belong entirely to the devil!” said he, in his anger to
+Bourrienne, “they are mad for royalty. The Faubourg St. Germain has
+turned their heads, they are made the protecting genii of the royalists;
+but they do not trouble me, and I am not displeased with them.”
+
+Bourrienne ventured to warn Josephine, and to call her attention to
+this, that she might not so strongly plead before Bonaparte for the
+Count de Lille, but Josephine answered him with a sad smile: “I wish I
+could persuade him to call back the king, lest he himself may have the
+idea of becoming such; for the fear that he may do this always awakens
+in me a foreboding of evil, which I cannot banish from my mind.”
+ [Footnote: Bourrienne, vol. iv., p. 108.]
+
+But until the king was really recalled by the first consul, Josephine
+had to be pleased to assume the place of queen in the Tuileries, and to
+accept the homage which France and soon all Europe brought to her. For
+now that the republic was firmly established, and had made peace with
+the foreign powers, they sent their ambassadors to the republic, and
+were received in the name of France by the first consul and his wife.
+
+It was indeed an important and significant moment when Josephine for
+the first time in her apartments received the ambassadors of the foreign
+powers. It is true no one called this “to give audience;” no one spoke
+yet in genuine courtier’s style of “great levee” or “little levee;” the
+appellation of “madame” was yet in use, and there was no court-marshal,
+no maids of honor, no chamberlains of the palace. But the substance was
+the same, and, instead of the high court-marshal, it was Talleyrand,
+the secretary for foreign affairs, who introduced to Josephine the
+ambassadors, and who called their names.
+
+This introduction of the ambassadors was the first grand ceremony which,
+since the revolution, had taken place in the Tuileries. With exquisite
+tact, Josephine had carefully avoided at this festivity any pomp, any
+luxury of toilet. In a plain white muslin dress, her beautiful brown
+hair bound up in a string of white pearls, and holding Talleyrand’s
+hand, she entered the great reception hall, in which the foreign
+ambassadors, the generals, and the high dignitaries of the republic
+were gathered. She came without pretension or ostentation, but at her
+appearance a murmur of admiration ran through the company, and brought
+on her cheeks the timid blush of a young maiden. With the assurance of
+an accomplished lady of the world she received the salutations of the
+ambassadors, knew how to speak to each a gracious word, how to entertain
+them, not with those worn-out, stereotyped phrases customary at royal
+presentations, but in an interesting, intellectual manner, which at once
+opened the way to an exciting, witty, and unaffected conversation.
+
+Every one was enchanted with her, and from this day not only the French
+aristocracy, but all distinguished foreigners who came to Paris, were
+anxious to obtain the honor of a reception in the drawing-room of the
+wife of the first consul; from this day Josephine was the admiration of
+Europe, as she had already been that of France and Italy. As the wife
+of the first consul of France she could be observed and noticed by
+all Europe, and it is certainly a most remarkable and unheard-of
+circumstance that of all these thousands of eyes directed at her, none
+could find in her a stain or blemish; that, though neither beautiful nor
+young, her sweet disposition and grace so enchanted every one as to be
+accepted as substitutes for them, while on account of her goodness
+and generosity her very failings and weaknesses were overlooked, being
+interwoven with so many virtues.
+
+Constant, the first chamberlain of Bonaparte, who, at the time Bonaparte
+was elected first consul, entered his service, describes Josephine’s
+appearance and character in the following manner:
+
+“Napoleon’s wife was of medium size; her figure was moulded with rare
+perfection; her movements had a softness and an elasticity which gave
+to her walk something ethereal, without diminishing the majesty of a
+sovereign. Her very expressive physiognomy mirrored all the emotions of
+her soul without losing aught of the enchanting gentleness which was the
+very substance of her character. At the moment of joy or merriment she
+was beautiful to behold. Never did a woman more than she justify the
+expression that the eyes were the mirror of the soul. Hers were of a
+deep-blue color, shadowed by long, slightly-curved lids, and overarched
+by the most beautiful eyebrows in the world, and her simple look
+attracted you toward her as if by an irresistible power. It was
+difficult for Josephine to give to this bewitching look an appearance of
+severity, yet she knew how to make it imposing when she chose. Her hair
+was beautiful, long, and soft; its light-brown color agreed marvellously
+well with her complexion, which was a mixture of delicacy and freshness.
+At the dawn of her lofty power the empress was fond of putting on for
+a head-dress a red Madras, which gave her the piquant appearance of a
+creole. But what more than any thing else contributed to the charm which
+invested her whole person was the sweet tone of her voice. How often it
+has happened to me and to many others amid our occupations, as soon
+as this voice was heard, to remain still for the sake of enjoying the
+pleasure of hearing it! It might be said, perhaps, that the empress was
+not a beautiful woman; but her countenance, so full of expression and
+goodness, the angelic grace which was shed over her whole person, placed
+her among the most charming women of the world.”
+
+Further on, speaking of her character, he continues:
+
+“Goodness was as inseparable from her character as grace from her
+person. Good even to weakness, sensitive beyond all expression, generous
+to extravagance, she was the delight of all those who were round about
+her; certain it is that there never was a woman more loved and more
+deservedly loved by those who approached her than Josephine. As she had
+known what adversity was, she was full of compassion for the sorrows
+of others; with a pleasant, equable temperament, full of condescension
+alike to foe and friend, she carried peace wherever discord or disunion
+existed; if the emperor was displeased with his brothers, or with any
+other person, she uttered words of affection, and soon restored harmony.
+She possessed a wondrous tact, a rare sentiment of what was becoming,
+and the soundest and most unerring judgment one can possibly imagine.
+Besides all this, Josephine had a remarkable memory, to which the
+emperor would often appeal. She was a good reader, and had a peculiar
+charm of her own which accorded with all her movements. Napoleon
+preferred her to all his other readers.” [Footnote: Constant,
+“Memoires,” vol. i., pp. 21, 39; vol. ii., p. 70.]
+
+The Duke de Rovigo, the Duchess d’Abrantes, Mdlle. Ducrest, the niece of
+the Countess de Genlis, Mdlle. d’Avrillon, General Lafayette, in a word,
+all who have written about that period who knew Josephine, bear similar
+testimony to her amiable disposition and her superior virtues.
+
+In the same manner the man for whom, as Mdlle. Ducrest says, “she would
+gladly have given her life,” Napoleon, in his conversations with his
+confidential friends at St. Helena, ever spoke of her. “In all positions
+of life, Josephine’s demeanor and actions were always pleasant or
+bewitching,” said he. “It would have been impossible ever to surprise
+her, however intrusive you might be, so as to produce a disagreeable
+impression. I always found her in the same humor; she had the same
+amiable complacency; she was good, gentle, and ever devoted to her
+husband in true affection. He never saw her in bad humor; she was always
+constantly busy in endeavoring to please him.” [Footnote: “Memorial de
+Ste. Helene,” vol. i. pp. 38, 79.]
+
+And she pleased him more than any other woman; he loved her in these
+happy days of the consulate with all the affection of the first days of
+his marriage; his heart might now and then be drawn aside from her to
+other women, but it always returned true and loving to her.
+
+And this woman, whom the future King of France called an “angel of
+goodness,” and the future Emperor of France, “grace in person,” is the
+one who entered the Tuileries at Bonaparte’s side to bring again into
+France the tone of good society, refinement of manners, intellectual
+conversation, and a love for the arts and sciences.
+
+She was fully conscious of this mission, and devoted herself with
+all the strength, energy, and perseverance of her character. Her
+drawing-room soon became the central rendezvous of men of science, art,
+learning, politics, and diplomacy, and to each Josephine knew how to
+address friendly and captivating words; she knew how to encourage every
+one by her noble affability, by her respectful interest in their works
+and plans--so much so that all strove to do as well as possible, and
+in her presence appeared more amiable than they otherwise would perhaps
+have been. Alongside of the distinguished men of every rank were seen
+the choicest company of ladies, young, beautiful, and captivating; the
+most intelligent women of the Faubourg St. Germain were not ashamed to
+appear in the drawing-room of the wife of the first consul, and thought
+that the glory of their old aristocratic names would not be tarnished
+by association with Madame Bonaparte, who by birth belonged to them,
+and formed a sort of connecting link between the departed royalty of the
+last century and the republicans of the present.
+
+This republicanism was soon to hide itself behind the columns and
+mirrors of the large hall of reception in the Tuileries. Bonaparte--the
+first consul, and shortly to be consul for life--would have nothing to
+do with this republicanism, which reminded him of the days of terrorism,
+anarchy, and the guillotine; and the words “Liberty, Equality, and
+Fraternity,” which the revolution had written over the portals of the
+Tuileries, were obliterated by the consul of the republic. France had
+been sufficiently bled, and had suffered enough for these three words;
+it was now to rest under the shadow of legal order and of severe
+discipline, after its golden morning-dream of youth’s enchanting hopes.
+
+Bonaparte was to re-establish order and law; Josephine was to remodel
+society and the saloon; her mission was to unite the aristocracy of
+ancient France with the parvenues of the new; she was to be to the
+latter a teacher of refinement, and of the genuine manners and habits of
+so-called good society.
+
+To accomplish this, the wife of the first consul needed the assistance
+of some ladies of those circles who had remained in lofty, haughty
+isolation; she needed the co-operation of the ladies of the Faubourg
+St. Germain. It is true they made their morning calls, and invited the
+former Viscountess de Beauharnais, with her daughter, to their evening
+receptions; but they carefully avoided being present at the evening
+circles of Madame Bonaparte, where their exclusiveness was beset with
+the danger of coming in contact with some “parvenu,” or with some sprig
+of the army, or of the financial bureaus. Josephine therefore had to
+recruit her troops herself in the Faubourg St. Germain, so as to
+bring into her saloon the necessary contingent of the old legitimist
+aristocracy, and she found what she desired in a lady with whom she had
+been acquainted as Viscountess de Beauharnais, and who then had
+ever shown herself kind and friendly. This lady was the Countess de
+Montesson, the morganatic wife of the Duke d’Orleans, the father of
+the Duke Philippe Egalite, who, after betraying the monarchy to
+the revolution, was betrayed by the revolution, and, like his royal
+relatives, Louis and Marie Antoinette, had perished on the scaffold!
+
+Soon after his entrance into the Tuileries, the first consul invited,
+through his wife, the Countess de Montesson to visit him, and when she
+was announced he advanced to meet her with an unusual expression of
+friendship, and endeavored with great condescension to make her say in
+what manner he could please her or be of service to her.
+
+“General,” said Madame de Montesson, much surprised, “I have no right
+whatever to claim any thing from you.”
+
+Bonaparte smiled. “You are mistaken,” said he; “I have been under many
+obligations to you for a long time past. Do you not know that to you I
+am indebted for my first laurels? You came with the Duke d’Orleans
+to Brienne for the purpose of distributing the prizes at the great
+examination, and when you placed on my head the laurel-crown, which has
+since been followed by others, you said, ‘May it bring you happiness!’
+It is commonly believed that I am a fatalist; it is therefore very
+natural that I should not have forgotten my first coronation, and that
+it is still fresh in my memory. It would afford me much pleasure to be
+of service to you; besides, you can be useful to me. The tone of good
+society has nearly perished in France; we would like to renew it again
+with your assistance. I need some of the traditions of days gone by--you
+can assist my wife with them; and when a distinguished foreigner comes
+to Paris you can give him a reception which will convince him that
+nowhere else can so much gentleness and amiableness be found.”
+ [Footnote: “Memoires de Mdlle. Ducrest,” vol. i., p. 9.]
+
+That Madame de Montesson might have a striking proof of Bonaparte’s
+good-will, he renewed her yearly pension of one hundred and eighty
+thousand francs, which the duke had donated to her in his will, and
+which Bonaparte restored to her as the property which the revolution had
+confiscated for the nation’s welfare. She manifested her gratitude to
+the first consul for this liberal pension by opening the saloons to
+the “parvenues of the Tuileries;” and leading the aristocrats of the
+Faubourg St. Germain into the drawing-rooms of Josephine, and then
+assisting her to form out of these elements a court whose lofty and
+brilliant centre was to be Josephine herself. The ladies of the Faubourg
+St. Germain were no longer ashamed to appear at the new court of the
+Tuileries, but excused themselves by saying: “We flatter Josephine, so
+as to keep her on our side, and to strengthen her loyalty to the king.
+She will, by her entrancing eloquence, persuade the consul to recall our
+King Louis XVIII., and give him his crown.”
+
+But too soon, alas! were they made aware of their error. It was not long
+before they became convinced that, if Bonaparte’s hands were busy in
+raising a throne, in lifting up from the earth the fallen crown of
+royalty, he was not doing this to place it on the brow of the Count de
+Lille; he had a nearer object in view--he considered his own head better
+suited to wear it.
+
+The conqueror of terrorism and of the revolution was not inclined to
+be defeated by the enemies of the republic, who were approaching the
+frontiers of France, to restore the Bourbons. He took up the glove which
+Austria had thrown down--for she had made alliance with England.
+
+On the 6th of May, 1800, Bonaparte left Paris, marched with his army
+over Mount St. Bernard, and assumed the chief command of the army in
+Italy, which recently had suffered so many disastrous defeats from
+Suwarrow and the Archduke Charles.
+
+At Marengo, on the 14th of June, Bonaparte obtained a brilliant triumph.
+Soon after, at Hohenlinden, Moreau also defeated the Austrians. These
+two decisive victories forced Austria to make peace with France, to
+abandon her alliance with England--that is to say, with the monarchical
+principles; and, at the peace ratified in the beginning of the year 1801
+at Limeville, to concede to France the grand-duchy of Tuscany.
+
+In July, Bonaparte returned in triumph to France, and was received
+by the people with enthusiastic acclamations. Paris was brilliantly
+illuminated on the day of his return, and round about the Tuileries
+arose the shouts of the people, who with applauding voices demanded
+to see the conqueror of Marengo, and would not remain quiet until he
+appeared on the balcony. Even Bonaparte was touched by this enthusiasm
+of the French people; as he retreated from the balcony and retired into
+his cabinet, he said to Bourrienne. “Listen! The people shout again
+and again; they still send their acclamations toward me. I love those
+sounds; they are nearly as sweet as Josephine’s voice. How proud and
+happy I am to be loved by such a people!” [Footnote: Bourrienne, vol.
+v., p. 35.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV. THE INFERNAL MACHINE.
+
+
+The victory of Marengo, which had pleased the people, had filled the
+royalists with terror and fear, and destroyed their hopes of a speedy
+restoration of the monarchy, making them conscious of its fruitless
+pretensions. With the frenzy of hatred and the bitterness of revenge
+they turned against the first consul, who was not now their expected
+savior of the monarchy, but a usurper who wanted to gain France for
+himself.
+
+The royalists and the republicans united for the same object. Both
+parties longed to destroy Bonaparte: the one to re-establish the
+republic of the year 1793, and the other the throne of the Bourbons.
+Everywhere conspiracies and secret associations were organized, and
+the watchful and active police discovered in a few months more than ten
+plots, the aim of which was to murder Bonaparte.
+
+Josephine heard this with sorrow and fear, with tears of anxiety and
+love. She had now given her whole heart and soul to Bonaparte, and
+it was the torment of martyrdom to see him every day threatened by
+assassins and by invisible foes, who from dark and hidden places drew
+their daggers at him. Her love surrounded him with vigilant friends and
+servants, who sought to discover every danger and to remove it from his
+path.
+
+When he was coming to Malmaison, Josephine before his arrival would send
+her servants to search every hiding-place in the park, to see if in some
+shady grove a murderer might not be secreted; she entreated Junot or
+Murat to send scouts from Paris on the road to Malmaison to remove all
+suspicious persons from it. Yet her heart trembled with anxiety when she
+knew him to be on the way, and, when he had safely arrived, she would
+receive him with rapture, as if he had just escaped an imminent danger,
+and would make him laugh by the exclamations of joy with which she
+greeted him as one saved from danger.
+
+In the anxiety of her watchful love she made herself acquainted with
+all the details of the discovered conspiracies of both the Jacobins
+and royalists. She knew there were two permanent conspiracies at work,
+though their leaders had been discovered and led into prison.
+
+One of these conspiracies had been organized by the old Jacobins, the
+republicans of the Convention; and these bands of the “enraged,” as
+they called themselves, numbered in their ranks all the enemies of
+constitutional order, all the men of the revolution of 1789; and all
+these men had sworn with solemn oaths to kill Bonaparte, and to deliver
+the republic from her greatest and most dangerous enemy.
+
+The other conspiracy, which had its ramifications throughout France, was
+formed by the royalists. “The Society of the White Mantle” was mostly
+composed of Chouans, daring men of Vendee, who were ever ready to
+sacrifice their lives to the mere notion of royalty, and who like the
+Jacobins had sworn to murder Bonaparte.
+
+Chevalier, who, with his ingenious infernal machine, sought to kill
+Bonaparte on his way to Malmaison, belonged to the Society of the White
+Mantle. But he was betrayed by his confidant and associate Becyer, who
+assisted the police to arrest him. To the conspiracy of the “enraged”
+ belonged the Italians Ceracchi, Arena, and Diana, who at the opera, when
+the consul appeared in his loge, and was greeted by the acclamations of
+the people, were ready to fire their pistols at him. But at the moment
+they were about to commit the deed from behind the side-scenes, where
+they had hidden themselves, they were seized, arrested, and led to
+prison by the police. Josephine, as already said, knew all these
+conspiracies; she trembled for Bonaparte’s life, and yet she could
+not prevent him from appearing in public, and she herself, smiling and
+apparently unsuspecting, had to appear at Bonaparte’s side at the
+grand parades, in the national festivities, and at the theatrical
+performances; no feature on her face was to betray the anxiety she was
+enduring.
+
+One day, however, not only Bonaparte’s life but also that of Josephine,
+was imperilled by the conspirators; the famous infernal machine which
+had been placed on their way to the opera, would have killed the first
+consul and his wife, if a red Persian shawl had not saved them both.
+
+At the grand opera, that evening, was to be performed Joseph Haydn’s
+masterpiece, “The Creation.” The Parisians awaited this performance
+with great expectation; they rushed to the opera, not only to hear the
+oratorio, the fame of which had spread from Vienna to Paris, but also
+to see Bonaparte and his wife, who it was known would attend the
+performance.
+
+Josephine had requested Bonaparte to be present at this great musical
+event, for she knew that the public would be delighted at his presence.
+He at first manifested no desire to do so, for he was not sufficiently
+versed in musical matters for it to afford him much enjoyment; and
+besides, there was but one kind of music he liked, and that was the
+Italian, the richness of whose melody pleased him, while the German and
+French left him dissatisfied and weary. However, Bonaparte gave way to
+the entreaties of Josephine, and resolved to drive to the opera.
+The dinner that day had been somewhat later than usual, for besides
+Josephine, her children, and Bonaparte’s sister Caroline, Murat, the
+Generals Bessieres and Lannes, as well as Bonaparte’s two adjutants,
+Lebrun and Rapp, had been present. Immediately after dinner they wanted
+to drive to the opera; but as Josephine lingered behind, busy with the
+arrangement of her shawl, Bonaparte declared he would drive in advance
+with the two Generals Bessieres and Lebrun, while Rapp was to accompany
+the ladies in the second carriage. With his usual rapidity of action he
+seized his hat and sword, and, followed by his companions, left the room
+to go to the carriage, which was waiting.
+
+Josephine, who imagined that Bonaparte was waiting for her at the
+carriage, hurriedly put on, without troubling herself any longer about
+the becoming arrangement of the folds, a red Persian shawl, which
+Bonaparte had sent her as a present from Egypt. She was going to leave,
+when Rapp, with the openness of a soldier, made the remark that she had
+not put on her shawl to-day with her accustomed elegance. She smiled,
+and begged him to arrange it after the fashion of Egyptian ladies. Rapp
+laughingly hastened to comply with her wishes; and while Josephine,
+Madame Murat, and Hortense, watched attentively the arrangement of the
+shawl in the hands of Rapp, Bonaparte’s carriage was heard moving away.
+
+This noise put a speedy end to all further movements, and Josephine,
+with the ladies and Rapp, hastened to follow Bonaparte. Their carriage
+had no sooner reached the Place de Carrousel, than an appalling
+explosion was heard, and a bright flame like a lightning-flash filled
+the whole place with its glare; at the same moment the windows of the
+carriage were broken into fragments, which flew in every direction
+into the carriage, and one of which penetrated so deep into the arm
+of Hortense, that the blood gushed out. Josephine uttered a cry of
+horror--“Bonaparte is murdered!” At the same moment were heard loud
+shrieks and groans.
+
+Rapp, seized with fear, and only thinking that Bonaparte was in danger,
+sprang out of the carriage, and, careless of the wounded and bleeding,
+who lay near, ran onward to the opera to find out if Bonaparte had
+safely reached there. While the ladies, in mortal agony, remained on the
+Place de Carrousel, not knowing whether to return to the Tuileries or
+to drive forward, a messenger arrived at full speed to announce that the
+first consul had not been hurt, and that he was waiting for his wife
+in his loge, and begged her to come without delay. Meanwhile Rapp had
+reached the opera, and had penetrated into the box of the first consul.
+Bonaparte was seated calmly and unmoved in his accustomed place,
+examining the audience through his glass, and now and then addressing
+a few words to the secretary of police, Fouche, who stood near him.
+No sooner did Bonaparte see Rapp, than he said hastily, and in a low
+voice--“Josephine?”
+
+At that moment she entered, followed by Madame Murat and Hortense.
+Bonaparte saluted them with a smile, and with a look of unfathomable
+love he extended his hand to Josephine. She was still pale and
+trembling, although she had no conception of the greatness of the danger
+which had menaced her.
+
+Bonaparte endeavored to quiet her by stating that the explosion was
+probably the result of some accident or imprudence; but at this moment
+the prefect of the police entered who had been on the spot, and had
+come to give a report of the dreadful effects of the explosion. Fifteen
+persons had been killed, more than thirty had been severely wounded,
+and about forty houses seriously damaged. This was all the work of
+a so-called infernal machine--a small barrel filled with powder and
+quicksilver--which had been placed in a little carriage at the entrance
+of the Hue St. Nicaise.
+
+Until now Josephine did not realize the extent of the danger which had
+threatened her and her husband. Had the explosion taken place a few
+moments before, it would have killed the consul; if it had been one
+minute later, Josephine and her companions would have been involved
+in the catastrophe. It was the shawl which Rapp was arranging on her
+shoulders according to the rules of art, which caused them to retard
+their departure, and thus saved her life.
+
+An inexpressible horror now seized her and made her tremble; her looks,
+full of love and deep anguish, were fixed on Bonaparte, who, in a low
+voice, entreated her to compose herself, and not to make her distress
+public. Near Josephine sat Hortense, pale and agitated, like her mother;
+around her wounded arm was wrapped a handkerchief, stained here and
+there with blood. Madame Murat was quiet and composed, like Bonaparte,
+who was then giving instructions to the prefect of police to provide
+immediate assistance for the unfortunate persons who had been wounded.
+
+No one yet in the audience knew the appalling event. The thundering
+noise had been heard, but it was presumed to have been an artillery
+salute, and no evil was suspected, for Bonaparte, with his usual guards,
+had entered his box, and, advancing to its very edge, had saluted the
+public in a friendly way. This act of the first consul had its ordinary
+effect: the audience, indifferent to the music, rose and saluted their
+hero with loud acclamation and applause. Not till Josephine entered the
+loge had the acclamations subsided, and the music begun again. A few
+minutes after, the news of the fearful event spread all over the house:
+a murmur arose, and the music was interrupted anew.
+
+The Duchess d’Abrantes, who was present at this scene, gives a faithful,
+eloquent, and graphic picture of it:
+
+“A vague noise,” says she, “began to spread from the parterre to the
+orchestra, and from the amphitheatre to the boxes. Soon the news of the
+occurrence was known all over the house, when, like a sudden clap of
+thunder, an acclamation burst forth, and the whole audience, with a
+single undivided look of love, seemed to desire to embrace Bonaparte.
+What I am narrating I have seen, and I am not the only one who saw it.
+... What excitement followed this first explosion of national anger,
+which at this moment was represented by the audience, whose horror at
+the dark plot cannot be described with words! Women were seen weeping
+and sobbing; men, pale as death, trembled with vengeance and anger,
+whatever might have been the political standard which they followed; all
+hearts and hands were united to prove that difference of opinion creates
+no difference in the interpretation of the code of honor. During the
+whole scene my eyes were fixed on the loge of the consul. He was quiet,
+and only seemed moved when public sentiment gave utterance to strong
+expressive words about the conspiracy, and these reached him. Madame
+Bonaparte was not fully composed. Her countenance was disturbed; even
+her attitude, generally so very graceful, was no longer under her
+control. She seemed to tremble under her shawl as under a protecting
+canopy, and in fact it was this shawl which had saved her from
+destruction. She was weeping; however much she endeavored to compose
+herself, she could not repress her tears; they would flow, against her
+will, down her pale cheeks, and, whenever Josephine fixed her eyes upon
+her husband, she trembled again. Even her daughter seemed extremely
+agitated, and Madame Murat alone preserved the family character, and
+seemed entirely herself.” [Footnote: Duchess d’Abrantes, “Memoires,”
+ vol. ii., p. 66.]
+
+At last, when the public excitement was somewhat abated, and the
+music was again resumed, the audience turned its attention to Hadyn’s
+masterpiece. But Josephine had not the strength to bear this effort, and
+to submit to it quietly. She entreated her husband to retire with her
+and the ladies; and when at last he acceded to her request, and had
+quietly left the loge with her, Josephine sat by him in the carriage,
+opposite Caroline and Hortense, and, sobbing, threw herself on
+Bonaparte’s breast, and cried out in her anguish:
+
+“What a life, where I must ever be trembling for you!”
+
+The infernal machine did not kill the first consul, but it gave to
+liberty and to the republic a fatal blow; it scattered into fragments
+what remained of the revolutionary institutions from the days of blood
+and terror. France rose up in disgust and horror against the party
+which made of assassins its companions, and consequently this conspiracy
+failed to accomplish what its originators had expected. They wanted to
+destroy Bonaparte and ruin his power, but this abortive attempt only
+increased his popularity, enlarged his power, and deepened the people’s
+love for him who now appeared to them as a protecting rampart, and a
+barrier to the flood of anarchy.
+
+France gave herself up trembling, and without a will of her own, into
+the hands of the hero to whom she was indebted for fame and recognition
+by foreign powers, and through whom she hoped to secure domestic peace.
+France longed for a strong arm to support her; Bonaparte gave her this
+arm, but it not only supported France, it bowed her down; and from this
+day he placed the reins on the wild republican steed, and let it feel
+that it had found a master who had the power and the will to direct it
+entirely in accordance with his wishes.
+
+Bonaparte was determined to put an end to the seditions and conspiracies
+of the republicans, whom he hated because they had for their aim the
+downfall of all legitimate authority; and in turn was hated by them
+because he had abandoned their standard and turned against the republic
+with the faithlessness of a son who attacks the mother that gave him
+birth. Bonaparte maintained that it was the republicans who had set the
+infernal machine on his path, and paid no attention to the opinion of
+Fouche, who ascribed to the royalists the origin of the plot. Bonaparte
+wished first to do away with his most violent and bitter enemies,
+the republicans of the year 1789; he desired to possess the power of
+punishing such, and to render them harmless, and now the horror produced
+by this criminal act came to his assistance in carrying out this plan.
+
+The council of the state adopted the legislative enactment that the
+consuls should have “the power to remove from Paris those persons whose
+presence they considered dangerous to the public security, and that
+all such persons who should leave their place of banishment should be
+transported from the country!”
+
+Under this law, George Cadoudal, Chevalier, Arena, Ceracchi, and many
+others were executed; and one hundred and thirty persons, whose
+only crime was that of being suspected of dissatisfaction toward the
+administration of the consuls, and considered as Bonaparte’s enemies,
+were transported to Cayenne.
+
+Such were for France the results of this infernal machine, the object of
+which was to assassinate the Consul Bonaparte, instead of which it had
+only the effect of destroying his enemies and strengthening his power.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV. THE CASHMERES AND THE LETTER.
+
+
+As mighty events always exercise an influence on minor ones, so this
+fearful attempt at murder became the occasion for the introduction into
+France of a new branch of industry, which had hitherto drawn millions
+from Europe to the East.
+
+Josephine, gratefully remembering her truly wonderful deliverance
+through the means of her Persian shawl, wore it afterward in preference
+to any other. Until then she had never fancied it, for when Bonaparte
+sent it to her from Egypt, she wrote to him: “I have received the shawl.
+It may be very beautiful and very costly, but I find it unsightly. Its
+great advantage consists in its lightness. I doubt, however, if this new
+fashion will meet with approbation. Notwithstanding, I am pleased with
+it, for it is rare and warm.” [Footnote: “Memoires sur l’Imperatrice,”
+ par Mademoiselle Ducrest, vol. iii., p. 227.]
+
+But after it had saved her life, she no longer thought it unsightly, she
+was fond of wrapping herself up in it, and the natural consequence was,
+that these Persian shawls soon formed the most fashionable and costly
+article of apparel.
+
+Every lady of the higher classes considered it a necessity to cover her
+tender shoulders with this valuable foreign material, and it soon became
+“comme il faut” a duty of position, to possess a collection of such
+Persian shawls, and to wear them at the balls and receptions in the
+Tuileries.
+
+The desire to possess such a precious article of fashion led these
+ladies oftentimes to “corriger la fortune” and to obtain, by some bold
+but not very creditable act, possession of such a shawl, which had
+now become in a certain measure the escutcheon of the new French
+aristocracy.
+
+The Duchess d’Abrantes, in reference to this matter, relates two thefts
+which at that time troubled the aristocratic society of the Tuileries,
+which prove that the ladies had taken instructions from the gentlemen,
+and that dishonest persons of both sexes were admitted into the society
+of heroes and their beautiful wives!
+
+At a morning reception in the Tuileries, the shawl of the Countess de
+St. Martin had been stolen; and this lady was very much distressed at
+the loss, for this cashmere was not only a present from Madame Murat,
+but was one of uncommon beauty, on account of the rarity of the design,
+consisting of paroquets in artistic groups, instead of the ordinary
+palm. The countess was therefore untiring in recounting to every one her
+irreparable loss, and uttered bitter curses against the bold female who
+had stolen her treasure.
+
+“A few weeks later,” relates the duchess, “at a ball given by the
+minister Talleyrand, the countess came toward me with a bright
+countenance and told me that she had just now found her shawl, and,
+strange to say, upon the shoulders of a young lady at the ball!
+
+“‘But,’ said I to her, ‘you will not accuse this lady before the whole
+company!’
+
+“‘And why not?’
+
+“‘Because that would be wrong. Leave this matter to me.’
+
+“She would not at first, but I pressed the subject on her consideration,
+and she agreed at length to remain somewhat behind, while I approached
+the young lady, who stood near the door, and was just going to leave the
+ballroom. I told her in a low voice that in all probability she had
+made a mistake; that she had perhaps mislaid her own cashmere, and had
+through carelessness taken the shawl of the Countess de St. Martin.
+
+“I was as polite as I could possibly be in such a communication; but the
+young lady looked at me unpleasantly for such an impertinent intrusion,
+and replied that ‘since the time the Countess de St. Martin had deafened
+the ears of every one with the story of her stolen shawl, she had had
+ample leisure to recognize as her property the cashmere she wore.’ Her
+mother, who stood a few steps from her, and was conversing with another
+lady, turned toward her when she heard her daughter speak in so loud a
+voice. But the Countess de St. Martin, who had overheard that she ‘had
+deafened the ears of every one with the story of her stolen shawl,’
+rushed in to the rescue of her case.
+
+“‘This cashmere belongs to me,’ said she, haughtily--seizing, at the
+same time, the shawl with one hand, while the young lady with her fist
+thrust her back violently. I saw that in a moment they would come to
+blows.
+
+“‘It will be easy to end this difficulty,’ said I to the Countess de St.
+Martin. ‘Madame will be kind enough to tell us where she has purchased
+this shawl which is so much like yours, and then you will see your
+mistake, and be satisfied.’
+
+“‘It does not suit me to tell where I got this shawl,’ replied the lady,
+looking at me contemptuously; ‘there is no necessity for my telling you
+where I purchased it.’
+
+“‘Well, then,’ exclaimed eagerly the Countess de St. Martin, ‘you
+confess, madame, that the shawl really belongs to you?’
+
+“The other answered with a sarcastic smile, and drew the shawl closer
+to her shoulders. A few persons, attracted by the strangeness of such
+a scene, had gathered around us, and seemed to wait for the end of so
+extraordinary an event.
+
+“The countess continued with a loud voice:
+
+“‘Well, then, madame, since the shawl belongs to you, you can explain to
+me why the name of Christine, which is my first name, is embroidered in
+red silk on the small edging. Madame Junot will be kind enough to look
+for this name.’
+
+“The young woman became pale as death. I shall never during my life
+forget the despairing look which she gave me, as with trembling hand she
+passed me the shawl, just as her father appeared from a room near the
+place of the scene. I took the cashmere with an unsteady hand, and
+sought reluctantly for the name of Christine, for I trusted she would at
+least have taken it out; but the deathly paleness of the guilty one told
+the contrary, and in fact I had no sooner unfolded the shawl, than the
+name appeared, embroidered at the narrow edging.
+
+“‘Ah!’ at last exclaimed the countess, in a triumphant tone, ‘I have--’
+but as she raised her eyes to the young woman, she was touched by her
+despairing look. ‘Well, then,’ cried she, ‘this is one of those mistakes
+which so often happen. To-morrow I will return your cashmere.--We have
+exchanged cashmeres,’ said she, turning to the young lady’s father,
+who, surprised at seeing her naked shoulders, gazed at his daughter,
+not understanding the matter. ‘You will have the goodness to send me my
+shawl to-morrow,’ added she, noticing how the young woman trembled.
+
+“We returned into the ballroom, and the next day the young lady sent to
+the Countess de St. Martin her precious shawl.
+
+“Something similar to this happened at the same time to Madame Hamelin.
+She was at a ball; when rising from her seat to join in a contra-dance,
+she left there a very beautiful black shawl; when she returned,
+her shawl was no longer there, but she saw it on the shoulders of a
+well-known and distinguished lady. Approaching her, she said:
+
+“‘Madame, you have my shawl!’
+
+“‘Not at all, madame!’
+
+“‘But, madame, this is my shawl, and, as an evidence, I can state the
+number of its palms--it has exactly thirteen, a very unusual number!’
+
+“‘My shawl has also, by chance, precisely thirteen palms.’
+
+“‘But,’ said Madame Hamelin, ‘I have torn it since I came here. You can
+see where it is torn, and by that means I recognize my shawl.’
+
+“‘Ah, my goodness! my shawl has also been torn; that is precisely why I
+bought it, for I obtained it on that account somewhat cheaper.’
+
+“It is useless to dispute with a person who is determined to follow
+Basil’s receipt, that ‘what is worth taking is worth keeping.’ Madame
+Hamelin lost her shawl, and had, as a sole consolation, the petty
+vengeance of relating to everybody how it was taken, and of pointing
+out the thief, who was in the meanwhile perfectly shameless.” [Footnote:
+Abrantes, “Memoires,” vol. ix., pp. 70-76.]
+
+No one, however, had a larger and more choice selection of these
+cashmere shawls than Josephine. Mdlle. Ducrest relates that the deceased
+empress had more than one hundred and fifty of the most magnificent and
+costly cashmere shawls. She had sent to Constantinople patterns from
+which she had them made there, as pleasing to the eye as they were
+costly and precious. Every week M. Lenormant, the first man-milliner
+in Paris, came to Navarra, the country residence of the empress,
+and brought his most beautiful shawls for her selection. The empress
+possessed several (having a white ground covered with roses, violets,
+paroquets, peacocks, and other objects of beauty hitherto unknown in
+France) each of which cost from fifteen to twenty thousand francs.
+
+The empress went so far in her passion for cashmeres as to have dresses
+made of the same material. One day she had put on one of these dresses,
+which was so beautiful, that some gentlemen invited to dinner could not
+withhold their admiration. One of them, Count Pourtales, thought that
+this splendid material would be well adapted for a gentleman’s vest.
+Josephine, in her large-heartedness, had a pair of scissors brought; she
+then cut her dress into several pieces sufficiently large for a vest,
+and divided them among the gentlemen present, so that only the bodice
+of the dress remained, with a small piece around the waist But this
+improvised spencer over the white richly-embroidered under-dress, was so
+exceedingly becoming to the empress, and brought out so exquisitely her
+beautiful bust, and slender graceful waist, that it would have been
+easy to consider as a piece of coquetry what was simply Josephine’s
+spontaneous generosity. [Footnote: Mademoiselle Ducrest.]
+
+Josephine, however, did not so assiduously attend to her cashmere shawls
+as to forget the unfortunate victims of the infernal machine. On the
+contrary, she saw with deep pain how every one was busy in inculpating
+others, and in casting suspicions on royalists and Jacobins, so as to
+give a pretext to punish them. She noticed that all those who wished to
+gain the consul’s favor were zealous in spying out fresh culprits, for
+it was well known that Bonaparte was inclined to make of all hostile
+parties a terrible example, so that, through the severity of the
+punishment and the number of the punished, he might deter the
+dissatisfied from any further plots.
+
+Josephine’s compassionate heart was distressed, through sympathy for so
+many unfortunate persons, whom wicked men maliciously were endeavoring
+to drag into guilt, so as to have them punished; and the injustice which
+the judges manifested at every hearing filled her with anger and
+horror. Ever ready to help the needy, and to protect the persecuted, she
+addressed herself to Fouche, the minister of police, and requested him
+to use mildness and compassion. She wrote to him:
+
+“Citizen minister, while trembling at the frightful calamity which has
+taken place, I feel uneasy and pained at the fear of the punishments
+which hang over the poor creatures who, I am told, belong to families
+with which I have been connected in days past. I shall therefore be
+appealed to by mothers, sisters, and despairing wives; my heart will be
+lacerated by the sad consciousness that I cannot obtain pardon for all
+those who implore it.
+
+“The generosity of the consul is great, his affection for me is
+boundless, I know it well; but the crime is of so awful a nature that
+he will deem it necessary to make an example of extreme severity. The
+supreme magistrate was not alone exposed to danger--many others were
+killed and wounded by this sad event, and it is this which will make the
+consul severe and implacable.
+
+“I conjure you, then, citizen minister, to avoid extending your
+researches too far, and not always to spy out new persons who might be
+compromised by this horrible machine. Must France, which has been held
+in terror by so many executions, have to sigh over new victims? Is
+it not much more important to appease the minds of the people than to
+excite them by new terrors? Finally, would it not be advisable, so soon
+as the originators of this awful crime are captured, to have compassion
+and mercy upon subordinate persons who may have been entangled in it
+through dangerous sophisms and fanatical sentiments?
+
+“Barely vested with the supreme authority, ought not the first consul
+study to win the hearts rather than to make slaves of his people?
+Moderate, therefore, by your advice, where in his first excitement he
+may be too severe. To punish is, alas, too often necessary! To pardon
+is, I trust, still more. In a word, be a protector to the unfortunate
+who, through their confession or repentance, have already made in part
+penance for their guilt.
+
+“As I myself, without any fault on my part, nearly lost my life in the
+revolution, you can easily understand that I take an interest in those
+who can perhaps be saved without thereby endangering my husband’s life,
+which is so precious to me and to France. I therefore earnestly desire
+that you will make a distinction between the leaders of this conspiracy
+and those who, from fear or weakness, have been seduced into bringing
+upon themselves a portion of the guilt. As a woman, a wife, a mother,
+I can readily feel for all the heart-rending agonies of those families
+which appeal to me.
+
+“Do what you possibly can, citizen minister, to diminish their numbers;
+you will thereby spare me much anxiety. I can never be deaf to the cries
+of distress from the needy; but in this matter you can do a great
+deal more than I can, and therefore pardon what may seem strange in my
+pleadings with you.
+
+“Believe in my gratitude and loyalty of sentiment.
+
+“JOSEPHINE.” [Footnote: Ducrest, “Memoires,” vol. iii., p. 231.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI. MALMAISON.
+
+
+In the Tuileries the first consul, with his wife, resided in all the
+pomp and dignity of his new office. There he was the sovereign, the
+commander; there he ruled, and, like a king, all bowed to him; the
+people humbled themselves and recognized him as their master.
+
+In the Tuileries etiquette and the stiff pomp of a princely court
+prevailed more and more. Bonaparte required of his wife that she should
+there represent the dignity and the grandeur of her new position;
+that she should appear as the first, the most exalted, and the most
+unapproachable of women. In the Tuileries there were no more evenings
+of pleasant social gatherings, of joyous conversation with friends whom
+affection made equals, and who, in love and admiration, recognizing
+Bonaparte’s ascendency, brought him of their own free choice their
+esteem and high consideration. Now, it was all honor and duty; now,
+the friends of the past wore servants who, for duty’s sake, had to
+be subservient to their master, and abide by the rules of etiquette,
+otherwise the frown on their lofty ruler’s brow would bring them back
+within their bounds.
+
+Josephine was pained at these limits set to her personal freedom--at
+these claims of etiquette, which did not permit her friends to remain at
+her side, but strove to exalt above them the wife of the first consul.
+Her sense of modesty ever accepted the pleasant, genial household
+affections as more agreeable and more precious than the burdensome
+representations, levees, and the tediousness of ceremonial receptions;
+her sense of modesty longed for the quiet and repose of retirement, and
+she was happy when, at the close of the court festivities, she could
+return to Malmaison, there to enjoy the coming of spring, the blossoming
+of summer, and the glorious beauty of autumn with its manifold colors.
+
+In Malmaison were centered all her joys and pleasures. There she could
+satisfy all the inclinations of her heart, all the fancies of her
+imagination, all the wants of her mind; there she could be the tender
+wife and mother, and the faithful friend; there she could receive,
+without the annoyance of etiquette, men of learning and art; there she
+could cultivate the soil and devote herself to botany, her favorite
+study, and to her flowers, the dearest and most faithful friends of her
+whole life.
+
+Josephine sought for and found in Malmaison her earthly paradise; there
+she was happy, and the care and the secret anguish which in Paris wove
+around her heart its network, and every now and then whispered the
+nefarious words of divorce and separation, followed her not in the
+beautiful and friendly Malmaison; she left all this in Paris with the
+stiff Madame Etiquette, who once in the Tuileries had poisoned the
+existence of the Queen Marie Antoinette, and now sought to intrude
+herself upon the consulate as an ill-tempered sovereign.
+
+But in Malmaison there was no etiquette, none of the dignified coldness
+of court-life. There you were allowed to laugh, to jest, and to be
+happy. In Malmaison the first consul laid aside his gravity; there his
+gloomy brow brightened, and he became again General Bonaparte, the
+lover of his Josephine, the confidential companion of his friends, the
+harmless individual, who seemed to have nothing to require from Heaven
+but the happiness of the passing hour, and who could laugh at a joke
+with the same guilelessuess as any other child of the people who never
+deemed it necessary to cultivate a close intimacy with the grave and
+gloomy Madame Politique.
+
+It is true Malmaison was not Bonaparte’s sole country residence. The
+city of Paris had presented him with the pleasure-castle of St. Cloud,
+the same which Louis XVI. gave to his wife, and where, to the very great
+annoyance of the proud Parisians, she had for the first time engraven
+on the regulation-tablets, at the entrance of the park, the fatal
+words--“De par la Reine.”
+
+Now this royal mansion of pleasure belonged to the first consul of
+the republic; it was his summer residence, but there he was still the
+consul, the first magistrate, and the representative of France; and
+he had there to give receptions, hold levees, receive the ministers,
+councillors of state, and the foreign ambassadors, and appear in all the
+pomp and circumstance of his position.
+
+But in Malmaison his countenance and his being were changed. Here he was
+the cheerful man, enjoying life; he was the joyous companion, the modest
+land-owner, who with genial delight surveyed the produce of his soil,
+and even calculated how much profit it could bring him.
+
+“The first consul in Malmaison,” said the English minister, Fox, “the
+first consul in St. Cloud, and the first consul in the Tuileries, are
+three different persons, who together form that great and wonderful
+idea; I should exceedingly like to be able to represent exactly after
+nature these three portraits; they must be very much alike, and yet very
+different.”
+
+It is certain, however, that of these three portraits that of the first
+consul in Malmaison was the most amiable, and that of the first consul
+of the Tuileries the most imposing.
+
+In Malmaison Bonaparte’s countenance was cheerful and free from care;
+in the Tuileries he was grave and dignified. On his clouded brow were
+enthroned great designs; from the deep, dark eyes shot lightnings ready
+to fire a world--to erect or destroy kingdoms. In Malmaison these eyes
+with cheerful brilliancy reposed on Josephine; his otherwise earnest
+lips welcomed there the beloved of his heart with merry pleasantry and
+spirited raillery; there he loved to see Josephine in simple, modest
+toilet; and if in the lofty halls of the Tuileries he exacted from the
+wife of the first consul a brilliant toilet, the bejewelled magnificence
+of the first lady of France, he was delighted when in Malmaison he saw
+coming through the green foliage the wife of General Bonaparte in simple
+white muslin, with a laughing countenance; and with her sweet voice,
+which he still considered as the finest music he ever heard, she bade
+welcome to her husband who here was changed into her tender lover.
+
+In Malmaison, Bonaparte would even put off his general’s uniform,
+and, in his plain gray coat of a soldier, walk through the park in the
+neighborhood, resting on the arm of his confidant, Duroc, and would
+begin a friendly conversation with the first farmer he met, perfectly
+satisfied when in the little man with the gray tightly-buttoned coat, no
+one suspected or imagined to see the first consul of the republic.
+
+Every Saturday the first consul hastened to the chateau to pass there,
+as he said, his Sunday, his day of rest; and only on Monday morning did
+he return to Paris, “to take up his chain again.”
+
+How genial and happy were these days of rest! How eagerly did Josephine
+labor to make them days of felicity for Bonaparte! how ingenious to
+prepare for him new festivities and new surprises! and how her eyes
+brightened when she had succeeded in making Bonaparte joyous and
+contented!
+
+If the weather was favorable, the whole company in Malmaison, the young
+generals, with their beautiful, young, and lively wives, who surrounded
+Bonaparte and Josephine, and of whom a great number belonged to their
+family, made promenades through the park, then they seated themselves on
+a fine spot to repeat stories or to indulge in harmless sociable games,
+in which Bonaparte with the most cheerful alacrity took part. Even
+down to the game of “catch” and to that of “room-renting” did Bonaparte
+condescend to play; and as Marie Antoinette with her husband and her
+court played at blindman’s-buff in the gardens of Trianon, so Bonaparte
+was pleased on the lawns of Malmaison to play at “room-renting.”
+
+How often after a dark, cloudy morning, when suddenly at noon the skies
+would become clear and the sunshine break through the clouds, would
+Bonaparte’s countenance gladden with all the spirit of a school-boy, in
+the midst of holidays, and, throwing off his coat, laughingly exclaim,
+“Now come, one and all, and let us rent the room!”
+
+And then on the large, open lawn, surrounded on all sides by tall trees,
+the first consul with his wife, his generals and their young wives,
+would begin the exhilarating, harmless child’s-play, forgetful of all
+care, void of all fear, except that he should lose his tree, and that as
+a penniless individual having to rent a room he would have to stand in
+the centre before all eyes, just as first consul he stood before all
+eyes in the centre of France, and struggled for a place the importance
+and title of which were known only to his silent soul. But in Malmaison,
+at the game of “room to let,” Bonaparte had no remembrance whatever of
+the ambitious wishes of the first consul; the whole world seemed to have
+set, the memories of his youth passed before his eyes in such beauty,
+saluting him with the gracious looks of childhood, as nearly to make him
+an enthusiast.
+
+How often, when on Josephine’s arm, surrounded by a laughing, noisy
+group of friends, and walking through shady paths, on hearing the bells
+of the neighboring village chime their vespers, would Bonaparte suddenly
+interrupt the conversation and stand still to hear them! With a motion
+of the hand he would command silence, while he listened with a smile of
+grief to sounds which recalled days long gone by. “These bells remind me
+of the days of my boyhood,” said he to Josephine; “it seems to me, when
+I hear them, that I am still in Brienne.”
+
+To keep alive the memories of his school-days in Brienne, he sent for
+one of his teachers, the Abbe Dupuis, who had been remarkably kind to
+him, and invited him to Malmaison, to arrange there a library, and to
+take charge of it; he sent also for the porter of Brienne whose wife he
+had so severely prohibited from entering the theatre, and made him the
+porter of the chateau.
+
+In bad weather and on rainy days the whole company gathered in the large
+drawing-room, and found amusement in playing the various games of cards,
+in which Bonaparte not only took much interest, but in which he so
+eagerly played, that he often had recourse to apparent bungling, so as
+to command success. Adjoining the drawing-room, where conversation and
+amusements took place, was a room where the company sang and practised
+music, to the delight of Bonaparte, who often, when one of his favorite
+tunes was played, would chime in vigorously with the melody, nowise
+disturbed by the fact that he never could catch the right tune, and that
+he broke out every time into distressing discordance!
+
+But all songs and music subsided, all plays were interrupted, when
+Bonaparte, excited perhaps by the approaching twilight, or by some
+awakened memory, began to relate one of those tragic, fearful stories
+which no one could tell so well as he. Then, with arms folded behind his
+back, he slowly paced the drawing-room, and with sinister looks, tragic
+manner, and sepulchral voice, he would begin the solemn introduction of
+his narrative:
+
+“When death strikes, at a distance, a person whom we love,” said he,
+one evening, with a voice tremulous with horror, “a certain foreboding
+nearly always makes us anticipate the event, and the person, touched by
+the hand of death, appears to us at the moment we lose him on earth.”
+
+“How very sad and mournful that sounds!” sighed Josephine, as she placed
+both her arms on Bonaparte’s shoulder, as if she would hold him, and
+chain him to earth, that he might not vanish away with every ghost-like
+form.
+
+Bonaparte turned to her with a genial smile, and shook his head at her,
+so as to assure her of his existence and his love. Then he began his
+story with all the earnestness and tragic power of an improvisator
+of ancient Rome. He told how once Louis XIV., in the great gallery of
+Versailles, received the bulletin of the battle of Friedlingen, and how,
+unfolding it, he read to the assembled court the names of the slain and
+of the wounded. Quietness reigned in the splendidly-illumined gallery;
+and the courtiers in their embroidered coats, who, ordinarily, were
+so full of merriment and so high-spirited, had, all at once, become
+thoughtful. They gathered in a circle around the monarch, from whose
+lips slowly, like falling tears, fell one by one the names of the
+killed. Here and there the cheeks of their relatives turned pale.
+Suddenly the Count de Beaugre saw appear, at the farther end of the
+gallery, stately and ghost-like, the blood-stained figure of his son,
+who, with eyes wide open, stared at his father, and saluted him with a
+slight motion of the head, and then glided away through the door. “My
+son is dead!” cried Count de Beaugre--and, at the very same moment,
+the king uttered his name as one of the slain!” [Footnote: Bourrienne,
+“Memoires,” vol. iii., p. 225.]
+
+“Ah! may I never see such a ghost-like figure,” murmured Josephine,
+drawing closer to her husband. “Bonaparte, promise me that you will
+never go to war again; that you will keep peace with all the world, so
+that I may have no cause of alarm!”
+
+“And to tremble at my ghost,” exclaimed Bonaparte, laughing. “Look at
+this selfish woman, she does not wish me a hero’s death, lest I should
+appear to her here in the shape of a bloody placard!”
+
+With her small bejewelled hand Josephine closed his mouth, and ordered
+lights to be brought; she asked Lavalette to play a lively dancing-tune,
+and cried out to the joyous youthful group, at the head of whom were
+Hortense and Eugene, to fall in for a dance.
+
+“Nothing more charming,” writes the Duchess d’Abrantes, “could be seen
+than a ball in Malmaison, made up as it was of the young ladies whom the
+military family of the first consul brought together, and who, without
+having the name of it, formed the court of Madame Bonaparte. They were
+all young, many of them very beautiful; and when this lovely group were
+dressed in white crape, adorned with flowers, their heads crowned with
+wreaths as fresh as the hues of their young, laughing, charming faces,
+it was indeed a bewitching sight to witness the animated and lively
+dance in these halls, through which walked the first consul, surrounded
+by the men with whom he discussed and decided the destinies of Europe.”
+ [Footnote: Abrantes, “Memoires,” vol. iii., p. 329.]
+
+But the best and most exciting amusement in Malmaison was the theatre;
+and nothing delighted Bonaparte so much as this, where the young troop
+of lovers in the palace performed little operas and vaudevilles,
+and went through their parts with all the eagerness of real actors,
+perfectly happy in having the consul and his wife for audience. In
+Malmaison, Bonaparte abandoned himself with boundless joy to his
+fondness for the theatre; here he applauded with all the gusto of an
+amateur, laughed with the laisser-aller of a college-boy at the harmless
+jokes of the vaudevilles, and here also he took great pleasure in the
+dramatic performances of Eugene, who excelled especially in comic roles.
+
+Bonaparte had a most convenient stage constructed in Malmaison for his
+actors; he had the most beautiful costumes made for each new piece, and
+the actors Talma and Michet had to come every week to the chateau, to
+give the young people instruction in their parts. The ordinary actors
+of this theatre in the castle were Eugene and Hortense, Caroline Murat,
+Lauriston, M. Didelot, the prefect of the palace, some of the officers
+attached to the establishment, and the Count Bourrienne, the friend of
+Bonaparte’s youth, who now had become the first secretary of the consul.
+The pieces which Bonaparte attended with the greatest pleasure were the
+“Barber of Seville,” and “Mistrust and Malice.” The young and amiable
+Hortense made an excellent Rosine in the “Barber of Seville,” and
+Bonaparte never failed to clap his hands in hearty applause to Hortense,
+when Josephine with cheerful smiles would thank him, for she seemed as
+proud of her daughter’s talent as of her husband’s applause.
+
+Bourrienne, in his memoirs, gives a faithful description of those
+evening theatrical performances, and of the happy life enjoyed in
+Malmaison; he lingers with a sober joy over those beautiful and innocent
+memories of other days.
+
+“Bonaparte,” says he, “found great pleasure in our dramatic
+entertainments; he loved to see comedies represented by those who
+surrounded him, and oftentimes paid us flattering compliments. Though it
+amused me as much as it did the others, yet I was more than once obliged
+to call Bonaparte’s attention to the fact that my other occupations did
+not give me time enough to learn my parts. He then, in his flattering
+way, said: ‘Ah, Bourrienne, let me alone. You have so excellent a
+memory! You know that this is an amusement to me! You see that these
+performances enliven Malmaison and make it cheerful! Josephine is so
+fond of them! Rise a little earlier!’
+
+“‘It is a fact--I sleep a great deal!’
+
+“‘Allons, Bourrienne, do it to please me; you do make me laugh so
+heartily! Deprive me not of this pleasure. You know well that otherwise
+I have but few recreations.’
+
+“‘Ah, parbleu! I will not deprive you of it. I am happy to be able to
+contribute something to your amusement.’ Consequently I rose earlier, to
+learn my parts.
+
+“On the theatre days the company at Malmaison was always very large.
+After the performance a brilliant crowd undulated like waves in the
+halls of the first story. The most animated and varied conversation took
+place, and I can truly affirm that cheerfulness and sincerity were the
+life of those conversations, and their principal charm. Refreshments of
+all kinds were distributed, and Josephine performed the honors of those
+gatherings with so much amiableness and complacency that each one might
+believe she busied herself more with him than with any one else. At the
+end of the delightful soirees, which generally closed after midnight,
+we returned to Paris, where the cares of life awaited us.” [Footnote:
+Bourrienne, “Memoires,” vol. v., p. 26.]
+
+Time was spent not only in festivities and amusements at Malmaison, but
+sciences and arts also formed there a serious occupation, and it was
+Josephine who was the prime mover. She invited to the chateau painters,
+sculptors, musicians, architects, and savants of every profession, and
+thus to the Graces she added the Arts for companions.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII. FLOWERS AND MUSIC.
+
+
+Above all things, Josephine, in her retreat, devoted her time and
+leisure hours to botany and to her dear flowers. Alexander Lenoir, the
+famous architect of that day, had to assist her in enlarging the little
+castle of Malinaison, and to open more suitable halls for the arts
+and sciences. Under Josephine’s direction there arose the splendid
+library-room resting upon columns; it was Josephine who had the
+beautiful gallery of paintings constructed, and also with remarkable
+judgment purchased a selection of the finest paintings of the great
+masters to adorn this gallery. Besides which, she gave to living
+painters orders of importance, and encouraged them to originate new
+pieces, that art itself might have a part in the new era of peace and
+prosperity, which, under the consulate, seemed to spread over France.
+
+Alongside of the paintings Josephine adorned this gallery with the
+finest antique statues, with a collection of the rarest painted vases
+of Pompeii, and with ten paintings on cement, memorials of Grecian art,
+representing the nine Muses and Apollo Mersagetos. These last splendid
+subjects were a present which the King of Naples had given to Josephine
+during her residence in Italy. Always attentive not only to promote the
+arts, but also to help the artists and to increase their reputation,
+Josephine would buy some new pieces of sculpture, and give them a
+place in Malmaison. The two most exquisite masterpieces of Canova, “The
+Dancing-Girl” and “Paris,” were purchased by Josephine at an enormous
+price for her gallery, whose chief ornament they were.
+
+Her fondness for flowers was such that she spared neither expense
+nor labor to procure those worthy of Malmaison. She caused also large
+green-houses and hot-houses to be constructed, the latter suited to
+the culture of the pineapple and of the peach. In the green-houses were
+found flowers and plants of every zone, and of all countries. People,
+knowing her taste for botany, sent her from the most remote places the
+choicest plants. Even the prince regent of England, the most violent
+and bitter enemy of the first consul, had high esteem for this taste of
+Josephine; and during the war, when some French ships, captured by the
+English, were found to have on board a collection of tropical plants for
+her, he had them carried with all dispatch to Madame Bonaparte.
+
+Josephine had a lofty aim: she wanted to gather into her hot-houses all
+the species and families, all the varieties of the tropical plants,
+and she strove to accomplish this with a perseverance, a zeal, and an
+earnestness of which no one would have thought her indolent, soft Creole
+nature capable. To increase her precious collection, she spared neither
+money nor time, neither supplications nor efforts. All travellers, all
+seafaring men, who came into her drawing-room were entreated to send
+plants to Malmaison; and even the secretary of the navy did not fail
+to give instructions to the captains of vessels sailing to far-distant
+lands to bring back plants for the wife of the first consul. If it were
+a matter of purchase, nothing was too expensive, and when, through her
+fondness for beautiful objects, Josephine’s purse was exhausted, and her
+means curtailed, she sooner gave up the purchase of a beautiful ornament
+than that of a rare plant.
+
+The hot-houses of Malmaison caused, therefore, a considerable increase
+in her expenses, and were a heavy burden to her treasury; and for their
+sake, when the day of payment came, Josephine had to receive from her
+husband many severe reproaches, and was forced to shed many a bitter
+tear. But this, perhaps, made them still dearer; no sooner were the
+tears dried up and the expenses covered, than Josephine again abandoned
+herself with renewed zeal to her passion for collecting plants and
+costly studies in botany, especially since she had succeeded in winning
+to her person the renowned botanist and learned Bonpland, and in having
+him appointed superintendent of her gardens and hot-houses. It was
+Bonpland who cultivated Josephine’s inclination for botany, and exalted
+her passion into a science. He filled the green-houses of Malmaison
+with the rarest plants, and taught Josephine at the same time their
+classifications and sexes, and she quickly proved herself to be a
+zealous and tractable pupil. She soon learned the names of the plants,
+as well as their family names, as classified by the naturalists; she
+became acquainted with their origin and their virtues, and was extremely
+sad and dejected when, in one of her families, a single species was
+wanting. But what a joy when this gap was filled! No price was too
+exorbitant, then, to procure the missing species; and one day she paid
+for a small, insignificant plant from Chili the high price of three
+thousand francs, filling Bonpland with ecstasy, but the emperor with
+deep wrath as soon as he heard it. [Footnote: Avrillon, “Memoires sur
+l’Imperatrice Josephine.”]
+
+Next to botany, it was music which Josephine delighted in and
+cultivated. Since the cares and the numerous relations of her
+diversified life claimed so much of her time, she had abandoned the
+exercises of music; and it was only at the hour of unusual serenity of
+mind, or of more lively recollections of the past, that she was
+heard singing softly one of the songs of her own native isle, even as
+Bonaparte himself, when he was meditating and deciding about some new
+campaign, would betray the drift of his thoughts by singing louder and
+louder the favorite melody of the day, Marlborough s’en va-t-en guerre.
+But Josephine had the satisfaction that Hortense was not only an
+excellent performer on the piano and the harp, but that she could also
+write original compositions, whose softness and harmonious combinations
+made them popular throughout France. Another satisfaction was, that
+Eugene sang, in a fine clear voice, with great talent, and that
+frequently he would by his excellent singing draw even the first consul
+into loud expressions of admiration.
+
+Bonaparte was not easily satisfied as regards singing; it was seldom
+that music elicited any commendation from him. The Italian music alone
+could excite his enthusiasm, and through its impassioned fervor rouse
+him up, or its humorous passages enliven him. Therefore Bonaparte, when
+consul or emperor, always patronized the Italian music in preference to
+any other, and he constantly and publicly expressed this liking, without
+considering how much he might thereby wound the French artistes in their
+ambition and love of fame. He therefore appointed an Italian to be first
+singer at the opera. It is true this was Maestro Paesiello, whose operas
+were then making their way through Europe, and everywhere meeting with
+approbation. Bonaparte also was extremely fond of them, and at every
+opportunity he manifested to the maestro his good-will and approbation.
+But one day this commendation of Paesiello was changed to the most
+stinging censure. It was on the occasion of the first representation
+of Paesiello’s Zingari in Fiera. The first consul and his wife were in
+their loge, and to show to the public how much he honored and esteemed
+the composer, he had invited Paesiello to attend the performance in his
+loge.
+
+Bonaparte followed the performance with the most enthusiastic
+demonstrations of gratification; he heartily applauded each part, and
+paid to Paesiello compliments which were the more flattering since every
+one knew that the lips which uttered them were not profuse in their use.
+A tenor part had just ended, and its effect had been remarkable. The
+audience was full of enthusiasm. Bonaparte, who by his hearty applause
+had given the signal to a storm of cheers, turned toward Paesiello, and,
+offering him his hand, exclaimed:
+
+“Truly, my dear friend, the man who has composed this melody can boast
+of being the first composer in Europe!”
+
+Paesiello became pale, his whole body trembled, and, with stammering
+voice, he said:
+
+“General, this melody is from Cimarosa. I have placed it in my opera
+merely to please the singers.”
+
+The first consul shrugged his shoulders.
+
+“I am sorry, my dear sir,” said he, “but I cannot recall what I have
+said.”
+
+The next day, however, he sent to the composer of the opera, as an
+acknowledgment of his esteem, a magnificent present, with which he
+no doubt wished to heal the pain which he had unwittingly caused the
+maestro. But Paesiello possessed a temper easily wounded, and the more
+so since he considered himself as the first and greatest composer in
+the world, and was sincere in the opinion that others could compose good
+music, but that his alone was grand and distinguished.
+
+Bonaparte’s present could not, therefore, heal the wound which the
+praise of Cimarosa’s melody had inflicted, and this wound was soon to
+be probed deeper, and become fatal to Paesiello. Another new opera from
+Paesiello, Proserpina, was to be represented. The first consul, who was
+anxious to secure for his protege a brilliant success, had given
+orders to bring it out in the most splendid style; the most beautiful
+decorations and the richest costumes had been provided, and a stage
+erected for a ballet, on which the favorite ballet-leaders of Paris were
+to practise their art.
+
+The mighty first consul was, on the evening of the first performance of
+the opera of Proserpina, to learn the lesson, that there exists a power
+which will not be bound in fetters, and which is stronger and more
+influential than the dictates of the mighty--the power of public
+opinion. This stood in direct opposition to the first consul, by the
+voiceless, cold silence with which it received Paesiello’s piece.
+Bonaparte might applaud as heartily as he pleased, and that might
+elicit an echo from the group of his favorites, but the public
+remained unmoved, and Bonaparte had the humiliation to see this opera,
+notwithstanding his approbation, prove a complete failure. He felt as
+nervous and excited as the composer himself, for he declared loudly
+and angrily that the French knew nothing about music, and that it was
+necessary to teach them that the Italians alone understood the art of
+composition.
+
+To teach this to the French the opera of Proserpina was to be repeated
+until the mind of the public should have been educated to its beauty,
+and they had been forced to acknowledge it. A decided warfare ensued
+between this opera and the public, each party being determined to
+have its own way; the authorities persevered in having the performance
+repeated, and the public kept away from it with equal obstinacy. The
+latter, however, had the advantage in this case, for they could not be
+forced to attend where they were unwilling to go, and so they won the
+victory, and the authorities had to yield.
+
+Paesiello, touched to the quick by the failure of Proserpina, resigned
+his position as leader, and left Paris to return to Italy. The question
+now was, how to fill this important and honorable position. The
+Parisians were excited about this nomination, and divided into two
+parties, each of which defended its candidate with the greatest zeal,
+and maintained that he would be the one who would receive Bonaparte’s
+appointment. The candidates of these two parties were the Frenchman
+Mehul and the Italian Cherubini. Those who formed the party of Cherubini
+calculated especially on Bonaparte’s well-known preference for Italian
+music. They knew that, though he was much attached to Mehul, whom he had
+known before the expedition to Egypt, and had shown him many favors, yet
+he had often expressed his contempt for French music, and was committed
+against him by the very fact of his maintaining that the Italians alone
+understood the art of musical composition.
+
+Mehul had for a long time endured in silence the criticisms of
+Bonaparte; he had patiently returned no answer when he repeated to him:
+“Science, and only science--that is all the French musicians understand;
+my dear sir, grace, melody, and joyousness, are unknown to you Frenchmen
+and to the Germans; the Italians alone are masters here.”
+
+One day Mehul, having become tired of these constant discouraging
+remarks, resolved to let the first consul, who so often gave him bitter
+pills to swallow, have a taste of them himself.
+
+He went, therefore, to his friend, the poet Marsollier, and begged him
+to write an extremely lively and extravagant piece, whose design
+would be absurd enough to make it pass as the work of some Italian
+pamphlet-writer, and at the same time he enjoined the most profound
+secrecy.
+
+Marsollier complied willingly with the wishes of his friend, and after
+a few days he brought him the text for the small opera Irato. With the
+same alacrity did Mehul sit down to the task of composing, and when the
+work was done, Marsollier went to the committee of the comic opera to
+tell them he had just received from Italy a score whose music was
+so extraordinary that he was fully convinced of its success, and
+had therefore been to the trouble, notwithstanding the weakness and
+foolishness of the libretto, to translate the text into French. The
+committee tried the score, was enchanted with the music, and was fully
+convinced of the brilliant success of the little opera, inasmuch as the
+strange and lively text was well adapted to excite the hilarity and the
+merriment of the public. The first singers of the opera were rivals for
+the parts; all the newspapers published the pompous advertisement that
+in a short time would be performed at the Opera Comique a charming,
+entrancing opera, the maiden piece of a young Italian.
+
+Finally its first performance was announced; the first consul declared
+that he and his wife would attend, and he invited Mehul, whom he liked
+to tease and worry, because he loved him from his heart, to attend the
+performance in his loge.
+
+“It will undoubtedly be a mortification to you, my poor friend,” said
+he, laughing; “but perhaps when you hear this enchanting music, so
+different from that of the French, you will imitate it, and cease
+composing.”
+
+Mehul replied with a bow; he then began to excuse himself from
+accompanying the first consul to the theatre; and it was only after
+Bonaparte and Josephine had pressed him very much, that he accepted the
+invitation, and went with them to their loge.
+
+The opera began, and, immediately after the first melody, Bonaparte
+applauded and expressed his admiration. There never had been any
+thing more charming--never had the French written music with so much
+freshness, elegance, or so naturally. Bonaparte continued his praise,
+and often-times repeated: “It is certain there is nothing superior to
+Italian music.”
+
+At last the opera ended amid a real storm of applause; and, with their
+enthusiasm at the highest pitch, the audience claimed to know the names
+of the poet and of the composer. After a long pause the curtain rose and
+the registrar appeared; he made the three customary bows, and in a loud
+voice named Marsollier as the author and Mehul as the composer of the
+opera Irato.
+
+The audience received this news with an unceasing storm of applause.
+They, like the consul and the singers who had taken part in the opera,
+knew nothing of the mystification, so well had the secret been kept.
+
+Josephine turned smilingly to Bonaparte, and with her own charming grace
+offered her hand to Mehul and thanked him for the twofold enjoyment he
+had that day prepared for her, by furnishing her his entrancing opera,
+and by having prepared a little defeat of Bonaparte, that traitor to his
+country, who dared prefer the Italian music to the French.
+
+Bonaparte himself looked at the affair on its bright side; he had
+enjoyed the opera; he had laughed; he was satisfied, and consequently he
+overlooked the deceitful surprise.
+
+“Conquer me always in this manner!” said he, laughing, to Mehul, “and I
+shall enjoy both your fame and my amusement.”
+
+The friends of Cherubini thought of this little event when the question
+arose as to the appointment to the situation of first singer at the
+Grand Opera, and they therefore did not hesitate to wager that Cherubini
+would be appointed, since he was an Italian.
+
+But they knew not that Bonaparte had pardoned Mehul, and frequently
+joked with him, whilst he ever grumbled at Cherubini on account of an
+expression which the latter had once allowed himself to use against
+General Bonaparte.
+
+Bonaparte had conversed with Cherubini after a representation of one of
+his operas, and, while he congratulated him, he however added that this
+opera did not please him as much as the other pieces of Cherubini--that
+he thought it somewhat sober and scientific, and that he missed in
+it the accustomed richness of the maestro’s melodies. This criticism
+wounded Cherubini as if pierced by a dagger, and with the irritable
+vehemence of an Italian he replied:
+
+“General, busy yourself in winning battles--that is your trade; but
+leave me to practise mine, about which you know nothing.”
+
+The Consul Bonaparte had neither forgotten nor pardoned Cherubini’s
+answer; and, despite his fondness for Italian music, he was resolved to
+give to Mehul the position vacated by Paesiello.
+
+Josephine approved entirely of this choice, and, in order to witness
+Mehul’s joy, she invited him to Malmaison, that the consul might
+there inform him of his appointment. How great, however, was her and
+Bonaparte’s surprise, when Mehul, instead of being delighted with this
+distinguished appointment, positively refused to accept it!
+
+“I can accept this position only under one condition,” said Mehul,
+“which is, that I may be allowed to divide it with my friend Cherubini.”
+
+“Do not speak to me about him,” exclaimed Bonaparte, with animation; “he
+is a coarse man, and I cannot tolerate him.”
+
+“He may have had the misfortune to displease you,” replied Mehul,
+eagerly, “but he is a master to us all, and especially as regards sacred
+music. He now is in a very inferior position; he has a large family, and
+I sincerely desire to reconcile him to you.”
+
+“I repeat to you that I do not wish to know any thing about him.”
+
+“In that case I must decline the position,” said Mehul, gravely,
+“and nothing will alter my resolution. I am a member of the
+Institute--Cherubini is not; I do not wish it to be said that I
+have misused the good-will with which you honor me for the sake of
+confiscating to my profit every situation, and of despoiling a man of
+reputation of the reward to which he is most justly entitled.”
+
+And Mehul, notwithstanding Josephine’s intercession and Bonaparte’s
+ill-will, remained firm in his decision; he would not accept the
+honorable and distinguished position of first singer at the Grand Opera;
+and Bonaparte, after expressing his determination, would not change it.
+Neither would he confer upon Cherubini the honor refused by Mehnl. He
+therefore commissioned Josephine to name a successor to Paesiello; and
+she went to Madame de Montesson, to confer with her on the matter.
+
+Madame de Montesson could suggest no definite plan, but she told
+Josephine of a French composer, of the name of Lesueur, who,
+notwithstanding his great talents, lived in his native city of Paris
+poor and unknown, and who had not succeeded in having his opera, “The
+Bards,” represented at the Grand Opera, simply on the ground that he
+was a Frenchman, and that every one knew Bonaparte’s strange aversion to
+French music.
+
+Josephine’s generous heart at once took sides with Lesueur; her
+exquisite tact taught her that the public ought to know that the first
+consul would not consult his own personal gratification, when the
+question was to render justice to a Frenchman. She therefore recommended
+to her husband, with all her ability, the poor composer Lesueur, who was
+unknown to fame, and lost in obscurity; she represented his appointment
+as such an act of generosity and of policy, that Bonaparte acceded to
+her wishes at once, and appointed Lesueur to the office of first master
+of the Grand Opera.
+
+And Josephine had the pleasure of seeing that the new opera-leader
+justified her expectations. His opera, “The Bards,” was naturally
+brought into requisition; it had a brilliant and unexampled success,
+and even Bonaparte, at the first representation, forgot his prejudices
+against French music, and applauded quite as heartily as if it had been
+Italian.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVIII. PRELUDE TO THE EMPIRE.
+
+
+The sun of happiness which for Josephine seemed to shine so brightly
+over Malmaison, had nevertheless its long shadows and its dark specks;
+even her gracious countenance was obscured, her heart filled with
+sad forebodings, and her bosom stung as if by scorpions hidden under
+flowers.
+
+Josephine had in her immediate circle violent and bitter enemies, who
+were ever busy in undermining the influence which she possessed over her
+husband, to steal from his heart the love he cherished for her, and to
+remove from his side the woman who, by her presence, kept them in the
+shade, and who wielded or destroyed the influence which they desired to
+have over him.
+
+These enemies were the brothers and especially the sisters of
+Bonaparte. Among the brothers of the first consul, Lucien showed to his
+sister-in-law the most violent and irreconcilable enmity. He left no
+means untried to do her injury, and to convert her into an object of
+suspicion, and this because he was convinced that Josephine was the
+prime cause of the hostile sentiments of Napoleon against him, and
+because he believed that, Josephine once out of the way, Napoleon’s
+ear would be open to conviction, and that he, Lucien, the most powerful
+citizen, next to his brother, would be the second “first consul.” He
+was not aware that Napoleon’s keen eagle eye had fathomed his ambitious
+heart; that he was the one who kept Lucien away, because he mistrusted
+him, because he feared his ambition, and even looked upon him as capable
+of the bold design of casting Napoleon aside, and setting himself up
+in his place. Lucien was unaware of the influence which Josephine
+frequently exerted over the mind of the first consul, in favor of
+himself; that it was she who had pacified Napoleon’s anger at Lucien’s
+marriage, contracted without his consent, and prevented him from
+annulling it violently. The other brothers of Napoleon, influenced,
+perhaps, by the enmity of Lucien, were also disaffected toward their
+sister-in-law, and of them all, only Louis, the youngest, the one who
+loved the first consul most tenderly and most sincerely, showed toward
+her due respect and affection.
+
+His three sisters were still more active in their opposition. Constantly
+quarrelling among themselves, they, however, united heartily in the
+common feeling of hatred to Josephine. It was she who stood in their
+way, who every day excited anew their anger by the position she held at
+Napoleon’s side, and in virtue of which the three sisters were thrust
+into the background. Josephine, the wife of the first consul, was the
+one to whom France made obeisance, upon whom the ambassadors of foreign
+powers first waited, and afterward upon the sisters of the first consul.
+It was Josephine who took the precedence in solemn ceremonies, and to
+whom, by Bonaparte’s commands, they had to manifest respect. And
+this woman, who by her eminence placed the sisters of Bonaparte in an
+inferior position, was not of nobler or more distinguished blood than
+they; she was not young, she was not beautiful, she was not even able to
+give birth to a child, for which her husband so intensely longed.
+
+The three sisters might have been submissive to the daughter of a
+prince, they might have conceded to her the right of precedence, but the
+widow of the Viscount de Beauharnais was not superior to them in rank
+or birth; she was far inferior to them in beauty and youth--and yet they
+had to give way to her, and see her take the first place!
+
+From these sentiments of jealousy and envy sprang the enmity which the
+three sisters of Bonaparte, Madame Elise Bacciocchi, Madame Pauline
+Borghese, and Madame Caroline Murat, cherished against Josephine, and
+which her gentle words and kind heart could never assuage.
+
+Josephine was in their way--she must therefore fall. Such is the key to
+the right understanding of the conduct of the three beautiful sisters
+of Napoleon toward the wife of their brother. In their violence they
+disregarded all propriety, and shrank from no calumny or malice to
+accomplish their ends. It was a constant warfare with intrigues and
+malicious suspicions. Every action of Josephine was observed, every step
+was watched, in the hope of finding something to render her suspicious
+to her husband. On every occasion the three sisters besieged him with
+complaints concerning the lofty and proud demeanor of Josephine, and
+ridiculed him about his old, childless wife, who stood in the way of
+his growing fame! Though Bonaparte in these conflicts always sided with
+Josephine against his sisters, yet there probably remained in his heart
+a sting from the ridicule which they had directed against him.
+
+This hostility of the Bonaparte family was not unknown to Josephine; her
+soul suffered under these ceaseless attacks, her heart was agonized at
+the thought that the efforts of her sisters-in-law might finally succeed
+in withdrawing from her the love of her husband. She was persuaded that
+even in the Bonaparte family she needed a protector, that she must
+look for one among the brothers, so as to counteract the enmity of the
+sisters; and she chose for this Louis Bonaparte. She entreated Napoleon
+to give to his young, beloved brother the hand of her daughter Hortense.
+It would be a new bond chaining Bonaparte to her--a new fortress for
+her love--if he would but make her daughter his sister-in-law, and his
+brother her son-in-law.
+
+Napoleon did not oppose her wishes; he consented that Hortense should be
+married to his brother. It is true the young people were not consulted;
+for the first time, Josephine’s selfishness got the better of her love
+for her child--she sacrificed the welfare of her daughter to secure her
+own happiness.
+
+But Hortense loved another, yet she yielded to the entreaties and tears
+of her mother, and became the wife of this laconic, timid young man,
+whose meagre, unpretending appearance resembled so little the ideal
+which her maidenly heart had pictured of her future husband.
+
+Louis on his side had not the slightest inclination for Hortense; he
+never would have chosen her for his wife, for their characters were too
+different; their inclinations and wishes were not in sympathy with each
+other. But through obedience to the wishes of his brother, he accepted
+the proffered hand of Josephine’s daughter, and became the husband of
+the beautiful, blond-haired Hortense de Beauharnais.
+
+In February, of the year 1802, the marriage of the young couple took
+place, and this family event was celebrated with the most magnificent
+festivities. Josephine’s joy and happiness were complete--she had thrown
+a bridge over the abyss, and was now secure against the hostilities of
+her sisters-in-law, by giving up her own daughter.
+
+Every thing was resplendent with beauty and joy at these festivities;
+every thing wore an appearance of happiness; only the countenances of
+the newly-married couple were grave and sad, and their deep melancholy
+contrasted strikingly with the happiness of which they themselves were
+the cause. Adorned with diamonds and flowers, Hortense appeared to be a
+stranger to all the pomp which surrounded her, and to be occupied only
+with her own sad communings. Louis Bonaparte was pale and grave, like
+Hortense; he seldom addressed a word to the young wife that the orders
+of his brother had given him; and she avoided her husband’s looks,
+perhaps to hinder him from reading there the indifference and dislike
+she felt for him. [Footnote: “Memoires sur l’Imperatrice Josephine, la
+Cour de Navarre,” etc., par Mlle. Ducrest, vol. i., p. 49.]
+
+But Josephine was happy, for she knew the noble, faithful, and generous
+spirit of the man to whom she had given her daughter; and she trusted
+that the two young hearts, now that they were linked together, would
+soon love one another. She hoped much more from this alliance; she hoped
+not only to find in it a shield against domestic animosities, but also
+to give to her husband, even if indirectly, the children he so much
+desired--for the offspring of his brother and the daughter of his
+Josephine would be nearly the same as his own, and they could adopt
+and love them as such. This was Josephine’s hope, the dream of her
+happiness, when she gave her daughter in marriage to the brother of her
+husband.
+
+The fact that the first consul was childless was not only a family
+solicitude, it was also a political question. The people themselves had
+changed the face of affairs, they had by solemn vote decided to confer
+the consulate for life upon Napoleon, who had previously been elected
+for ten years only. In other words, the French people had chosen
+Bonaparte for their master and ruler, and he now lacked but the title
+to be king. Every one felt and knew that this consulate for life was
+but the prelude to royalty; that the golden laurel-wreath of the first
+consul would soon be converted into a golden crown, so as to secure to
+France an enduring peace, and to make firm its political situation.
+
+With her keen political instinct, Josephine trembled at the thought
+that the King or Emperor Bonaparte would have to establish for himself
+a dynasty--that he would have to appease the apprehensions of France
+by offering to the nation a son who would be his legitimate heir and
+successor. Thus was the subject of divorce kept hanging over her head
+until the conviction was forced upon her mind that some day Napoleon
+would be led into sacrificing his love to politics. Josephine was
+conscious of it, and consequently the hopes of Napoleon’s future
+greatness, which so pleased his brothers and sisters, only made her
+sorrowful, and she therefore entreated Bonaparte with tender appeal to
+remain content with the high dignity he already possessed, and not to
+tempt fate, nor to allow it to bear him up to a dizzy height, from which
+the stormy winds of adversity might the more easily prostrate him.
+
+Bonaparte listened to her with a smile, and generally in silence. Once
+only he replied to her: “Has not your prophetess in Martinique told you
+that one day you would be more than a queen?”
+
+“And the prophecy is already realized,” exclaimed Josephine. “The wife
+of the consul for life is more than a queen, for her husband is the
+elect of thirty millions of hearts!” Bonaparte laughed, and said
+nothing.
+
+Another time Josephine asked him--“Now, Bonaparte, when are you going to
+make me Empress of the Gauls?”
+
+He shrugged his shoulders. “What an idea,” said he; “the little
+Josephine an empress!”
+
+Josephine answered him with the words of Corneille--“‘Le premier qui fut
+roi fut un soldat heureux’” (the first king was a successful soldier);
+and she added, “The wife of this fortunate soldier shares his rank.”
+
+He placed his small, white hand, adorned with rings, under her chin, and
+gazed at her with a deep, strange look.
+
+“Now, Josephine,” said he, after a short pause, “your successful soldier
+is only, for the present, consul for life, and you are sharing his rank.
+Be careful, then, that the wife of the first consul surrounds herself
+with all the brilliancy and the pomp which beseem her dignity. No more
+economy, no more modest simplicity! The industry of France is at a low
+ebb--we must make it rise. We must give receptions; we must prove to
+France that the court of a consul can be as splendid as that of a king.
+You understand what pomp is--none better than you! Now show yourself
+brilliant, magnificent, so that the other ladies may imitate you. But,
+no foreign stuffs! Silk and velvet from the fabrics of Lyons!”
+
+“Yes,” said Josephine, with charming tenderness, “and when afterward my
+bills become due, you cut them down--you find them too high.”
+
+“I only cut down what is too exorbitant,” said Bonaparte, laughing. “I
+have no objection for you to give to the manufacturers any amount
+of work and profit, but I do not wish them to cheat you.” [Footnote:
+Abrantes, “Memoires” vol. iv.]
+
+Henceforth, the consulate began gradually to exhibit a splendor and pomp
+which were behind no princely court, and which relegated, amid the dark
+legends of the fabulous past, the fraternity and the equality of the
+republic. The absence of pretension, and the simplicity of Malmaison,
+were now done away with; everywhere the consul for life was followed by
+the splendors of his dignity, and everywhere Josephine was accompanied
+by her court.
+
+For now she had a court, and an anteroom, with all its intrigues and
+flatteries; and its conspiracies already wove their chains around the
+consul and his wife. It was not suddenly, it was not spontaneously, that
+this court of the first consul was formed; two years were required
+for its organization--two years of unceasing labor on the new code of
+regulations, which etiquette dictated from the remembrances of the past
+to the palace-officers of the Consul Bonaparte. “How was this in times
+past? What was the practice?” Such were the constant questions in the
+interior of the Tuileries, and for the answers they appealed to Madame
+de Montesson, to the old courtiers, the servants and adherents of
+royalty. Instead of creating every thing new, they turned by degrees
+to the usages and manners of the past. Always and in all countries
+have there been seen at courts caricatures and persons of ill-mannered
+awkwardness; at the opening of the court of the first consul it is
+probable that these existed, and appeared still more strange to those
+who had been used to the manners, traditions, and language of the
+ancient court of Versailles. Their awkwardness, however, was soon
+overcome; and Josephine understood so well the rare art of presiding at
+a court establishment--she was such an accomplished mistress of refined
+manners and of noble deportment--she united to the perfect manners of
+the old nobility the most exquisite adroitness, and she knew so well how
+to adapt all these advantages to every new circumstance--that soon every
+one bowed to her sovereignty and submitted to her laws.
+
+From the glittering halls of the Tuileries there soon disappeared the
+sword and the uniform, to be replaced by the gold-embroidered dress, the
+silk stockings, and the chapeau bras; and on the glassy floors of
+the Tuileries generals and marshals appeared as fine cavaliers, who,
+submitting to the rules of etiquette, left behind with their regiments
+the coarse language of the camp. Many of these young generals and heroes
+had married the beautiful but impoverished daughters of the
+aristocrats of old monarchical France. These young women, who were the
+representatives of the ancient noblesse, brought to the Tuileries the
+traditions of their mothers, and distinguished themselves by the ease
+of their courtly deportment and their graceful manners; and they thus
+unconsciously became the teachers of the other young women, who, like
+their husbands, owed their aristocratic name only to the sword and to
+their fresh laurels, and not to ancient escutcheons.
+
+In the Tuileries and in St. Cloud there were reception-days,
+audience-days, and great and small levees, at which were assembled all
+that France possessed of rank, name, and fame, and where the ambassadors
+of all the powers accredited at the court of the consul, where all the
+higher clergy and the pope’s nuncio, appeared in full dress.
+
+Bonaparte ventured to remove still further from the landmarks of the
+revolution, and from its so-called conquests. He restored to France the
+church; he reopened the temples of religion, and he also gave back to
+the people their priests.
+
+Just as in the days of old monarchical France, every Sunday, and at
+every festival, a solemn mass was said at St. Cloud; and in the glass
+gallery on the way to the chapel, Bonaparte received petitions
+and granted short audiences. France, with the instinct of its old
+inclinations and habits, readily returned to this new order of things;
+and even those who once had with enthusiasm saluted the Goddess of
+Reason, went now, with hands joined in prayer and eyes bent low, to
+Notre Dame, to offer again their supplications to the God of Love.
+
+Every thing seemed to return to the old track, every thing was as in the
+days preceding the revolution--the re-establishment of the throne, the
+national, willing approbation that the republic had become a monarchy,
+was, however, still wanting.
+
+Finally, on the 18th of May, 1804, France spoke out the decisive word,
+and, by the voice of its representatives the senators, it offered to
+Bonaparte the crown, and requested him to ascend as emperor the throne
+of France.
+
+Napoleon acceded to these wishes, and, as the senate, in a ceremonious
+procession, marshalled by Cambaceres, came to St. Cloud to communicate
+to Bonaparte the wish of France, and to offer to him and to Josephine
+the dignities of an empire, he accepted it without surprise, and
+apparently without joy, and allowed himself to be proclaimed NAPOLEON,
+THE FIRST EMPEROR OF THE FRENCH.
+
+On this memorable day, after Cambaceres, in the name of the senate and
+of France, had addressed the first consul as the actual emperor, he
+turned to Josephine, who, with that unparalleled admixture of grandeur,
+grace, and tender womanly beauty, which were all so especially her own,
+was present at this audience at Napoleon’s side.
+
+“Madame,” said Cambaceres, “there remains yet to the senate a pleasant
+duty to perform: to bring to your imperial majesty the homage of its
+respect and the expression of gratitude of the French people. Yes,
+madame, the public sentiment acknowledges the good which you are ever
+performing; that you are always accessible to the unfortunate; that you
+use your influence with the chief magistrate only to diminish evil, and
+to procure a hearing to those who seek it; and that your majesty
+with this well-doing combines the most amiable tenderness, rendering
+thankfulness a pleasant duty. These noble qualities of your majesty
+foretell that the name of the Empress Josephine will be a watchword
+of trust and hope; and, as the virtues of Napoleon will ever be to his
+followers an example to teach them the difficult art of government,
+so also, the lively remembrance of your goodness will teach to their
+honorable wives that to strive to dry the tear is the surest means of
+ruling the heart. The senate deems itself happy in being the first
+to congratulate your imperial majesty, and he who has the honor of
+addressing you these sentiments in the name of the senate, dares trust
+that you will ever number him among your most faithful servants.”
+
+It was, then, decided! France had accepted her master, and Cambaceres in
+his solemn address had already marked out the situation of France and of
+her rulers. Bonaparte and Josephine were now their imperial majesties,
+the senators were their most faithful servants. What remained to the
+people but to call themselves “faithful subjects?”
+
+The people, however, had made known their wishes only through the voice
+of the senate; it was the senators who had converted Bonaparte into the
+Emperor Napoleon; but the people were also to make their will known in a
+solemn manner; they were, through a universal public suffrage, to decide
+whether the imperial dignity should be given only for life to Napoleon
+the First, Emperor of the French, or whether it should be hereditary in
+his family.
+
+France, wearied with storms and divisions, decided with her five
+millions of votes for the hereditary imperial dignity in Bonaparte’s
+family, and thus the people of France created their fourth dynasty.
+
+Meanwhile Josephine received this new decision of the nation, not with
+that disquietude and care which she had formerly experienced.
+Bonaparte had given her the deepest and strongest proof of his love
+and faithfulness. He had not only withstood the pressure of his whole
+family, which had conjured him before his election to the empire to be
+divorced from his childless wife, but he had in the generosity of his
+love appointed his heirs and successors, and these were to be the sons
+of Hortense. The senate had decreed that the imperial dignity should be
+transmitted as a heritage to Napoleon’s two brothers Joseph and
+Louis, and moreover they had given to Napoleon the right to choose his
+successors and heirs from the families of the two brothers.
+
+Napoleon had given to Josephine the strongest proof of affection--he had
+declared the son of her daughter Hortense and of his brother Louis, the
+little Napoleon Louis, to be his successor and heir, and the idea of
+a divorce no longer caused apprehensions before which Josephine need
+tremble.
+
+Bonaparte had appointed the sons of his brother and of Josephine’s
+daughter as his heirs, and the heir of the new imperial throne was
+already born. Hortense’s youth made it hopeful that she would add to the
+new branch of the Napoleonic dynasty new leaves and new boughs.
+
+Josephine could now rejoice in her happiness and her glory; she could
+abandon herself to the new splendors of her life with all the enjoyment
+of her sensitive and excitable nature. She could now receive with smiles
+and with affable condescension the homage of France, for she was not
+only empress by a nation’s vote, but she was also empress by the choice
+of Napoleon her husband.
+
+The brilliancy of this new and glorious horizon was soon overhung by a
+sombre cloud. The execution of the Duke d’Enghien threw its dark shadows
+from the last days of the consulate upon the truly royalist heart of
+Josephine; and now that heart was to receive fresh wounds through the
+royalists, to whom she had remained true with all the memories of
+youth, and in whose behalf she had so often, so zealously, and so warmly
+interceded with her husband.
+
+A new conspiracy against Napoleon’s life was discovered, and this time
+it was the men of the highest ranks of the old aristocracy who were
+implicated in it. George Cadoudal, the unwearied conspirator, had, while
+in England, planned with the leaders of the monarchical party residing
+in France, or who were away from it, a new conspiracy, whose object was
+to destroy Bonaparte and to re-establish the monarchy.
+
+But Fate was again on the side of the hero of Arcola. His good star
+still protected him. The conspiracy was discovered, and all those
+concerned in it were arrested. Among them were the Generals Pichegru and
+Moreau, the Counts de Polignac, Riviere, Saint Coster, Charles d’Hozier,
+and many others of the leading and most distinguished royalists. They
+were now under the avenging sword of justice, and the tribunal had
+condemned twenty of the accused to death, among whom were the above
+named. The emperor alone had the power to save them and to extend mercy.
+But he was this time determined to exhibit a merciless severity, so as
+to put an end to the royalists, and to prove to them that he was the
+ruler of France, and that the people without a murmur had given him the
+power to punish, as guilty of high-treason, those who dared touch their
+emperor.
+
+Josephine’s heart, however, remained true to her memories and her piety;
+and, according to her judgment, those who, with so much heroic loyalty,
+remained true to the exiled monarchy, were criminals only as they had
+imperilled her husband’s life, but criminals who, since their plans were
+destroyed, deserved pardon, because they had sinned through devotion to
+sacred principles.
+
+Josephine, therefore, opposed Bonaparte’s anger, and begged for pardon
+for the son of the former friend of Queen Marie Antoinette, the Count
+Jules de Polignac. Bonaparte, however, remained inexorable; he repelled
+Josephine with vehemence, reproaching her for asking for the life of
+those who threatened his. But she would not be deterred; since Bonaparte
+had turned her away with her petitions and prayers, she wanted at least
+to give to the wife of the Count de Polignac an opportunity to ask
+pardon for her condemned husband. Despite Bonaparte’s wrath, Josephine
+led the Countess de Polignac into a corridor through which the emperor
+had to pass, when he went from the council-room into his cabinet, and by
+this means the countess was fortunate enough, by her tears and prayers,
+to save her husband’s life. The Count de Polignac was pardoned; and now
+that Bonaparte’s heart had once been opened to mercy, he also granted to
+Josephine the lives of Count Riviere and of General Lajolais, in behalf
+of whom Hortense had appealed to the emperor. More than twenty of the
+conspirators were accused and sentenced, some to death and some to
+severe punishment, but one-half of the accused were, thanks to the
+prayers of Josephine and of her daughter, pardoned; a few were put to
+death, and the rest transported. Pichegru committed suicide in prison;
+Moreau received permission to emigrate to America; George Cadoudal
+perished on the scaffold.
+
+After this last fruitless attempt to re-establish in France the throne
+of the Bourbons, the royalists, wearied and terrified, had at least
+for a time to withdraw into obscurity and solitude, and the
+newly-established empire appeared in still more striking magnificence.
+The monarchy by God’s grace had been conquered by the empire by the
+people’s grace, and Napoleon wanted now to show himself to astonished
+Europe in all the glory of his new dignity. He therefore undertook a
+journey with his wife through the conquered German provinces; he went
+to Aix-la-Chapelle, to the city of coronation of the ancient German
+emperors, and which now belonged to imperial France; he went to Mayence,
+the golden Mayence of the old Roman days, and which now, after so many
+streams of bloodshed, had been transferred to France.
+
+This journey of the emperor and empress was one uninterrupted triumphal
+procession; the population of the old German city applauded, in
+dishonorable faithlessness, the new foreign ruler; all the clergy
+received their imperial majesties at the door of the cathedral, where
+Germany’s first emperor, Charlemagne, was buried; and, to flatter the
+Empress Josephine, the clergy caused a miracle to be performed by her
+hand. There existed in the sacred treasury of the cathedral a casket of
+gold, containing the most precious relics, but which was never opened to
+the eyes of mortals, and whose lock no key fitted. Only once a year was
+this precious, sacred casket of relics shown to the worshipping crowd,
+and then locked up in the holy shrine. But for Josephine this treasury
+was condescendingly opened, and to the empress was presented this casket
+of relics, and behold, the miracle took place! At the touch of the
+empress the lid of the casket sprang up, and in it were seen the
+most precious jewels of royalty, amongst which was the seal-ring of
+Charlemagne. [Footnote: Constant, “Memoires,” vol. iii.] No one was more
+surprised at this miracle than the clergy!
+
+The neighboring German princes came to ancient Mayence to do homage to
+Josephine, and to win the favor of the sovereign of France toward their
+little principalities, and to assure him of their devotedness. Bonaparte
+already understood how to receive the humble, flattering German princes
+with the mien of a gracious protector, and to look upon them with the
+eye of an emperor, to whom not only the nations but also the princes
+must bow; and Josephine also excited the admiration of genuine princes
+and legitimate princesses, by the graciousness and grandeur, by the
+unaffected dignity and ease with which she knew how to represent the
+sovereign and the empress.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIX. THE POPE IN PARIS.
+
+
+Fate had reserved another triumph for the ruler of France, the Emperor
+Napoleon--the triumph that the empire by the people’s grace should be
+converted and exalted into the empire by God’s grace. Pope Pius VII.,
+full of thankfulness that Napoleon had re-established the Church in
+France, and restored to the clergy their rights, had consented to come
+to Paris for the sake of giving to the empire, created by the will
+of the French people, the benediction of the Church, and in solemn
+coronation to place the imperial crown on the head anointed by the hands
+of God’s vice-gerent.
+
+Bonaparte received this news with the lofty composure of an emperor who
+finds it quite natural that the whole world should bow to his wishes,
+and Josephine received it with the modesty and joyous humility of a
+pious Christian. She desired above all things the blessing of God and of
+the Church to rest upon this crown, whose possession had seemed to her
+until now a spoliation, a sacrilege, and about which her conscience so
+often reproached her. But when God’s vicegerent, when the Holy Father of
+Christendom should himself have blessed her husband’s crown, and should
+have made fast on Josephine’s brow the imperial diadem, then all blame
+was removed, then the empress could hope that Heaven’s blessing would
+accompany the new emperor and his wife!
+
+But was it really Napoleon’s wish that Josephine should take part in
+this grand ceremony of coronation? Did he wish that, like him, she
+should receive from the hands of the pope the consecrated crown?
+
+Such was the deep, important question which occupied, at the approaching
+arrival of the pope, the young imperial court; a question, too,
+which occupied Josephine’s mind, and also the whole family, and more
+especially the sisters of Bonaparte.
+
+Josephine naturally desired that it should be so, for this solemn
+coronation would be a new bond uniting her to her husband, a new
+guaranty against the evil which the empress’s foreboding spirit still
+dreaded. But for the very same reasons her enemies prepared their
+weapons to prevent Josephine from obtaining this new consecration and
+this new glory, and harsh and bitter conflicts took place within the
+inner circles of the imperial family on account of it, which on both
+sides were carried on with the deepest animosity and obstinacy, but
+finally to a complete triumph for Josephine.
+
+Thiers, in his “History of the Consulate and of the Empire,” relates the
+last scenes in this family quarrel:
+
+“Napoleon vacillated between his affection for his wife and the secret
+presentiments of his policy, when an occurrence took place which nearly
+caused the sudden ruin of the unfortunate Josephine. Every one was in a
+state of agitation about the new monarch--brothers, sisters, and allies!
+In the solemnity which seemed to give to each a blessing, all desired to
+perform parts adequate to their actual pretensions, and to their hopes
+of the future. At the sight of this restlessness, and witnessing the
+pretensions and claims to which Napoleon was exposed from one of his
+sisters, Josephine, carried away by anxiety and jealousy, gave utterance
+to an insulting suspicion against his sister and against Napoleon, a
+suspicion which agreed with the most bitter calumnies of the royalist
+emigrants. Napoleon grew violently angry, and, as his wrath mastered his
+better feelings, he declared to Josephine that he wanted to be divorced
+from her; that he would have to be, sooner or later, and that it was
+therefore better to announce it on the spot, before other bonds should
+unite them still closer together. He sent for his two adopted children,
+communicated to them this decision, and thus produced on them a most
+painful impression. Hortense and Eugene de Beauharnais declared with
+a sad but unwavering determination that they would follow their mother
+into the exile which was being prepared for her. Josephine manifested
+a resigned and dignified sorrow. The contrast of their sorrow with the
+satisfaction which the other portion of the imperial family manifested,
+deeply lacerated Napoleon’s heart, and he relented; for he could not
+consent to see the companion of his youth and her children, who had been
+the objects of his deserved affection, made so unhappy by being forced
+into exile. He took Josephine in his arms, told her with emotion that
+he could never have the strength to part from her, even if policy itself
+should dictate it; and he then promised her that she should be crowned
+with him, and at his side should receive from the pope the divine
+blessing.” [Footnote: Thiers, “Histoire du Consulat et de l’Empire.”
+ vol. v., p. 249.]
+
+Josephine, therefore, had won a victory over the hostile sisters, but
+this defeat made them still more embittered, and though they were now
+compelled to recognize Josephine as the imperial wife of their brother,
+yet they would retreat only step by step, and at “least secure a place
+near the imperial throne, and not be compelled by the empress to stand
+behind. Yet this was exactly what was to take place according to the
+programme, which prescribed for the festivity in Notre Dame that on the
+day of coronation the brothers of the emperor should carry the trail of
+his mantle, and that his sisters should at the same time carry the trail
+of the empress’s mantle. But the sisters of Napoleon decidedly opposed
+this arrangement.
+
+“The emperor, tired of these constant wranglings and domestic strifes,
+decided as judge, and declared he would no longer listen to these
+unheard-of and unjustifiable pretensions.
+
+“‘Truly,’ said he, to the beautiful Pauline, who, as Princess Borghese,
+considered herself justified in making opposition, ‘truly, one would
+think, after listening to you, that I have despoiled you of the
+inheritance of the most blessed king our father.’” [Footnote: “Histoire
+du Consulat,” vol. v., p. 251.]
+
+The ambitious sisters, kept within bounds by the angry voice of their
+brother, who now for the first time showed himself their ruling emperor,
+had to fall into their places, and abide by the regulations of the
+ceremony.
+
+Nothing was wanted now to perfect the sacred celebration which was
+to crown all the triumphs and victories of Napoleon, nothing but the
+arrival of the pope: the whole imperial family, as well as France,
+awaited his advent with impatience.
+
+At last the couriers brought the news that the pope had touched the
+French soil, and that the people were streaming toward him to manifest
+their respect, and to implore his blessing on their knees; the same
+people who precisely ten years before had closed the churches, driven
+the priests into exile, and consecrated their bacchanalian worship to
+the Goddess of Reason!
+
+At last, on the 25th day of November, the pope entered Fontainebleau,
+where the emperor and the empress had hastened to receive him. No sooner
+was the pope’s approach announced, than Napoleon mounted his horse and
+rode to meet him some distance on the way. In the centre of the road
+took place the first interview between the representative of Christendom
+and the youngest son of the Church, a son who now sat on the throne of
+those who in former times had enjoyed the privilege of being called the
+elder sons of the Church.
+
+The pope alighted from his carriage as soon as the emperor was in
+sight; Napoleon dismounted and hastened to meet and embrace tenderly
+his holiness, and then to ascend with him the carriage, the question of
+precedence remaining undecided, as the pope and the emperor entered the
+carriage at the same time from opposite sides.
+
+Josephine, surrounded by the official dignitaries, the ministers of
+state, and all the generals, received the pope under the peristyle of
+the palace of Fontainebleau; and then, after Napoleon had led him into
+his room, Josephine, accompanied by her ladies, went to welcome Pius,
+not as empress, but as an humble, devout daughter of the Church, who
+wished to implore a blessing from the Holy Father of Christendom.
+Josephine was deeply moved; her whole being was agitated and exalted at
+once by this greatest of all the privileges which destiny had reserved
+for her, and by this consecration which she was to receive at the hands
+of the vicar of Christ.
+
+As the pope, agreeably affected by this respect and emotion of the
+empress, offered her his hand with a genial smile, Josephine, humble as
+a little girl, sank down on her knees before him, kissed his hand, and
+with streaming eyes implored his benediction. Pius, in his soft, winning
+manner, promised to love her as a daughter, and that she should ever
+find in him a father.
+
+The empress, deeply moved by this affectionate condescension of the
+pope, and impressed by the importance and solemnity of the moment,
+bade her ladies withdraw, whilst she, in solitude and silence, as a
+confessing child before the priest, should unveil her innermost heart
+to the Holy Father. She then sank down upon her knees, and, stammering,
+ashamed, with her voice broken by her sobs, acknowledged to the pope
+that her marriage to Napoleon had never received, the consecration of
+the Church; that, contracted amid the stormy days of the revolution, it
+still lacked the blessing hand of the priest, and that her own husband
+was to be blamed for this neglect. In vain had she often besought him
+that, since he had restored the Church to Prance, he should himself give
+to the world a striking example of his own return by having his marriage
+blessed by it. But Napoleon refused, although he had been the cause of
+Cardinal Caprera giving to the marriage of his sister Caroline Murat,
+long after it had been contracted, the blessing of the Church.
+
+Pius heard this confession of his imperial penitent with holy
+resentment, and he promised her his aid and protection, assuring her he
+would refuse the act of coronation if the ecclesiastical marriage did
+not precede it.
+
+No sooner had Josephine left him, than the pope asked for an interview
+with the emperor, to whom he declared, with all the zeal of a true
+servant of the Church, and the conviction of a devout, God-fearing man,
+that he was willing to crown him, and to grant him the blessing of
+the Church, for the state of the conscience of emperors had never been
+examined before their anointment; but if his wife was to be crowned with
+him, he must refuse his co-operation, because in crowning Josephine he
+dare not grant the divine sanction to concubinage.
+
+Napoleon, though inwardly much irritated at Josephine, who, as he at
+once supposed, had made this confession to the pope in her own interest,
+was still willing to abide by the circumstances. He did not wish to
+irritate the pope, who as was well known was unyielding in all matters
+pertaining to faith; moreover, he could not change any thing in the
+already published ceremonial of the day, and thus he consented to have
+the ecclesiastical marriage. After this conversation with the pope,
+Napoleon went at once to Josephine, and the whole strength of his anger
+was spent in violent reproaches against her untimely indiscretion.
+
+Josephine endured these silently, and full of inward satisfaction; she
+did not listen to Napoleon’s angry words; she only heard that he was
+decided to have his marriage sanctioned by the Church, and now she would
+be his wife before God, as she had been before men for the last
+ten years. Now at last her fate was decided, and her marriage made
+irrevocable; now she would no longer dread that Napoleon would punish
+her childlessness by a divorce.
+
+During the night which preceded the day of the coronation, the night
+of the 1st of December, the ecclesiastical marriage of Napoleon and
+Josephine took place in the chapel of the Tuileries. The only witnesses
+were Talleyrand and Berthier, from both of whom the emperor had exacted
+an oath of profound silence. Cardinal Fesch, the emperor’s uncle,
+performed the ceremony, and pronounced the benediction of the Church
+over this marriage, which Bonaparte’s love for Josephine had induced him
+to consent to, and which her love endeavored to make indissoluble.
+
+This marriage, which she desired both as a loving woman and as a devout
+Christian, was the most glorious triumph which Josephine had ever
+obtained over the enmity of her husband’s sisters, for it was a new
+proof of the love and faithfulness of this man, whom neither expediency,
+nor family, nor state reasons, could remove from her, and who, with
+the hand of love, had guided her away from all the dangers which had
+surrounded her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XL.
+
+THE CORONATION.
+
+
+At last, on the 2d of December, came the day which Napoleon had during
+many years past longed for within the recesses of his heart; the day
+which his ambition had hoped for, the day of his solemn coronation.
+And now the victorious soldier was to see all his laurels woven into an
+imperial crown--that which Julius Caesar had tried to win, and for which
+the republic punished him with death.
+
+But now the republicans were silent: before this new Julius Caesar they
+dare not lift up their swords, for the power belonged to him, and that
+he knew how to punish had been seen by trembling France not long ago
+at the execution of George Cadoudal and his associates, the people
+sanctioning those executions.
+
+There was no Brutus there to plunge the dagger into the breast of the
+new Cassar. His was the victory, the throne, the crown; and all France
+was in joyous excitement at this new triumph, that the pope himself
+should come from Rome to Paris so as to place the crown on the head of
+an emperor by the grace of the people, and to make of the elect of the
+people an elect of God.
+
+The day had scarcely begun to dawn when all the streets of Paris through
+which the imperial as well as the papal procession had to move toward
+Notre Dame were filled with wave-like masses of human beings, who soon
+occupied not only the streets but all the windows and all the roofs of
+the houses. Those who were fortunate enough to be provided with cards
+of admission into Notre Dame, went at six o’clock in the morning to the
+cathedral, for whose adorning during the last fourteen days more than a
+thousand workmen had been busy, and who had not yet quite finished their
+work, retiring only when the approach of the pope and of his suite was
+announced. In the interior of the Tuileries began from the commencement
+of the day, on three different sides, a lively movement.
+
+Here, in the apartments which the pope occupied, gathered together the
+cardinals, the clergy, and all the church dignitaries who in the pope’s
+suite were to proceed to Notre Dame.
+
+There, in the apartments of the emperor, a host of courtiers and
+officers waited from early dawn for the moment when the toilet of the
+emperor should be completed, and he should go to the great throne-room,
+where the empress and the imperial family would await him.
+
+The greatest excitement, however, naturally prevailed in the apartments
+of the empress, whose toilet occupied a host of chambermaids and ladies
+of the court, and which had already been for months the subject of
+thought, labor, and art, for painter and embroiderer, and for all
+manner of professions, as well as for the master of ceremonies. For this
+imperial toilet-ceremonial was to be in accordance with the traditions
+of ancient France, but was not, at the same time, to be a mere imitation
+of the coronation-toilet of the Bourbons, whom the revolution had
+dethroned, the same revolution which had opened for Napoleon the way to
+the throne.
+
+For this important ceremony, therefore, special costumes, somewhat
+resembling those of former centuries, had been found. The painter Ingres
+had furnished the designs for these costumes, and also plans for the
+procession and for the groupings in Notre Dame; he had prepared all this
+in pictures of great effect for the emperor’s inspection. But in order
+to show to advantage the several costumes, as well as the train of
+personages, and the subdivisions of the different groups of the imperial
+dignitaries, Ingres had caused small puppets to be dressed in similar
+costumes, and arrayed in the order of the procession according to the
+prescribed ceremonies for that day; and for weeks the imperial court had
+been studying these costumes, and every one’s duty had been to impress
+on his mind the position assigned to him for the day of coronation.
+[Footnote: Constant, “Memoires,” vol. iii., p. 111.]
+
+The pope’s toilet was the first completed; and at nine o’clock, all
+dressed in white, he entered a carriage drawn by eight grays; over it in
+gilt bronze were the tiara and the attributes of papacy. In front of the
+carriage rode one of his chamberlains upon a white ass, bearing a large
+silver cross before God’s vicegerent. Behind it in new carriages came
+the cardinals, the prelates, and the Italian officers of the pope’s
+palace.
+
+While the papal train was moving slowly on the quays of the Seine toward
+the cathedral, amid the sounds of bells, and the unceasing, joyful
+shouts of the people, all was yet in motion within the apartments of
+the emperor and empress. On all sides hurried along the dignitaries and
+officers who were to form a part of the imperial procession.
+
+For this day, Napoleon had been obliged to cast off his plain uniform
+and substitute the splendid theatrical costume of imperial magnificence.
+The stockings were of silk, wrought with gold, embroidered round the
+edge with imperial crowns; the shoes were of white velvet, worked and
+embroidered with gold; short breeches of white velvet, embroidered with
+gold at the hips, and with buttons and buckles of diamonds in the shape
+of garters; the vest also was of white velvet, embroidered with gold and
+having diamond buttons; the coat was of crimson velvet, with facings of
+white velvet along all the seams above and around, and sparkling with
+gold; the half-mantle was also crimson, lined with white satin, and
+hanging over the left shoulder, while on the right shoulder and upon
+the breast it was fastened with a pair of diamond clasps. Sleeves of the
+most costly lace fell about the arms; the cravat was of Indian muslin,
+the collar likewise of lace; the cap, of black velvet, was adorned with
+two plumes and surrounded by a coronet of diamonds, which “the regent”
+ used as a clasp. Such was the costume which the emperor wore in the
+procession from the Tuileries to Notre Dame. In the vestry of the
+cathedral he put on the ample state-robes, that is to say, the robe and
+mantle of emperor. [Footnote: Constant, “Memoires,” vol. ii., p. 212.]
+
+The toilet of the empress was no less splendid and brilliant. It
+consisted of an elaborate robe with a long train; this robe was of
+silver brocade, with gold bees scattered all over; in front it was
+embroidered into a maze of gold-leaves; at the lower edge was a gold
+fringe; the shoulders alone were bare; long armlets of wrought gold, and
+adorned at the upper part with diamonds, enclosed the arm and covered
+one-half of the hand. It required all the art and grace of Josephine
+to carry this robe, it being without any waist, and, according to the
+fashion of the times, extremely narrow, and yet in wearing it to lose
+naught of her elegance or condescending dignity. At the upper part of
+the dress rose a collar a la Medicis of lace worked in with gold, and
+which Josephine had been constrained to wear, so as at least, through
+some historic details, to make her toilet correspond to the costume
+of the renaissance worn by Napoleon. A gold girdle, adorned with
+thirty-nine diamond rosettes, fastened under the breast her tunic-like
+dress. In her fondness for the antique, Josephine, instead of diamonds
+and pearls, had preferred for bracelets, ear-rings, and necklace,
+some choice stones of rare workmanship. Her beautiful thick hair was
+encircled and held together by a splendid diadem, a masterpiece of
+modern art. This toilet was to be completed, like that of Napoleon,
+before the solemn entrance into the cathedral, by putting on the
+imperial mantle, which was fastened on the shoulders with gold buckles
+and diamond clasps.
+
+At last the imperial toilets were completed; all the dignitaries, as
+well as the imperial family, gathered together in the throne-room,
+ready for the procession. Holding Josephine by the hand, her countenance
+expressing deep emotion, and her eye obscured by the tears shed as a
+price for the solemn marriage of that night, Napoleon appeared in
+the midst of his brilliant courtiers, and received the impressive,
+heart-felt wishes of his family, his brothers and sisters, who pressed
+around him and the empress, and who at this moment, forgetting all envy
+and jealousy, had only words of thankfulness and assurances of love,
+devotedness, and loyalty.
+
+Napoleon replied to them all in the short, comprehensive words which he
+addressed to his brother Joseph, whilst with his naming eyes he examined
+his brothers and sisters in the brilliant costumes of their dignity and
+glory:
+
+“Joseph,” said he, “could our father see us now!” [Footnote: Meneval,
+“Souvenirs,” vol. i., p. 204.]
+
+From the pomp and solemnity of this important moment the thoughts of the
+emperor, for whom the pope was waiting in Notre Dame, wandered far
+away to the gloomy, quiet death-bed of his father, whose last hour was
+embittered by the tormenting thought of leaving his family unprotected
+and with but little means.
+
+The thundering roar of cannon and the chimes of bells proclaimed that
+the emperor and empress, with their train, were now leaving the palace
+to ascend into the wonderful carriage made of gold and glass, and which
+was waiting for them at the Pavilion de l’Horloge to proceed toward the
+cathedral.
+
+This carriage, prepared expressly for this day’s celebration, was of
+enormous size and breadth, with windows on all sides, and entirely alike
+in its front and back seats. It therefore happened that their imperial
+majesties, on entering the carriage, not thinking of the direction to be
+taken, sat down on the front instead of the back seat.
+
+The empress noticed the mistake, and when she laughingly called the
+emperor’s attention to it, they both took the back seat without a
+suspicion that this little error was a bad omen.
+
+Another little mishap occurred before they entered Notre Dame, which
+threw a gloom of sad forebodings and fear over the heart of the empress.
+
+Whilst alighting out of the carriage, the empress, whose hand was
+occupied in the holding and carrying her robe and mantle, let slip
+from her fingers the imperial ring which the pope had brought her for a
+present, and which before the coronation he was to bless, according to
+the accustomed ceremonial, and then place it on her finger as a token of
+remembrance of the holy consecration. This made Josephine tremble, and
+her cheeks turned pale, especially as the ring could nowhere be found.
+It had rolled a considerable distance from the carriage, and only after
+some minutes did Eugene Beauharnais find it and bring it to his mother,
+to her great delight and satisfaction. [Footnote: Aubenas, “Histoire de
+l’Imperatrice Josephine,” vol. ii., p. 283.]
+
+At last the procession entered Notre Dame, and the brilliant solemnity
+began. It is not our purpose to describe here again the ceremony which
+has been in all its details portrayed in so many works, and to repeat
+the solemn addresses and the different events of this great and
+memorable day. It is with Josephine we have to do, and with what
+concerns her individual destiny--that alone claims our attentive
+consideration.
+
+One event, however, is to be mentioned. At the moment the emperor took
+from the altar the so-called crown of Charles the Great, and with firm
+hand placed it on his head--at the moment when he assumed the place of
+the ancient Kings of France, a small stone, which had detached itself
+from the cupola, fell down, touched his head, leaped on his shoulder,
+slipped down his imperial mantle, and rolled over the altar-steps near
+to the pope’s throne, where it remained still until an Italian priest
+picked it up. [Footnote: Abrantes. “Memoires,” vol. vii., p. 258.]
+
+At the moment of his loftiest grandeur the destiny of his future aimed
+its first stone at him, and marked him as the one upon whom its anger
+was to fall.
+
+This was the third evil omen of the day; but fortunately Josephine had
+not noticed it. Her whole soul was absorbed in the sacred rites; and,
+after the emperor had crowned himself, her heart trembled with deep
+emotion and agitation, for now the moment had come when she was to take
+her part in the solemnity.
+
+The Duchess d’Abrantes, who was quite near Josephine, and an immediate
+witness of the whole celebration, depicts the next scene in the
+following words: “The moment when the greatest number of eyes were fixed
+upon the altar-steps where the emperor stood, was when Josephine was
+crowned by him, and was solemnly consecrated Empress of the French. What
+a moment! ... what a homage! What a proof of love manifested to her from
+him who so much loved her!
+
+“David’s painting, and many other pictures taken during the coronation,
+at the very spot and time, have well represented the empress at the
+feet of Napoleon, who crowns her; then the pope, the priests, and
+even persons who were four hundred miles away--as, for instance, the
+emperor’s mother, who was then in Rome, but whom David nevertheless
+brings into his picture. But nothing, however, can give us a true
+description, or even an approximate idea, of this alike touching and
+lofty scene, where a great man by his own efforts ascends a throne, for
+on this occasion he was full of gratitude and emotion.
+
+“When the moment had come for Josephine to take her part in the great
+drama, the empress rose from the throne and approached the altar, where
+the emperor was waiting for her; she was followed by the ladies of the
+palace and by her whole court, while the Princesses Caroline, Julie (the
+wife of Joseph), the Princess Elise, and Louis Bonaparte, carried the
+trail of her robe. One of the most admirable features in the beauty of
+the Empress Josephine was not her fine, graceful figure, but the bearing
+of her head--the gracious and noble manner in which she moved and
+walked. I have had the honor to be introduced to many ‘real princesses,’
+as they are termed, in the Faubourg St. Germain, and I can in all
+sincerity say that I have never seen one who appeared to me so imposing
+as the Empress Josephine. In her, grace and majesty were blended. When
+she put on the grand imperial robes there was no woman whose appearance
+could be more royal in demeanor, and, in reality, none who understood
+the art of occupying a throne as well as she, though she never had been
+instructed in it.
+
+“I read all that I have now said in the eyes of Napoleon. He watched
+with delight the empress as she moved toward him; and as she knelt
+before him, ... as the tears she could not restrain streamed down her
+folded hands, which were lifted up to him more than to God, at that
+moment, when Napoleon, or, much more, when Bonaparte was for her the
+real and visible Providence, there passed over these two beings one of
+those fugitive minutes, unique in its kind, and never to be recalled
+in a whole life, and which fills to overflowing the void of many long
+years. The emperor performed with an unexcelled grace the most minute
+details of every part of the subsequent ceremony, especially when the
+moment came to crown the empress.
+
+“This ceremony was to be performed by the emperor himself, who, after
+he had received the small closed crown surmounted by a cross, placed it
+first on his own head, and then afterward on the head of the empress. He
+performed these two movements with a most exquisite slowness, which was
+indeed admirable. But at the moment when he was to crown her who was for
+him, according to a prophecy, ‘the star of happiness,’ he made himself,
+if I dare use the expression, coquettish. He arranged this little crown
+which was to stand over her coronet of diamonds, and placed it on her
+head, then lifted it up to replace it in another way, as if to promise
+her that this crown would be light and pleasant to her.” [Footnote:
+Abrantes, “Memoires.”]
+
+After this twofold crowning performed by Napoleon himself, the pope,
+surrounded by cardinals and prelates, approached the throne, and
+arriving upon the platform pronounced in a loud voice, spreading his
+hands over their imperial majesties, the ancient Latin formula of
+enthronization: “In hoc solio confirme vos Deus, et in regno aeterno
+secum regnare faciat Christus.” (God establish you on this throne, and
+Christ make you reign with Him in His everlasting kingdom.) He then
+kissed the emperor on the cheeks, and turning himself to the audience,
+cried with a loud voice: “Vivat imperator in aeternum!”
+
+The immense cathedral resounded with one glad shout of thousands of
+voices: “Long live the emperor! long live the empress!” Napoleon, calm
+and reserved, answered this acclamation with a friendly motion of the
+head. Josephine stood near him, pale, deeply moved, her eyes, full of
+tears, fixed on the emperor, as if she would pray to him, and not to
+God, for the prosperity and blessing of the future.
+
+Meanwhile the pope had descended from his throne, and while he
+approached the altar, the bands played “Long live the emperor,” which
+the Abbe Kose had composed for this solemnity. Then the pope, standing
+before the altar, intoned the Te Deum, which was at once executed by
+four choirs and two orchestras, and which completed the ecclesiastical
+part of the ceremony.
+
+This was followed by a secular one. The emperor took, on the Bible
+which Cardinal Fesch presented to him, the oath prescribed in the
+constitution, and whereby he pledged himself solemnly to maintain “the
+most wise results of the revolution, to defend the integrity of the
+territory, and to rule only in the interest of the happiness and glory
+of the French people.” After he had taken this oath, a herald approached
+the edge of the platform, and, according to ancient custom, cried out in
+a loud voice: “The most mighty and glorious Emperor Napoleon, Emperor of
+the French, is crowned and enthroned! Long live the emperor!”
+
+A tremendous, prolonged shout of joy followed this proclamation: “Long
+live the emperor! Long live the empress!” and then an artillery
+salute thundered forth from behind the cathedral, and a similar salute
+responded from the Tuileries, and from the Invalides, and proclaimed to
+all Paris that France had again found a ruler, that a new dynasty had
+been lifted up above the French people.
+
+At this moment from the Place de Carrousel ascended an enormous air
+balloon surmounted by an ornamental, gigantic crown, and which, on the
+wings of the wind, was to announce to France the same tidings proclaimed
+to Paris by bell and cannon: “The republic of France is converted into
+an empire! The free republicans are now the subjects of the Emperor
+Napoleon I.!”
+
+The gigantic balloon arose amid the joyous shouts of the crowd, and soon
+disappeared from the gaze of the spectators. It flew, as a trophy of
+victory of Napoleon I., all over France. Thousands saw it and understood
+its silent and yet eloquent meaning, but no one could tell where it
+had fallen, finally, after many weeks, the emperor, who had often asked
+after the balloon’s fate, received the wished-for answer. The balloon
+had fallen in Rome, upon Nero’s grave!
+
+Napoleon remained silent a moment at this news: a shadow passed over his
+countenance; then his brow brightened again, and he exclaimed: “Well, I
+would sooner see it there, than in the dust of the streets!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLI. DAYS OF HAPPINESS.
+
+
+The prophecy of the old woman in Martinique had now been fulfilled:
+Josephine was more than a queen, she was an empress! She stood on life’s
+summit, and a world lay at her feet. Before the husband who stood at her
+side, the princes and the people of Europe bowed in the dust, and paid
+him homage--the hero who by new victories had won ever-increasing fame
+and fresh laurels, who had defeated Austria, Prussia, and Russia, and
+who had engraven on the rolls of French glory the mighty victories of
+Austerlitz, Jena, and Eylau!
+
+Josephine stood on the pinnacle of life; she saw the princes of foreign
+states come to France as conquered, as captives, and as allies, to bring
+to her husband and to herself the homage of subjects; she saw devoted
+courtiers and flatterers; pomp and splendor surrounded her on every
+side.
+
+Amid this glory she remained simple and modest--she never gave up her
+cheerful gentleness and mildness; she never forgot the days which had
+been; she never allowed herself to be exalted by the brilliancy of the
+moment to an ambitious pride or to a lofty self-conceit. The friends of
+the widow Josephine de Beauharnais always found in the empress Josephine
+a thankful, obliging friend, ever ready to appeal to her husband, and
+intercede with him in their behalf. To the royalists, when weary of
+their long exile, though poor and helpless still loyal to the royal
+family--when they returned to France with bleeding feet and wounded
+hearts, to implore from the Emperor of the French the privilege of
+dying in their native country--to them all Josephine was a counsellor,
+a helper, a compassionate protectress. With deep interest she inquired
+from them how it fared with the Count de Lille, whom her heart yet
+named as the King of France, though her lips dared not utter it. All the
+assistance she gave to the royalists, and the protection she afforded
+them, oftentimes despite Napoleon’s anger, all the loyalty, the
+generosity, and self-denial she manifested, were the quiet sacrifice
+which she offered to God for her own happiness, and with which she
+sought to propitiate the revengeful spirit of the old monarchy,
+loitering perchance in the Tuileries, where she now, in the place of the
+wife of the Count de Lille, was enthroned as sovereign.
+
+Josephine’s heart was unwearied and inexhaustible in well-doing and in
+liberality; if Napoleon was truly the emperor and the father of the army
+and of the soldiers, Josephine was equally the empress and the mother of
+the poor and unfortunate.
+
+But she was also, in the true sense of the word, the empress of the
+happy. No one understood so well as she did how to be the leader at
+festivals, to preside at a joyous company, to give new attractions by
+her gracious womanly sweetness and amiableness, or to receive homage
+with such beaming eyes, and to make others happy while she herself
+seemed to be made happy by them.
+
+Amid this life full of splendor and grandeur there were sad hours,
+when the sun was shadowed by clouds, and the eyes of the Empress of the
+French filled with such bitter tears as only the wife and the widow of
+General Beauharnais could shed.
+
+Three things especially contributed to draw these tears from the eyes of
+the Empress Josephine: her jealousy, her extravagance, and, lastly, her
+childlessness. Josephine was jealous, for she not only loved Napoleon,
+she worshipped him as her providence, her future, her happiness. Her
+heart was yet so full of passion, and so young, that it hoped for much
+happiness, and could not submit to that resignation which is
+satisfied to give more love than it receives, and instead of the
+warm, intoxicating cup of love, to receive the cool, sober beverage of
+friendship. Josephine wanted not merely to be the friend, but to remain
+Napoleon’s beloved one; and she looked upon all these beautiful women
+who adorned the imperial court of the Tuileries as enemies who came to
+dispute with her the love of her husband.
+
+And, alas! she had too often to acknowledge herself defeated in this
+struggle, to see her rivals triumph, and for weeks to retreat into
+the background before the victorious one who may have succeeded in
+enchaining the inconstant heart of Napoleon, and to make the proud
+Caesar bow to her love. But afterward, when love’s short dream had
+vanished, Napoleon, penitent, would come back with renewed love to
+his Josephine, whom he still called “the star of his happiness;” and
+oftentimes, touched by her tears, he sacrificed to her anxiety and
+jealousy a love-caprice, and became more affectionate, more agreeable
+even, than when he had forsaken her; for then, to prove to her
+how unreserved was his confidence, he often told her of his new
+love-adventures, and was even indiscreet enough at times to betray all
+his gallantries to her.
+
+The second object of the constant solicitude and trials of the empress
+was her extravagance. She did not understand how to economize; her
+indolent creole nature found it impossible to calculate, to bring
+numbers into columns, or to question tedious figures, to see if debt and
+purse agreed--if her generous heart must be prevented from giving to
+the poor--from rendering assistance to the helpless, or from spending
+handfuls for the suffering; to see if her taste for the arts was no
+longer to be gratified with pictures, paintings, statues, cameos,
+and other objects of vertu, which filled her with so much joy and
+admiration; if her elegant manners and fondness for finery and dress
+were to be denied all that was costly, all that was fashionable, and
+which seemed to have been expressly invented for the adorning of an
+empress. And when, in some of those grave, melancholy hours of internal
+anxiety, the cruel phantoms of the future reckonings arose before her
+and warned her to stop purchasing, Josephine comforted herself with the
+idea that it was Napoleon himself who had requested her to be to all the
+ladies of his court a pattern of elegance, and to be distinguished above
+all by the most brilliant, the choicest, the costliest toilet.
+
+The emperor would often come into the cabinet of the empress, and to the
+great astonishment of her ladies-in-waiting would enter into the most
+minute details of her dress, and designate the robes and ornaments which
+he desired her to wear on some special festivity. It even happened in
+Aix-la-Chapelle that Napoleon, who had come into the toilet-room of the
+empress and found that she had put on a robe which did not please him,
+poured ink on the costly dress of silver brocade, so as to compel her
+to put on another. [Footnote: Avrillon, “Memoires,” vol. i., p. 98; and
+Constant, “Memoires,” vol. iii., p. 103.]
+
+And then how was it possible to resist the temptation of purchasing
+all those beautiful things which were constantly brought to her for
+inspection? Josephine loved what was beautiful, tasteful, and artistic;
+all works of art which she admired must be purchased, whatever price was
+asked; and when the merchants came to offer to the empress their superb
+and splendid articles of luxury, how could she have the cruel courage
+to repel them? How often did she purchase objects of extraordinary value
+for which she had no need, simply to please herself and the merchant!
+Every thing that was beautiful and tasteful pleased her, and she must
+possess it. No one had a more remarkably fine taste than Josephine, but
+the artists, the manufacturers, the merchants, also had fine taste,
+and they came to the empress with the best they had; it was therefore
+natural that she should purchase from them But unfortunately the happy
+moment of the purchase was followed by the unhappy one of the payment,
+and the outlay was constantly beyond the income of the empress, whose
+treasury, besides, was so often emptied in charities, pensions, and
+presents. Then when the merchants urged payment, and the purse was
+empty, Josephine had recourse to the emperor, and had to entreat him to
+meet her expenses, and then came violent scenes, reproaches, and
+bitter words. The emperor was angry, Josephine wept, and payment and
+reconciliation followed these scenes. Josephine promised to the emperor
+and to herself to be more economical in the future, and no longer to
+purchase what she could not pay for, but ever came the temptation, with
+all its inviting treasures, and being no saintly Anthony, she would fall
+a prey to the temptation.
+
+The third and thickest cloud which often darkened the serene sky of
+her happiness after her marriage was, as already said, Josephine’s
+childlessness. This was the bitter drop which was mixed in the golden
+cup of her joy--this was the sting which, however deeply hid under the
+roses, still reached her heart and wounded it painfully. She had no
+children who could call Napoleon father, no offspring to prolong the
+future of the new dynasty. And therefore the firmer the emperor’s
+power became, the higher he stood above all other princes, the more
+distressing and the more anxious were the emotions which filled the
+heart of Josephine, the louder was the warning voice which ceased not to
+whisper to her heart, and which she forgot only now and then under the
+glow of Napoleon’s assurances of love, or amid the noise of festivities.
+This voice whispered: “You must give place to another. Napoleon will
+reject you, to marry a wife of princely birth, who will give an heir to
+his empire!”
+
+How Josephine strove to silence these agonizing whisperings of her
+heart! With what restlessness of sorrow she rushed into the gayeties and
+amusements of a court life! How she sought, in charitable occupations,
+in the joys of society, in every thing which was congruous to the life
+of a woman, of an empress, to obtain the forgetfulness of her torments!
+With what envious attention she listened to the whispers of courtiers,
+scrutinized their features, read their looks, to find out if they still
+believed in the existence of an empress in the wife of Napoleon! With
+what jealous solicitude she observed all the families on European
+thrones, and considered what princesses among them were marriageable,
+and whether Napoleon’s relations with the fathers of such princesses
+were more intimate than those with the other princes!
+
+And then she ever sought to deafen this vigilant, warning voice, by
+comforting herself with the thought that the emperor had adopted his
+brother’s son, the son of Hortense, and that he had made him his heir,
+and consequently the throne and the dynasty were secure in a successor.
+
+But alas! Fate would not leave this last comfort to the unfortunate
+empress. In May of the year 1807, Prince Napoleon, the crown prince
+of Holland, Napoleon’s adopted son and successor, died of a child’s
+disease, which in a few days tore him away from the arms of his
+despairing mother.
+
+Josephine’s anguish was boundless, and in the first hours of this
+misfortune, which with such annihilating force fell upon her, the
+empress, as if in a state of hallucination, gazed into the future,
+and, with prophetic voice, exclaimed: “Now I am lost! Now is divorce
+certain!”
+
+Yes, she was lost! She felt it, she knew it! Nothing the emperor did
+to pacify her anguish--the numerous expressions of his love, of his
+sympathy, of his winning affection--nothing could any longer deceive
+Josephine. The voices which had so long whispered in her breast now
+cried aloud: “You must give place to another! Napoleon will reject you,
+so as to have a son!”
+
+But the emperor seemed still to try to dispel these fears, and, to give
+to his Josephine a new proof of his love and faithfulness, he chose
+Eugene de Beauharnais, the son of Josephine, for his adopted heir, and
+named him Vice-King of Italy, and gave him in marriage the daughter of
+the King of Bavaria; he thus afforded to Europe the proof that he still
+considered Josephine as his wife, and that he desired to be shown to
+her all the respect due to her dignity, for he travelled to Munich in
+company with her in order to be present at the nuptials.
+
+This journey to attend her son’s marriage was the last pleasure of
+Josephine--her last days of honors and happiness. Once more she saw
+herself surrounded by all the splendor and the pomp of her rank; once
+more she was publicly honored and admired as the wife of the first and
+greatest ruler of the world, the wife of the Emperor Napoleon.
+
+Perhaps Josephine, in these hours of happiness, when as empress, wife,
+and mother, she enjoyed the purest and most sacred pleasure, forgot the
+sad forebodings and fears of her soul. Perhaps she now believed that,
+since Napoleon had adopted her Eugene as his son, and had given to this
+son a wife of royal extraction, Fate would be propitious to her; that
+the emperor would be satisfied with the son of his choice, and that the
+future scions of the royal princess would be the heirs of his throne.
+
+But one word of Napoleon frightened her out of this ephemeral security
+into which happiness had lulled her.
+
+Josephine wept as she bade farewell to her son; she was comfortless when
+with his young wife Eugene left for Italy. She complained to Napoleon,
+in justification of her tears, that she should seldom see her son, that
+now he was lost to his mother’s heart.
+
+The emperor, who at first had endeavored to comfort her felt at last
+wounded by her sorrow.
+
+“You weep, Josephine,” said he, hastily, “but you have no reasonable
+motives to do so; you weep simply because you are separated from your
+son. If already the absence of your children causes you so much sorrow,
+think then what I must endure! The tenderness which you feel for your
+children makes me cruelly experience how unhappy it is for me to have
+none.” [Footnote: Avrillon, “Memoires sur l’Imperatrice Josephine,” vol.
+i., p. 202.]
+
+Josephine trembled, and her tears ceased flowing in the presence of the
+emperor, but only to fall more abundantly as soon as he had left her.
+Now she wept no longer at her separation from her son; her tears were
+still more bitter and painful--she grieved over the coming future; she
+wept because those voices which happiness for a moment had deafened, now
+spoke more loudly--more fearfully and menacingly shouted: “Napoleon will
+reject you! He will choose for himself a wife of royal birth, who will
+give an heir to his throne and his empire.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLII. DIVORCE.
+
+
+It was at last decided! The storm which had so long and so fearfully
+rolled over Josephine’s head was to burst, and with one single flash
+destroy her earthly happiness, her love, her future!
+
+The peace of Vienna had been ratified on the 13th of October, 1809.
+Napoleon passed the three long months of peace negotiations in Vienna
+and in Schonbrunn, while Josephine, solitary and full of sad misgivings,
+lived quietly in the retreat of Malmaison.
+
+Now that peace was signed, Napoleon returned to France with fresh
+laurels and new crowns of victory. But not, as usual after so long
+an absence, did he greet Josephine with the tenderness and joy of a
+home-returning husband. He approached her with clouded brow; with a
+proud, cold demeanor; with the mien of a ruling master, before whom all
+must bow, even his wife, even his own heart.
+
+At Fontainebleau, whither the emperor in a few, short, commanding
+words--in a letter of three lines--had invited the empress, did the
+first interview of Josephine and Napoleon take place. She hastened to
+meet her husband with a cheerful face and beaming eyes. He, however,
+received her coldly, and endeavored to hide his feelings of uneasiness
+and shame under a repulsive, domineering manner.
+
+He returned to his home victorious; the whole world lay conquered at
+his feet; he was triumphant. He had so deeply humiliated the pride of
+Austria that she not only accepted his harsh terms of peace, but, as
+once men had appeased the Minotaur by the sacrifice of the most amiable
+and most beautiful maiden, so Austria had asked in a low voice whether
+the daughter of the emperor, Maria Louisa might not give to the
+alliance of Austria and France the consecration of love. Napoleon
+eagerly entered into the scheme; and while Josephine, as his married
+wife before God and man, stood yet at his side, he already had begun
+negotiations, the object of which was to make the daughter of the
+Austrian emperor his wife, and before Napoleon returned to France those
+negotiations had been brought to a satisfactory result.
+
+The ambitious Maria Louisa was to be the wife of the Emperor of the
+French. Nothing more was wanted but that Napoleon should reject his
+legitimate wife, whom the pope had anointed! He had but to disenthrone
+her who for fifteen years, with true and tender love, had shared his
+existence. He had only to be divorced publicly and solemnly, so as
+immediately to possess a bride, the daughter of an emperor!
+
+Napoleon came to Fontainebleau to accomplish this cruel task, to break
+at once his marriage with Josephine and her heart. He knew what terrible
+sufferings he was preparing for her; he himself quailed under the
+anguish she was to endure; his heart was full of sorrow and woe, and
+yet his resolution was irrevocable. Policy had controlled his heart,
+ambition had conquered his love, and the man was determined to sacrifice
+his wife to the emperor.
+
+Josephine felt this at the first word he addressed her, at the first
+look he gave her, after so long a separation, and her heart shrank
+within itself in bitter anguish, while a stream of tears started from
+her eyes.
+
+But Napoleon asked not for the cause of these tears; he had not the
+courage to wage an open war with this brave, loving heart, and to subdue
+her love and despair with the two-edged sword of his state policy and
+craftiness. He did not wish to utter the word; he wanted to make her
+feel what an abyss was now open between them; all confidential and
+social intercourse was to be avoided, so that the empress might become
+conscious that love and fellowship of hearts had ceased also.
+
+On the evening after the first interview the empress found that the door
+of communication between her apartments and those of the emperor had
+been closed. Napoleon did not, as had been his wont, bid her good-night
+with a cordial and friendly kiss, but, in the presence of her ladies, he
+dismissed her with a cold salutation. The next day the emperor expressly
+avoided her society; and when at rare moments he was with her, he was
+so taciturn, so morose and cold, that the empress had not the courage to
+ask for an explanation, or to reproach him, but, trembling and afraid,
+she bowed under the iron pressure of his severe, angry looks.
+
+To prevent their being with each other alone, and to avoid this horrible
+solitude, dreaded alike by Napoleon and Josephine, the emperor sent the
+next day for all the princes and princesses of his family to come to
+Fontainebleau. His sisters, no longer kept in control by the domineering
+will of the emperor, made Josephine feel their malice and enmity; they
+found pleasure in letting the empress see their own ascendency, their
+secure position, and in treating her with coldness and disrespect. The
+emperor, instead of guarding Josephine against these humiliations, had
+the cruel courage to increase them; for, without reserve or modesty,
+and in the very presence of Josephine, he offered the most familiar and
+positive attentions to two ladies of his court--ladies whom he honored
+with special favor. [Footnote: Thiers, “Histoire du Consulat et de
+l’Empire,” vol. xi., p. 323.]
+
+It was death-like agony which Josephine suffered in those days of
+Fontainebleau; it was a cruel martyrdom, which she, however, endured
+with all the gentleness of her nature, with the devotedness and
+uncomplaining anguish of true and genuine love.
+
+Napoleon could not endure this. The sight of this yet beloved pale face,
+with its sweet, angelic smile, lacerated his heart and tortured him with
+reproaches. He wanted to have festivities and amusements, so as not to
+witness this quiet, devoted anguish, so as not to read every day in the
+sorrowful, red eyes of Josephine, the story of nights passed in tears.
+
+The court returned to Paris, there to celebrate the new victorious peace
+with brilliant feasts. Napoleon, so as to be delivered from the tearful
+companionship of Josephine, made the journey on horseback, and never
+once rode near her carriage.
+
+In Paris had begun at once a series of festivities, at which German
+princes, the Kings of Saxony, of Bavaria, and of Wurtemberg, were
+present, to congratulate Napoleon on his victories in Germany. The
+Empress Josephine, by virtue of her rank, had to appear at these
+receptions; she had, although in the deepest despondency, to wear a
+smile on her lip, to appear as empress at the side of the man who met
+her with coldness and estrangement, and whom she yet loved with the true
+love of a wife! She had to see the courtiers, with the keen instinct of
+their race, desert her, leaving around her person an insulting void and
+vacancy. Her heart was tortured with anguish and woe, and yet she could
+not uproot her love from it; she did not have the courage to speak the
+decisive word, and to desire the divorce which she knew hung over her,
+and which at any moment might agonize her heart!
+
+Josephine did not possess the cowardice to commit suicide; she was ready
+to receive the fatal blow, but she could not plunge the dagger into her
+own heart.
+
+Napoleon, unable to endure these tortures, longed to bring them to an
+end. He secretly made all the necessary arrangements, and communicated
+to the first chancellor, Cambaceres, his irrevocable resolution to be
+divorced from the empress. He, however, notified him that he wanted
+this act of separation to be accomplished in the most respectful
+and honorable form for Josephine, and he therefore, with Cambaceres,
+prepared and decided upon all the details of this public divorce.
+
+It only remained now to find some one who would announce to Josephine
+her fate, who would communicate to her the emperor’s determination.
+Napoleon had not the courage to do it himself, and he wanted to confide
+this duty to the Vice-King Eugene, whom for this purpose he had invited
+to Paris.
+
+But Eugene declined to become a messenger of evil tidings to his
+mother; and when Napoleon turned to Hortense, she refused to give to
+her mother’s heart the mortal stroke. The emperor, deeply touched by the
+sorrow manifested by the children of Josephine, was not able to repress
+his tears. He wept with them over their blasted happiness--their
+betrayed love. But his tears could not make him swerve from his
+resolution.
+
+“The nation has done so much for me,” said he, “that I owe it the
+sacrifice of my dearest inclinations. The peace of France demands that I
+choose a new companion. Since, for many months, the empress has lived
+in the torments of uncertainty, and every thing is now ready for a new
+marriage, we must therefore come to a final explanation.” [Footnote:
+Lavalette, “Memoires,” vol. ii., p. 44.]
+
+But as none could be found to carry this fatal news to Josephine,
+Napoleon had to take upon himself the unwelcome task.
+
+Wearied with the tears of the slighted empress, with the reproaches of
+his own conscience and with his own sufferings, Napoleon suddenly broke
+the sad, gloomy silence which had been so long maintained between him
+and his wife; in answer to her tears and reproaches, he told her that it
+was full time now to arrive at a final conclusion; that he had resolved
+to form new ties; that the interest of the state demanded from them both
+an enormous sacrifice; that he reckoned on her courage and devotedness
+to consent to a divorce, to which he himself acceded only with the
+greatest reluctance. [Footnote: Thiers, “Histoire du Consulat,” vol.
+xi., p. 340.]
+
+But Josephine did not hear the last words. At the word divorce she
+swooned with a death-like shriek; and Napoleon, alarmed at the sight of
+her insensibility, called out to the officers in waiting to help him to
+carry the empress into her rooms upon her bed.
+
+Such hours of despair, of bitter pain, of writhing, agonized love did
+Josephine now endure! How courageous, yet how difficult, the struggle
+against the wretchedness of a rejected love! How angrily and scornfully
+she would rise up against her cruel fate! How lovingly, humbly, gently
+she would acquiesce in it, as to a long-expected, inevitable fatality!
+
+These were long days of pain and distress; but Josephine was not alone
+in her sufferings, for the emperor’s heart was also touched with her
+quiet endurance, and her deep agony at this separation.
+
+At last the empress came out victorious from these conflicts of heart
+and soul, and she repressed her tears with the firm will of a noble,
+loving woman! She bade her son Eugene announce to the emperor that she
+assented to the divorce on two conditions: first, that her own offspring
+should not be exiled or rejected, but that they should still remain
+Napoleon’s adopted children, and maintain their rank and position at his
+court; secondly, that she should be allowed to remain in France, and,
+if possible, in the vicinity of Paris, so that, as she said with a sweet
+smile, she might be near the emperor, and still hope in the pleasure of
+seeing him.
+
+Napoleon’s countenance manifested violent agitation when Eugene
+communicated to him his mother’s conditions; for a long time he paced
+the room to and fro, his hands behind his back, and unable to gather
+strength enough to return an answer. Then, with a trembling voice,
+he said that he not only granted all these conditions, but that they
+corresponded entirely with the wishes of his heart, and that he would
+add to them a third condition, namely, that Josephine should still be
+honored and treated by him and by the world as empress, and that she
+should still be surrounded with all the honors belonging to that rank.
+
+There was yet wanting, for the full offering of the sacrifice, the
+public and solemn act of divorcement; but before that could take place
+it was necessary to make the requisite preparations, to arrange the
+future household of the divorced empress, and to prepare every thing for
+Josephine’s reception in Malmaison, whither she desired to retire
+from the world. The mournful solemnity was put off until the 15th of
+December, and until then Josephine, according to the rules of etiquette,
+was to appear before the world as the ruling empress, the wife of
+Napoleon. Twice it was necessary to perform the painful duty of
+appearing publicly in all the pomp of her imperial dignity, and to wear
+the heavy burden of that crown which already had fallen from her head.
+On the morning of the 3d of December she had to be present at the
+chanting of the Te Deum in Notre Dame, in thanksgiving for the peace
+of Vienna, and to appear at the ball which the city of Paris that same
+evening gave to the emperor and empress.
+
+This ball was the last festivity which Josephine attended as empress,
+but even then she received not all the honors which were due to her
+as such. Napoleon himself had given orders that the ladies of Paris,
+gathered in the Hotel de Ville, with the wife of the governor of the
+capital, and the Duchess d’Abrantes at their head, should not, as usual,
+meet the empress at the foot of the stairs, but that they should quietly
+await her approach in the throne-room, while the marshal of ceremonies
+would alone accompany her up the stairs.
+
+The Duchess d’Abrantes, deeply affected by this order of the emperor,
+which at once revealed the sad secret of the approaching future, had
+reluctantly to submit to this arrangement, which so cruelly broke the
+established etiquette. She has herself, in her memoirs, given full
+particulars of this evening, and her words are so touching and so full
+of sentiment that we cannot refuse to make them known here:
+
+“We, therefore,” says she, [Footnote: Abrantes, “Memoires.” vol. xii.,
+p. 289.] “ascended the throne-room, and were no sooner seated, than the
+drums began to beat, and the empress entered. I shall never forget that
+figure, in the costume which so marvellously suited her... never will
+this gentle face, now wrapped in mourning crape, fade away from my
+memory. It was evident that she was not prepared for the solitude which
+she had found on the grand staircase; and yet Junot, in spite of the
+risk of being blamed by the emperor, went to receive her, and he had
+even managed that the empress should meet on the stairs a few ladies
+who, it is true, did not very well know how they came and what they had
+to do there. The empress, however, was not deceived; as she entered the
+grand hall and approached the throne on which, in the presence of the
+public of the capital, she was to sit probably for the last time....her
+feet trembled and her eyes filled with tears. ....I tried to catch her
+eyes; I would willingly have sunk at her feet and told her how much I
+suffered....She understood me, and looked at me with the most agonizing
+gaze which perhaps was ever in her eyes since that now blighted crown
+had been placed on her head. That look spoke of agony--it revealed
+depths of sorrow!... What must she have suffered on this awful
+day!....She felt wretched, dying, and yet she smiled! Oh, what a torture
+was that crown!... Junot stood by her.
+
+“‘You were not afraid of Jupiter’s wrath,’ said I to him afterward.
+
+“‘No,’ said he, with a gloomy look, ‘no, I fear him not, when he is
+wrong....’
+
+“The drums beat a second time; they announced the emperor’s approach....
+A few minutes after he came in, walking rapidly, and accompanied by the
+Queen of Naples and the King of Westphalia. The heat was extraordinary,
+though it was cold out of doors. The Queen of Naples, whose gracious,
+charming smile seemed to demand from the Parisians the salutation,
+‘Welcome to Paris,’ spoke to every one, and with the expression of
+uncommon goodness. Napoleon, also, who wished to appear friendly, walked
+up and down the room, talking and questioning, followed by Berthier, who
+fairly skipped at his side, fulfilling more the duties of a chamberlain
+than those of a connetable. A trifling circumstance in reference to
+Berthier struck me. The emperor, who for some time had been seated on
+his arm-chair near the empress, descended the steps of the throne to
+go once more around the hall; at the moment he rose I saw him bend down
+toward the empress, probably to tell her that she was to accompany
+him. He rose up first; Berthier, who had stood behind him, rushed on to
+follow his master; the empress was already standing up, when his feet
+caught in the train of her mantle, and he nearly fell down, causing the
+empress almost to fall. However, he disentangled himself, and, without
+one word of excuse to the empress, he followed the emperor. Certainly
+Berthier had not the intention to be wanting in respect to the empress;
+but he knew the secret--he knew the whole drama soon to be performed....
+and assuredly he would not have so acted one year ago as he did
+to-day..... The empress had remained standing with a marvellous dignity;
+she smiled as if the accident was the result of mere awkward-ness....
+but her eyes were full of tears, and her lips trembled....”
+
+At last the 15th of December had come; the day on which Josephine was
+to endure the most cruel agony of her life, the day on which she was
+solemnly to descend from the throne and bid farewell to her whole
+brilliant past, and commence a despised, lonely, gloomy future.
+
+In the large cabinet of ceremonies were gathered on this day, at noon,
+the emperor, the Empress Josephine, the emperor’s mother, the King and
+Queen of Holland, the King and Queen of Westphalia, the King and Queen
+of Naples, the Vice-king Eugene, the Princess Pauline Borghese, the
+high-chancellor Cambaceres, and the secretary of civil affairs, St. Jean
+d’Angely. Josephine was pale and trembling; her children were agitated,
+and hiding their tears under an appearance of quietude, so as to instil
+courage into their mother.
+
+Napoleon, standing upright, his hand in that of the empress, read with
+tremulous voice:
+
+“My cousin, prince state-chancellor, I have dispatched you an order to
+summon you hither into my cabinet for the purpose of communicating to
+you the resolution which I and the empress, my much-beloved wife, have
+taken. I am rejoiced that the kings, queens, and princesses, my brothers
+and sisters, my brothers-in-law and sisters-in-law, my daughter-in-law
+and my son-in-law, who also is my adopted son, as well as my mother, are
+here present to hear what I have to say.
+
+“The policy of my empire, the interest and wants of my people, direct
+all my actions, and now demand that I should leave children heirs of the
+love I have for my people, and heirs of this throne to which Providence
+has exalted me. However, for many years past, I have lost the hope of
+having children through the marriage of my beloved wife, the Empress
+Josephine; and this obliges me to sacrifice the sweetest inclinations of
+my heart, so as to consult only the welfare of the state, and for that
+cause to desire the dissolution of my marriage.
+
+“Already advanced to my fortieth year, I still may hope to live long
+enough to bring up in my sentiments and thoughts the children whom it
+may please Providence to give me. God knows how much this resolution has
+cost my heart; but there is no sacrifice too great for my courage if it
+can be shown to me that such a sacrifice is necessary to the welfare of
+France.
+
+“It is necessary for me to add that, far from having any cause of
+complaint, I have, contrariwise, but to praise the devotedness and
+affection of my much-beloved wife; she has embellished fifteen years
+of my life; the remembrance of these years will therefore ever remain
+engraven on my heart. She has been crowned at my hands; it is my will
+that she retain the rank and title of empress, and especially that she
+never doubt my sentiments, and that she ever hold me as her best and
+dearest friend.”
+
+When he came to the words “she has embellished fifteen years of my
+life,” tears started to Napoleon’s eyes, and, with a voice trembling
+through emotion, he read the concluding words.
+
+It was now Josephine’s turn. She began to read the paper which had been
+prepared for her:
+
+“With the permission of our mighty and dear husband, I must declare
+that, whereas I can no longer cherish the hope of having children to
+meet the wants of his policy and the wants of France, I am ready to give
+the highest proof of affection and devotedness which was ever given upon
+earth....”
+
+Josephine could proceed no further; sobs choked her voice. She tried to
+continue, but her trembling lips could no more utter a word. She handed
+to Count St. Jean d’Angely the paper, who, with tremulous voice, read as
+follows:
+
+“I have obtained every thing from his goodness; his hand has crowned me,
+and on the exaltation of this throne I have received only proofs of the
+sympathy and love of the French people.
+
+“I believe it is but manifesting my gratitude for these sentiments when
+I consent to the dissolution of a marriage which is an obstacle to the
+welfare of France, since it deprives her of the happiness of being
+one day ruled by the posterity of a great man, whom Providence has so
+manifestly favored, as through him to bring to an end the horrors of
+a terrible revolution, and to re-establish the altar, the throne, and
+social order. The dissolution of my marriage will not, however, alter
+the sentiments of my heart; the emperor will always find in me his most
+devoted friend. I know how much this action, made incumbent upon him by
+policy and by the great interests in view, has troubled his heart; but
+we, the one and the other, are proud of the sacrifice which we offer to
+the welfare of our country.”
+
+When he had finished, Napoleon, visibly affected, embraced Josephine,
+took her hand, and led her back to her apartments, where he soon left
+her insensible in the arms of her children. [Footnote: Thiers, “Histoire
+du Consulat,” etc., vol. xi., p. 349.]
+
+Napoleon himself, sad and silent, returned to his cabinet, where, in a
+state of complete exhaustion, he fell into an easy-chair.
+
+On the evening of the same day he again visited Josephine, to pass a few
+hours with her in quiet, undisturbed communion; to speak in tenderness
+and love of the future, to weep with her, and, full of deepest emotion
+and sincerity, to assure her of his undying gratitude for the past, and
+of his abiding friendship for the future.
+
+Josephine passed the night in tears, struggling with her heart,
+sometimes breaking into bitter complaints and reproaches, which she
+immediately repressed with that gentleness and mildness so much her own,
+and with that love which never for a moment departed from her breast.
+
+There remained yet to perform the last, the most painful scene of this
+great, tearful drama. Josephine had to leave the Tuileries; she had
+forever to retire from the place which she so long had occupied at her
+husband’s side; she had to descend into the open grave of her mournful
+abandonment; as a widow, to part with the corpse of her love and of the
+past, and to put on mourning apparel for a husband who was not yet dead,
+but who only rejected her to give his hand and his heart to another
+woman.
+
+The next day at two o’clock, the moment had come for Josephine to leave
+the Tuileries, to make room for the yet unknown wife of the future.
+Napoleon wanted to leave Paris at the same moment, and pass a few days
+of quiet and solitude in Trianon.
+
+The carriages of the emperor and empress were both ready; the last
+farewell of husband and wife, now to part forever, had yet to be said.
+M. de Meneval, who was the sole witness of those sad moments, gives of
+them a most affecting description, which bears upon its face the merit
+of truth and impartiality.
+
+“When it was announced to the emperor that the carriage was ready, he
+stood up, took his hat, and said: ‘Meneval, come with me.’
+
+“I followed him through the narrow winding stairs which led from his
+room into that of the empress. She was alone, and seemed absorbed in
+the saddest thoughts, At the noise we made in entering she rose up and
+eagerly threw herself, sobbing, upon the neck of the emperor, who
+drew her to his breast and embraced her several times; but Josephine,
+overcome by excitement, had fainted. I hastened to ring for assistance.
+The emperor, to avoid the renewal of a painful scene, which it was not
+in his power to prevent, placed the empress in my arms as soon as he
+perceived her senses return, and ordered me not to leave her, and then
+he hurried away through the halls of the first story, at whose gate
+his carriage was waiting. Josephine became immediately conscious of the
+emperor’s absence; her tears and sobs redoubled. Her women, who had
+now entered, laid her on a sofa, and busied themselves with tender
+solicitude to bring her relief. In her bewilderment she had seized my
+hands, and urgently entreated me to tell the emperor not to forget her,
+and to assure him of her devotedness, which would outlast every trial.
+I had to promise her that at my arrival in Trianon I would wait upon the
+emperor and see that he would write to her. It caused her pain to see
+me leave, as if my departure tore away the last bond which united her to
+the emperor. I left her, deeply affected by so true a sorrow and by so
+sincere a devotion. During the whole journey I was deeply moved, and
+could not but bewail the merciless political considerations which tore
+violently apart the bonds of so faithful an affection for the sake
+of contracting a new union, which, after all, contained but uncertain
+chances.
+
+“In Trianon I told the emperor all that had happened since his
+departure, and I conveyed to him the message intrusted to me by the
+empress. The emperor was still suffering from the emotions caused by
+this farewell scene. He spoke warmly of Josephine’s qualities, of the
+depth and sincerity of the sentiments she cherished for him; he looked
+upon her as a devoted friend, and, in fact, he has ever maintained for
+her a heart-felt affection. The very same evening he sent her a letter
+to console her in her solitude. When he learned that she was sad and
+wept much, he wrote to her again, complained tenderly of her want of
+courage, and told her how deeply this troubled him.” [Footnote: Meneval,
+“Napoleon et Marie Louise.--Souvenirs Historiques,” vol. i., pp.
+230-232.]
+
+It is true Josephine’s sorrow was bitter, and the first night of
+solitude in Malmaison was especially distressing and horrible. But even
+in these hours of painful struggle the empress maintained her gentleness
+and mildness of character. Mademoiselle d’Avrillon, one of the ladies in
+waiting, has given her testimony to that effect:
+
+“I was with the empress during the greater part of the night,” writes
+she; “sleep was impossible, and time passed away in conversation.
+The empress was moved to the very depth of her heart; it is true, she
+complained of her fate, but in expressions so gentle, in so resigned a
+manner, that tears would come to her eyes. There was no bitterness
+in her words, not even during this first night when the blow which
+destroyed her, had fallen upon her; she spoke of the emperor with the
+same love, with the same respect, as she had always done. Her grief
+was most acute: she suffered as a wife, as a mother, and with all the
+wounded sensitiveness of a woman, but she endured her affliction with
+courage, and remained unchanged in gentleness, love, and goodness.”
+ [Footnote: Avrillon, “Memoires,” vol. ii., p. 166.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIII. THE DIVORCED.
+
+
+Josephine had accepted her fate, and, descending from the imperial
+throne whose ornament she had long been, retired into the solitude and
+quietness of private life.
+
+But the love and admiration of the French nation followed the empress to
+Malmaison, where she had retreated from the world, and where the regard
+and friendship, if not the love of Napoleon himself, endeavored to
+alleviate the sufferings of her solitude. During the first days after
+her divorce, the road from Paris to Malmaison presented as animated a
+scene of equipages as in days gone by, when the emperor resided there
+with his wife. All those whose position justified it, hastened
+to Malmaison to pay their respects to Josephine, and through the
+expressions of their sympathy to soften the asperities of her sorrow.
+Doubtless many came also through curiosity, to observe how the empress,
+once so much honored, endured the humiliation of her present situation.
+Others, believing they would exhibit their devotedness to the emperor if
+they should follow their master’s example, abandoned the empress, as he
+had done, and took no further notice of her.
+
+But the emperor soon undeceived the latter, manifesting his
+dissatisfaction by his cold demeanor and repelling indifference toward
+them, whilst he loudly praised all those who had exercised their
+gratitude by visiting Malmaison, and in expressing their devotedness to
+the empress.
+
+He himself went beyond his whole court in showing attention and respect
+to Josephine. The very next day after their separation, the emperor went
+to Malmaison to visit her, and to take with her a long walk through the
+park. During the following days he came again, and once invited her and
+the ladies of her new court to a dinner in Trianon.
+
+Josephine might have imagined that nothing had been altered in her
+situation, and that she was still Napoleon’s wife. But there were
+wanting in their intercourse those little, inexpressible shades of
+confidence which her exquisite tact and her instinctive feelings felt
+yet more deeply than the more important and visible changes.
+
+When Napoleon came or went, he no longer embraced her, but merely
+pressed her hand in a friendly manner, and often called her “madame”
+ and “you;” he was more formal, more polite to her than he had ever been
+before.
+
+And then his daily visits ceased; in their place came his letters, it is
+true, but they were only the letters of a friend, who tried to comfort
+her in her misfortune, but took no sympathetic interest in her distress.
+
+Soon these letters became more rare, and when they did come they were
+shorter. The emperor had to busy himself with other matters than with
+the solitary, rejected woman in Malmaison; he had now to occupy his
+thoughts with his young and beautiful bride--with Maria Louisa, the
+daughter of the Emperor of Austria, who was soon to enter Paris as the
+wife of Napoleon, the Emperor of France.
+
+Bitter and painful indeed were those first days of resignation for
+Josephine; harsh and unsparing were the conflicts she had to fight with
+her own heart, before its wounds could be closed, and its pains and its
+humiliations cease to torment her!
+
+But Josephine had a brave heart, a strong will, and a resolute
+determination to control herself. She conquered herself into rest and
+resignation; she did not wish that the emperor, the happy bridegroom,
+should ever hear of her red, weeping eyes, of her lamentations and
+sighs; she did not wish that, in the golden cup which the husband of
+the emperor’s young daughter was drinking in the full joyousness of a
+conqueror, her tears should commingle therein as drops of gall.
+
+She controlled herself so far as to be able with smiling calmness
+to have related to her how Paris was celebrating the new marriage
+festivities, how the new Empress of the French was everywhere received
+with enthusiasm. She was even able to inquire, with an expression of
+friendly sympathy, after Maria Louisa, the young wife of sixteen,
+who had taken the place of the woman of forty-eight, and from whom
+Josephine, in the sincerity of her love, required but one thing, namely,
+to make Napoleon happy.
+
+When she was told that Napoleon loved Maria Louisa with all the passion
+of a fiery lover, Josephine conquered herself so as to smile and thank
+God that she had accepted her sacrifice and thus secured Napoleon’s
+happiness.
+
+But the emperor, however much he might be enamored of his young wife,
+never forgot the bride of the past, the beloved one of his youth, of
+whom he had been not only captivated, but whom he had loved from the
+very depths of his soul. He surrounded her, though from a distance, with
+attentions and tokens of affection; he would often write to her; and at
+times, when his heart was burdened and full of cares, he would come to
+Malmaison, and visit this woman who understood how to read in his face
+the thoughts of his heart, this woman whose soft, gracious, and amiable
+disposition--even as a tranquillizing and invigorating breeze after
+a sultry day--could quiet his excited soul; to this woman he came for
+refreshment, for a little repose, and sweet communion.
+
+It is true those visits of the emperor to his divorced wife were made
+secretly and privately, for his second wife was jealous of the affection
+which Napoleon still retained for Josephine; she listened with gloomy
+attention to the descriptions which were made to her of the amiableness,
+of the unwithered beauty of Josephine; and one day, after hearing that
+the emperor had visited her in Malmaison, Maria Louisa broke out into
+tears, and complained bitterly of this mortification caused by her
+husband.
+
+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 you, 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
+he 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.
+
+But her heart was mortally wounded. “I cannot overcome the fearful
+sadness which has seized me,” said she to Mlle. Cochelet, the friend
+of her daughter Hortense; “I do all I can to hide my cares from my
+children, but I suffer only the more.” [Footnote: Mlle. Cochelet.
+“Memoires,” vol. ii.]
+
+“You will see,” said she to the Duchess d’Abrantes, who had visited her
+at Malmaison, “you will see that Napoleon’s misfortune will cause my
+death. My heart is broken--it will not be healed.” [Footnote: Abrantes,
+“Memoires,” vol. xvii.]
+
+She was right, her heart was broken, it would not be healed! It seemed
+at first but merely an indisposition which seized the empress, and which
+obliged her to decline the announced visit of the Emperor Alexander,
+nothing but a slight inflammation of the neck, accompanied by a little
+fever. But the disease increased hour after hour. On the 27th of May,
+Josephine was obliged to keep her bed; on the 29th her sufferings in
+the neck were so serious that she nearly suffocated, and her fever had
+become so intense that she had but few moments of consciousness. In her
+fancy she often called aloud for Napoleon, and the last word which her
+dying lips uttered was his name.
+
+Josephine died on the 29th of May, 1814. That love which had illumined
+her life occasioned her death, and will sanctify her name for ever as
+with a saintly halo.
+
+She was buried on the 2d of June in the church at Rueil. It was a solemn
+funeral procession, to which all the kings and princes assembled in
+Paris sent their substitutes in their carriages; but the most beautiful
+mourning procession which followed her to the grave were the tears,
+the sighs of the poor, the suffering of the unfortunate, for all whom
+Josephine had been a benefactress, a good angel, and who lost in her a
+comforter, a mother.
+
+In the church of Rueil, Eugene and Hortense erected a monument to their
+mother; and when in 1837 Queen Hortense, the mother of the Emperor
+Napoleon III., died at Arenenberg, her corpse was, according to her last
+wishes, brought to Rueil and laid at her mother’s side. Her son erected
+there a monument to her; and this son, the grandchild of Josephine, is
+now the Emperor of the French, Napoleon III. Josephine’s sacrifice has been in vain. Napoleon’s dynasty, for
+whose sake she sacrificed happiness, love, and a crown, has not been
+perpetuated through the woman to whom Josephine was sacrificed--not
+through Maria Louisa, who gave to France and to the emperor a son, but
+through the daughter of Josephine, who gave to Napoleon more than a son,
+her love, her heart, and her life!
+
+Providence is just! Upon the throne from which the childless empress was
+rejected, sits now the grandchild of Josephine, and his very existence
+demonstrates how vain are all man’s calculations and desires, and how
+like withered leaves they are carried away and tossed about by the
+breath of destiny!
+
+It was not the emperor’s daughter who perpetuated Napoleon’s dynasty,
+but the widow of General Beauharnais, Josephine Tascher de la Pagerie.
+
+Josephine, therefore, is avenged in history; she was also avenged
+in Napoleon’s heart, for he bitterly lamented that he had ever been
+separated from her. “I ought not to have allowed myself to be separated
+from Josephine,” said he, a short time before his death in St.
+Helena, “no, I ought not to have been divorced from her; that was my
+misfortune!”
+
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg’s The Empress Josephine, by Louise Muhlbach
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+
+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en">
+  <head>
+    <title>
+      The Empress Josephine, by Louise Muhlbach
+    </title>
+    <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve">
+
+    body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify}
+    P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; }
+    H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; }
+    hr  { width: 50%; text-align: center;}
+    .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; }
+    blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;}
+    .mynote    {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;}
+    .toc       { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;}
+    .toc2      { margin-left: 20%;}
+    div.fig    { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; }
+    div.middle { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; }
+    .figleft   {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;}
+    .figright  {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;}
+    .pagenum   {display:inline; font-size: 70%; font-style:normal;
+               margin: 0; padding: 0; position: absolute; right: 1%;
+               text-align: right;}
+    pre        { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;}
+
+</style>
+  </head>
+  <body>
+
+
+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Empress Josephine, by Louise Muhlbach
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Empress Josephine
+
+Author: Louise Muhlbach
+
+Translator: W. Binet
+
+
+Release Date: July, 2003 [Etext# 4226]
+This file was first posted on December 8, 2001
+Last Updated: October 14, 2016
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE EMPRESS JOSEPHINE ***
+
+
+
+
+Text file produced by Charles Franks and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team
+
+HTML file produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+    <div style="height: 8em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h1>
+      THE EMPRESS JOSEPHINE
+    </h1>
+    <h3>
+      AN HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE DAYS OF NAPOLEON
+    </h3>
+    <h2>
+      By Louise Muhlbach
+    </h2>
+    <h5>
+      Author Of: Daughter Of An Empress, Marie Antoinette,<br /> Joseph II and
+      His Court, Frederick The Great and His Family,<br /> Berlin And Sans-Souci,
+      Etc.
+    </h5>
+    <h4>
+      Translated from the German by Rev. W. Binet, A M.
+    </h4>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <b>CONTENTS</b>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0001"> <b>BOOK I. THE VISCOUNTESS BEAUHARNAIS.</b> </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0001"> CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0002"> CHAPTER II. THE YOUNG MAID. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0003"> CHAPTER III. THE BETROTHAL. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0004"> CHAPTER IV. THE YOUNG BONAPARTE. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0005"> CHAPTER V. THE UNHAPPY MARRIAGE. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0006"> CHAPTER VI. TRIANON AND MARIE ANTOINETTE. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0007"> CHAPTER VII. LIEUTENANT NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0008"> CHAPTER VIII. A PAGE FROM HISTORY. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0009"> CHAPTER IX. JOSEPHINE&rsquo;S RETURN. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0010"> CHAPTER X. THE DAYS OF THE REVOLUTION. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0011"> CHAPTER XI. THE TENTH OF AUGUST, AND THE LETTER
+      OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0012"> CHAPTER XII. THE EXECUTION OF THE QUEEN. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0013"> CHAPTER XIII. THE ARREST. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0014"> CHAPTER XIV. IN PRISON. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0015"> CHAPTER XV. DELIVERANCE. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0017"> <b>BOOK II. THE WIFE OF GENERAL BONAPARTE.</b>
+      </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0016"> CHAPTER XVI. BONAPARTE IN CORSICA. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0017"> CHAPTER XVII. NAPOLEON BONAPARTE BEFORE TOULON.
+      </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0018"> CHAPTER XVIII. BONAPARTE&rsquo;S IMPRISONMENT. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0019"> CHAPTER XIX. THE THIRTEENTH VENDEMIAIRE. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0020"> CHAPTER XX. THE WIDOW JOSEPHINE BEAUHARNAIS. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0021"> CHAPTER XXI. THE NEW PARIS. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0022"> CHAPTER XXII. THE FIRST INTERVIEW. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0023"> CHAPTER XXIII. MARRIAGE. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0024"> CHAPTER XXIV. BONAPARTE&rsquo;S LOVE-LETTERS. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0025"> CHAPTER XXV. JOSEPHINE IN ITALY. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0026"> CHAPTER XXVI. BONAPARTE AND JOSEPHINE IN MILAN.
+      </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0027"> CHAPTER XXVII. THE COURT OF MONTEBELLO. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0028"> CHAPTER XXVIII. THE PEACE OF CAMPO FORMIO. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0029"> CHAPTER XXIX. DAYS OF TRIUMPH. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0032"> <b>BOOK III. THE EMPRESS AND THE DIVORCED.</b>
+      </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0030"> CHAPTER XXX. PLOMBIERES AND HALMAISON. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0031"> CHAPTER XXXI. THE FIRST FAITHLESSNESS. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0032"> CHAPTER XXXII. THE EIGHTEENTH BRUMAIRE. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0033"> CHAPTER XXXIII. THE TUILERIES. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0034"> CHAPTER XXXIV. THE INFERNAL MACHINE. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0035"> CHAPTER XXXV. THE CASHMERES AND THE LETTER. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0036"> CHAPTER XXXVI. MALMAISON. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0037"> CHAPTER XXXVII. FLOWERS AND MUSIC. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0038"> CHAPTER XXXVIII. PRELUDE TO THE EMPIRE. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0039"> CHAPTER XXXIX. THE POPE IN PARIS. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0040"> CHAPTER XL. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0041"> CHAPTER XLI. DAYS OF HAPPINESS. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0042"> CHAPTER XLII. DIVORCE. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0043"> CHAPTER XLIII. THE DIVORCED. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2HCH0044"> CHAPTER XLIV. DEATH. </a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      BOOK I. THE VISCOUNTESS BEAUHARNAIS.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0001" id="link2HCH0001"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I win the battles, Josephine wins me the hearts.&rdquo; These words of Napoleon
+      are the most beautiful epitaph of the Empress Josephine, the much-loved,
+      the much-regretted, and the much-slandered one. Even while Napoleon won
+      battles, while with lofty pride he placed his foot on the neck of the
+      conquered, took away from princes their crowns, and from nations their
+      liberty&mdash;while Europe trembling bowed before him, and despite her
+      admiration cursed him&mdash;while hatred heaved up the hearts of all
+      nations against him&mdash;even then none could refuse admiration to the
+      tender, lovely woman who, with the gracious smile of goodness, walked at
+      his side; none could refuse love to the wife of the conqueror, whose
+      countenance of brass received light and lustre from the beautiful eyes of
+      Josephine, as Memnon&rsquo;s statue from the rays of the sun.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was not beautiful according to those high and exalted rules of beauty
+      which we admire in the statues of the gods of old, but her whole being was
+      surrounded with such a charm, goodness, and grace, that the rules of
+      beauty were forgotten. Josephine&rsquo;s beauty was believed in, and the heart
+      was ravished by the spell of such a gracious, womanly apparition. Goethe&rsquo;s
+      words, which the Princess Eleonore utters in reference to Antonio, were
+      not applicable to Josephine:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All the gods have with one consent brought gifts to his cradle, but,
+      alas! the Graces have remained absent, and where the gifts of these lovely
+      ones fail, though much was given and much received, yet on such a bosom is
+      no resting-place.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      No, the Graces were not absent from the cradle of Josephine; they, more
+      than all the other gods, had brought their gifts to Josephine. They had
+      encircled her with the girdle of gracefulness, they had imparted to her
+      look, to her smile, to her figure, attraction and charm, and given her
+      that beauty which is greater and more enduring than that of youth, namely
+      loveliness, that only real beauty. Josephine possessed the beauty of
+      grace, and this quality remained when youth, happiness, and grandeur, had
+      deserted her. This beauty of grace struck the Emperor Alexander as he came
+      to Malmaison to salute the dethroned empress. He had entered Paris in
+      triumph, and laid his foot on the neck of him whom he once had called his
+      friend, yet before the divorced wife of the dethroned emperor the czar,
+      full of admiration and respect, bowed his head and made her homage as to a
+      queen; for, though she was dethroned, on her head shone the crown in
+      imperishable beauty and glory, the crown of loveliness, of faithfulness,
+      and of womanhood.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was not witty in the special sense of a so-called &ldquo;witty woman.&rdquo; She
+      composed no verses, she wrote no philosophical dissertations, she painted
+      not, she was no politician, she was no practising artist, but she
+      possessed the deep and fine intuition of all that which is beautiful and
+      noble: she was the protectress of the arts and sciences. She knew that
+      disciples were not wanting to the arts, but that often a Maecenas is
+      needed. She left it to her cousin, the Countess Fanny Beauharnais, to be
+      called an artist; hers was a loftier destiny, and she fulfilled that
+      destiny through her whole life&mdash;she was a Maecenas, the protectress
+      of the arts and sciences.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As Hamlet says of his father, &ldquo;He was a man, take him for all in all, I
+      shall not look upon his like again;&rdquo; thus Josephine&rsquo;s fame consists not
+      that she was a princess, an empress anointed by the hands of the pope
+      himself, but that she was a noble and true wife, loving yet more than she
+      was loved, entirely given up in unswerving loyalty to him who rejected
+      her; languishing for very sorrow on account of his misfortune, and dying
+      for very grief as vanished away the star of his happiness. Thousands in
+      her place, rejected, forgotten, cast away, as she was&mdash;thousands
+      would have rejoiced in the righteousness of the fate which struck and
+      threw in the dust the man who, for earthly grandeur, had abandoned the
+      beloved one and disowned her love. Josephine wept over him, lamented over
+      his calamities, and had but a wish to be allowed to share them with him.
+      Josephine died broken-hearted&mdash;the misfortunes of her beloved, who no
+      more loved her, the misfortunes of Napoleon, broke her heart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was a woman, &ldquo;take her for all in all&rdquo;&mdash;a noble, a beautiful
+      woman, a loving woman, and such as belongs to no peculiar class, to no
+      peculiar nation, to no peculiar special history; she belongs to the world,
+      to humanity, to universal history. In the presence of such an apparition
+      all national hatred is silent, all differences of political opinion are
+      silent. Like a great, powerful drama drawn from the universal history of
+      man and represented before our eyes, so her life passes before us; and
+      surprised, wondering, we gaze on, indifferent whether the heroine of such
+      a tragedy be Creole, French, or to what nation she may owe her birth. She
+      belongs to the world, to history, and if we Germans have no love for the
+      Emperor Napoleon, the tyrant of the world, the Caesar of brass who bowed
+      the people down into the dust, and trod under foot their rights and
+      liberties&mdash;if we Germans have no love for the conqueror Napoleon,
+      because he won so many battles from us, yet this does not debar us from
+      loving Josephine, who during her lifetime won hearts to Napoleon, and
+      whose beautiful death for love&rsquo;s sake filled with tears the eyes of those
+      whose lips knew but words of hatred and cursing against the emperor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To write the life of Josephine does not mean to write the life of a
+      Frenchwoman, the life of the wife of the man who brought over Germany so
+      much adversity, shame, and suffering, but it means to write a woman&rsquo;s life
+      which, as a fated tragedy or like a mighty picture, rises before our
+      vision. It is to unfold a portion of the world&rsquo;s history before our eyes&mdash;and
+      the world&rsquo;s history is there for our common instruction and progress, for
+      our enlightenment and encouragement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I am not afraid, therefore, of being accused of lacking patriotism,
+      because I have undertaken to write the life of a woman who is not a
+      German, who was the wife of Germany&rsquo;s greatest enemy and oppressor. It is,
+      indeed, a portion of the universal drama which is unfolded in the life of
+      this woman, and amid so much blood, so much dishonor, so many tears, so
+      much humiliation, so much pride, arrogance, and treachery, of this
+      renowned period of the world&rsquo;s history, shines forth the figure of
+      Josephine as the bright star of womanhood, of love, of faithfulness&mdash;stars
+      need no birthright, no nationality, they belong to all lands and nations.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0002" id="link2HCH0002"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER II. THE YOUNG MAID.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      On the 23d of July, 1763, to the Chevalier Tascher de la Pagerie,
+      ex-lieutenant of the royal troops, a resident of the insignificant spot of
+      the Trois Islets, on the island of Martinique, was borne by his young,
+      rich, and beautiful wife, a first child.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The loving parents, the relatives and friends had longed for this child,
+      but now that it was come, they bade it welcome without joy, and even over
+      the brow of the young father hung the shadow of a cloud as he received the
+      intelligence of the birth of his child. For it was a girl, and not the
+      wished-for boy who was to be the inheritor of the valuable
+      family-plantation, and the inheritor also of the ancient and respectable
+      name of Tascher de la Pagerie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was, however, useless to murmur against fate. What was irrevocable had
+      to be accepted, and welcome made to the daughter, who, instead of the
+      expected heir, would now lay claim to the rights of primogeniture. As an
+      inheritance reserved for him who had not come, the daughter received the
+      name which had been destined to the son. For two hundred years the name of
+      Joseph had been given to the eldest son of the family of Tascher de la
+      Pagerie, but now that there was none to whom the Chevalier, Ex-lieutenant
+      Joseph de la Pagerie could leave his name as a legacy, the family had to
+      be satisfied to give the name to his daughter, and consequently she
+      received at baptism the name of Joseph Marie Rosa.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was, however, one being who gladly and willingly forgave the fault
+      of her birth, and who consecrated to the daughter the same love she would
+      have offered to the son. This being was the mother of the little Joseph
+      Marie Rosa.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Contrary to all our wishes,&rdquo; writes she to her husband&rsquo;s sister, the
+      beautiful Madame Renaudin, in Paris&mdash;&ldquo;contrary to all our wishes, God
+      has given me a daughter. My joy is not therefore diminished, for I look
+      upon my child as a new bond which binds me still closer to your brother,
+      my dear husband, and to you. Why should I have such a poor and meagre
+      opinion of the female sex, that a daughter should not be welcomed by me? I
+      am acquainted with many persons of our sex who concentrate in themselves
+      as many good qualities as one would only with difficulty find in the other
+      sex. Maternal love already blinds me and fosters in me the hope that my
+      daughter may be like them, and if even I cannot enjoy this satisfaction,
+      yet I am thankful to my child that by means of her existence I am
+      gathering so much happiness.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Indeed, extraordinary joy, since the birth of the child, reigned in the
+      house of M. Tascher de la Pagerie; joy reigned all over Martinique, for
+      the long war between France and England was ended, and a few months before
+      the birth of little Joseph Marie Rosa, the peace which secured to France
+      the possession of her maritime colonies had been signed. Martinique, so
+      often attacked, bombarded, besieged by English ships&mdash;Martinique was
+      again the unconditional property of France, and on the birthday of the
+      little Marie Joseph Rosa the French fleet entered into the harbor of Port
+      Royal, landed a French garrison for the island, and brought a new governor
+      in the person of the Marquis de Fenelon, the nephew of the famous Bishop
+      de Fenelon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Joyously and quietly passed away the first years of the life of the little
+      Joseph, or little Josephine, as her kind parents called her. Only once, in
+      the third year of her life, was Josephine&rsquo;s infancy troubled by a fright.
+      A terrible hurricane, such as is known to exist only in the Antilles,
+      broke over Martinique. The historians of that period know not how to
+      depict the awful and calamitous events of this hurricane, which, at the
+      same time, seemed to shake the whole earth with its convulsions. In
+      Naples, in Sicily, in the Molucca Islands, volcanoes broke out in fearful
+      eruptions; for three days the earth trembled in Constantinople. But it was
+      over Martinique that the hurricane raged in the most appalling manner. In
+      less than four hours the howling northwest&rsquo; wind, accompanied by forked
+      lightning, rolling thunder, heavy water-spouts, and tremendous
+      earth-tremblings, had hurled down into fragments all the houses of the
+      town, all the sugar-plantations, and all the negro cabins. Here and there
+      the earth opened, flames darted out and spread round about a horrible
+      vapor of sulphur, which suffocated human beings. Trees were uprooted, and
+      the sugar and coffee plantations destroyed. The sea roared and upheaved,
+      sprang from its bounds, and shivered as mere glass-work barks and even
+      some of the larger ships lying in the harbor of Port Royal. Five hundred
+      men perished, and a much larger number were severely wounded. Distress and
+      poverty were the result of this astounding convulsion of nature.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The estate of M. Tascher de la Pagerie was made desolate. His residence,
+      his sugar-plantations, were but a heap of ruins and rubbish, and as a gift
+      of Providence he looked upon the one refuge left him in his
+      sugar-refinery, which was miraculously spared by the hurricane. There M.
+      Tascher saved himself, with Josephine and her younger sister, and there
+      his wife bore him a third child. But Heaven even now did not fulfil the
+      long-cherished wishes of the parents, for it was to a daughter that Madame
+      de la Pagerie gave birth. The parents were, however, weary with murmuring
+      against fate, which accomplished not their wish; and so to prove to fate
+      that this daughter was welcome, they named the child born amid the horrors
+      of this terrific hurricane, Desiree, the Desired.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Peaceful, happy years followed;&mdash;peaceful and happy, in the midst of
+      the family, passed on the years of Josephine&rsquo;s infancy. She had every
+      thing which could be procured. Beloved by her parents, by her two sisters,
+      worshipped by her servants and slaves, she lived amid a beautiful,
+      splendid, and sublime nature, in the very midst of wealth and affluence.
+      Her father, casting away all ambition, was satisfied to cultivate his wide
+      and immense domains, and to remain among his one hundred and fifty slaves
+      as master and ruler, to whom unconditional and cheerful obedience was
+      rendered. Her mother sought and wished for no other happiness than the
+      peaceful quietude of the household joys. Her husband, her children, her
+      home, constituted the world where she breathed, in which alone centred her
+      thoughts, her wishes, and her hopes. To mould her daughters into good
+      housekeepers and wives, and if possible to secure for them in due time, by
+      means of a brilliant and advantageous marriage, a happy future&mdash;this
+      was the only ambition of this gentle and virtuous woman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Above all things, it was necessary to procure to the daughters an
+      education suited to the claims of high social position, and which would
+      fit her daughters to act on the world&rsquo;s stage the part which their birth,
+      their wealth, and beauty, reserved for them. The tender mother consented
+      to part with her darling, with her eldest daughter; and Josephine, not yet
+      twelve years old, was brought, for completing her education, to the
+      convent of our Lady de la Providence in Port Royal. There she learned all
+      which in the Antilles was considered necessary for the education of a lady
+      of rank; there she obtained that light, superficial, rudimentary
+      instruction, which was then thought sufficient for a woman; there she was
+      taught to write her mother tongue with a certain fluency and without too
+      many blunders; there she was instructed in the use of the needle, to
+      execute artistic pieces of embroidery; there she learned something in
+      arithmetic and in music; yea, so as to give to the wealthy daughter of M.
+      Tascher de la Pagerie a full and complete education, the pious sisters of
+      the convent consented that twice a week a dancing-master should come to
+      the convent to give to Josephine lessons in dancing, the favorite
+      amusement of the Creoles. [Footnote: &ldquo;Histoire de l&rsquo;Imperatrice
+      Josephine,&rdquo; par Joseph Aubenas. vol. i., p. 36.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These dancing-lessons completed the education of Josephine, and, barely
+      fifteen years old, she returned to her parents and sisters as an
+      accomplished young lady, to perform the honors of the house alongside of
+      her mother, to learn from her to preside with grace and ease over a large
+      mansion, and above all things to be a good mistress, a benefactress, and a
+      protectress to her slaves. Under her mother&rsquo;s guidance, Josephine visited
+      the negro cabins to minister unto the sick, to bring comfort and
+      nourishment to the old and to the weak, to pray with the dying, to take
+      under her loving guardianship the new-born babes of the negro women, to
+      instruct in the catechism the grown-up children, to excite them to
+      industry, to encourage them through kindness and friendliness, to protect
+      them, and to be a mediator when for some offence they were condemned to
+      severe punishment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a wonderfully peaceful and beautiful life that of the young
+      Josephine, amid a bountiful nature, in that soft, sunny clime which
+      clothed her whole being with that tender, pleasing grace, that lovely
+      quietude, that yielding complacency, and at the same time with that fiery,
+      passionate nature of the Creoles. Ordinarily dressed only with the
+      &ldquo;gaule,&rdquo; a wide, loose garment of white muslin, falling loosely about the
+      waist, where no belt gathered its folds, the beautiful head wrapped up in
+      the many-colored madras, which around the temples was folded up into
+      graceful knots holding together her chestnut-brown hair&mdash;in this
+      dress Josephine would swing for hours in her hammock made of homespun silk
+      and ornamented with borders of feathers from the variegated iridescent
+      birds of Cayenne.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Round about her were her young female slaves, watching with their
+      brilliant dark eyes their young mistress, ever ready to read every wish
+      upon that dreamy, smiling countenance, and by their swarthy tinge
+      heightening the soft, tender whiteness of her own complexion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then, wearied with the stillness and with her dreams, Josephine would
+      spring up from the hammock, dart into the house with all the lightness of
+      the gazelle to enliven the family with her own joyousness, her merry
+      pleasantry, and accompanied by her guitar to sing unto them with her
+      lovely youthful voice the songs of the Creoles. As the glowing sun was at
+      its setting, away she hastened with her slaves into the garden, directed
+      their labors, and with her own hands tended her own cherished flowers,
+      which commingled together in admirable admixture from all climes under the
+      genial skies of the Antilles. In the evening, the family was gathered
+      together in the light of the moon, which imparted to the nights the
+      brightness of day and streamed upon them her soft blue rays, upon the
+      fragrant terrace, in front of the house, where the faithful slaves
+      carefully watched the little group close one to another and guarded their
+      masters from the approaches of poisonous serpents, that insidious progeny
+      of the night.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On Sundays after Josephine had religiously and faithfully listened to an
+      early mass, she gladly attended in the evening the &ldquo;barraboula&rdquo; of the
+      negroes, dancing their African dances in the glare of torches and to the
+      monotonous sound of the tam-tam.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On festivals, she assisted her mother to put all things in order, and to
+      preside at the great banquets given to relatives and friends, who
+      afterward were visited in their turn, and then the slaves carried their
+      masters in hammocks, or else, what was far more acceptable, the young
+      maidens mounted small Spanish horses, full of courage and daring, and
+      whose firm, quick step made a ride to Porto Rico simply a rushing gallop.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Amidst this dreamy, sunny, joyous existence of the young maiden gleamed
+      one day, as a lightning-flash, a prophetic ray of Josephine&rsquo;s future
+      greatness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This happened one afternoon as she was walking alone and thoughtful
+      through the plantation. A group of negresses, in the centre of which was
+      an old and unknown woman, attracted her attention. Josephine approached.
+      It was an old negro woman from a neighboring plantation, and she was
+      telling the fortune of the young negro women of M. Tascher de la Pagerie.
+      No sooner did the old woman cast her eyes on Josephine than she seemed to
+      shrink into one mass, whilst an expression of horror and wonder stole over
+      her face. She vehemently seized the hand of the young maiden, examined it
+      carefully, and then lifted up her large, astonished eyes with a searching
+      expression to the face of Josephine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You must see something very wonderful in my face and in my hand?&rdquo;
+       inquired Josephine, laughing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, something very wonderful,&rdquo; repeated the negro woman, still intently
+      staring at her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is it a good or a bad fortune which awaits me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The old prophetess slowly shook her head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who can tell,&rdquo; said she, gravely, &ldquo;what is a good or a bad fortune for
+      human beings? In your hand I see evil, but in your face happiness&mdash;great,
+      lofty happiness.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; cried out Josephine, laughing, &ldquo;you are cautious, and your oracle
+      is not very clear.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The old woman lifted up her eyes to heaven with a strange expression.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I dare not,&rdquo; said she, &ldquo;express myself more clearly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Speak on, whatever the result!&rdquo; exclaimed Josephine, whose curiosity was
+      excited by the very diffidence of the fortune-teller. &ldquo;Say what you see in
+      my future life. I wish it, I order you to do so.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, if you order it, I must obey,&rdquo; said she, with solemnity. &ldquo;Listen,
+      then. I read in your countenance that you are called to high destinies.
+      You will soon be married. But your marriage will not be a happy one. You
+      will soon be a young widow, and then&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, and then?&rdquo; asked Josephine, passionately, as the old woman
+      hesitated and remained silent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, and then you will be Queen of France&mdash;more than a queen!&rdquo;
+       shouted the prophetess, with a loud voice. &ldquo;You will live glorious,
+      brilliant days, but at the last misfortune will come and carry you to your
+      grave in a day of rebellion.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Afraid of the pictures which her prophetic vision had contemplated in the
+      future, the old hag forced her way through the circle of negro women
+      around, and rushed away through the field as fast as her feet could bear
+      her on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Josephine, laughing, turned to her astonished women, who had followed with
+      their eyes the flight of the prophetess, but who now directed their dark
+      eyes with an expression of awe and bewilderment to their young mistress,
+      of whom the fortune-teller had said she would one day be Queen of France.
+      Josephine endeavored to overthrow the faith of her swarthy servants in the
+      fortune-teller, and, by pointing to the ridiculous prophecy in reference
+      to herself, and which predicted an impossible future, she tried to prove
+      to them what a folly it was to rely on the words of those who made a
+      profession of foretelling the future.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But against her will the prophetic words of the old woman echoed in the
+      heart of the young maiden. She could not return home to her family and
+      talk, laugh, and dance, as she had been accustomed to do with her sisters.
+      Followed by her slaves, she went into her garden and sank in a hammock,
+      hung amid the gigantic leaves of a palm-tree, and, while the negro girls
+      danced and sang round her, the young maid was dreaming about the future,
+      and her beating heart asked if it were not possible that the prophecy of
+      the negro woman might one day be realized.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She, the daughter of M. Tascher de la Pagerie&mdash;she a future &ldquo;Queen of
+      France! More than a queen!&rdquo; Oh, it was mere folly to think on such things,
+      and to busy herself with the ludicrous prophecies of the old woman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And Josephine laughed at her own credulity, and the slaves sang and
+      danced, and against her will the thoughts of the young maiden returned to
+      the prophecy again and again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What the old fortune-teller had said, was it so very ridiculous, so
+      impossible? Could not that prophecy become a reality? Was it, then, the
+      first time that a daughter of the Island of Martinique had been exalted to
+      grandeur and lofty honors?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Josephine asked these questions to herself, as dreaming and thoughtful she
+      swung in the hammock and gazed toward the horizon upon the sea, which, in
+      its blue depths and brilliancy, hung there as if heaven had lowered itself
+      down to earth. That sea was a pathway to France, and already once before
+      had its waves wafted a daughter of the Island of Martinique to a throne.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus ran the thoughts of Josephine. She thought of Franchise d&rsquo;Aubigne,
+      and of her wondrous story. A poor wanderer, fleeing from France to search
+      for happiness beyond the seas in a foreign land, M. d&rsquo;Aubigne had landed
+      in Martinique with his young wife. There Franchise was born, there passed
+      away the first years of her life. Once, when a child of three years old,
+      she was bitten by a venomous serpent, and her life was saved only through
+      the devotion of her black nurse, who sucked alike poison and death from
+      the wound. Another time, as she was on a voyage with her parents, the
+      vessel was in danger of being captured by a corsair; and a third time a
+      powerful whirlwind carried into the waves of the sea the little Francoise,
+      who was walking on the shore, but a large black dog, her companion and
+      favorite, sprang after her, seized her dress with its teeth, and carried
+      the child back to the shore, where sobbing for joy her mother received
+      her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Fate had reserved great things for Francoise, and with all manner of
+      horrors it submitted the child to probation to make of it a strong and
+      noble woman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A severer blow came when her father, losing in gambling all the property
+      which he had gathered in Martinique, died suddenly, leaving his family in
+      poverty and want. Another blow more severe still came when on her return
+      to France, whither her mother was going with her, she lost this last prop
+      of her youth and childhood. Madame d&rsquo;Aubigne died, and her body was
+      committed to the waves; and, as a destitute orphan, Francoise d&rsquo;Aubigne
+      touched the soil of France.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And what became of the poor orphan of the Creole of Martinique?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She became the wife of a king, and nearly a queen! For Francoise
+      d&rsquo;Aubigne, the widow of Scarron, the governess of the children of Louis
+      XIV, had caused the mother of these children, the beautiful Madame de
+      Montespan, to be cast away, and she became the friend, the beloved, the
+      secret spouse of the king: and the lofty Louis, who could say of himself,
+      &ldquo;L&rsquo;etat c&rsquo;est moi&rdquo; he, with all the power of his will, with all his
+      authority, was the humble vassal of Franchise d&rsquo;Aubigne, Marquise de
+      Maintenon!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This was the first princess whom Martinique had given to the world!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Was it not possible that the prophecies of the old negro woman could be
+      realized? could not once more a daughter of the Island of Martinique be
+      exalted into a princess?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will be Queen of France!&rdquo; the negress had said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No, it was mere folly to believe in such a ridiculous prophecy. The throne
+      of France was now occupied. Alongside of her consort, the good, the
+      well-beloved Louis XVI, the young and beautiful Queen Marie Antoinette,
+      the daughter of the mighty Empress Maria Theresa, sat on the throne. She
+      was young, she was beloved throughout France, and she had already, to the
+      great delight of her husband and of his people, borne an heir to the
+      throne of France.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The throne of the lilies stood then on firm and sure foundations, and the
+      prophecies of the old negress belonged only to the kingdom of fables.
+      [Footnote: This prophecy, nearly as related above, was told by the Empress
+      Josephine herself to her maids of honor in the castle of Navarra.&mdash;See
+      &ldquo;Memoires sur l&rsquo;Imperatrice Josephine, la Ville, la Cour et les Salons de
+      Paris sous l&rsquo;Empire, par Madame Georgette Ducrest.&rdquo;]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0003" id="link2HCH0003"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER III. THE BETROTHAL.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Six months had barely elapsed since Josephine&rsquo;s return from the convent
+      when the family Tascher de la Pagerie received from their relatives in
+      Paris letters which were to be of the greatest importance for the whole
+      family.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The beautiful Madame de Renaudin, sister of M. Tascher de la Pagerie, had
+      settled in Paris after having rid herself of an unhappy marriage with a
+      man, coarse and addicted to gambling, and after having, through a legal
+      separation, reobtained her freedom. She lived there in the closest,
+      intimacy with the Marquis de Beauharnais, who, for many years, at an
+      earlier period, had resided as governor on the Island of Martinique, and
+      there had bound himself to the whole family of Tascher de la Pagerie by
+      the ties of a cordial friendship. His wife, during her residence in
+      Martinique, had been the most tender friend of Madame de Renaudin, and
+      when the marchioness bore a second son to her husband, Madame de Renaudin
+      had stood as godmother, and promised to love and protect the child of her
+      friend as if she were his mother.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Chance brought on the opportunity of accomplishing this promise and of
+      fulfilling the oath made to God before the altar. The Marchioness de
+      Beauharnais returned to France in the year 1763 with her husband and her
+      two sons, but died there a short time after; and Madame de Renaudin, true
+      to her oath, hastened to replace the natural guardian, the mother.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Perhaps she had but followed the dictates of her heart, perhaps against
+      her will a sentiment of joy had passed over her at the death of the poor
+      marchioness, for, by this death, one at least of the two obstacles
+      intervening between Madame de Renaudin and the Marquis de Beauharnais had
+      been removed. Both married, both of the Catholic religion, death alone
+      could make their hands free, and confer upon them the right of joining
+      hands together for all their days.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They loved one another, they had ceased long ago to make a secret of it;
+      they avowed it to each other and to their dependants, for their brave,
+      loyal, and noble hearts would not stoop to falsehood and deception, and
+      they had the courage to acknowledge what their sentiments were.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Death had then made free the hand of the Marquis de Beauharnais, but life
+      held yet in bondage the hand of the Baroness de Renaudin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As long as her husband lived, she could not, though legally divorced from
+      him, conscientiously think of a second marriage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But she possessed the courage and the loyalty of true love; she had seen
+      and experienced enough of the world to despise its judgments, and with
+      cheerful determination do what in her conscience she held to be good and
+      right.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Before God&rsquo;s altar she had promised to the deceased Marchioness de
+      Beauharnais to be a mother to her son; she loved the child and she loved
+      the father of this child, and, as she was now free, as she had no duties
+      which might restrain her footsteps, she followed the voice of her heart
+      and braved public opinion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She had purchased not far from Paris, at Noisy-le-Grand, a country
+      residence, and there passed the summer with the Marquis de Beauharnais,
+      with his two sons and their tutor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The marquis owned a superb hotel in Paris, in Thevenot Street, and there,
+      during winter, he resided with his two sons and the Baroness de Renaudin,
+      the mother, the guardian of his two orphan sons, the friend, the
+      confidante, the companion of his quiet life, entirely devoted to study, to
+      the arts, to the sciences, and to household pleasures.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus the years passed away; the two sons of the Marquis de Beauharnais had
+      grown up under the care of their maternal friend: they had been through
+      their collegiate course, had been one year students at Heidelberg, had
+      returned, had been through the drill of soldier and officer, a mere form
+      which custom then imposed on young men of high birth; and the younger son
+      Alexander, the godchild of the Baroness de Renaudin, had scarcely passed
+      his sixteenth year when he received his commission as sub-lieutenant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A year afterward his elder brother married one of his cousins, the
+      Countess Claude Beauharnais, and the sight of this youthful happy love
+      excited envy in the heart of the young lieutenant of seventeen years, and
+      awoke in him a longing for a similar blessedness. Freely and without
+      reserve he communicated his wishes to his father, begged of him to choose
+      him a wife, and promised to take readily and cheerfully as such her whom
+      his father or his sponsor, his second mother, would select for him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A few months later reached Martinique the letters which, as already said,
+      were to be of the utmost importance to the family of M. Tascher de la
+      Pagerie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The first of these letters was from the Marquis de Beauharnais, and
+      addressed to the parents of Josephine, but with a considerate and delicate
+      tact the marquis had not written the letter with his own hand, but had
+      dictated it to his son Alexander, so as to prove to the family of his
+      friend De la Pagerie that the son was in perfect unison of sentiment with
+      the father, and that the latter only expressed what the son desired and
+      approved.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I cannot express,&rdquo; wrote the marquis, &ldquo;how much satisfaction I have in
+      being at this moment able to give you a proof of the inclination and
+      friendship which I always have had for you. As you will perceive, this
+      satisfaction is not merely on the surface.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My two sons,&rdquo; continues he, &ldquo;are now enjoying an annual income of forty
+      thousand livres. It is in your power to give me your daughter to enjoy
+      this income with my son, the chevalier. The esteem and affection he feels
+      for Madame de Renaudin makes him passionately desire to be united with her
+      niece. I can assure you that I am only gratifying his wishes when I pray
+      you to give me for him your second daughter, whose age corresponds at best
+      with his. I sincerely wish that your eldest daughter were a few years
+      younger, for then she would certainly have had the preference, the more so
+      that she is described to me under the most advantageous colors. But I
+      confess my son, who is but seventeen and a half years old, thinks that a
+      young lady of fifteen is too near him in age. This is one of those cases
+      in which reasonable and reflecting parents will accommodate themselves to
+      circumstances.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      M. de Beauharnais adds that his son possesses all the qualities necessary
+      to make a woman happy. At the same time he declares that, as regards his
+      future daughter-in-law, he has no claims to a dowry, for his son already
+      possesses an income of forty thousand livres from his mother&rsquo;s legacy, and
+      that after his father&rsquo;s death he will inherit besides an annual income of
+      twenty-five thousand livres. He then entreats M. de la Pagerie, as soon as
+      practicable, to send his daughter to France, and, if possible, to bring
+      her himself. The marquis then addresses himself directly to the wife of M.
+      de la Pagerie, and repeats to her in nearly the same words his proposal,
+      and endeavors also to excuse to her the choice of the second daughter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The most flattering things have been told me,&rdquo; writes he, &ldquo;of your eldest
+      daughter, but my son finds her, with her fifteen years, too old for him.
+      My son is worthy of becoming your son-in-law; Nature has gifted him with
+      good and fine parts, and his income is sufficiently large to share it with
+      a wife qualified to render him happy. Such a one I trust to find in your
+      second daughter; may she resemble you, madame, and I can no longer doubt
+      of my son&rsquo;s happiness! I feel extremely happy to see my long-cherished
+      wishes satisfied! I can not express to you how great will be my joy to see
+      riveted forever, by means of this union of our two families, the
+      inclination and the friendship which have already so long chained us
+      together. I trust that Mademoiselle de la Pagerie will not refuse her
+      consent. Allow me to embrace her and already to greet her as my own
+      beloved daughter.&rdquo; [Footnote: Aubenas, &ldquo;Histoire de l&rsquo;Imperatrice
+      Josephine,&rdquo; vol. i., p. 78.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To this letter was addressed a note from Madame de Renaudin to her brother
+      and to her sister-in-law. She openly acknowledges that she it was who
+      desired this union, and who had brought the matter to its present stage,
+      and she endeavors to meet the objection that it would appear strange for a
+      young lady to undertake a long journey in search of a future husband,
+      whilst it would be more expedient that the bridegroom should make the
+      journey to his bride, to receive her at the hands of her parents, and
+      bring her with him to a new home. But this bride of thirteen years must
+      first be trained for her future destiny; she is not to be in the house of
+      her future father-in-law, but in the house of Madame de Renaudin, her
+      aunt, and she is there to receive the completion of her education and that
+      higher culture which her parents, even with all the necessary means, could
+      not give her in Martinique.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We are of opinion,&rdquo; she writes, &ldquo;that the young people must see one
+      another and please each other, before we bring this matter to a close, for
+      they are both too dear to us to desire to coerce them against their
+      inclination. Your daughter will find in me a true and kind mother, and I
+      am sure that she will find the happiness of her future life in the
+      contemplated union, for the chevalier is well qualified to make a wife
+      happy. All that I can say of him exhausts by no means the praise he
+      deserves. He has a pleasant countenance, an excellent figure, wit, genius,
+      knowledge, and, what is more than this, all the noble qualities of heart
+      and soul are united in him, and he must consequently be loved by all who
+      know him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile, before these letters reached Martinique, chance had already
+      otherwise decided the fate of Mary, the second daughter of M. de la
+      Pagerie. With one sentence it had destroyed all the family schemes. After
+      three days of confinement to a bed of sickness, Mary had died of a violent
+      fever, and when the letter, in which the Marquis de Beauharnais asked for
+      her hand, reached her father, she had been buried three months.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      M. Tascher de la Pagerie hastened to announce her death to the Marquis and
+      to Madame de Renaudin; and to prove to them how much he also had at heart
+      a union of the two families, he offered to his son, the chevalier, the
+      hand of his third daughter, the little twelve-year-old Desiree.
+      Undoubtedly it would have been more gratifying to him if the choice of the
+      marquis had fallen upon his eldest daughter, and he makes this known very
+      clearly in his answer to Madame de Renaudin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My eldest daughter,&rdquo; writes he, &ldquo;Josephine, who is lately returned from
+      the convent, and who has often desired me to take her to France, will,
+      believe me, be somewhat sensitive at the preference given to her younger
+      sisters. Josephine has a beautiful head, beautiful eyes and arms, and also
+      a wonderful talent for music. During her stay in the convent I procured
+      her a guitar-teacher; she has made the best of the instruction received,
+      and she has a glorious voice. It is a pity she has not the opportunity of
+      completing her education in France; and were I to have my wish, I would
+      bring her to you instead of my other two daughters.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile the Marquis de Beauharnais, as well as his son, found that the
+      youngest daughter of M. de la Pagerie was too young for their impatient
+      desire to bring to a favorable issue these important family concerns, and
+      that the eldest of the daughters ought to have the preference. The son of
+      the marquis especially pronounced himself decidedly in favor of Josephine,
+      and father and son, as well as Madame de Renaudin, turned imploringly to
+      M. Tascher de la Pagerie, praying that he would bring them his eldest
+      daughter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, for the first time, when the choice of the Beauharnais family had
+      irrevocably fallen upon Josephine, now for the first time was this
+      proposed marriage made known to her, and her consent asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Josephine, whose young heart was like a blank sheet of paper, whereon love
+      had as yet written no name, Josephine rejoiced at the prospect of
+      accomplishing the secret wish of her maiden heart, to go to Paris&mdash;Paris,
+      the burning desire of all Creoles&mdash;Paris, after all the narratives
+      and descriptions, which had been made to Josephine, rose before the soul
+      of the young maiden as a golden morning dream, a charming fairy world; and
+      full of gratitude she already loved her future husband, to whom she owed
+      the happiness of becoming acquainted with the city of wonders and
+      pleasures.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She therefore acquiesced without regret at being separated from her
+      parents and from her sister, from the home of all her sweet reminiscences
+      of youth, and joyously, in August of the year 1779, she embarked on board
+      the vessel which was to take her with her father to France.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the middle of October they both, after a stormy passage, touched the
+      soil of France and announced to their relatives their safe arrival.
+      Alexandre de Beauharnais, full of impatient longings to see his unknown
+      young bride, hastened to Brest to bid her and her father welcome, and to
+      accompany them to Paris.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The first meeting of the young couple decided their future. Josephine,
+      smiling and blushing, avowed to her father that she was willing and ready
+      to marry M. Alexandre Beanharnais; and, the very first day of his meeting
+      with Josephine, Alexandre wrote to his father that he was enchanted with
+      the choice made, and that he felt strongly convinced that, at the side of
+      so charming, sweet, and lovely a being, he would lead a happy and sunny
+      life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The love of the children had crowned all the schemes of the parents, and
+      on the 13th of December, 1779, the marriage of the young couple took
+      place. On the 13th of December, Mademoiselle Josephine Tascher de la
+      Pagerie became the Viscountess Josephine de Beauharnais.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0004" id="link2HCH0004"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER IV. THE YOUNG BONAPARTE.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      In the same year, 1779, in which Josephine de la Pagerie for the first
+      time left Martinique for Prance, a vessel which had sailed from Corsica
+      brought to France a boy who, not only as regards Josephine&rsquo;s life, but
+      also as regards all Europe, yea, the whole world, was to be of the highest
+      importance, and who, with the iron step of fatality, was to walk through
+      Europe to subvert thrones and raise up new ones; to tread nations in the
+      dust, and to lift up others from the dust; to break tyranny&rsquo;s chains in
+      which people languished, so as to impose upon them his own chains.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This boy was Napoleon Bonaparte, the son of the advocate Charles de
+      Bonaparte.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From Ajaccio, the principal town of Corsica, came the ship which brought
+      to France the boy, his father, and his two elder brothers. In Ajaccio the
+      family of the Bonapartes had been settled for more than a century. There
+      also Napoleon had passed the first years of his life, in the family circle
+      with his parents, and in joyous amusements with his five brothers and
+      sisters.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His father, Charles de Bonaparte, belonged to one of the noble families of
+      Corsica, and was one of the most influential men on the island. His
+      mother, Letitia Ramolina, was well known throughout the island for her
+      beauty, and the only woman who could have been her rival, for she was her
+      equal in beauty, youth, and grace, was her dearest friend, the beautiful
+      Panonia de Comnene, afterward the mother of the Duchess d&rsquo;Abrantes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The beautiful Letitia Ramolina was married to Charles de Bonaparte the
+      same year that her friend Panonia de Comnene became the wife of M. de
+      Permont, a high French official in Ajaccio. Corsica was then the
+      undisputed property of the kingdom of France, and, however proud the
+      Corsicans were of their island, yet they were satisfied to be called
+      subjects of France, and to have their beautiful island considered as a
+      province of France.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Napoleon Bonaparte was the fifth child of his parents, the favorite of his
+      beautiful mother Letitia, who was the life of the household, the ruler of
+      the family. She governed the house, she educated the children; she knew,
+      with the genuine ability of a housekeeper, of a mother, how to spend with
+      careful frugality the moderate income of her husband; how to economize,
+      and yet how to give to each what was needed. As to the father, in the
+      hours of leisure which business, political debates, and amusements allowed
+      him to give to his home and family, his children were an agreeable
+      recreation, an interesting pastime; and when the children, carried away by
+      the sparkling fire of youth, shouted or cried too loud, the father
+      endeavored to palliate their misdemeanor, and obtain their pardon from
+      their mother. Then Letitia&rsquo;s eyes were fastened with a flaming glance upon
+      her husband, and, imperatively bidding him leave the children, she would
+      say: &ldquo;Let them alone. Their education concerns you not. I am the one to
+      keep the eyes upon them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She trained them up with the severity of a father and with the tenderness
+      of a mother. Inexorable against every vice of heart and character, she was
+      lenient and indulgent toward petty offences which sprang up from the
+      inconsiderateness and spiritedness of youth. Every tendency to vulgar
+      sentiments, to mean envy or selfishness, she strove to uproot by galling
+      indignation; but every thing which was great and lofty, all sentiments of
+      honor, of courage, of large-heartedness, of generosity, of kindness, she
+      nursed and cherished in the hearts of her children. It was a glorious
+      sight to contemplate this young mother when with her beautiful, rosy
+      countenance glowing with enthusiasm and blessedness, she stood among her
+      children, and in fiery, expressive manner spoke to the listening group of
+      the great and brave of old, of the deeds of a Caesar, of a Hannibal; when
+      she spoke of Brutus, who, though he loved Caesar, yet, greater than
+      Caesar, and a more exalted Roman in his love for the republic, sacrificed
+      his love to the fatherland; or when she, with that burning glow which all
+      Corsicans, the women as well as the men, cherish for their home and for
+      the historical greatness of their dear island, told them of the bravery
+      and self-denial even unto death with which the Corsicans for centuries had
+      fought for the freedom of their island; how, faithful to the ancient
+      sacred law of blood, they never let the misdeed pass unpunished; they
+      never feared the foe, however powerful he might be, but revenged on him
+      the evil which he had committed against sister or brother, father or
+      mother.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And when Letitia thus spoke to her children in the beautiful and
+      harmonious language of her country, the eyes of the little Napoleon were
+      all aflame, his childish countenance suddenly assumed a grave expression,
+      and on the little body of the child was seen a man&rsquo;s head, glowing with
+      power, energy, and pride.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These narratives of his mother, these enthusiastic stories of heroes of
+      the past, which the boy, with loud-beating heart, with countenance
+      blanched by mental excitement, gathered from the beautiful lips of his
+      mother, were the highest pleasure of the little Napoleon, and often in
+      future years has the emperor amid his glory thought of those days never to
+      be forgotten, when the child&rsquo;s heart and soul hung on his mother&rsquo;s lips,
+      and listened to her wondrous stories of heroes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These narratives of Letitia, this enthusiasm which her glowing language
+      awoke in the heart of the child, this whole education which Letitia gave
+      to her children, became the corner-stone of their future. As a sower,
+      Letitia scattered the seed from which hero and warrior were to spring
+      forth, and the grain which fell into the heart of her little Napoleon
+      found a good soil, and grew and prospered, and became a laurel-tree, which
+      adorned the whole family of the Bonapartes with the blooming crown of
+      immortality.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Great men are ever much more the sons of their mother than of the father,
+      while seldom have great men seen their own greatness survive in their
+      sons. This is a wonderful secret of Nature, which perhaps cannot be
+      explained, but which cannot be denied.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Goethe was the true son of his talented and noble mother, but he could
+      leave as a legacy to his son only the fame of a name, and not his genius.
+      Henry IV., the son of a noble, spiritual and large-hearted Jeanne de
+      Navarre, could not leave to France, which worshipped and loved her king,
+      could not leave to his people, a successor who resembled him, and who
+      would inherit his sharp-sightedness, his prudence, his courage, and his
+      greatness of soul. His son and successor was Louis XIII., a king whose
+      misfortune it was ever to be overruled, ever to be humbled, ever to stand
+      in the shade of two superior natures, which excited his envy, but which he
+      was never competent to overcome; ever overshadowed by the past glories
+      which his father&rsquo;s fame threw upon him, overshadowed by the ruler and
+      mentor of his choice, his minister, the Cardinal de Richelieu, who
+      darkened his whole sad existence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Napoleon was the son of his mother, the large-hearted and high-minded
+      Letitia Ramolina. But how distant was the son of the hero, who, from a
+      poor second lieutenant, had forced his way to the throne of France! how
+      distant the poor little Duke de Reichstadt from his great father! Even
+      over the life of this son of an eminent father weighed a shadow&mdash;the
+      shadow of his father&rsquo;s greatness. Under this shadow which the column of
+      Vendome cast from Paris to the imperial city of Vienna, which the steep
+      rock of St. Helena cast even upon the castle of Schonbrunn, under this
+      shadow died the Duke de Reichstadt, the unfortunate son of his eminent
+      father.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The little Napoleon was always a shy, reserved, quiet boy. For hours long
+      he could hide in some obscure corner of the house or of the garden, and
+      sit there with head bent low and eyes closed, half asleep and half
+      dreaming; but when he opened his eyes, what a life in those looks! What
+      animation, what exuberance in his whole being, when awaking from his
+      childish dreams he mixed again with his brothers, sisters, and friends!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Letitia&rsquo;s words and example had penetrated the soul of the child with the
+      highest emotions of honor and human dignity, and the little boy of seven
+      years exhibited oftentimes the sentiments of honor, pride, and obstinacy
+      of a man. Every bodily correction to which he was submitted made him turn
+      pale and tremble, not from pain but for shame, filled him with
+      indignation, and was apt to bring on sickness. In Corsica still prevailed
+      the custom of severe discipline for children, and in all the classes of
+      the school the rod was applied as a means of punishment and reformation.
+      To beat one&rsquo;s wife was considered in Corsica, as everywhere else, an
+      unpardonable brutality; but parents as well as teachers whipped children
+      to mould them into noble, refined, honorable men.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The little Napoleon would not adapt himself to the blessings of this
+      education, and the mere threats of the rod-switching deprived the child of
+      his senses and threw him into convulsions. But though the little Napoleon
+      was gloomy, monosyllabic, and quiet, yet was he from early childhood the
+      favorite of all who knew him, and he already wielded over brothers,
+      sisters, and companions, a wonderful influence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When a boy of four years old, Letitia sent him to a sort of play-school,
+      where boys and girls amused themselves together and learned the ABC. The
+      young Napoleon was soon the soul of the little company. The boys obeyed
+      him, and submitted to his will; the girls trembled before him, and yet
+      with a smile they pressed toward him merely to be near him and to have a
+      place at his side. And the four-year child already practised a tender
+      chivalry. One of his little school-companions had made an impression on
+      his heart; he honored her with special favors, sat at her side during the
+      lessons, and when they left school to return home, the little Napoleon
+      never missed, with complete gravity of countenance, to offer his arm to
+      his favorite of five years of age and to accompany her to her home. But
+      the sight of this gallant, with his diminutive, compact, and broad figure,
+      over which the large head, with its earnestness of expression, seemed so
+      incongruous, and which moved on with so much gravity, while the socks fell
+      from the naked calves over the heels&mdash;all this excited the merriment
+      of the other children; and when, arm-in-arm with his little schoolmate, he
+      thus moved on, the other urchins in great glee shouted after him:
+      &ldquo;Napoleone di mezza calzetta dall&rsquo; amore a Giacominetta!&rdquo; (&ldquo;Napoleon in
+      socks is the lover of the little Giacominetta!&rdquo;)
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The boy endured these taunts with the stoic composure of a philosopher,
+      but never after did he offer his arm to the little Giacominetta, and never
+      afterward did his socks hang down over his heels.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When from this &ldquo;mixed school&rdquo; he passed into a boys&rsquo; school, the little
+      Napoleon distinguished himself above all the other boys by his ambition,
+      his deep jealousy, his perseverance at learning and studying, and he soon
+      became the favorite of the Abbe Recco, [Footnote: Napoleon, in his
+      testament, written at St. Helena, willed a fixed sum of money to this
+      Professor Recco, in gratitude for the instruction given him in his youth.]
+      who taught at the royal college of Ajaccio as professor. A few times every
+      week the worthy professor would gather his pupils in a large hall, to read
+      them lectures upon ancient history, and especially upon the history of
+      Rome; and, in order to give to this hall a worthy and significant
+      ornament, he had it adorned on either side with two large and costly
+      banners, one of which had the initials S. P. Q. E., and represented the
+      standard of ancient Rome; facing it and on the opposite side of the hall
+      was the standard of Carthage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Under the shadows of these standards were ranged the seats for the
+      scholars, and in the vacant centre of the large hall was the professor&rsquo;s
+      chair, from which the Abbe Recco dictated to his pupils the history of the
+      heroic deeds of ancient Rome.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The elder children sat under the larger standard, under the standard of
+      Rome, and the junior boys immediately opposite, under the standard of
+      Carthage; and as Napoleon Bonaparte was the youngest scholar of the
+      institution, he sat near the Carthaginian standard, whilst his brother
+      Joseph, his senior by five years, had his seat facing him on the Roman
+      side. Though at the commencement of the lectures Napoleon&rsquo;s delight had
+      been great, and though he had listened with enthusiasm to the history of
+      the struggles, and to the martial achievements of the ancient Romans, the
+      little Napoleon soon manifested an unmistaken repugnance to attend these
+      lectures. He would turn pale, as with his brother he entered the hall, and
+      with head bowed low, and dark, angry countenance, took his seat. A few
+      days afterward he declared to his brother Joseph, his lips drawn in by
+      anguish, that he would no more attend the lectures.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And why not?&rdquo; asked Joseph, astonished. &ldquo;Do you take no interest in the
+      Roman history? Can you not follow the lecture?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The little Napoleon darted upon his brother a look of inexpressible
+      contempt. &ldquo;I would be a simpleton if the history of heroes did not
+      interest me,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;and I understand everything the good Professor
+      Recco says&mdash;I understand it so well that I often know beforehand what
+      his warriors and heroes will do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, then, since you have such a lively interest in the history of the
+      Romans, why will you no more follow the lectures?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, I will not, I cannot,&rdquo; murmured Napoleon, sadly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tell me, at least, the reason, Napoleon,&rdquo; said his brother.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The boy looked straight before him, for a long time hesitating and
+      undecided; then he threw up his head in a very decided manner, and gazed
+      on his brother with flaming eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; cried he, passionately, &ldquo;I will tell you! I can no longer endure
+      the shame to sit down under the standard of the conquered and humiliated
+      Carthaginians. I do not deserve to be so disgraced.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, Napoleon,&rdquo; said Joseph, laughing, &ldquo;why trouble yourself about the
+      standard of the old Carthaginians? One is just as well under it as under
+      the Roman standard.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is it, then, the same to you under which standard you sit? Do you not
+      consider it as a great honor to sit under the standard of the victorious
+      Romans?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I look upon the one as being without honor, and upon the other as being
+      without shame,&rdquo; said Joseph, smiling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If it is so,&rdquo; cried out the little Napoleon, throwing himself on his
+      brother&rsquo;s neck, &ldquo;if it is for you no great sacrifice, then, I implore you
+      to save me, to make me happy, for you can do it! Let us change seats; give
+      me your place under the standard of Rome, and take my place instead.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Joseph declared himself ready to do so, and when the two brothers came
+      next time to the lecture, Napoleon, with uplifted head and triumphant
+      countenance, took his seat under the standard of victorious Rome.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But soon the expression of joy faded away from his face, and his features
+      were overcast, and with a restless, sad look, he repeatedly turned himself
+      toward his brother Joseph, who sat facing him under the standard of the
+      conquered race.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Silent and sad he went home with Joseph, and when his mother questioned
+      him about the cause of his sorrow, he confessed, with tears in his eyes,
+      that he was a heartless egotist, that he had been unjust and cruel toward
+      Joseph, that he had cheated his brother of his place of honor and had
+      seated himself in it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It required the most earnest assurances of Joseph that he placed no value
+      whatever on the seat; it required all the persuasiveness and authority of
+      Letitia to appease the boy, and to prevail upon him to resume the
+      conquered seat. [Footnote: &ldquo;Memoires du Roi Joseph,&rdquo; vol. i., p.40.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As the course of instruction which the boys had received in Ajaccio was
+      not sufficient for the times, and for the capacities of his sons, their
+      father passed over to France with Joseph and Napoleon, to take advantage
+      of the favorable resources for a more complete education.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Napoleon saw the time of departure approach with an apparently indifferent
+      mind, only his face was somewhat paler, he was still more monosyllabic and
+      more reserved than before; and his eyes, full of an indescribable
+      expression of tenderness and admiration, followed all the movements of his
+      mother, as if to print deeply in his soul the beloved image, so as to take
+      it with him beyond the seas, in all its freshness and beauty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He wept not as he bade her farewell; not a word of sorrow or regret did he
+      speak, but he embraced his mother with impassioned fondness, he kissed her
+      hands, her forehead, her large black eyes, he sank down before her and
+      kissed her feet, then sprang up, and, after casting upon her whole figure
+      a deep, glowing look, he rushed away to embark at once, without waiting
+      for brother or father, who were yet bidding a touching farewell to
+      relatives and friends.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Letitia gazed after her Napoleon with glowing and wide-open eyes; she wept
+      not, she complained not, but she pressed her two hands on her heart as if
+      to keep it from breaking asunder, from bleeding to death; then she called
+      all her children around her, and, folding them up in her arms, exclaimed:
+      &ldquo;Join your hands and pray with me that our little Napoleon may return home
+      to us a noble and great man.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As soon as they had prosperously landed in France, the father placed his
+      two sons in the college of Autun, and then travelled farther on to Paris,
+      there to obtain, through the influence of his patrons and friends, a place
+      for his daughter Marianne (afterward Elise) in St. Cyr, an institution for
+      the daughters of noblemen, and also a place for Napoleon in the military
+      school of Brienne. His efforts were crowned with success; and whilst
+      Joseph remained at college in Autun, Napoleon had to part with him and go
+      to Brienne.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the brothers bade farewell one to another, Joseph wept bitterly, and
+      his sighs and tears choked the tender words of farewell which his
+      quivering lips would have uttered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Napoleon was quiet, and as his eye moistened with a tear, he endeavored to
+      hide it, and turned aside ashamed of himself and nearly indignant, for he
+      did not wish the Abbe Simon, one of the professors of the college, who was
+      present at the parting of the brothers, to see his unmanly tenderness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the Abbe Simon had seen that tear, and when Napoleon was gone he said
+      to Joseph: &ldquo;Napoleon has shed but one tear, but that tear proves his deep
+      sorrow as much as all your tears.&rdquo; [Footnote: &ldquo;Memoires du Roi Joseph,&rdquo;
+       vol. i., p.26.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Taciturn and quiet as he had been in Ajaccio, the little Napoleon was
+      equally so at the military school of Brienne, where he remained from his
+      eleventh to his sixteenth year. His character had always something sombre
+      and hidden; his eye seemed turned more inwardly than outwardly; and his
+      fellowship with his books seemed to procure him a more pleasant recreation
+      than the company of his schoolmates, whose childish joys and pleasures he
+      despised or pretended to do so, because his limited pecuniary resources
+      did not allow him to share with them pleasures of an expensive nature.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, though still and reserved, he always was friendly and courteous to
+      his comrades, grateful for every mark of friendship and kindness, and
+      always ready to protect the young and feeble against the overbearing and
+      the strong, censuring with grave authority every injustice, and with
+      Spartan harshness throwing his contempt into the very face of him who,
+      according to his standard, had offended against honor, the lofty spirit
+      and the dignity of a freeman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It could not fail that soon Napoleon should win over his schoolmates a
+      marked moral influence; that they would listen to him as if he were their
+      superior; that they should feel something akin to fear in presence of the
+      flashing eyes of this little boy of barely fourteen years, whose pale,
+      expressive countenance, when illumined with anger, almost seemed to them
+      more terrible than that of the irritated face of the teacher, and whom
+      they therefore more willingly and more unconditionally obeyed than the
+      principal of the establishment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One day the latter had forbidden the scholars to go to the fair in a
+      neighboring locality, because they had lately been guilty of excesses on a
+      similar occasion; and, so as to be sure that the scholars would not
+      trespass against his orders, the principal had the outside gate in the
+      front yard locked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This last circumstance kindled Napoleon&rsquo;s anger; he considered it as an
+      insult that the scholars should be treated as prisoners.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Had we been ordered in the name of the law to remain here,&rdquo; cried he,
+      &ldquo;then honor itself would have claimed from us to remain, for law commands
+      obedience to our superiors. But since we are treated as slaves, who are by
+      main force compelled to submission, then honor claims from us to prove to
+      our oppressors that we are free beings, and that we desire to remain such.
+      We are treated as prisoners of war, kept under lock and bolt, but no one
+      has demanded our word of honor that we will make no effort to escape this
+      subjection. Whosoever has a brave heart and a soul full of honor&rsquo;s love,
+      let him follow me!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      All the youngsters followed him without hesitation. More submissive to
+      this pale, small boy of fourteen years, than to the severe, strong, and
+      exalted principal, none dared oppose him as he stood in the garden, facing
+      a remote place in the wall, and giving orders to undermine it, so as to
+      make an outlet. All obeyed the given orders, all were animated with
+      burning zeal, with cheerful alacrity; and after an hour of earnest labor
+      the work was done, and the passage under the wall completed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The scholars wanted to rush with jubilant cries through the opening, and
+      gain their freedom outside of the wall, but Napoleon held them back.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will go first,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;I have been your leader throughout this
+      expedition, now I will be the first to pass out, that upon me may fall the
+      punishment when we are discovered.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The young men fell back silently and respectfully, while, proud and
+      stately as a field-marshal who gives the signal for the battle, Napoleon
+      passed through their ranks, to be the first from the crowd to go through
+      the newly-made passage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It could not fail that the daring of these &ldquo;prisoners of war&rdquo; should be
+      discovered, that the principal should be the very same day informed that
+      the young men had, notwithstanding his strict orders, notwithstanding the
+      closed gate, made a way for themselves, and had visited the prohibited
+      fair, while the principal believed them to be in the garden.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A strict inquiry took place the next morning. With threatening tones, the
+      principal ordered the young men to name him who had guided them to so
+      unheard-of a deed, who had misled them into disobedience and
+      insubordination. But all were still; none wished to be a traitor, not even
+      when the principal promised to all full pardon, full impunity, if they
+      would but name the instigator of their guilty action.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But as no one spoke, as no one would name him, Napoleon gave himself up as
+      the culpable one.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I alone am guilty,&rdquo; cried he, proudly. &ldquo;I alone deserve punishment. These
+      have done only what I commanded them&mdash;they have but followed my
+      orders, nothing more. The guilt and the punishment are mine alone.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The principal, glad to know the guilty one, kept his promise, and,
+      forgiving the rest, decided to punish only the one who acknowledged
+      himself to have been the leader.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Napoleon was, therefore, sentenced to the severest and most degrading
+      punishment known in the institution&mdash;to the so-called &ldquo;monk&rsquo;s
+      penalty.&rdquo; That is to say, the future young soldier, in the coarse woollen
+      garment of a mendicant friar, was on his knees, to devour his meal from an
+      earthen vessel in the middle of the dining-room, while all the other boys
+      were seated at the table.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A deathly pallor overspread the face of the boy when he heard this
+      sentence. He had been for many days imprisoned in a cell with bread and
+      water, and he had without a murmur submitted to this correction, endured
+      already on a former occasion, but this degrading punishment broke his
+      courage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Stunned, as it were, and barely conscious, he allowed the costume of the
+      punishment to be put on, but when he had been led into the dining-room,
+      where all the scholars were gathered for the noonday meal, when he was
+      forced upon his knees, he sank down to the ground with a heavy sigh, and
+      was seized with violent convulsions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The rector himself, moved with deepest sympathy for the wounded spirit of
+      the boy, hastened to raise up Napoleon. At the same moment rushed into the
+      hall one of the teachers of the institution, M. Patrault, who had just
+      been informed of the execution which was about to be carried out on
+      Napoleon. With tears in his eyes, he hastened to Napoleon, and with
+      trembling hands tore from his shoulders the detestable garment, and broke
+      out at the same time in loud complaints that his best scholar, his first
+      mathematician, was to be dishonored and treated in an unworthy manner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Napoleon, however, was not always the reserved, grave boy who took no part
+      in the recreations and pleasures of the rest of his young schoolmates.
+      Whenever these amusements were of a more serious, of a higher nature,
+      Napoleon gladly and willingly took a part in them. Now and then in the
+      institution, on festivals, theatrical representations took place, and on
+      these occasions the citizens of Brienne were allowed to be present.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But to maintain respectable order, every one who desired to be present at
+      the representation had to procure a card of admission signed by the
+      principal. On the day of the exhibition, at the different doors of the
+      institution, were posted guards who received the admission cards, and
+      whose strict orders were to let no one pass in without them. These posts,
+      which were filled by the scholars, were under the supervision of superior
+      and inferior officers, and were confided only to the most distinguished
+      and most praiseworthy students.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One day, Voltaire&rsquo;s tragedy, &ldquo;The Death of Caesar,&rdquo; was exhibited.
+      Napoleon had the post of honor of a first lieutenant for this festivity,
+      and with grave earnestness he filled the duties of his office.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Suddenly at the entrance of the garden arose a loud noise and vehement
+      recriminations of threatening and abusive voices.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was Margaret Haute, the porter&rsquo;s wife, who wanted to come in, though
+      she had no card of admission. She was well known to all the students, for
+      at the gate of the institution she had a little stall of fruits, eggs,
+      milk, and cakes, and all the boys purchased from her every day, and liked
+      to jest and joke with the pleasant and obliging woman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret Haute had therefore considered it of no importance to procure a
+      card of admission, which thing she considered to be superfluous for such
+      an important and well-known personage as herself. The greater was her
+      astonishment and anger when admission was refused, and she therefore began
+      to clamor loudly, hoping by this means to attract some of the scholars,
+      who would recognize her and procure her admittance. Meanwhile the post
+      guardian dared not act without superior orders, and the inferior officer
+      hastened to communicate the important event to the first lieutenant,
+      Napoleon de Bonaparte, and receive his decision.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Napoleon, who ordinarily was kind to the fruit-vender, and gladly jested
+      with the humorous and coarse woman, listened to the report of the
+      lieutenant with furrowed brow and dark countenance, and with severe
+      dignity gave his orders: &ldquo;Remove that woman, who takes upon herself to
+      introduce licentiousness into the camp.&rdquo; [Footnote: Afterward, when First
+      Consul, Napoleon sent for this woman and her husband to come to Paris, and
+      he gave them the lucrative position of porter at the castle of Malmaison,
+      which charge they retained unto their death.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0005" id="link2HCH0005"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER V. THE UNHAPPY MARRIAGE.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      While the boy Napoleon de Bonaparte pursued his studies as a student in
+      Brienne, she, who was one day to share his greatness and his fame, had
+      already appeared on the world&rsquo;s stage as the wife of another. Josephine
+      Tascher de la Pagerie was already received in the highest society of Paris
+      as the Viscountess de Beauharnais.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Every thing seemed to promise to the young couple a happy, secure future,
+      free from care. They were both young, wealthy, of good family, and though
+      the parents had planned this marriage and joined together the hands of the
+      young couple, yet it was their good fortune that love should tie and
+      strengthen the bond which mere expediency had formed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yes, they loved one another, these young married people of sixteen and
+      eighteen. How could it have been otherwise, when they both met each other
+      with the candid and honest desire to make one another happy; when each of
+      them had been so well adapted to the other that their brilliant, good, and
+      beautiful qualities were so prominent that their eyes were blinded to the
+      possibility of imperfections and vices which perchance remained in the
+      obscure background of their virtue and of their amiableness?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Josephine had entered upon her marriage with a pure maiden heart, and soon
+      this heart glowed with enthusiasm for her young husband, who in reality
+      was well qualified to excite enthusiasm in a young maid and instil into
+      her a passionate attachment. Alexandre de Beauharnais was one of the most
+      brilliant and most beloved personages at the court of Versailles. His face
+      had all the beauty of regularity; his figure, marked by a lofty, even if
+      somewhat heavy form, was tall, well knit, and of wonderful elasticity and
+      energy; his manners were noble and prepossessing, fine and natural. Even
+      in a court so distinguished as that of Versailles for many remarkable
+      chevaliers, the Viscount de Beauharnais was considered as one of the most
+      lovely and most gifted: even the young Queen Marie Antoinette honored him
+      with special distinction. She had called him the most beautiful dancer of
+      Versailles, and consequently it was very natural that up to the time of
+      his marriage he should be invited to every court-ball, and there should
+      each time enjoy the pleasure of being requested to dance with the queen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This flattering distinction of the Queen Marie Antoinette had naturally
+      made the young viscount the mark of attention of all these beautiful,
+      young, and coquettish ladies of Versailles. They used to say of him, that
+      in the dancing-room he was a zephyr, fluttering from flower to flower, but
+      at the head of his regiment he was a Bayard, dreaming only of war and
+      carnage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was, therefore, quite natural that so brilliant and so preferred a
+      cavalier, a young man of so many varied accomplishments, a being so
+      impassioned, so gallant, should soon become the object of the most tender
+      and passionate fondness from a young wife, who in her quiet native land
+      had seen none to compare with him, and who became for her the ideal of
+      beauty, chivalry, elegance, and whom, in her devoted and admiring love,
+      she used to call her own Achilles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Josephine loved her husband; she loved him with all the devotedness and
+      fire of a creole; she loved him and breathed but for him, and to be with
+      him seemed to her life&rsquo;s golden, blessed dream. Added to all this, came
+      the joys and raptures of a Parisian life&mdash;these new, unknown,
+      diversified pleasures of society, these manifold distractions and
+      entertainments of the great city. Josephine abandoned herself to all this
+      with the joy and wantonness of an innocent, unsuspicious being. With all
+      these glorious things round about her, she felt as if surrounded by a sea
+      of blessedness and pleasure, and she plunged into it with the quiet daring
+      of innocency, which foresees not what breakers and abysses this sea
+      encloses under the shining surface.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But these breakers were there, and against them was the happiness of
+      Josephine&rsquo;s love soon to be dashed to pieces.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She loved her young husband with her whole heart, with all her soul. But
+      he, the young, the flattered Viscount Alexandre de Beauharnais, he also
+      loved his young wife, whom the wish and will of his superiors had placed
+      at his side.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had not chosen her because he loved her, but only because he had
+      thought it expedient and advisable to become married, and because the
+      unknown Mademoiselle de la Pagerie had been offered to him as &ldquo;a good
+      settlement.&rdquo; Perhaps, also, he had contracted this marriage to get rid all
+      at once of those manifold ties, intrigues, and attachments which his open,
+      unrestrained life of youth had woven around him, for his marriage with the
+      young creole had put an end to many love-intrigues which perchance
+      threatened to be inconvenient and burdensome.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At first charmed by her foreign, unaccustomed appearance, transported by
+      her ingenuous grace, her sweet, lovely amiableness and freshness, he had
+      fully decided to love his young wife, and, with all the triumphant pride
+      of a lover, he had led Josephine into society, into the saloons.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But his eye was not blinded by the ravishment of a real and true love, and
+      in the drawing-room he saw what, in the solitude of the residence of
+      Noisy, where the young couple had retired for a few weeks after their
+      marriage, he might never have missed&mdash;he saw that Josephine possessed
+      not the lofty elegance and the exquisite manners of the ladies of the
+      Parisian saloons. She always was a charming, artless, graceful young
+      woman, but she lacked the striking advantages of a real drawing-room lady;
+      she lacked that perfect self-possession, that pliancy of refinement, that
+      sparkling wit, and that penetration, which then characterized the ladies
+      of the higher Parisian society, and which the young viscount had but
+      lately so fondly and passionately admired in the beautiful and celebrated
+      Baroness de B.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The viscount saw all these deficiencies of his young wife&rsquo;s social
+      education, and this darkened his brow and brought on his cheek the flush
+      of shame. He was cruel enough to reproach Josephine, in somewhat harsh and
+      imperious tones, of her lack of higher culture, and thus the first
+      matrimonial difference clouded the skies of marriage happiness, which the
+      young unsuspecting wife had believed would ever be bright with sunshine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Josephine, however, loved her young husband too fondly not to cheerfully
+      comply with all his wishes, not to strive to replace what he reproached
+      her to be lacking.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On a sudden she left the brilliant, enchanting Paris, which had entranced
+      her with its many joys and its many distractions, and, as her husband had
+      to be for some time at Blois with his regiment, she went to Noisy, to her
+      aunt&rsquo;s residence, so as to labor at her higher mental culture, at the side
+      of the lovely and intellectual Madame de Renaudin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Josephine had hitherto, as a simple, sentimental young lady, played the
+      guitar, and chirped with it, in her fresh but uncultivated voice, her
+      sweet songs of love. She gave up the guitar, the favorite instrument of
+      the creoles, and exchanged it for the harp, for which attainment as well
+      as for the art of singing she procured the best and ablest masters. Even a
+      dancing-master had to come to Noisy to give to the young viscountess that
+      perfection of art which would enable her, without fear, to dance at a ball
+      alongside of the Viscount de Beauharnais, &ldquo;the beautiful dancer of
+      Versailles.&rdquo; With her aunt she read the works of the writers and poets who
+      were then praised and loved, and with wonderful predilection she also
+      studied botany, to which science she ever clung during her life, and which
+      threw on her existence gleams of joy when the sun of her happiness had
+      long set.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Josephine, who out of pure love for her husband learned and studied
+      zealously, communicated to the viscount, in her letters, every advancement
+      she made in her studies; and she was proud and happy when he applauded her
+      efforts, and when in his letters he praised her assiduity and her
+      progress.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But evidently these letters of the viscount contained nothing of that love
+      and ardor which the young fiery creole longed for from her husband; they
+      were not the utterances of a young, anxious lover, of an enthusiastic,
+      worshipping husband; but they were addressed to Josephine with the quiet,
+      cool benignity of a considerate friend, of a mentor, of a tutor who knows
+      full well how much above his pupil soars his own mind, and with what
+      supreme deference this pupil must look up to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am delighted,&rdquo; wrote he once&mdash;&ldquo;delighted at your zeal to acquire
+      knowledge and culture; this zeal, which we must ever cherish, is ever the
+      source of purest enjoyments, and possesses the glorious advantage, when we
+      follow its dictates, of never producing any grief. If you persevere in the
+      resolution you have taken, if you continue to labor with unabated zeal at
+      your personal improvement, be assured that the knowledge you will have
+      acquired will exalt you highly above all others; and whereas science and
+      modesty will be combined in you, you will succeed in becoming an
+      accomplished woman. The talents which you cultivate have their pleasant
+      side, and if you devote to them a portion of the day, you will unite the
+      agreeable to the useful.&rdquo; [Footnote: &ldquo;Histoire de l&rsquo;Imperatrice
+      Josephine,&rdquo; vol. i., p. 110.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This is what Alexandre de Beauharnais wanted. His wife, through her
+      knowledge, was to be highly exalted above all others. She was to study the
+      sciences, and become what is now called a learned woman, but what was then
+      termed a philosophical woman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The ambition of the ardent viscount required that his young wife should be
+      the rival of his learned, verse-writing aunt, the Baroness Fanny de
+      Beauharnais; that Josephine, if not the most beautiful and most
+      intellectual woman of Paris, should be the most accomplished.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But these extravagant expectations did not, unfortunately, coincide
+      entirely with the tastes and mental tendencies of Josephine. No one was
+      less qualified than she to be a philosophical woman, and to make the
+      sciences a serious study. It was far from her ambition to desire to shine
+      by her knowledge; and the learned and scientific Baroness de Beauharnais
+      only excited fear and antagonism on account of her stiff and pretentious
+      pedantry, which seemed to Josephine to have but little in harmony with a
+      woman&rsquo;s being.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Josephine loved the sciences and the arts, but she did not wish to convert
+      herself into their devoted priestess. She wished merely to adorn herself
+      with their blossoms, to take delight in their fragrance, and to rejoice in
+      their beauty. With instinctive sentiment she did not wish to have the
+      grace and youthful freshness of her womanly appearance marred by
+      knowledge; her heart longed not for the ambition of being called a learned
+      woman; she only wished to be a beloved wife.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the viscount, instead of recognizing and cherishing the tender and
+      sacred treasures which reposed in the heart of his young wife, ridiculed
+      her for her sensitiveness; allowed himself, through displeasure at her
+      uncultivated mind, to utter unreasonable reproaches, and to act harshly
+      toward his wife; and her tears were not calculated to conciliate him or to
+      gain his heart. He treated Josephine with a sort of contemptuous
+      compassion, with a mocking superiority, and her young, deeply-wounded
+      soul, intimidated and bleeding, shrank back into itself. Josephine became
+      taciturn, embarrassed, and mute, in her husband&rsquo;s presence; she preferred
+      being silent, rather than by her conversation, which might not appear
+      intellectual and piquant enough for the viscount, to annoy and irritate
+      him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Confidence and harmony had flown away from the household of the young
+      couple. From his timid, silent wife, with tears in her eyes and a mute
+      complaint on her trembling lips, the husband rushed away into the world,
+      into society, to the boisterous joys of a garrison&rsquo;s life, or else to the
+      dangerous, intoxicating amusements which the refined world of the
+      drawing-rooms offered him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Scarcely after a two years&rsquo; marriage, the young bridegroom was again the
+      zephyr of the drawing-room; and, breaking asunder the bonds with which the
+      marriage and the household had bound him, he fluttered again from flower
+      to flower, was once more the gallant cavalier of the belles, forgot duty
+      and wife, to pay his attentions and bring his homage to the ladies of the
+      court.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But this neglect which she now experienced from her husband, this evident
+      preference for other women, suddenly awoke Josephine from her painful
+      resignation, from her quiet melancholy. The young, patient, retreating
+      wife was changed at once into an irritated lioness, and, amid the
+      refinements of the French polish, with all its gilded accompaniments,
+      uprose the glowing, impassioned, threatening creole.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Josephine, wounded both in her vanity and in her love&mdash;Josephine
+      wished not and could not bear, as a passive, silent sufferer, the neglect
+      of her husband; he had insulted her as a woman, and the wrath of a woman
+      rose within her. She screened not her jealousy from her husband; she
+      reproached him for preferring other women to his wife, for neglecting her
+      for the sake of others, and she required that to her alone he should do
+      homage, that to her alone he should consecrate love and allegiance. She
+      wept, she complained, when she learned that, whilst she was left at home
+      unnoticed, he had been here and there in the company of other women; she
+      allowed herself to be so carried away by jealousy as to make violent
+      reproaches against her husband.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But tears and reproaches are not in the least calculated to bring back to
+      a wife the heart of a husband, and jealousy recalls not a husband&rsquo;s love,
+      when that love has unfolded his pinions and flown away. It only causes the
+      poor butterfly to feel that marriage had tied its wings with a thread, and
+      that it constantly recalls him away, with the severe admonitions of duty,
+      from the beautiful flowers toward which he desires to fly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The complaints and reproaches of Josephine, however much they proved her
+      love, had precisely the contrary effect from what she expected. Through
+      them she wanted to bring back her husband to her love, but she repelled
+      him further still; he flew away from her complaints to the merry society
+      of his friends, male and female, and left Josephine alone at Noisy to weep
+      over her wretchedness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Notwithstanding all this, they were both to be again reunited one to
+      another in a new bond of love and happiness. On the 3d of September, 1781,
+      Josephine presented to her husband a son, the heir of his name, and for
+      whom the father had already so long craved. Alexandre came to Noisy to be
+      present at the birth of his child, and with true, sincere affection he
+      embraced son and mother, and swore everlasting love and fidelity to both.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But circumstances were stronger than the will of this young man of
+      twenty-two years. The monotonous life of Noisy, the quietude which
+      prevailed in the house on account of the young mother, could not long
+      retain captive the fiery young man. He endured this life of solitude, of
+      watching at the bedside, of listening to the child&rsquo;s cries, for a whole
+      week, and then was drawn away with irresistible attraction to Paris; the
+      father&rsquo;s tenderness could no longer restrain the glowing ardor, the
+      impassioned longings for distraction in the young man; and the viscount
+      left Noisy to lead once more in Paris or with his garrison the free,
+      unrestrained dissipations of his earlier days.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Josephine was comfortless. She had hoped the son would retain the father,
+      but he left her alone, alone with the child, and with all the torments of
+      her jealousy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is true, he came back now and then to see his son, his little Eugene,
+      and also to make amends to the young, sick, and suffering mother, by a few
+      days&rsquo; presence, for the many days of absence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Josephine, irritated, jealous, too young, too inexperienced to
+      reflect, Josephine committed the fault of receiving her husband every time
+      he came, with reproaches and complaints, and of meeting him with violent
+      scenes of jealousy and of offended dignity. The viscount himself, so
+      young, so impassioned, had not the patience to go with calm indifference
+      through the purgatory of such scenes. His proud heart rebelled against the
+      chains with which marriage would bind him; he was angry with this woman
+      who dared reproach him; he was the more vexed that his conscience told him
+      she was unjust toward him, that he was the innocent one. He returned her
+      complaints with deriding scorn; he allowed himself to be carried away by
+      her reproaches to the manifestation of violent anger; and the tempest of
+      matrimonial discord raged through this house, which at first seemed to
+      have been built for a temple of peace and happiness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The parents of the young couple saw with deep, heartfelt concern the gap
+      deepening between them both, and which every day widened more and more,
+      and as their warnings and wishes now remained fruitless, they resolved to
+      try if a long absence might not heal the wounds which they both had
+      inflicted upon their own hearts. At the request of his father and of
+      Madame de Renaudin, the viscount undertook a long journey to Italy, from
+      which he returned only after nearly nine months&rsquo; absence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What the relatives had hoped from this journey seemed to be realized. The
+      viscount returned home to his Josephine with a penitent, tender heart; and
+      Josephine, enchanted with his tenderness, with the pliant loveliness of
+      his whole being&mdash;Josephine, with a smile of blessedness and with
+      happy dreams of the future, rested once more on the bosom of the man whom,
+      even in her angry moods, she had never ceased to love.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But after a few months passed in happiness and harmony, the viscount was
+      once more obliged to separate himself from his wife, to meet his regiment,
+      which was now in Verdun. Absence soon broke the slender threads which had
+      bound together the hearts of husband and wife. Alexandre abandoned himself
+      to his tendencies to dissipation, and Josephine to her jealousy. During
+      the frequent visits which the viscount paid to his wife in Noisy, he was
+      received with tears and reproaches, which always ended in violent scenes
+      of anger and bitterness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Such an existence, full of ever-recurring storms and ceaseless discord,
+      weighed heavily on the hearts of both husband and wife, and made them long
+      for an issue from this Labyrinth of an unhappy marriage. Yet neither of
+      them dreamed of a separation; not only their son, the little Eugene, kept
+      them from such thoughts, but also the new hopes which Josephine carried in
+      her bosom would have made such thoughts appear criminal. It was necessary
+      to endeavor to bear life as well as one could, and not allow one&rsquo;s self to
+      be too much lacerated by its thorns, even if there was no further hope of
+      gathering its roses.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Alexandre de Beauharnais, even if he lacked the skill of being a faithful,
+      devoted husband, was a noble and goodnatured man, whose generous heart
+      wanted to punish himself alone for the error of this marriage, which
+      weighed so heavily on husband and wife; and, in order to procure peace to
+      both, he resolved to become an exile, to tear away pitilessly the
+      attractive ties which society, friends, and women, had woven around him.
+      If he could not be a good husband, he might at least be a good soldier;
+      and, whereas his heart could not adopt the resolution of devoting itself
+      with exclusive affection to his wife, he resolved to devote himself
+      entirely to that love to which he had never been disloyal, the love of
+      fame. His ambitious nature longed for honors and distinction; his
+      restless, youthful courage craved for action and battle-fields; and, as no
+      opportunity offered itself on land, Alexandre de Beauharnais decided to
+      search on the seas for what was denied him on land.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Marquis de Bouille, governor of Martinique, had just arrived in
+      France, to propose to the government a new expedition against the British
+      colonies in the Antilles. Already this fearless and enterprising man,
+      since he had been in Martinique, with the forces at his disposal, with the
+      help of the young creoles, and supported by the squadrons which lay in
+      Port Royal, had conquered Dominique, Grenada, St. Vincent, St. Christophe,
+      Mievres, and Montserrat, and now he contemplated an attack upon the rich
+      and important island of Jamaica, whose conquest he trusted would force the
+      English into peace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Alexandre de Beauharnais wanted nothing more attractive than to join this
+      important and daring enterprise of the Marquis de Bouille. With
+      recommendations from his uncle, the Duke de la Rochefoucauld, the viscount
+      hastened to the Marquis de Bouille, begged of him instantly the privilege
+      of serving under him, and offered his services as adjutant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The marquis received with kindness a young man so earnestly recommended,
+      and gave him the hope of fulfilling his wishes. These hopes were not,
+      however, realized; and the viscount, no longer able to endure the burden
+      of uncertainty and of domestic discord, decided to leave France on his own
+      responsibility, to sail for Martinique, and there to enlist as a simple
+      volunteer, under the orders of the governor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In September, 1782, he left Noisy for Brest, there to embark for
+      Martinique. At the hour of departure the love, which for so long had been
+      hidden under the dark cloud of jealousy and discord, awoke in all its glow
+      and energy in the hearts of the young couple. With streaming eyes
+      Josephine embraced her husband, and in the most touching tones entreated
+      him to remain with her, entreated him not to tear the father away from the
+      son, who already recognized him and stretched his little hands toward him,
+      nor from the child yet unborn in her bosom. Carried away by so much
+      intensity of affection, by such a fond, all-pardoning love, Alexandre was
+      deeply moved; he regretted the past, and the decision he had taken to
+      leave his wife and his family. All the sweet emotions of peace, of home,
+      of paternal bliss, of married life, overcame him in this hour of farewell
+      with, resistless power, and in Josephine&rsquo;s arms he wept bitter tears of
+      repentance, of love, of farewell.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But these tears, no more than his wife&rsquo;s regrets, could make him waver in
+      his determination.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The word of separation had been spoken, and it had to be fulfilled. Amid
+      the anguish of parting, he felt for himself the necessity of breaking, by
+      means of a long absence, with the evil practices of the past, and to make
+      amends for the sad errors of his youth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He left his home to win in a distant land the happiness which he had in
+      vain sought at the side of his wife, of his son, and of his family. Before
+      the ship upon which he was to embark for his journey weighed anchor, he
+      took a last farewell of his family in a letter addressed to Madame de
+      Renaudin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;received the letter which tells of your good wishes
+      for the future, and I have read with the deepest interest the assurances
+      of your attachment. These assurances would still have been more flattering
+      to me, could they have convinced me that my actual course has your
+      approbation, and that you estimate rightly my determination, and the
+      sacrifice I am making. However, I have on my side conscience, which
+      applauds me for preferring, to the real, actual joys of a quiet and
+      pleasurable existence, the prospect, even if a remote one, of preferment,
+      which may secure me a distinguished position and a distinction which may
+      be of advantage to my children. The greater have been my sacrifices, the
+      more commendable it is to have made them; and if chance only favors my
+      determination, then the laurels I will win shall make ample amends for all
+      troubles and hardships, and shall change all my anguish into joy!&mdash;Be
+      kind enough, I pray you, to embrace for me, my father, my wife, and
+      Eugene!&rdquo; [Forward: &ldquo;Histoire de l&rsquo;Imperatrice Josephine,&rdquo; vol. i, p. 133.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is evident that Alexandre de Beauharnais had gone to Martinique to win
+      fame and to fight for laurels. But chance favored not his resolves. He had
+      no sooner landed in Martinique, than the news spread that negotiations had
+      begun between England and France. M. de Bouille received strict orders to
+      make no attack on Jamaica; and a few weeks after, on the 20th of January,
+      1783, the preliminaries of peace were signed at Versailles. A few months
+      later, peace was concluded, and all the conquests made by the Marquis de
+      Bouille were returned to England.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Alexandre de Beauharnais had then come in vain to Martinique. No fame was
+      to be won&mdash;no laurels could be gathered there.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Unfortunately, however, the viscount found another occupation for his
+      restless heart, for the vague cravings of his affections. He made the
+      acquaintance there with a young creole, who had been a widow for the last
+      six months, and who had returned to Martinique from France to pass there
+      her year&rsquo;s mourning. But her heart had no mourning for her deceased
+      husband; it longed for Paris, it craved for the world and its joys. She
+      was yet, though a few years older than the viscount, a young woman; she
+      was beautiful&mdash;of that wondrous, enticing beauty peculiar to the
+      creoles; she was an accomplished mistress in the difficult art of
+      pleasing, and she formed the design of gaining the heart of the impulsive
+      Viscount Alexandre de Beauharnais. This design was not undertaken because
+      he seemed worthy of love, but because she wanted to revenge herself on the
+      family of Tascher de la Pagerie, which family had been for a long time at
+      enmity with her own, and had given free and open expression against the
+      too easy manners and light behavior of the beautiful widow. She wanted to
+      take vengeance for these insults by seducing from M. de la Pagerie his own
+      son-in-law, and by enjoying the triumph of having charmed away the husband
+      from his daughter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The proverb says, &ldquo;What woman will, woman can!&rdquo; and what the beautiful
+      Madame de Gisard wanted was not so very hard to achieve. All she wished
+      was to hold complete sway over the heart of a young man who felt heavily
+      burdened with the fetters of marriage; who, now that the schemes of
+      ambition had failed, reproached his young wife that she was the cause of
+      his misfortune; that for her sake he had exiled himself from home, and
+      sentenced himself to the dulness and loneliness of a village-life in
+      Martinique. The society of the beautiful Madame de Gisard brought at least
+      novelty and distraction to this loneliness; she gave occupation to the
+      heart weary with connubial storms; she excited his fancy and his desires.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Madame de Gisard knew how to use all these advantages; she wanted to
+      triumph over the family of De la Pagerie, she wanted to return to Paris in
+      the company of a young, handsome, and distinguished lover.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was not enough to win the love of the viscount; she had to drive him
+      into the resolution of separating from his wife, of accusing her of
+      unfaithfulness and guilt, so as to have the right of casting her away, in
+      order that she herself might openly occupy her place. Madame de Gisard had
+      the requisite talent to carry out her plans, and to acquire full control
+      over the otherwise rebellious and proud heart of the young man. She first
+      began to lead him into open rupture with his father and mother-in-law.
+      Through respect for them, the viscount had avoided appearing in public
+      with Madame de Gisard, and betraying the intimacy which existed between
+      them. Madame de Gisard ridiculed his bashfulness and submissive spirit;
+      she considered this servility to the head of the family as absurd, and she
+      drove the viscount by means of scorn and sarcasm to open revolt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then, after separating him from his wife&rsquo;s family, she attacked the wife
+      herself. With all the cunning and smoothness of a seducing demon, she
+      encompassed the young man&rsquo;s heart, and filled it with mistrust against
+      Josephine. She accused the forsaken one with levity and unfaithfulness;
+      she filled his heart with jealousy and rancor; she used all the means of
+      perfidy and calumny of which a woman is capable, and in which she finds a
+      refuge when her object is to ruin, and she succeeded completely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Alexandre de Beauharnais was now entirely hers; he was gathering against
+      Josephine anger and vengeance; and even when he received the news that, on
+      the 13th of April, 1783, his young wife had given birth to a daughter at
+      Noisy, his soul was not moved by soft emotions, by milder sentiments of
+      reconciliation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Madame de Gisard had taught him that henceforth he need no more be on the
+      defensive in reference to the reproaches of Josephine, but that he now
+      must be the aggressor; that, to justify his own guiltiness, he must accuse
+      his wife of guilt. She had offered herself as the price of his reconquered
+      freedom; and the viscount, overcome with love, anger, and jealousy, was
+      anxious to become worthy of this price.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He left Martinique and returned to Noisy, not to embrace and bless his
+      daughter Eugenie Hortense, but to bow down the mother&rsquo;s head with the
+      curse of shame. He accused, without listening to any justification, and,
+      with all the vehemence of misguided passion, he asked for an immediate
+      separation, an immediate divorce. Vain were the expostulations, the
+      prayers of his father and of Madame de Renaudin. Vain were the tears, the
+      assurances of innocence from Josephine. The tears of an injured woman, the
+      prayers of his sorrowing relatives, were impotent against the whisperings
+      and the seducing smiles of the beautiful Madame de Gisard, who had
+      secretly accompanied him to France, and who had now over him an
+      unconditional sway.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The viscount brought before Parliament a complaint for separation from his
+      wife, and based it upon the most improbable and most shameless
+      accusations.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Josephine, who, for two years in loneliness and abandonment, had awaited
+      the return of her husband; Josephine, who had always hoped, through the
+      voice of her children, to recall her husband to herself, saw herself
+      suddenly threatened with a new, unexpected tempest. Two years of suffering
+      were finally to be rewarded by a scandalous process, which exposed her
+      person to the idle and malicious tongues of the Parisians.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She had, however, to submit to fate; she had to bow her head to the storm,
+      and trust for her justification to the mercy of God and to the justice of
+      the Parliament. During the time of the process she withdrew, according to
+      custom, into a convent, and for nearly one year hid herself with her shame
+      and her anguish in the abbey of Pantemont, in the street Grenelle, St.
+      Germain. However, she was not alone; her aunt, Madame de Renaudin,
+      accompanied her, and every day came the Marquis de Beauharnais, her
+      husband&rsquo;s father, bringing her the children, who, during the time of the
+      unfortunate process, were to remain at Noisy, under the guardianship of
+      their grandfather and of a worthy governess. The members of her husband&rsquo;s
+      family rivalled each other in their manifestations of affection to a woman
+      so much injured and so incriminated, and openly before the world they
+      declared themselves against the viscount, who, blinded by passion and
+      entirely in the chains of this ensnaring woman, was justifying the
+      innocency of his wife by his own indiscreet demeanor&mdash;by the public
+      exhibition of his passion for Madame de Gisard, and thus caused the
+      accusations launched against Josephine to recoil upon his own head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last, after one year of debates, of careful considerations and
+      investigations, of receiving evidence, and of hearing witnesses, the
+      Parliament pronounced its decision.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Josephine was declared absolutely innocent of the crimes brought against
+      her, and was entirely acquitted of the accusation of unfaithfulness. The
+      Parliament pronounced the solemn decree: The accusation directed against
+      the Viscountess de Beauharnais was simply a malicious calumny. The
+      innocency of the accused wife was evident, and consequently the Viscount
+      de Beauharnais was bound to receive again his wife into his house.
+      However, the viscountess was permitted and allowed not to share the same
+      residence with her husband, and to separate herself from him. In this case
+      the viscount was condemned to pay to his wife an annual pension of ten
+      thousand francs, and to leave with her mother his daughter Eugenie
+      Hortense, while he, the father, should provide for the education of the
+      son.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Exonerated from the disgraceful imputation of faithlessness, Josephine was
+      again free to leave the convent and return to the life of the world. It
+      was her husband&rsquo;s family which now prepared for the poor young woman the
+      most beautiful and most touching triumph. The father of her, accuser, the
+      Marquis de Beauharnais, as well as his elder son and wife, the Duke and
+      Duchess de la Rochefoucauld, and the Baroness Fanny de Beauharnais, came
+      in their state carriages to the abbey to receive Josephine and lead her
+      back to Paris. They had been joined by a great number of the most
+      respectable and most noble ladies of the Parisian aristocracy, all in
+      their state carriages, and in the splendor of their armorial trappings and
+      liveries, as if it were to accompany a queen returning home.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Josephine shed tears of blessed joy when quitting her small, sombre rooms
+      in the abbey. She entered into the reception-room to bid farewell to the
+      prioress, and there met all these friends and relatives, who saluted her
+      with looks of deepest tenderness and sympathy, and embraced her in their
+      arms as one found again, as one long desired. This hour of triumph
+      indemnified her for the sorrows and sufferings of the unhappy year which
+      the poor wife of scarcely twenty years of age, and fleeing from calumny
+      and hatred, liar! sighed away in the desolate and lonesome convent. She
+      was free, she was justified; the disgrace was removed from her head; she
+      was again authorized to be the mother of her children; she saw herself
+      surrounded by loving parents, by true friends, and yet in her heart there
+      was a sting. Notwithstanding his cruelty, his harshness, though he had
+      abandoned and despised her, her heart could not be forced into hating the
+      husband for whom she had so much wept and suffered. Her tears had
+      impressed his image yet deeper in her heart. He was the husband of her
+      first love, the father of her children; how could Josephine have hated
+      him, how could her heart, so soft and true, cherish animosity against him?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the side of her husband&rsquo;s father, and holding her daughter in her arms,
+      Josephine entered Paris. Behind them came a long train of brilliant
+      equipages, of relatives and friends. The passers-by stopped to see the
+      brilliant procession move before them, and to ask what it meant. Some had
+      recognized the viscountess, and they told to others of the sufferings and
+      of the acquittal of the poor young woman; and the people, easily affected
+      and sympathizing, rejoiced in the decision of the Parliament, and with
+      shouts and applause followed the carriage of the young wife.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The marquis, her father-in-law, turned smilingly to Josephine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you see, my daughter,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;what a triumph you enjoy, and how
+      much you are beloved and recognized?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Josephine bent down toward the little Hortense and kissed her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah,&rdquo; said she, in a low voice, &ldquo;we are returning home, but the father of
+      my children will not bid us welcome. For a pressure of his hand, for a
+      kind word from him, I would gladly give the lofty triumph of this hour.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      No, Alexandre de Beauharnais did not bid welcome to Josephine in his
+      father&rsquo;s house, which they had occupied together. Ashamed and irritated,
+      he had sped away from Paris, and returned to his regiment at Verdun.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the arm of the Marquis de Beauharnais, Josephine traversed the
+      apartments in which she had lived with her husband, and which she now saw
+      again as a widow, whom not death but life had separated from her husband.
+      Her father-in-law saw the tears standing in her eyes, and, with the
+      refined sympathy of a sensitive mind, he understood the painful thoughts
+      which agitated the soul of the young wife.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He fondly folded her in his arms, and laid his blessing hand on the head
+      of the little Hortense.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have lost my son Alexandre,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;but I have found in his stead a
+      daughter. Yes, Josephine, you are and will remain my daughter, and to you
+      and to your children I will be a true father. My son has parted from us,
+      but we remain together in harmony and love, and as long as I live my
+      daughter Josephine will never want a protector.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0006" id="link2HCH0006"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VI. TRIANON AND MARIE ANTOINETTE.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Whilst the Viscountess Josephine de Beauharnais, the empress of the
+      future, was living in enforced widowhood, the life of Marie Antoinette,
+      the queen of the present, resembled a serene, golden, sunny dream; her
+      countenance, beaming with youth, beauty, and grace, had never yet been
+      darkened with a cloud; her large blue eyes had not yet been dimmed with
+      tears.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In Fontainebleau, whither Josephine had retired with her father-in-law,
+      who through unfortunate events had lost the greatest part of his fortune&mdash;in
+      Fontainebleau lived the future Empress of France in sad monotony; in
+      Versailles, in Trianon, lived the present Queen of France in the dazzling
+      splendor of her glory, of her youth, and of her beauty. In Trianon&mdash;this
+      first gift of love from the king to his wife&mdash;the Queen of France
+      dreamed life away in a pleasant idyl, in a joyous pastoral amusement;
+      there, she tried to forget that she was queen, that is to say, that she
+      was the slave of etiquette; there she tried to indemnify herself for the
+      tediousness, the emptiness, the heartlessness of the great festivals in
+      the Tuileries and in Versailles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In Trianon, Marie Antoinette desired to be the domestic wife, the
+      pleasant, youthful woman, as in the Tuileries and at Versailles she was
+      the proud and lofty queen. Marie Antoinette felt her days obscured by the
+      splendors of royalty; the crown weighed heavily on her beautiful head,
+      which seemed made for a crown of myrtle and roses; life&rsquo;s earnestness had
+      not yet cast its breath on those rosy cheeks and robbed of youth&rsquo;s charm
+      the smile on those crimson lips.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And why should not Marie Antoinette have smiled and been joyous? Every
+      thing shone round about her; every thing seemed to promise an enduring
+      harvest of felicity, for the surface of France was calm and bright, and
+      the queen&rsquo;s vision had not yet been made keen enough by experience to
+      penetrate below this shining surface and see the precipices already hidden
+      underneath.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These precipices were yet covered with flowers, and the skies floating
+      above them seemed yet cloudless. The French people appeared to retain yet
+      for the royal family that enthusiastic devotedness which they had
+      manifested for centuries; they fondly proclaimed to the queen, whenever
+      she appeared, their affection, their admiration; they were not weary with
+      the expressions of their rapture and their worship, and Marie Antoinette
+      was not weary of listening to these jubilant manifestations with which she
+      was received in the theatre, on the streets, in the gardens of the
+      Tuileries, on the terraces of Versailles; she was not weary of returning
+      thanks with a friendly nod or with a gracious smile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All the Parisians seemed still to be, as once, at the arrival of the
+      Dauphin, they had been called by the Baron de Vesenval, &ldquo;the queen&rsquo;s
+      lovers,&rdquo; and also to rival one another in manifesting their allegiance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Even the fish-women of Paris shared the general enthusiasm; and when, in
+      1781, the queen had given to her husband a son, and to his people a future
+      monarch, the ladies of &ldquo;the Halls&rdquo; were amongst the most enthusiastic
+      friends of the queen. They even came to Versailles to congratulate the
+      royal couple on the dauphin&rsquo;s birth, to salute the young dauphin as the
+      heir to the crown of France, and to sing under the window of the king some
+      songs, one of which so pleased the king that oftentimes afterward, in his
+      quiet and happy hours, he used to sing a verse of it with a smile on his
+      lip. This Terse, which even Marie Antoinette sang, ran thus:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+    &ldquo;Ne craignez pas, cher papa,
+        D&rsquo; voir augmenter vot&rsquo; famille,
+     Le bon Dieu z&rsquo;y pourvoira:
+        Faits-en taut qu&rsquo; Versailles en fourmille;
+     Yeut-il cent Bourbons cheu nos
+        Ya du pain, du laurier pour tous.&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      [Footnote: Madaine ile Carapan, &ldquo;Histoire de Marie Antoinette,&rdquo; vol. i.,
+      p. 218.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In Trianon, Marie Antoinette passed her happiest hours and days; there,
+      the queen changed herself into a shepherdess; there, vanished from her the
+      empty splendors of purple and ermine, of etiquette and ceremonial; there,
+      she enjoyed life in its purity, in its innocency, in its naturalness; such
+      was the ideal Marie Antoinette wished to realize in Trianon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A simple dress of white muslin, a light kerchief of gauze, a straw hat
+      with a gayly-colored ribbon, such was the attire of the queen and of the
+      princesses whom Marie Antoinette invited. For the only etiquette which
+      prevailed at Trianon was this: that no one from the court, even princes or
+      princesses, should come to Trianon without having received an invitation
+      from the queen to that effect. Even the king submitted to this ceremonial,
+      and had expressly promised his consort never to come to Trianon without an
+      invitation, and, so as to please the queen, no sooner did she announce her
+      intention of retiring to her country-residence, than he was always the
+      first who hastened to obtain the favor of an invitation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In Trianon, Louis ceased to be king as well as Marie Antoinette ceased to
+      be queen. There Louis XVI. was but the farmer of the lady of the castle;
+      the Count d&rsquo;Artois was the miller, and the learned Count de Provence, the
+      schoolmaster. For each of them had been erected in the gardens of Trianon
+      a separate house suited to their respective avocations.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The farmer Louis had his farm-house built in Swiss style, with a balcony
+      of finely-carved wood at the gable-end, and with stalls attached to the
+      house, and where bellowed the stately red cows of Switzerland; behind the
+      house was a small garden in which the variegated convolvulus and the daisy
+      shed their fragrance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Count d&rsquo;Artois had, near the stream which flowed through the park, his
+      miller&rsquo;s house, with an enormous wheel, made of wooden spokes joined
+      together, and which moved lustily in the water, and adorned the clear
+      brook with wavelets of foam.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Count de Provence had, under the shadow of a mulberry-tree, his house,
+      with a large school-room in it; and oftentimes the whole court-society
+      were converted into scholars of both sexes, who took their seats on the
+      benches of the school-room, whilst the Count de Provence, in a long coat
+      with lead buttons and with an immense rod in his hand, ascended the
+      cathedra and delivered to his school-children a humorous and piquant
+      lecture, all sparkling with wit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The princesses also had in this &ldquo;grove of Paradise,&rdquo; as Marie Antoinette
+      called the woods of Trianon, their cottages, where they milked cows, made
+      butter, and searched for eggs in the hens&rsquo; nests. In the midst of all
+      these cottages and Swiss houses stood the cottage of the farming Marie
+      Antoinette; it was the finest and the most beautiful one of all, adorned
+      with vases full of fragrant blossoms and surrounded by flowering plants
+      and by cozy bowers of verdure. This cottage was the highest delight of the
+      queen&rsquo;s life, the enchanting toy of her happiness. Even the little castle
+      of Trianon, however simple and modest, seemed too splendid for the taste
+      of the pastoral queen. For in Trianon one was always reminded that the
+      lady of this castle was a queen; there, servants were in livery; there,
+      officials and names and titles were to be found, even when etiquette was
+      forbidden entrance into the halls of the little castle of Trianon. Marie
+      Antoinette was no more queen there, it is true, but she was the lady of
+      the palace to whom the highest respect was shown, and who therefore had
+      been constrained expressly and strictly to order that at her entrance into
+      the drawing-rooms the ladies would not interrupt the piece begun on the
+      piano, nor stand up if seated at their embroidery, and that the gentlemen
+      would keep on undisturbed their billiard-party or their game at trictrac.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But in her cottage all rank disappeared; there, was no distinction; there,
+      ceased the glory of name and title, and no sooner was the castle abandoned
+      for the cottages than each named the other with some Arcadic, pastoral
+      appellation, and each busied himself with his rural avocations. How
+      lustily the laughter, how merrily the song sounded from these cottages
+      amid these bowers and groves; how the countenance of the farming-lady was
+      lighted up with happiness and joy; with what delight rested upon her the
+      eye of the farmer Louis, who in his blue blouse, with a straw hat on his
+      head, with a rosy, fleshy, good-natured face, was exactly fitted for his
+      part, and who found it no difficult task to hide under the farmer&rsquo;s
+      garment the purple of the king!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How often was Marie Antoinette seen in her simple white dress, her glowing
+      countenance shaded by a straw hat, bounding through the garden as light as
+      a gazelle, and going from the barn to the milk-room, followed by the
+      company she had invited to drink of her milk and eat of her fresh eggs!
+      How often, when the farmer Louis had secreted himself in a grove for the
+      sake of reading, how often was he discovered there by the queen, torn away
+      from his book and drawn to a dejeuner on the grass! When that was over,
+      and Louis had gone back to his book, Marie Antoinette hastened to her cows
+      to see them milked, or she went into the rocking-boat to fish, or else
+      reposed on the lawn, busy as a peasant, with her spindle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But this quiet occupation detained not long the lively, spirited
+      farming-lady; with a loud voice, she called to her maids or companions
+      from the cottages, and then began those merry, unrestrained amusements
+      which the queen had introduced into society, and which since then have
+      been introduced not only into the drawing-rooms of the upper classes, but
+      also into the more austere circles of the wealthy burghers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then the queen with her court played at blindman&rsquo;s bluff, at pampam, or at
+      a game invented by the Duke de Chartres, the future Duke Philippe
+      d&rsquo;Orleans, Egalite, and which game was called &ldquo;descamper,&rdquo; a sort of
+      hide-and-seek amusement, in which the ladies hid themselves in the shady
+      bushes and groves, to be there discovered by the gentlemen, and then to
+      endeavor by flight to save themselves, for if once caught and seized they
+      had to purchase their liberty with a kiss.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When evening came all left the cottages for the little castle, and the
+      pastoral recreations gave way to the higher enjoyments of refined society.
+      Marie Antoinette was not in the castle of Trianon queen again, but she was
+      not either the simple lady of the farm, she was the lady of the castle,
+      and&mdash;the first amateur in the theatrical company which twice a week
+      exhibited their pieces in the theatre of Trianon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These theatrical performances were quite as much the queen&rsquo;s delight as
+      her pastoral occupations in her farm cottages, and Marie Antoinette was
+      unwearied in learning and studying her parts. She had chosen for teachers
+      two pensioned actors, Caillot and Dazincourt, who had to come every day to
+      Trianon to teach to the noble group of actors the small operas,
+      vaudevilles, and dramas, which had been chosen for representation, and in
+      which the queen naturally always played the part of first amateur, while
+      the princesses, the wives of the Counts de Provence and Artois, the two
+      Countesses de Polignac, undertook the other parts, even those of
+      gentlemen, when the two brothers of the king, the only male members of
+      this theatrical company, could not assume all the gentlemen&rsquo;s parts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At first the audience at these representations was very limited. Only the
+      king, the princes and the princesses of the royal household, not engaged
+      in the performance, constituted the audience; but afterward it was found
+      that to encourage the actors a little, a larger audience was needed; then
+      the boxes were filled with the governesses of the princesses, the queen&rsquo;s
+      waiting-women, whose sisters and daughters with a few other select ladies
+      had been invited.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was natural that those who had been thus preferred, and who enjoyed the
+      privilege of seeing the Queen of France, the princes and princesses,
+      appear as actors, should be full of admiration and applause at the talents
+      displayed by the royal troupe; and as they alone formed the select
+      audience, whose presence had for object to animate the artistes, they had
+      also assumed the duty to excite and to vitalise the zeal and the fire of
+      the players by their enthusiasm and by their liberal praises.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This applause of a grateful public blinded the royal actors as to their
+      real merits, and excited in them the ambition to exhibit their artistic
+      talents before a larger audience and to be admired. Consequently, the
+      queen granted to the officers of the lifeguard and to the masters of the
+      king&rsquo;s stalls and to their brothers, admittance into the theatre; the
+      gentlemen and ladies of the court had seats in the gilt boxes; a larger
+      number of ladies were invited, and soon from all sides came requests for
+      tickets of admission to the theatrical performances in the Trianon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The same privileges which had been allowed to a few could not be, and it
+      was not desirable that they should be, granted to all; those who were
+      purposely refused revenged themselves of this refusal by an unsparing
+      criticism on the performers and by bitter sarcasm at the Queen of France,
+      who so far forgot her dignity as to play comedies before her subjects, and
+      who played her part not always in such a manner as to give to a sharp
+      criticism no reason for blame.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The queen possessed, it is true, the desire, but not the ability, to be an
+      actress or a songstress. When she played the part of a comedian, no one
+      felt tempted to laugh; but contrariwise it might often happen that, when
+      her part was tragical, impressive and touching even to tears, the faces of
+      her auditors brightened with involuntary laughter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Once even it happened that a person from the audience, when the queen had
+      not yet left the stage, cried aloud, and perhaps with the intention of
+      being heard by her: &ldquo;One must confess that royal acting is bad acting!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Though she understood the words, yet the smile on her lips vanished not
+      away; and as the Countess Diana de Polignac wished to persuade her to
+      allow the impertinent one who had spoken these words, to be sought out and
+      punished, the queen, shrugging her shoulders answered: &ldquo;My friend, I say
+      as Madame de Maintenon: &lsquo;I am upon the stage, and must therefore be
+      willing to be applauded or hissed.&rsquo;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Yes, she had to endure the applause or the hissing. Unfortunately, the
+      number of those who hissed grew every day. The queen had provoked public
+      expression since she bade it defiance. On the day she banished etiquette
+      from its watchful duty at the apartments of the Queen of France, the
+      public expression with its train of slanders and maliciousness entered in
+      through the open portals. The queen was blamed for her theatricals as well
+      as for her simple, unadorned toilet, yet she was imitated in these two
+      things, as even before the costly and luxurious toilet, the high
+      head-gears of the queen, and also blindman&rsquo;s buff and descamper, had been
+      imitated. Every woman now wanted such a simple negligee, such a headdress,
+      such a feather as Marie Antoinette. As once before, Madame Bertin, the
+      celebrated milliner of the queen, had been circumvented to furnish a
+      pattern of the queen&rsquo;s coiffure, so now all the ladies rushed upon her in
+      flocks to procure the small caps, fichus, and mantelets, after the queen&rsquo;s
+      model. The robes with long trains, the court-dresses of heavy silk, jewels
+      and gold ornaments, were on a sudden despised; every thing which could add
+      brilliancy and dignity to the toilet was banished, the greatest simplicity
+      and nonchalance were now the fashion; every lady strove, if possible, to
+      resemble a shepherdess of Watteau, and it was soon impossible to
+      distinguish a duchess from an actress.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Not only the ladies but also the gentlemen were carried away by this flood
+      of novelty. They gave up the boots with red heels, the embroidered
+      garments, as already before they had given up laces, bandelets, gold
+      fringes, and diamond buttons on the hats; they put on simple coats of
+      cloth as the burgher and the man of the people wore; they abandoned their
+      equipages, with their brilliant armorial trappings and the golden
+      liveries, and found satisfaction in promenading the streets, with cane in
+      hand, and with boots instead of buckled shoes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is true these street promenadings of the nobility were not oftentimes
+      without inconvenience and molestation. As without the insignia of their
+      rank and position they mixed with the society of the streets, entered into
+      taverns and cafes, the people took them for what they seemed to be, for
+      their equals, and instead of respectfully making way for them, the people
+      claimed as much attention from them as they themselves were willing to
+      give. Often enough disputes and scuffles took place between the disguised
+      nobleman and the man of the people, the laborer, or the commissionnaire,
+      and at such experiments of hand to hand the victory was not to the
+      nobleman, but to the fist of the man, of the people.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The novelty of such scenes excited the fastidious aristocracy; it became a
+      sort of passion to mix with the people, to frequent the cabarets, to
+      strike some bargain at trade, to be the hero of a fist-fight, even if it
+      ended by the stout workmen throwing down the aristocrats who had despised
+      them. To be thrown down was no more considered by the nobility as a
+      disgrace, and they applauded these affrays as once they had applauded
+      duelling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The aristocracy mixed with the people, adopted their manners and usages,
+      even much of their mode of thinking, of their democratic opinions, and, by
+      divesting themselves of their external dignity, of their halo, the
+      nobility threw down the barrier of separation which stood between them and
+      the democracy; that respect and esteem which the man of the people had
+      hitherto maintained toward the nobleman vanished away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The principle of equality, which was to have such fatal consequences for
+      France, arose from the folly of the aristocracy; and Marie Antoinette was
+      the one who, with her taste for simplicity, with her opposition to
+      etiquette and ceremony, had called this principle into life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Not only was the queen imitated in her simplicity, she was also imitated
+      in her love of comedy. These theatrical amusements of the queen were a
+      subject of reproach, and yet these private recreations of Marie Antoinette
+      were the fashion of the day. The taste for theatrical representations made
+      its way into all classes of society; soon there was no nobleman, no
+      banker, not even a respectable, well-to-do merchant, who had not in his
+      house a small theatre, and who, with his family and friends, endeavored
+      not to emulate on his own narrow stage the manners of the celebrated
+      actors.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Before these days, a nobleman would have considered himself insulted and
+      dishonored if he had been supposed to have become a comedian, or even to
+      have assumed a comedian&rsquo;s garb, were it but in the home-circle. The queen
+      by her example had now destroyed this prepossession, and it was now so
+      much bon ton to act a comedy that even men of gravity, even the first
+      magistrate of Paris, could so much forget the dignity of position as to
+      commit to memory and even to act some of the parts of a buffoon.
+      [Footnote: Montjoie, &ldquo;Histoire de Marie Antoinette, Reine de France.&rdquo;]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was also soon considered to be highly fashionable to set one&rsquo;s self
+      against the prejudice which had been hitherto fostered against actors;
+      and, whereas the queen took lessons in singing from Garat, the
+      opera-singer, and even sang duets with her, she threw down the wall of
+      partition which had hitherto separated the artistes of the stage from good
+      society.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Unfortunate queen, who, with the best qualities of the heart, was
+      preparing her own ruin; who understood not that the freedom and license
+      which she herself granted, would soon throw on the roof of the Tuileries
+      the firebrand which reduced to dust and ashes the throne of the Bourbons!&mdash;unfortunate
+      queen, who in her modesty would so gladly forget her exaltation and her
+      majesty, and who thereby taught her subjects to make light of majesty and
+      to despise the throne!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She saw not yet the abyss opening under her feet; the flowers of Trianon
+      hid it from her view! She heard not the distant mutterings of the public
+      mind, which, like the raging wave of the storm, swelled up nearer and
+      nearer the throne to crush it one day under the howling thunders of the
+      unshackled elements of the unloosed rage of the people!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The skies, arching over the fragrant blossoms of the charming Trianon, and
+      over the cottages of the farming queen, were yet serene and cloudless, and
+      the voice of public opinion was yet drowned in the joyous laughter which
+      echoed from the cottages of Trianon, or in the sweet harmonies which waved
+      in the concert-hall, when the queen, with Garat, or with the Baron de
+      Vaudreuil, the most welcome favorite of the ladies, and the most
+      accomplished courtier of his day, sang her duets.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Repose and peace prevailed yet in Trianon, and the loyal subjects of the
+      King of France made their pilgrimages to Trianon, there to admire the
+      idyls of the queen and to watch for the favorable opportunity of espying
+      the queen, Marie Antoinette, in her rustic costume, with a basket of eggs
+      on her arm, or the spindle in hand, and to be greeted by her with a
+      salutation, a friendly word. For Marie Antoinette in Trianon was only the
+      lady of the mansion, or the farming-lady&mdash;so much so, that she had
+      allowed the very last duties of etiquette, which separated the subject
+      from the queen, to be abandoned, that even when with her gay company she
+      was in Trianon, the gates of the park and of the castle were not closed to
+      visitors, but were opened to any one who had secured from the keeper a
+      card of admission; the benefit arising from these cards was applied by
+      order of the queen to the relief of the poor of Versailles. It is true,
+      one condition of small importance was attached, &ldquo;by order of the queen,&rdquo;
+       to the obtaining of such a card. It was necessary to belong to the
+      nobility, or to the higher magistracy, so as to be entitled to purchase a
+      card of admission into the Trianon, and this sole insignificant condition
+      contained the germ of much evil and of bitter hatred. The merchant, the
+      spicier, was conscious of a bitter insult in this order, which banished
+      him from Trianon, which made it impossible for him to satisfy his
+      curiosity, and to see the queen as a shepherdess, and the king as a
+      farmer. This order only whetted more and more the hatred and the contempt
+      for the preferred classes, for the aristocrats, and turned the most
+      important class of the population, the burgesses, into enemies of the
+      queen. For it was the queen who had given this order which kept away from
+      Trianon the tradesmen; it was the queen alone who ruled in Trianon: and,
+      to vent vengeance on the queen&rsquo;s order, she was blamed for assuming a
+      right belonging only to the King of France. Only he, the king, was
+      entitled to give laws to France, only he could set on the very front of
+      the law this seal: &ldquo;DE PAR LE ROI.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And now the queen wanted to assume this privilege. In the castles of
+      pleasure presented by the king to the queen, in Trianon as well as in St.
+      Cloud, was seen at the entrance of the gardens a tablet, containing the
+      regulations under which admission was granted to the public, and these two
+      tablets began with the formula, &ldquo;DE PAR LA HEINE!&rdquo; This unfortunate
+      expression excited the ill-will and the anger of all France; every one
+      felt himself injured, every one was satisfied to see therein an attack on
+      the integrity of the monarchy, on the sovereignty of the king.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is no more the king alone who enacts laws,&rdquo; they said, &ldquo;but the queen
+      also assumes this right; she makes use of the formalities of the state,
+      she issues laws without the approbation of the Parliament. The queen wants
+      to place our king aside and despoil us of our rights, so as to take the
+      king&rsquo;s place!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And these complaints, these reproaches became so vehement, so loud, that
+      their echoes resounded in the chambers of the king, so that even one of
+      the ministers could make observations to the king on that subject, and
+      say: &ldquo;It is certainly immoral and impolitic for a queen of France to own
+      castles for her own private use&rdquo; [Footnote: Campan, &ldquo;Memoires,&rdquo; vol. i.,
+      p. 274.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The good Louis therefore ventured to speak to his consort on this subject,
+      and to ask of her to remove this expression which gave so much offence,
+      and which had so violently excited the public sentiment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the pure heart of Marie Antoinette rebelled against such a
+      supposition; her pride was stirred up that she, a queen, the daughter of
+      the Caesars, should make concession to public opinion; that she should
+      submit to this imaginary and invisible power, which dared despise her as a
+      queen, which she recognized not and would not recognize!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This power, the public opinion, stood yet behind Marie Antoinette as an
+      invisible, an unobserved phantom, which soon was to be transformed into a
+      cruel monster, whose giant hand would pitilessly crush the happiness and
+      the peace of the queen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The prayers and expostulations of the king were in vain. Marie Antoinette
+      would not bow to the public sentiment; she would not depart from her
+      regulations, she would not strike off her &ldquo;De par la reine&rdquo; for the sake
+      of &ldquo;De par le peuple&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My name is there in its right place,&rdquo; said she, with a countenance
+      beaming with resolution and pride; &ldquo;these gardens and castles are my
+      property, and I can very well issue orders in them, without interfering
+      with state rights.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And the &ldquo;De par la reine&rdquo; remained on the regulation-tablets in Trianon as
+      well as in St. Cloud; and the people, who, through birth or through
+      official position, were not entitled to enter Trianon, came thither at
+      least to read the tablets of rules at the gate of entrance, and to fill up
+      their hearts with scorn and contempt, and to utter loud curses against
+      this presumptuous and daring &ldquo;De par la reine.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And this woman, whose pride and imperiousness kept away and scorned away
+      the burgesses from the gates of Trianon, came to Trianon there to rest
+      from the unbending majesty of her sovereignty, and she herself used to say
+      to her ladies, with her own enchanting smile, &ldquo;To forget that she was
+      queen.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The numberless fairy-tales related about the enchanted castle of the queen
+      had found their way to Fontainebleau, and had been re-echoed in the quiet,
+      lonely house where lived the Marquis de Beauharnais and his family. The
+      marquis, always extremely attentive to procure for his beloved
+      daughter-in-law some distraction and some recreation, proposed to
+      Josephine to visit this Trianon, which furnished so much material for
+      admiration and slander, and to make thither with a few friends a pleasure
+      excursion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Josephine gladly accepted the invitation; she longed for diversion and
+      society. Her young, glowing heart had been healed and strengthened after
+      the deep wound which the ever-beloved husband had inflicted; she had
+      submitted to her fate; she was a divorced woman, but Parliament had by its
+      judgment kept her honor free from every shadow; public opinion had
+      pronounced itself in her favor; the love of her parents, of the father of
+      him who had so shamefully accused her, so cruelly deserted her, endeavored
+      to make compensation for what she had lost. Josephine could not trouble,
+      with her sorrows, with her sad longings of soul, those who so much busied
+      themselves in cheering her up. She had, therefore, so mastered herself as
+      to appear content, as to dry here tears; and her youth, the freshness and
+      elasticity of her mind, had come to the help of her efforts. She had at
+      first smiled through effort, she soon did it from the force of youthful
+      pleasure; she had at first repressed her tears by the power of her will,
+      soon her tears were dried up and her eyes irradiated again the fire of
+      youth and hope, of the hope once more to win her husband&rsquo;s heart, to
+      return her two graceful and beloved children to their father, whom their
+      youth needed, for whom every evening she raised to the God of love the
+      prayers which their mother with low, trembling voice and tears in her eyes
+      made them say after her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Josephine, then, in company with her aunt Madame de Renaudin and with her
+      father-in-law the Marquis de Beauharnais, undertook this
+      pleasure-excursion to Trianon. The sight of these glorious parks, these
+      gardens so artistically laid out, charmed her and filled her with the
+      sweet reminiscences of the loved home, of the beautiful gardens in
+      Martinique, which she herself with her slaves had cultivated, in which she
+      had planted those beautiful flowers whose liveliness of color and whose
+      fragrance of blossom were here in hot-houses so much praised. The love of
+      plants and flowers had ever remained fresh amid the storms and sorrows
+      which in the last years had passed over her heart, and oftentimes she had
+      sought in the study of botany forgetfulness and refreshment. With a
+      vivacity and a joyfulness such as had not been seen in her for a long
+      time, Josephine wandered about this beautiful park, these hot-houses and
+      gardens, and, transported with joy and admiration, she exclaimed: &ldquo;Oh, how
+      happy must the queen be to call this paradise her own!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The sound of approaching voices interrupted her in her observations and in
+      her admiration, which, perchance, was not entirely free from envy. Through
+      the foliage of the trees was seen a large company approaching the queen&rsquo;s
+      farm-house, before which stood Josephine with her escort. At the curve of
+      the path near the grove where Josephine stood, appeared a woman. A white
+      muslin dress, not expanded by the stiff, ceremonious hoop-petticoat, but
+      falling down in ample folds, wrapped up her tall, noble figure, a small
+      lace kerchief covered the beautiful neck, and in part the splendid
+      shoulders. The deep-blond unpowdered hair hung in heavy, curly locks on
+      either side of the rosy cheeks; the head was covered with a large, round
+      straw hat, adorned with long, streaming silk ribbons; on the arm, partly
+      covered with a black knit glove, hung an ornamented woven basket, which
+      was completely filled with eggs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The queen!&rdquo; murmured Josephine, trembling within herself, and, frightened
+      at this unexpected meeting, she wanted to withdraw behind the grove, in
+      the hope of being unnoticed by the farmer&rsquo;s wife passing by.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Marie Antoinette had already seen her, and on her beautiful, smiling
+      countenance was not for a moment expressed either surprise or concern at
+      this unexpected meeting with uninvited strangers. She was so accustomed to
+      see curiosity-seekers in her lovely Trianon, and to meet them, disturbed
+      not in the least her unaffected serenity. A moment only she stood still,
+      to allow her followers, the Duchesses de Polignac, the Princess de
+      Lamballe, and the two Counts de Coigny, to draw near; then lightly and
+      smilingly she walked toward the house near which Josephine bewildered and
+      blushing stood, whilst the marquis bowed profoundly and reverentially.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The queen, who was about to pass by and enter into the house, stood still.
+      Her large dark-blue eye was for a moment fixed with questioning expression
+      upon Josephine, then a smile illumined her beautiful countenance. She had
+      recognized the Viscountess de Beauharnais, though she had seen her only
+      twice. Although, through her husband&rsquo;s rank and station, Josephine was
+      entitled to appear at court, yet she had always, with all the retreating
+      anxiety of inexperienced youth, endeavored to evade the solemnity of an
+      official presentation. The young, lively, unaffected Creole had cherished
+      an invincible horror for the stiff court-etiquette, for the ceremonial
+      court-dress of gold brocade, with the court-mantle strictly embroidered
+      after the established pattern, and which terminated in a long, heavy
+      train, for the majestic head-gear of feathers, flowers, laces, and veils,
+      all towering up nearly a yard high, and, above all things, for those rules
+      and laws which regulated and fixed every word, every step, every movement,
+      at a solemn presentation at court.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Marie Antoinette had had compassion on the timidity of the young Creole,
+      and to spare her the solemnity of a rigid presentation had twice received
+      at a private audience the young Viscountess de Beauharnais, and had then
+      received also her homage. [Footnote: Le Normand, &ldquo;Histoire de
+      l&rsquo;Imperatrice Josephine,&rdquo; vol. i., p. 97.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The youthful, charming appearance of Josephine, her peculiar and at the
+      same time ingenuous and graceful attitude, had not been without impression
+      on the queen; and with the most sympathizing interest, she had heard of
+      the sad disturbances which had clouded the matrimonial happiness of the
+      young Creole.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No longer, as before, had Marie Antoinette requested the Viscount de
+      Beauharnais, the beautiful dancer of Versailles, to dance with her; and
+      when Parliament had given its sentence, and openly and solemnly had
+      proclaimed the innocency of Josephine, the accused wife, the queen also
+      had loudly expressed her satisfaction at this judgment, and the Viscount
+      de Beauharnais was no more invited to the court festivities.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      About to enter into the house, the queen had recognized the young
+      viscountess, and with a friendly movement of the head she beckoned her to
+      approach, welcomed the marquis, whom her short-sightedness had not at once
+      recognized, to her beloved Trianon, and she requested them both to visit
+      her little kingdom as often as they would wish, and to examine every thing
+      attentively.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the goodness and generosity of her heart, the queen gladly desired to
+      make amends to the young, timid woman, who, embarrassed and blushing,
+      stood before her, for the sufferings she had endured, for the disgrace
+      under which she had had to bow her head; she wanted to give the accused
+      innocent one a reparation of honor such as Parliament and public sentiment
+      had already done.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was consequently all goodness, all condescension, all confidence; she
+      spoke to Josephine, not as a queen to her favored subjects, but as a young
+      woman to a young woman, as to her equal. With sympathetic friendliness she
+      made inquiries concerning the welfare of the viscountess and her family;
+      she invited her to come often to Trianon, and, with a flattering allusion
+      to the vast knowledge of the viscountess in botany, she asked her if she
+      was satisfied with the arrangements of garden and hot-houses.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Josephine, with the sensitiveness and fine tact natural to her, felt that
+      the trivial flattery of a courtier would but be a wretched and
+      inappropriate return for so much goodness and loving-kindness; she felt
+      that frankness and truth were the thanks due to the queen&rsquo;s
+      large-heartedness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She therefore answered the queen&rsquo;s questions with impartial sincerity,
+      and, encouraged by the kindness of the queen, she openly and clearly gave
+      her opinion concerning the arrangement of the hot-houses, and drew the
+      attention of the queen to some precious and choice plants which she had
+      noticed in the hot-houses.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Marie Antoinette listened to her with lively interest, and at parting
+      extended to her in a friendly manner her beautiful hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come soon again, viscountess,&rdquo; said she, with that beautiful smile which
+      ever won her true hearts; &ldquo;you are worthy to enjoy the beauty of my
+      beloved Trianon, for you have eyes and sense for the beautiful. Examine
+      everything closely, and when we see one another again, tell me what you
+      have observed and what has pleased you. It will ever be a pleasure to see
+      you.&rdquo; [Footnote: The very words of the queen.&mdash;See Le Normand,
+      &ldquo;Histoire,&rdquo; &amp;c., vol. i., p. 135.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Josephine was no more to see the beautiful queen, so worthy of
+      compassion; and these kind words which Marie Antoinette had spoken to her
+      were the last which Josephine was ever to hear from her lips.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A few days after this visit to Trianon, Josephine received from her
+      parents in Martinique letters which had for their object to persuade her
+      with the tenderness of love, with all the reasons of wisdom, to return to
+      her home, to the house of her parents, to withdraw with bold resolution
+      from all the inconveniences and humiliations of her precarious and
+      dangerous situation, and, instead of living in humble solitude as a
+      divorced, despised woman, sooner to come to Martinique, and there in her
+      parents&rsquo; home be again the beloved and welcomed daughter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Josephine hesitated still. She could not come to the resolution of
+      abandoning the hope of a reunion with Alexandre de Beauharnais; she dreamt
+      yet of the happiness of seeing the beloved wanderer return to his wife, to
+      his children.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But her aunt and her father-in-law knew better than she that there was no
+      prospect of such an event; they knew that the viscount was still the
+      impassioned lover of the beautiful Madame de Gisard; that she held him too
+      tightly in her web to look for a possibility of his returning to his
+      legitimate affection.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If any thing could rouse him from this love-spell, and bring him back to
+      duty and reason, it would be that sudden, unexpected departure; it would
+      be the conviction which would necessarily be impressed upon him, that
+      Josephine desired to be forever separated from him; that she was conscious
+      of being divorced from him forever, and that, in the pride of her insulted
+      womanhood, she wished to withdraw herself and her daughter from his
+      approaches, and from the scandal which his passion for Madame de Gisard
+      was giving.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Such were the reasons with which her relatives, even the grandfather of
+      her two children, sought to persuade her to a voyage to Martinique&mdash;bitter
+      though the anguish would be for them to be deprived of the presence of the
+      gentle, lovely young woman, whose youthful freshness and grace had like
+      sunshine cheered the lonely house in Fontainebleau; to see also part from
+      them the little Hortense, whose joyous voice of childhood had now and then
+      recalled the faithless son to the father&rsquo;s house, and which was still a
+      bond which united Josephine with her husband and with his family.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Josephine had to give way before these arguments, however much her heart
+      bled. She had long felt how much of impropriety and of danger there was in
+      the situation of a young woman divorced from her husband, and how much
+      more dignified and expedient it would be for her to return to her father&rsquo;s
+      home and to the bosom of her family. She therefore took a decided
+      resolution; she tore herself away from her relatives, from her beloved
+      son, whom she could not take with her, for he belonged to the father. With
+      a stream of painful tears she bade farewell to the love of youth, to the
+      joys of youth, from which naught remained but the wounds of a despised
+      heart, and the children who gazed at her with the beloved eyes of their
+      father.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the month of July of the year 1788, Josephine, with her little
+      five-year-old daughter Hortense, left Fontainebleau, went to Havre, whence
+      she embarked for Martinique.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0007" id="link2HCH0007"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VII. LIEUTENANT NAPOLEON BONAPARTE.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      While the Viscountess Josephine de Beauharnais was, during long years of
+      resignation, enduring all the anguish, humiliations, and agonies of an
+      unhappy marriage, the first pain and sorrow had also clouded the days of
+      the young Corsican boy who, in the same year as Josephine, had embarked
+      from his native land for France.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the beginning of the year 1785, Napoleon Bonaparte had lost his father.
+      In Montpellier, whither he had come for the cure of his diseased breast,
+      he died, away from home, from his Letitia and his children. Only his
+      eldest son Joseph stood near his dying couch, and, moreover, a fortunate
+      accident had brought to pass that the poor, lonely sufferer should meet
+      there a friendly home, where he was received with the most considerate
+      affection. Letitia&rsquo;s companion of youth, the beautiful Panonia Comnene,
+      now Madame de Permont, resided in Montpellier with her husband, who was
+      settled there, and with all the faithfulness and friendship of a Corsican,
+      she nursed the sick husband of her Letitia.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But neither the skill of the renowned physicians of Montpellier, nor the
+      tender care of friends, nor the tears of the son, could keep alive the
+      unfortunate Charles de Bonaparte. For three days long he struggled with
+      death; for three days long his youth, his manhood&rsquo;s powers, resisted the
+      mighty foe, which already held him in its chains; then he had to submit to
+      the conqueror. Exhausted with death&rsquo;s pallor, Charles de Bonaparte sank
+      back on his couch, and as Death threw his dark shadows on his face bathed
+      in cold perspiration, Charles de Bonaparte, with stammering tongue, in the
+      last paroxysms of fancy, exclaimed: &ldquo;It is in vain! Nothing can save me!
+      Even Napoleon&rsquo;s sword, which one day is to triumph over all Europe, even
+      that sword cannot frighten away the dragon of death which crouches on my
+      breast!&rdquo; [Footnote: See &ldquo;Memoires du Roi Joseph,&rdquo; vol. i., p. 29.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wonderful vision of a dying man! The dimmed eye of the dying father saw
+      his son Napoleon&rsquo;s sword, &ldquo;which one day was to triumph over all Europe;&rdquo;
+       as he prophesied its power, he sighed at the same time over the impotency
+      which holds all mankind in its bands, and leaves even the hero as a
+      powerless child in the hands of fate. The sword which was to be a yoke to
+      all Europe could not terrify from the breast of his father the dragon of
+      death!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Napoleon received the news of his father&rsquo;s decease whilst at the military
+      school of Paris, where he had been placed for the last six months, to the
+      joy and satisfaction of his teachers as well as to that of his schoolmates
+      in Brienne. For the reserved, taciturn, proud boy, who, rugged and blunt,
+      stood aloof from his comrades, who even dared speak rude and bitter words
+      against his teachers and against the whole military institution at
+      Brienne, was oftentimes an inconvenience and a burden as well to teachers
+      as to schoolmates; and all felt relieved, as from a depressing weight,
+      when they no more feared the naming eyes of the boy who observed every
+      thing, who criticised every thing, and passed judgment upon every thing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But if he was not loved, it was impossible to refuse esteem to his
+      capacity, to his desire for learning; and the testimony which Monsieur de
+      Heralio, the principal of the institution of Brienne, sent with the young
+      Napoleon to Paris, was a tribute of respect and an acknowledgment of
+      merit. He portrayed him &ldquo;as having an extremely capacious head, especially
+      skilled in mathematics, and of great powers and talents.&rdquo; As to his
+      character, one of the professors of the institution had in the testimonial
+      written the remark: &ldquo;A Corsican by birth and character. He will do great
+      things, if circumstances are favorable.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But circumstances did not appear favorable, but contrariwise seemed to bo
+      roused in enmity against the poor Corsican boy. He had been scarcely half
+      a year in Paris when he lost his father, and this grief, of which not a
+      murmur escaped, which he kept within, devouring his heart, as every thing
+      else which affected him, made his existence still more reserved, still
+      more retired, and isolated him more and more. Moreover, death had not only
+      taken away the father, but also the support which Napoleon received from
+      him. The means of the Bonaparte family were very meagre, and barely
+      sufficed to the support of Signora Letitia and her seven children.
+      Napoleon could not and dared not require or accept any help from his
+      mother, on whom and on his brother Joseph it became incumbent to educate
+      and support the young family. He had to be satisfied to live upon the
+      bounty which the royal treasury furnished to the young men at the military
+      school.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But these limited means were to the ambitious boy a source of humiliation
+      and pain. The majority of his comrades consisted of young aristocrats,
+      who, provided with ample means, led a gay, luxurious, dissipated life, had
+      horses, servants, equipages, kept up one with another expensive
+      dinner-parties and dejeuners, and seized every opportunity to organize a
+      festivity or a pleasure-party. Every departure, every admission of a
+      scholar, was celebrated with brilliant display; every birthday furnished
+      the opportunity of a feast, and every holiday became the welcomed occasion
+      for a pleasure excursion which the young men on horseback, and followed by
+      their servants in livery, made in the vicinity of Paris.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Napoleon could take no part in all these feastings and dissipations; and
+      as his proud heart could not acknowledge his poverty, he put on the mask
+      of a stoic, who, with contemptuous disregard, cast away vain pleasures and
+      amusements, and scorned those who with unrestrained zest abandoned
+      themselves to them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had scarcely been half a year in the military school when he gave loud
+      expression to his jealousy and envy; the young Napoleon, nearly sixteen
+      years old, undertook boldly to censure in the very presence of the
+      teachers the regulations of the institution. In a memorial which he had
+      composed, and which he presented to the second director of the
+      establishment, M. Berton, he gave utterance to his own views in the most
+      energetic and daring manner, imposing upon the professors the duty of
+      making a complete change in the institution; of limiting the number of
+      servants, so that the military pupils might learn to wait upon themselves;
+      of simplifying the noonday meal, so as to accustom them to moderation; of
+      forbidding banquets, dejeuners, and pleasure-excursions, so that they
+      might not become inured to a frivolous, extravagant mode of life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This mask of a censuring stoic, which he put on in the presence of
+      teachers and school-mates, he retained also with his few friends. Madame
+      de Permont, a short time after the death of Napoleon&rsquo;s father, came with
+      her family to Paris, where her husband had obtained an important and
+      lucrative office; her son Albert attended the military school and was soon
+      the friend of Napoleon, as much as a friendship could be formed between
+      the young, lively M. de Permont, the son of wealthy and distinguished
+      parents, and the reserved, proud Napoleon Bonaparte, the son of a poor,
+      lonely widow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      However, Napoleon this time acquiesced in the wishes of his true friend,
+      and condescended to pass his holidays with Albert in the house of Madame
+      de Permont, the friend of his mother; and oftentimes his whole countenance
+      would brighten into a smile, when speaking with her of the distant home,
+      of the mother, and of the family. But as many times also that countenance
+      would darken when, gazing round, he tacitly compared this costly,
+      tastefully decorated mansion with the poor and sparingly furnished house
+      in which his noble and beautiful mother lived with her six orphans, and
+      who in her household duties had to wait upon herself; when again he
+      noticed with what solicitude and love Madame de Permont had her children
+      educated by masters from the court, by governesses and by teachers at
+      enormous salaries, whilst her friend Letitia had to content herself with
+      the very deficient institutions of learning to be found in Corsica,
+      because her means were not sufficient to bring to Paris, to the
+      educational establishment of St. Cyr, her young daughters, like the
+      parents of the beautiful Pauline.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The young Napoleon hated luxury, because he himself had not the means of
+      procuring it; he spoke contemptuously of servants, for his position
+      allowed him not to maintain them; he spoke against the expensive noonday
+      meal, because he had to be content with less; he scorned the amusements of
+      his school-mates, because, when they arranged their picnics and
+      festivities, his purse allowed him not to take a part in them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One day in the military school, as one of the teachers was to bid it
+      farewell, the scholars organized a festivity, toward which each of them
+      was to contribute a tolerably large sum. It was perhaps not all accident
+      that precisely on that day M. de Permont, the father of Albert, came to
+      the military school to visit his son, and Napoleon, his son&rsquo;s friend.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He found all the scholars in joyous excitement and motion; his son Albert
+      was, like the rest, intently busy with the preparations of the feast,
+      which was to take place in the garden, and to end in a great display of
+      fireworks. All faces beamed with delight, all eyes were illumined, and the
+      whole park re-echoed with jubilant cries and joyous laughter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Napoleon Bonaparte was not among the gay company. M. de Permont found
+      him in a remote, lonesome path. He was walking up and down with head bent
+      low, his hands folded behind his back; as he saw M. de Permont, his face
+      became paler and gloomier, and a look nearly scornful met the unwelcomed
+      disturber.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My young friend,&rdquo; said M. de Permont, with a friendly smile, &ldquo;I come to
+      bring you the small sum which you need to enable you to take a part in the
+      festivity. Here it is; take it, I pray you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But Napoleon, with a vehement movement of the hand, waved back the offered
+      money, a burning redness for a moment covered his face, then his cheeks
+      assumed that yellowish whiteness which in the child had always indicated a
+      violent emotion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; cried he, vehemently, &ldquo;no, I have nothing to do with this
+      meaningless festivity. I thank you&mdash;I receive no alms.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      M. de Permont gazed with emotions of sympathizing sorrow in the pale face
+      of the poor young man for whom poverty was preparing so many griefs, and
+      in the generosity of his heart he had recourse to a falsehood.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This is no alms I offer you, Napoleon,&rdquo; said he, gently, &ldquo;but this money
+      belongs to you, it comes from your father. At his dying hour he confided
+      to me a small sum of money, with the express charge to keep it for you and
+      to give you a portion of it in pressing circumstances, when your personal
+      honor required it. I therefore bring you to-day the fourth part of this
+      sum, and retain the rest for another pressing occasion.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      With a penetrating, searching look. Napoleon gazed into the face of the
+      speaker, and the slight motions of a sarcastic smile played for an instant
+      around his thin, compressed lips.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, then,&rdquo; said he, after a pause, &ldquo;since this money comes from my
+      father, I can use it; but had you simply wished to lend it to me, I could
+      not have received it. My mother has already too much responsibility and
+      care; I cannot increase them by an outlay, especially when such an outlay
+      is imposed upon me by the sheer folly of my schoolmates.&rdquo; [Footnote:
+      Napoleon&rsquo;s words.&mdash;See &ldquo;Memoires de la Duchesse d&rsquo;Abrantes,&rdquo; vol. i.,
+      p. 81.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He then took the offered sum for which, as he thought, he was indebted to
+      no man, and hastened to pay his contribution to the festivity. But, in
+      respect to his principles, he took no part in the festivity, but declaimed
+      all the louder, and in a more biting tone, against the criminal
+      propensities for pleasure in the young men who, instead of turning their
+      attention to their studies, lavished away their precious time in
+      dissipation and frivolities.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These anxieties and humiliations of poverty Napoleon had doubly to endure,
+      not only for himself, but also for his sister Marianne (who afterward
+      called herself Elise). She had been, as already said, at her father&rsquo;s
+      intercession and application, received in the royal educational institute
+      of St. Cyr, and there enjoyed the solid and brilliant education of the
+      pupils of the king. But the spirit of luxury and the desire for pleasure
+      had also penetrated into this institution, founded by the pious and
+      high-minded Madame de Maintenon, and the young ladies of St. Cyr had among
+      themselves picnics and festivals, as well as the young men of the military
+      school.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Napoleon, whose means, as long as he was in Brienne, never allowed him to
+      visit his beloved sister at St. Cyr, had now frequent opportunities of
+      seeing her, for Madame de Permont, in her royal friendship to the
+      Bonaparte family, took as lively an interest in the daughter as in the son
+      of her friend Letitia, and often drove to St. Cyr to visit the young and
+      beautiful Marianne.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A few days after the festival in the military school, a short vacation had
+      followed, and Napoleon passed it with his friend Albert in the house of
+      the family of Permont. To please young Napoleon, it was decided to go to
+      St. Cyr, and the glowing cheeks and the lively manner with which Napoleon,
+      during the journey, conversed with M. and Madame de Permont, proved what
+      satisfaction he anticipated in meeting his sister.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Marianne Bonaparte did not seem to share this satisfaction. With
+      downcast countenance and sad mien she entered the reception-room and
+      saluted M. and Madame Permont, and even her brother, with a gloomy,
+      despairing look. As she was questioned about the cause of her sadness, she
+      broke into tears, and threw herself with vehement emotion into the arms of
+      Madame de Permont.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Vain were the prayers and expostulations of her mother&rsquo;s friend to have
+      her reveal the cause of her sadness. Marianne only shook her head in a
+      negative manner, and ever a fresh flow of tears started from her eyes, but
+      she remained silent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Napoleon, who at first, pale and silent, had looked on this outbreak of
+      sorrow, now excitedly approached his sister, and, laying his hand upon her
+      arm, said in angry tones: &ldquo;Since you cry, you must also confess the cause
+      of your tears, or else we are afraid that you weep over some wrong of
+      which you are guilty. But woe to you if it is so! I am here in the name of
+      our father, and I will be without pity!&rdquo; [Footnote: &ldquo;Memoires de la
+      Duehesse d&rsquo;Abrantes.&rdquo;]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Marianne trembled, and cast a timid, anxious look upon her young brother,
+      whose voice had assumed such a peculiar, imperious expression&mdash;whose
+      eyes shone with the expression of a proud, angry master.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am in no wise guilty, my brother,&rdquo; murmured she, &ldquo;and yet I am sad and
+      unhappy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And blushing, trembling, with broken words, interrupted by tears and
+      sighs, Marianne related that next day, a farewell festival was to take
+      place in the institution in honor of one of the pupils about to leave. The
+      whole class was taking a part in it, and each of the young ladies had
+      already paid her contribution.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I only am not able,&rdquo; exclaimed Marianne, with a loud burst of
+      anguish, &ldquo;I have but six francs; if I give them, nothing is left me, and
+      my pension is not paid until six weeks. But even were I to give all I
+      have, my miserable six francs would not be enough.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Very unwillingly indeed had Napoleon, whilst Marianne thus spoke, put his
+      hand into his pocket, as if to draw out the money which his sorrowing
+      sister needed, but remembering his own poverty, his hand dropped at his
+      side; a deep glow of anger overspread his cheeks, and wildly stamping down
+      with the foot he turned away and walked to the window, perhaps to allow
+      none to notice the nervous agitation of his countenance and his tears of
+      vexation and shame.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But what Napoleon could not do, that did Madame de Permont. She gave to
+      the weeping young girl the twelve francs she needed to take a part in the
+      festivity, and Marianne, less proud and less disdainful than her brother,
+      accepted gladly, without opposition and without the need of a falsehood,
+      the little sum offered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Napoleon allowed this to take place without contradiction, and hindered
+      not his sister to receive from Madame de Permont the alms which he himself
+      had so arrogantly refused.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But they had barely left the reception-room and entered the carriage, than
+      his suffering heart burst into a sarcastic philippic against the
+      contemptible administration of such royal establishments as St. Cyr and
+      the military school.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      M. de Permont, who had at first patiently and with a smile listened to
+      these raving invectives, felt himself at last wounded by them; and the
+      supercilious and presumptuous manner in which the young man of barely
+      seventeen years spoke of the highest offices of the state, and of the king
+      himself, excited his anger.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hush, Napoleon!&rdquo; said he, reluctantly. &ldquo;It does not beseem you, who are
+      educated upon the king&rsquo;s bounty, to speak thus.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Napoleon shrank within himself as if he had been bitten by a serpent, and
+      a deadly pallor overspread his cheeks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am not the pupil of the king, but of the state!&rdquo; exclaimed he, in a
+      boisterous voice, trembling with passion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, that is indeed a fine distinction which you have made there,
+      Napoleon,&rdquo; said M. de Permont, laughing. &ldquo;It is all the same whether you
+      are the pupil of the state or of the king; moreover, is not the king the
+      state also? However it may be, it beseems you not to speak of your
+      benefactor in such inappropriate terms.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Napoleon concentrated all his efforts into self-control, and mastered
+      himself into a grave, quiet countenance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will be silent,&rdquo; said he, with an appearance of composure; &ldquo;I will no
+      more say what might excite your displeasure. Only allow me to say, were I
+      master here, had I to decide upon the regulations of these institutions, I
+      would have them very different, and for the good of all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Were I master here!&rdquo; The pupil of the military school, for whom poverty
+      was preparing so much humiliation, who had just now experienced a fresh
+      humiliation through his sister in the reception-room of St. Cyr, was
+      already thinking what he would do were he the ruler of France; and,
+      strange enough, these words seemed natural to his lips, and no one thought
+      of sneering or laughing at him when he thus spoke.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile his harsh and repulsive behavior, his constant fault-finding and
+      censoriousness were by no means conducive to the friendship and affection
+      of those around him; he was a burden to all, he was an inconvenience to
+      all; and the teachers as well as the pupils of the military school were
+      all anxious to get rid of his presence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As nothing else could be said to his reproach; as there was no denying his
+      assiduity, his capacities, and progress, there was but one means of
+      removing him from the institution&mdash;he had to be promoted. It was
+      necessary to recognize the young pupil of the military school as competent
+      to enter into the practical, active military service; it was necessary to
+      make a lieutenant out of the pupil.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Scarcely had one year passed since Napoleon had been received into the
+      military school of Paris, when he was nominated by the authorities of the
+      school for a vacancy in the rank of lieutenant, and he was promoted to it
+      in the artillery regiment of La Fere, then stationed at Valence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the year 1786 Napoleon left the military school to serve his country
+      and his king as second lieutenant, and to take the oath of allegiance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Radiant with happiness and joy, proud alike of his promotion and of his
+      uniform, the young lieutenant went to the house of M. de Permont to show
+      himself to his friends in his new dignity and in his new splendors, and,
+      at their invitation, to pass a few days in their house before leaving for
+      Valence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, alas! his appearance realized not the wished-for result. As he
+      entered the saloon of Madame de Permont the whole family was gathered
+      there, and at the sight of Napoleon the two daughters, girls of six and
+      thirteen years, broke out into loud laughter. None are more alive than
+      children to the impression of what is ridiculous, and there was indeed in
+      the appearance of the young lieutenant something which well might excite
+      the laughing propensities of the lively little maidens. The uniform
+      appeared much too long and wide for the little meagre figure of Napoleon,
+      and his slender legs vanished in boots of such height and breadth that he
+      seemed more to swim than to walk with them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These boots especially had excited the laughter of the little maidens; and
+      at every step which Napoleon, embarrassed as he was by the terrible
+      cannon-boots, made forward, the laughter only increased, so that the
+      expostulations and reproaches of Madame de Permont could not procure
+      silence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Napoleon, who had entered the drawing-room with a face radiant with joy,
+      felt wounded by the children&rsquo;s joyousness at his own cost. To be the
+      subject of scorn or sarcasm was then, as it was afterward, entirely
+      unbearable to him, and when he himself also tried to jest he knew not how
+      to receive the jests directed at him. After having saluted M. and Madame
+      de Permont, Napoleon turned to the eldest daughter Cecilia, who, a few
+      days before, had come from the boarding-school to remain a short time at
+      home, and who, laughing, had placed herself right before monsieur the
+      lieutenant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I find your laughter very silly and childish,&rdquo; said he, eagerly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The young maid, however, continued to laugh.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;M. Lieutenant,&rdquo; said she, &ldquo;since you carry such a mighty sword, you no
+      doubt wish to carry it as a lady&rsquo;s knight, and therefore you must consider
+      it an honor when ladies jest with you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Napoleon gave a contemptuous shrug of the shoulders.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is evident,&rdquo; said he, scornfully, &ldquo;that you are but a little
+      school-girl.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      These sarcastic words wounded the vanity of the young maiden, and brought
+      a glow of anger on her face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, yes,&rdquo; cries she, angrily, &ldquo;I am a school-girl, but you&mdash;you
+      are nothing else than a puss in boots!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A general laugh followed; even Madame de Permont, ordinarily so good and
+      so considerate, could not suppress laughter. The witty words of the little
+      school-girl were too keen and too applicable that she should be subjected
+      to reproach.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Napoleon&rsquo;s wrath was indescribable. His visage was overspread with a
+      yellow-greenish pallor, his lips were contracted nervously, and already
+      opened for a word of anger. But he suppressed that word with an effort;
+      for though not yet familiar with all the forms and usages of society, his
+      fine tact and the instinct of what was becoming told him that when the
+      conversation ran into personalities the best plan was to be silent, and
+      that he must not return personal remarks, since his opponent was one of
+      the fair sex. He therefore remained silent, and so controlled himself as
+      to join in the general laughter and to show himself heartily amused at the
+      unfortunate nickname of the little Cecilia.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And that every one might be convinced how much he himself had been amused
+      at this little scene, he brought, a few days afterward, to the youngest
+      daughter of Madame de Permont, a charming little toy which he had had made
+      purposely for her. This toy consisted of a small gilt and
+      richly-ornamented carriage of papier-mache, before which leaped along a
+      very lovely puss in boots.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To this present for the little Lolotte (afterward Duchess d&rsquo;Abrantes), was
+      added for Cecilia an elegant and interesting edition of the tales of &ldquo;Puss
+      in Boots,&rdquo; and when Napoleon politely presented it to the young maid he
+      begged her to receive kindly this small souvenir from him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is too much,&rdquo; said Madame de Permont, shaking her head. &ldquo;The toy for
+      Loulou would have been quite enough. But this present to Cecilia shows
+      that you took her jest in earnest, and were hurt by it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Napoleon, however, affirmed that he had not taken the jest in earnest,
+      that he had been no wise hurt by it; that he himself when he put on his
+      uniform had to laugh at the nickname of &ldquo;puss in boots&rdquo; which dear Cecilia
+      had given him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had, however, endeavored no more to deserve this nickname, and the
+      unlucky boots were replaced by much smaller and closer-fitting ones.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A few days after this little incident the young second lieutenant left
+      Paris and went to meet his regiment La Fere at Valence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A life of labor and study, of hopes and dreams, now began for the young
+      lieutenant. He gave himself up entirely to his military service, and
+      pursued earnest, scientific studies in regard to it. Mathematics, the
+      science of war, geometry, and finally politics, were the objects of his
+      zeal; but alongside of these he read and studied earnestly the works of
+      Voltaire, Corneille, Racine, Montaigne, the Abbe Raynal, and, above all,
+      the works of Jean Jacques Rousseau, whose passionate and enthusiastic
+      disciple Napoleon Bonaparte was at that time. [Footnote: &ldquo;Memoires du Roi
+      Joseph,&rdquo; vol. i., p. 33.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Amid so many grave occupations of the mind it would seem that the heart
+      with all its claims had to remain in the background. The smiling boy
+      Cupid, with his gracious raillery and his smarting griefs, seemed to make
+      no impression on that pale, grave, and taciturn artillery lieutenant, and
+      not to dare shoot an arrow toward that bosom which had mailed itself in an
+      impenetrable cuirass of misanthropy, stoicism, and learning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But yet between the links of this coat-of-mail an arrow must have glided,
+      for the young lieutenant suddenly became conscious that there in his bosom
+      a heart did beat, and that it was going in the midst of his studies to
+      interrupt his dreams of misanthropy. Yes, it had come to this, that he
+      abandoned his study to pay his court to a young lady, that at her side he
+      lost his gravity of mien, his gloomy taciturnity, and became joyous,
+      talkative, and merry, as beseemed a young man of his age.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The young lady who exercised so powerful an influence upon the young
+      Bonaparte was the daughter of the commanding officer at Valence, M. de
+      Colombier. He loved her, but his lips were yet too timid to confess it,
+      and of what need were words to these young people to understand one
+      another and to know what the one felt for the other?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the morning they took long walks through the beautiful park; they spoke
+      one to another of their childhood, of their brothers and sisters, and when
+      the young maid with tears in her eyes listened to the descriptions which
+      Napoleon made to her of his country, of his father&rsquo;s house, and, above all
+      things, of his mother&mdash;when she with animation and enthusiasm
+      declared that Letitia was a heroine greater than whom antiquity had never
+      seen, then Napoleon would take her two hands in his and thank her with
+      tremulous voice for the love which she consecrated to his noble mother.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If in the morning they had to separate, as an indemnification an evening
+      walk in the light of the moon was agreed upon, and the young maid promised
+      heroically to come without uncertainty, however imperative was her
+      mother&rsquo;s prohibition. And truly, when her mother was asleep, she glided
+      down into the park, and Napoleon welcomed her with a happy smile, and arm
+      in arm, happy as children, they wandered through the paths, laughing at
+      their own shadows, which the light of the moon in wondrous distortion made
+      to dance before them. They entered into a small bower, which stood in the
+      shadow of trees, and there the young Napoleon had prepared for the young
+      maid a very pleasing surprise. There on the table was a basket full of her
+      favorite fruit&mdash;full of the sweetest, finest cherries. Louise thanked
+      her young lover with a hand-pressure for the tender attention, but she
+      declared that she would touch none of the cherries unless Napoleon enjoyed
+      them with her, and to please his beloved he had to obey.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They sat down on the seat before the bower and enjoyed the golden light of
+      the moon, the night air amid the lime-trees, the joy of being thus
+      secretly together, and with infinite delight they ate of the sweet juicy
+      cherries. But when the last cherry was eaten, the moon became darkened, a
+      rude night breeze shook the trees, and made the young maid tremble with
+      cold. She must not remain from home any longer, she must not expose
+      herself to the dangerous night air; thus argued the considerate tenderness
+      of the young lieutenant, and, kissing her hand, he bade farewell to
+      Louise, and watched until the tender ethereal figure had vanished behind
+      the little door which led from the park into the house. [Footnote:
+      &ldquo;Memorial de St. Helene,&rdquo; p. 30.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The sweet idyl of his first love had, however, come to a sudden and
+      unexpected end. The young Second-Lieutenant Bonaparte was ordered to Lyons
+      with his regiment, and the first innocent romance of his heart was ended.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But he never forgot the young maid, whom he then had so tenderly loved,
+      and in the later days of his grandeur he remembered her, and when he
+      learned that she had lost her husband, a M. de Bracieux, and lived in very
+      depressing circumstances, he appointed her maid of honor to his sister
+      Elise, and secured her a very handsome competency.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The dream of his first love had been dreamed away; and, perhaps to forget
+      it, Napoleon again in Lyons gave himself up with deepest earnestness to
+      study. The Academy of Sciences in Lyons had offered a prize for the answer
+      to the question: &ldquo;What are the sentiments and emotions which are to be
+      instilled into men, so as to make them happy?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Napoleon entered the lists for this prize, and, if his work did not
+      receive the prize, it furnished the occasion for the Abbe Raynal, who had
+      answered the question successfully, to become acquainted with the young
+      author, and to encourage him to persevere in his literary pursuits, for
+      which he had exhibited so much talent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Napoleon then, with all the fire of his soul, began a new work, the
+      history of the revolutions in Corsica; and, in order to make accurate
+      researches in the archives of Ajaccio, he obtained leave of absence to go
+      thither. In the year 1788, Napoleon returned to his native isle to his
+      mother, to his brothers and sisters, all of whom he had not seen for nine
+      years, and was welcomed by them with the tenderest affection.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the joys of the family could draw away the young man but little from
+      his studies and researches; and, however much he loved his mother,
+      brothers and sisters, now much grown up, yet he preferred being alone with
+      his elder brother Joseph, making long walks with him, and in solemn
+      exchange of thoughts and sentiments, communicating to him his studies, his
+      hopes, his dreams for the future.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To acquire distinction, fame, reputation with the actual world, and
+      immortality with the future&mdash;such was the object on which all the
+      wishes, all the hopes of Napoleon were concentrated; and in long hours of
+      conversation with Joseph he spoke of the lofty glory to carve out an
+      immortal name, to accomplish deeds before which admiring posterity would
+      bow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Did Napoleon then think of purchasing for himself an immortal name as
+      writer, as historian? At least he studied very earnestly the archives of
+      Ajaccio, and sent a preliminary essay of his history of the revolutions of
+      Corsica to Raynal for examination. This renowned savant of his day warmly
+      congratulated the young author on his work, and asked him to send a copy
+      that he might show it to Mirabeau.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Napoleon complied with these wishes; and when, a few weeks after, he
+      received a letter from Raynal, after reading it, he, with radiant eyes and
+      a bright smile, handed it to his brother Joseph.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In this letter of Raynal were found these words: &ldquo;Monsieur de Mirabeau has
+      in this little essay found traits which announce a genius of the first
+      rank. He entreats the young author to come to him in Paris.&rdquo; [Footnote:
+      &ldquo;Memoires du Roi Joseph,&rdquo; vol. i., p. 33.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the young author could not at once obey the call of the Count de
+      Mirabeau. A sad family bereavement delayed him at the time in Corsica. The
+      brother of his grandfather, the aged Archdeacon Lucian, the faithful
+      counsellor and friend of Letitia and of her young family, was seized with
+      a mortal disease; the gout, which for years had tormented him, was now to
+      give him the fatal blow, and the whole family of the Bonapartes was called
+      to the bedside of the old man to receive his parting words.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Weeping, they all stood around his couch; weeping, Letitia bent over the
+      aged man, whose countenance was already signed with the hand of death.
+      Around kneeled the younger children of Letitia, for their great-uncle had
+      long been to them a kind father and protector; and on the other side of
+      the couch, facing Letitia and her brother, the Abbe Fesch, stood Joseph
+      and Napoleon, gazing with sad looks on their uncle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His large, already obscured eyes wandered with a deep, searching glance
+      upon all the members of the Bonaparte family, and then at last remained
+      fixed with a wondrous brilliancy of expression on the pale, grave face of
+      Napoleon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At this moment, the Abbe Fesch, with a voice trembling with emotion and
+      full of holy zeal, began to intone the prayers for the dead. But the old
+      priest ordered him with a voice full of impatience to be silent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have prayed long enough in my life,&rdquo; said he; &ldquo;I have now but a few
+      moments to live, and I must give them to my family.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The loud sobbings of Letitia and of her children interrupted him, and
+      called forth a last genial smile upon the already stiffening features.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Letitia,&rdquo; said he, in a loud, friendly tone, &ldquo;Letitia, cease to shed
+      tears; I die happy, for I see you surrounded by all your children. My life
+      is no longer necessary to the children of my dear Charles; I can therefore
+      die. Joseph is at the head of the administration of the country, and he
+      will know how to take care of what belongs to his family. You, Napoleon,&rdquo;
+       continued he, with a louder voice, &ldquo;you will be a great and exalted man.&rdquo;
+       [Footnote: &ldquo;Tu poi. Napoleon, serai unomone&rdquo; such were the words of the
+      dying man, assures us King Joseph in his memoirs; whilst Las Casas, in his
+      memorial of St. Helena, makes Napoleon relate that his uncle had told him,
+      &ldquo;You, Napoleon, will be the head of the family.&rdquo;]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His eyes turned on Napoleon, he sank back on the cushions, and his dying
+      lips murmured yet once more, &ldquo;Tu serai unomone!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      After the body of the worthy great-uncle had been laid in the grave,
+      Napoleon left Corsica to return to France and to his regiment, for the
+      time of his leave of absence had expired.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For the second time the lips of a dying man had prophesied him a great and
+      brilliant future. His dying father had said that one day the sword of his
+      son Napoleon would make all Europe bow under the yoke; his great-uncle had
+      prophesied he would be a great and exalted personage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To these prophecies of the dying is to be added Mirabeau&rsquo;s judgment, which
+      called Napoleon a genius of the first stamp.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But this great and glorious future was yet screened under dark clouds from
+      the eyes of the young lieutenant of artillery, and the blood-dripping hand
+      of the Revolution was first needed to tear away these clouds and to
+      convert the king&rsquo;s lieutenant of artillery into the Emperor of France!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0008" id="link2HCH0008"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VIII. A PAGE FROM HISTORY.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The dark clouds which hung yet over the future of Napoleon Bonaparte, the
+      lieutenant of artillery, were gathering in heavier and heavier masses over
+      all France, and already were overshadowing the throne of the lilies.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Marie Antoinette had already abandoned the paradise of innocency in
+      Trianon, and when she came there now it was to weep in silence, to cast
+      away the mask from her face, and under the garb of the proud, imperious,
+      ambitious queen to exhibit the pallid, anxious countenance of the woman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Alas! they were passed away, those days of festivity, those innocent joys
+      of Trianon; the royal farmer&rsquo;s wife had no more the heart to carry the
+      spindle, to gather eggs from the hens&rsquo; nests, and to perform with her
+      friends the joyous idyls of a pastoral life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The queen had procured for herself a few years of freedom and license by
+      banishing from Versailles and from the Tuileries the burdensome Madame
+      Etiquette, who hitherto had watched over every step of a Queen of France,
+      but in her place Madame Politique had entered into the palace, and Marie
+      Antoinette could not drive her away as she had done with Madame Etiquette.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For Madame Politique came into the queen&rsquo;s apartments, ushered in by a
+      powerful and irresistible suite. The failure of the crops throughout the
+      land, want, the cries of distress from a famishing people, the disordered
+      finances of the state&mdash;such was the suite which accompanied Politique
+      before the queen; pamphlets, pasquinades, sarcastic songs on Marie
+      Antoinette, whom no more the people called their queen, but already the
+      foreigner, L&rsquo;Autrichienne&mdash;such were the gifts which Politique
+      brought for the queen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The beautiful and innocent days of Trianon were gone, no longer could
+      Marie Antoinette forget that she was a queen! The burden of her lofty
+      position pressed upon her always; and, if now and then she sought to adorn
+      her head with roses, her crown pressed their thorns with deeper pain into
+      her brow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Unfortunate queen! Even the circle of friends she had gathered round her
+      person only urged her on more and more into the circle which politics had
+      traced around her. In her innocency and thoughtlessness of heart she
+      imagined that, to a queen as to any other woman, it might be allowed to
+      have about her friends and confidants, to enjoy the pleasures of society,
+      and to amuse one another! But now she had to learn that a queen dare not
+      have confidants, friends, or social circles!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her friends, in whose disinterestedness she had trusted, approached her
+      with demands, with prayers; they claimed power, influence, and
+      distinctions; they all wanted to rule through the queen; they all wanted
+      through her to impose laws to king and state; they wanted to name and to
+      depose ministers; they wanted their friendship to be rewarded with
+      embassies, ministerial offices, decorations, and titles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And when Marie Antoinette refused compliance with their wishes, her
+      beautiful friends, the Duchesses de Polignac, wept, and her friends,
+      Messieurs Vesenval, Vaudreuil, Coigny, and Polignac, dared be angry and
+      murmur at her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But when Marie Antoinette consented&mdash;when she used her influence with
+      the king, to satisfy the wishes of her friends, and to make ministers of
+      her facon&mdash;then the queen&rsquo;s enemies, with loud, mad-dog cry, lifted
+      up the voice and complained and clamored that it was no more the king but
+      the queen who reigned; that she was the one who precipitated the nation
+      into wretchedness and want; that she gave millions to her friends, whilst
+      the people were perishing with hunger; that she sent millions to her
+      brother, the Emperor of Austria, whilst the country was only able to pay
+      the interest of her enormous debt; that she, in unrestrained appetite and
+      licentiousness, lived only for pleasure and festivities, whilst France was
+      depressed under misery and want.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And the queen&rsquo;s enemies were mightier, more numerous, and more loyal one
+      to another than the queen&rsquo;s friends, who were ever ready to pass into the
+      camp of her foes as soon as Marie Antoinette gratified not their wishes
+      and would not satisfy their political claims.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the head of these enemies was the king&rsquo;s brother, the Count de
+      Provence, who never forgave the queen for being an Austrian princess;
+      there were also the king&rsquo;s aunts, who could never forgive her that the
+      king loved her, that by means of this love to his wife they should lose
+      the influence which these aunts, and especially Madame Adelaide, had
+      before exercised over him; there was the Duke d&rsquo;Orleans, who had to
+      revenge himself for the disgust and dislike which Marie Antoinette
+      publicly expressed against this vicious and wild prince; there was the
+      Cardinal Prince de Rohan, whose criminal passion the queen had repelled
+      with contemptuous disgust, and who had paid for this passion one million
+      francs, with imprisonment, shame, and ridicule. For this passion for the
+      queen had blinded the cardinal, and made him believe in the possibility of
+      a return. In his blindness he had placed confidence in the whisperings and
+      false promises of the insidious intriguer Madame de la Motte-Valois, who,
+      in the queen&rsquo;s name, asked from him a loan of a million for the purchase
+      of a jewelled ornament which highly pleased the queen, and which she,
+      notwithstanding her exhausted coffers, was resolved to possess.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yes, love had blinded Cardinal de Rohan, and with blind eyes he had
+      accepted as letters from the queen those which Madame de la Motte brought
+      him; and he could not see that the person who gave him a rendezvous in the
+      gardens of Versailles was not the queen, but only a common, vicious woman,
+      who had been clothed in the queen&rsquo;s garments.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The queen had been travestied into a wench, and the highest ecclesiastical
+      dignitary of the land was the one who took this wench for his queen, was
+      the one who, with a rendezvous, a kiss on the hand, and a rose, was
+      rewarded for the million he had given to the jeweller for a necklace of
+      diamonds!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is true, the deception was discovered; it is true, it was Marie
+      Antoinette herself who asked for a strict investigation, who with tears of
+      anger required from her consort that this horrible intrigue which had been
+      woven round her person should be investigated and judged publicly before
+      the Parliament; that the Cardinal de Rohan should be punished for the
+      criminal insult offered by him to the queen, since he thought her capable
+      of granting him a rendezvous, of exchanging with him letters of tender
+      passion, and of accepting gifts from him!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the Parliament, which recognized the guilt of Madame de la Motte,
+      which ordered her to be whipped, branded, and driven out of the country as
+      an impostor and a thief, the Parliament declared the Cardinal de Rohan
+      innocent; all punishments were removed from him, and he was re-established
+      in all his dignities and rights. And the people, who in enormous masses
+      had besieged the Parliament buildings, welcomed this decision of the
+      judges with loud demonstrations and shouts of joy, and carried the
+      cardinal in triumph through the streets, and honored and glorified him as
+      a martyr and a saint.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This triumph of the cardinal was an affecting defeat to the queen; it was
+      the first awful testimony, spoken loudly and openly, by the popular
+      sentiment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hitherto her enemies had worked against her quietly, and in the darkness
+      of night; but now, in open day, they dared launch against her their
+      terrible accusations, and represent her imprudence as a crime, her errors
+      as shameful and premeditated wickedness. No one believed in the queen&rsquo;s
+      innocency in this necklace transaction; and whereas Cardinal de Rohan had
+      been made a martyr, whereas Parliament had declared him innocent, the
+      queen consequently must be the guilty one, to whose cupidity the cardinal
+      and the unfortunate Madame de la Motte and also the beautiful D&rsquo;Olivia,
+      who in this horrible farce had played the part of the queen, had been
+      sacrificed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The name, the character, the reputation of the queen, had been trodden
+      down in the dust, and the Count de Provence, who himself composed
+      sarcastic songs and pasquinades against his royal sister-in-law, and had
+      copies of them circulated through the court, reflected not that in
+      calumniating the queen and exposing her to the scorn and ridicule of the
+      world he thereby shook the throne itself, and imperilled the awe and
+      respect which the people should have had for the monarchy. And all the
+      other mighty dignitaries and foes of Marie Antoinette did not calculate
+      that in exciting the storm of calumny against the Queen of France, they
+      also attacked the king and the aristocracy, and tore down the barrier
+      which hitherto had stood between the people and the nobility.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hitherto pamphlets and sarcastic songs only had been directed against the
+      queen; but now, in the year 1787, all France was to re-echo a pamphlet
+      launched against the nobility and the whole aristocracy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This pamphlet was &ldquo;The Wedding of Figaro,&rdquo; by Beaumarchais. The habits of
+      the aristocracy, of the higher classes, were in this drama castigated and
+      thrown to the scorn, ridicule, and laughter of all France. Every thing
+      which the people hitherto had held sacred, was laughed at in this drama;
+      all the laws of manners, of rank, of morality, were scorned at, hissed at;
+      and, under this hissing, appeared in full view and with fearful veracity
+      the rotten and poisoned condition of the so-called upper classes of
+      society.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was in vain that the censor declared the publication illegal, and
+      prohibited the representation of &ldquo;The Wedding of Figaro.&rdquo; The opposition
+      took advantage of this measure, and since it could not be published,
+      hundreds of copies were circulated; and, if it could not be represented,
+      its reading was listened to. It soon became fashionable to attend at the
+      readings of &ldquo;Figaro&rsquo;s Wedding&rdquo; and to possess a copy of the drama. Even in
+      the queen&rsquo;s social circle, in the circle of the Polignacs, this dangerous
+      drama was patronized, and even the queen was requested to use her
+      influence upon the king for its representation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This general clamor, this tempest of the public opinion, excited even the
+      king&rsquo;s curiosity; and as everybody attended the readings of Beaumarchais&rsquo; 
+      drama, the crowned heads had also to bow to the fashion. Madame de Campan
+      had to read before the king and the queen this renowned &ldquo;Wedding of
+      Figaro,&rdquo; so that the king might give his decision. The good-natured
+      countenance of the king darkened more and more, and during Figaro&rsquo;s
+      monologue, in which the different institutions of the state are ridiculed,
+      especially when, with words full of poison and scorn, the author alludes
+      to state-prisons, the king rose angrily from his seat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is a contemptible thing,&rdquo; cried he, vehemently. &ldquo;The Bastile must be
+      destroyed before the representation of this piece would not appear as a
+      dangerous inconsequence. This man ridicules every thing which in a state
+      ought to be esteemed and respected.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This piece will not then be represented?&rdquo; asked Marie Antoinette, at the
+      close of the reading.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, certainly not!&rdquo; exclaimed Louis, &ldquo;you can be convinced of it; this
+      piece will not be represented.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But the clamor, the longings for this representation were more and more
+      loudly expressed, and more and more pressing. It was in vain that the king
+      by his decree forbade its already-announced representation in the theatre
+      of the menus plaisirs. Beaumarchais cried aloud to the murmuring audience,
+      who complained very loudly against this tyranny, against this oppression
+      of the king, the consoling words: &ldquo;Well, sirs, the king desires that my
+      drama be not represented here, but I swear that it will be represented,
+      perhaps even in the chancel of Notre Dame.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was soon apparent that Beaumarchais&rsquo; words and the wishes of the public
+      opinion were stronger than the words and the wishes of the king and of his
+      highest officers. The king himself felt it and acknowledged it soon; he
+      shrugged his shoulders compassionately when the chancellor of the seal,
+      adhering still to his opposition, would by no means consent to the
+      performance of the drama.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will see,&rdquo; said Louis, with his own soft, good-natured smile&mdash;&ldquo;you
+      will see that Beaumarchais&rsquo; credit is better than that of the great-seal
+      bearer.&rdquo; [Footnote: &ldquo;Memoires de Madame de Campan,&rdquo; vol. i., p. 279.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The king&rsquo;s prophecy was correct&mdash;Beaumarchais had more credit than
+      the chancellor! His powerful patrons in high places, and all those who
+      made opposition to the king and queen, and at their head the Count de
+      Provence, banded together to have this piece publicly represented. The
+      king&rsquo;s consent was elicited from him by the assurance made public that
+      Beaumarchais had stricken out of his drama all the offensive and captious
+      parts, and that it was now a mere innocent and somewhat tedious piece.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The king gave his consent, and &ldquo;The Wedding of Figaro&rdquo; was represented at
+      the Theatre Francais.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The effect of this drama on the public was a thing unheard of; so
+      enthusiastic that Beaumarchais himself laughingly said: &ldquo;There is
+      something yet more foolhardy than my piece, and that is, its result&rdquo;&mdash;that
+      the renowned actress Sophie Arnold, in allusion to this, that the
+      opponents of this drama had prophesied that it would fall through,
+      exclaimed: &ldquo;The piece will fall through to-day more than fifty times one
+      after another!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But even this prophecy of the actress did not reach the full result, and
+      the sixtieth representation was as crowded as the first. All Paris wanted
+      to see it, so as to hiss the government, the nobility, clergy, morality.
+      There was a rush from the provinces to Paris for the sake of attending the
+      representation of &ldquo;Figaro&rsquo;s Wedding;&rdquo; and even those who hitherto had
+      opposed the performance, pressed forward to see it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One day Beaumarchais received a letter from the Duke de Villequier, asking
+      of him as a favor to give up for that evening his trellised box in behalf
+      of some ladies of the court, who desired to see &ldquo;Figaro&rdquo; without being
+      seen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Beaumarchais answered: &ldquo;My lord duke, I have no respect for ladies who
+      desire to see a performance which they consider improper, and who wish to
+      see it under cover. I cannot stoop to such fancies. I have given my piece
+      to the public to amuse and not to instruct them, not to procure to tamed
+      wenches (begueules mitigees) the satisfaction of thinking well of the
+      piece in a small trellised box, and then to say all manner of evil against
+      it in public. The pleasure of vice and the honors of virtue, that is what
+      the prudery of our age demands. My piece is not double-faced. It must be
+      accepted or repelled. I salute you, my lord duke, and keep my box.&rdquo;
+       [Footnote: &ldquo;Correspondance de Diderot et Grimm avec un Souverain.&rdquo;]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All Paris chuckled over this letter, which was circulated in hundreds of
+      copies, as the drama itself had circulated at first. Every one was
+      convinced that it was the queen who wanted to attend the representation of
+      &ldquo;Figaro&rdquo; in the trellised box; for it, was well known that the queen,
+      angry at monsieur for having been present with all his suite at a
+      representation in the box reserved for the court, had openly declared:
+      &ldquo;Could she come to the conclusion of seeing this drama, she would only see
+      it through a small trellised box, and that without any ceremony.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      In laughing at the letter of Beaumarchais, the ridicule was directed
+      against the queen, who had been refused in so shameful a manner. But Marie
+      Antoinette did not wish to be laughed at. She still hoped to overcome her
+      enemies, and to win the public sentiment. She requested an investigation,
+      she insisted that the Duke de Villequier should openly acknowledge for
+      whom among the ladies of the court he had asked for the box; that
+      Beaumarchais should publicly confess that he had not dared suppose his
+      words were directed against the queen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The whole matter was brought to an end by an arbitrary decree.
+      Beaumarchais was compelled publicly to acknowledge that his famous letter
+      was directed neither to a duke nor to a peer, but to one of his friends,
+      whose strange request he had thus answered in the first flush of anger.
+      But it is evident no one believed in this explanation, and every one felt
+      pleasure in referring to the queen the expression of &ldquo;begueule mitigee.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Paris, which for a whole winter had laughed at a theatrical piece, and was
+      satiated with it, was now to assist at the first scene of a drama whose
+      tragical power and force were to tear France asunder, and whose
+      continuance was to be marked by blood and tears.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This important drama, whose opening followed closely Beaumarchais&rsquo; drama,
+      exhibited its first scene at Versailles at the opening of the
+      States-General on the 5th of May, 1789. All Paris, all France watched this
+      event as the rise of a new sun, of a new era which was to break upon
+      France and bring her happiness, salvation, and strength. A new, an
+      unsuspected power entered with it upon the scene, the Tiers Etat; the
+      third class was, at the opening of the States-General, solemnly recognized
+      as a third power, alongside of the nobility and clergy. With the third
+      class, the people and the yeomen entered into the king&rsquo;s palace; one-half
+      of the people were to make the laws instead of having to submit to them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was Marie Antoinette who had endeavored with all her influence on the
+      king that the third class, hitherto barely recognized, barely tolerated,
+      should appear in a two-fold stronger representation at the States-General;
+      it was the queen also who had requested Necker&rsquo;s recall. Unfortunate
+      woman, who bowed both pride and will to the wishes of public opinion, who
+      yet hoped to succeed in winning again the people&rsquo;s love, since she
+      endeavored to meet the wishes of the people!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But this love had turned away from her forever; and whatever Marie
+      Antoinette might now do to exhibit her candid wishes, her devotedness was
+      not trusted in by the people, who looked upon her as an enemy, no longer
+      Queen of France, but simply an Austrian.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Even on this day of universal joy, on the day of the opening of the
+      States-General, there was no desire to hide from the queen the hatred felt
+      against her, but there was the resolve to show her that France, even in
+      her hour of happiness, ceased not to make opposition to her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The opening of the States-General was to be preceded in Versailles by
+      divine service. In solemn procession the deputies arrived; and the people
+      who had streamed from Paris and from the whole region round about, and who
+      in compact masses filled the immense square in front of the palace, and
+      the whole street leading to the Church of St. Louis, received the deputies
+      with loud, unbroken shouts, and met the princes and the king with
+      applause. But no sooner was the queen in sight, than the people remained
+      dumb; and then, after this appalling pause, which petrified the heart of
+      the queen, the women with their true instinct of hatred began to cry out,
+      &ldquo;Long live the Duke d&rsquo;Orleans! Long live the people&rsquo;s friend, the good
+      Duke d&rsquo;Orleans!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The name of the duke thus derisively thrown in the face of the queen&mdash;for
+      it was well known that she hated him, that she had forbidden him to enter
+      into her apartments&mdash;this name at this hour, thrown at her by the
+      people, struck the queen&rsquo;s heart as the blow of a dagger; a deathly pallor
+      overspread her cheeks, and nearly fainting she had to throw herself into
+      the arms of the Princess de Lamballe, so as not to sink down. [Footnote:
+      See &ldquo;Count Mirabeau,&rdquo; by Theodore Mundt. Second edition, vol. iii., p.
+      234.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With the opening of the States-General, as already said, began the first
+      act of the great drama which France was going to represent before the eyes
+      of Europe terrified and horrified: with the opening of the States-General
+      the revolution had begun. Every one felt it; every one knew it; the first
+      man who had the courage to express it was Mirabeau&mdash;Mirabeau, the
+      deputy of the Third Estate, the count who was at enmity with all those of
+      his rank, who had solemnly parted with them to devote himself to the
+      people&rsquo;s service and to liberty!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the day of the opening, as he entered the hall in which the
+      States-General were convened, he gazed with scrutinizing and flaming eyes
+      on the representatives of the nobility, on those brilliant and proud lords
+      who, though his equals in rank, were now his inveterate enemies. A proud,
+      disdainful smile fluttered athwart his lips, which ordinarily were pressed
+      together with a sarcastic and contemptuous expression. He then crossed the
+      hall with the bearing of a conqueror, and took his seat upon those benches
+      from which was launched the thunderbolt which was to dash to pieces the
+      throne of the lilies.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A long-tried friend, who was also a friend of the government and of the
+      nobility, had seen this look of hatred and anger which Mirabeau had cast
+      upon the gallery of the aristocrats; he now approached Mirabeau to salute
+      him, and perhaps to pave a way of reconciliation between the prodigal
+      Count de Mirabeau and his associates in rank.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Think,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;my friend, that society is not to be won by threats,
+      but by flatteries; that, when once injured, it is difficult to effect a
+      reconciliation. You have been unjust toward society, and if you look for
+      forgiveness you must not be obstinate, but you must stoop to ask for
+      pardon.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mirabeau had listened with impatience, but at the word &ldquo;pardon,&rdquo; his anger
+      broke with terrible force. He sprang up, stamped violently on the floor
+      with his feet; his hair which, like a lion&rsquo;s mane, mantled his head,
+      seemed to bristle up, his little eyes darted flashes, and his lips were
+      blanched and trembling, and with a thundering voice he exclaimed: &ldquo;I am
+      not here to implore pardon for myself, but that others should sue for
+      mercy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Was Mirabeau himself willing to grant pardon? Had he come with a
+      reconciling heart into this assembly, where people and king were to
+      measure their rights one against the other?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As the good King Louis this day entered the hall, in all the pomp of his
+      royal dignity, to welcome the States-General with a solemn address,
+      Mirabeau&rsquo;s eyes were fixed on him: &ldquo;Behold the victim,&rdquo; said he.
+      [Footnote: Theodore Mundt: &ldquo;Graf Mirabeau,&rdquo; vol. iv., p. 15.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From this day the struggle began&mdash;the struggle of the monarchy
+      against the revolution, of the liberal party against the reaction, the
+      struggle of the people against the aristocracy, against every thing which
+      hitherto had been legitimate, welcomed, and sacred!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A new day had broken in, and the prophetic mind of the queen understood
+      that with it came the storm which was to scatter into fragments her
+      happiness and her peace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0009" id="link2HCH0009"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER IX. JOSEPHINE&rsquo;S RETURN.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      To rest!&mdash;to forget! This was what Josephine sought for in
+      Martinique, and what she found in the circle of her friends. She wanted to
+      rest from the pains and struggles which had agitated the last years of her
+      life. She wanted to forget that she still loved the Viscount de
+      Beauharnais, though rejected and accused, though he had treacherously
+      abandoned her for the sake of another woman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But he was the father of her children, and there was Hortense with her
+      large blue eyes and her noble, lovely countenance to remind Josephine of
+      the father to whom Hortense bore so close a resemblance. Josephine&rsquo;s
+      tender-heartedness would not suffer the innocent, childish heart of
+      Hortense to become alienated from her father, or to forget the esteem and
+      respect which as a daughter she owed to him. Josephine therefore never
+      allowed any one to utter a word of blame against her husband in the
+      presence of her daughter; she even imposed silence on her mother when, in
+      the just resentment of a parent who sees her child suffer, she accused the
+      man who had brought wretchedness on her Josephine, who at so early an age
+      had taught her life&rsquo;s sorrows.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How joyous, beautiful, happy had her Josephine nearly ten years ago left
+      her home, her country, her family, to go to a foreign land which attracted
+      her with every thing which can charm a young girl&mdash;with the love of a
+      young and beautiful husband&mdash;with the luxury, the pleasures and
+      festivities of Paris!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And now after ten years Josephine returned to her father&rsquo;s home, lonely,
+      abandoned, unhappy, blighted with the mildew which ever deteriorates the
+      character of a divorced woman; yet so young, with so many ruined hopes,
+      with so many wounds in the heart!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Josephine&rsquo;s mother could not pardon him all this, and her countenance
+      became clouded whenever the little Hortense spoke of her father. And the
+      child spoke of him so often&mdash;for each evening and morning she had to
+      pray God in his behalf&mdash;and when she asked her mother where her
+      brother Eugene was, why he had not come with them to Martinique; Josephine
+      answered her, he had remained with his father, who loved him so much, and
+      who must have at least one of his children with him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why then can he not, with Eugene, be with us?&rdquo; asked the little Hortense,
+      thoughtfully. &ldquo;Why does he remain in that hateful, stony Paris, whilst he
+      could live with us in the beautiful garden where so many charming flowers
+      and so many large trees are to be found? Why is papa not with us, mamma?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because he has occupations&mdash;because he cannot leave his regiment, my
+      child,&rdquo; answered Josephine, carefully hiding her tears.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If he cannot come to us, mamma, then let us go to him,&rdquo; cried the loving
+      child. &ldquo;Come, mamma, let us go on board a ship, and let us go to our dear
+      papa, and to my dear brother Eugene.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We must wait until your father sends for us, until he writes that we must
+      come,&rdquo; said Josephine, with a sad smile. &ldquo;Pray to God, my child, that he
+      may soon do it!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And from this time the child prayed God every evening that her father
+      would soon send for her mother and for herself; and whenever she saw her
+      mother receive a letter she said: &ldquo;Is it a letter from my papa? Does he
+      write for us to travel and to come to him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      One day Josephine was enabled to answer this question to her daughter with
+      a proud and joyous yes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yes, the Viscount de Beauharnais had begged his wife to forget the past,
+      and to come back to him. He had, with all the contrition of penitence,
+      with the glow of an awakening love, prayed for pardon; he requested from
+      her large-heartedness to be once more reunited to him who had despised,
+      calumniated, and rejected her; he swore with sacred oaths to love her
+      alone, and to keep to her in unbroken faithfulness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At first Josephine received these vows with a suspicious, sorrowful smile;
+      the wounds of her heart were not yet healed, the bitter experiences of the
+      past were yet too fresh in her mind; and Madame de la Pagerie, Josephine&rsquo;s
+      mother, repelled with earnestness every thought of reconciliation and
+      reunion. She did not wish to lose her daughter a second time, and see her
+      go to meet a dubious and dangerous happiness; she did not wish that
+      Josephine, barely returned to the haven of rest and peace, should once
+      more risk herself on the open, tempestuous ocean of life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the letters of the viscount were more and more pressing, more and more
+      tender. He had completely and forever broken with Madame de Gisard; he did
+      not wish to see her again, and henceforth he desired to be the true,
+      devoted husband of his Josephine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Josephine read these assurances, these vows of love, with a joyous smile,
+      with a beating heart: all the crushed flowers of her youth raised up their
+      blossoms again in her heart; she began again to hope, to trust, to believe
+      once more in the possibility of happiness; she was ready to listen to her
+      husband&rsquo;s call, and to hasten to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But her mother held her back. She believed not, she trusted not. Her
+      insulted maternal heart could not forget the humiliations and the
+      sufferings which this man who now called for Josephine had inflicted upon
+      her daughter. She could not pardon the viscount for having deserted his
+      young wife, and that for the sake of a coquette! She therefore sought to
+      inspire Josephine with mistrust; she told her that these vows of the
+      viscount were not to be relied upon; that he had not given up his paramour
+      to come back to Josephine, but that he was forsaken by her and abandoned
+      by her. Madame de Gisard had regretted to be only the paramour of the
+      Viscount de Beauharnais, and, as she could never hope to be his legitimate
+      wife, she had abandoned him, to marry a wealthy Englishman, with whom she
+      had left France to go with him to Italy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At this news Josephine&rsquo;s head would sink down, and, with tears in her eyes
+      and sorrow in her heart, she promised her mother no more to listen to the
+      voice of a faithless husband; no more to value the assurances of a love
+      which only returned to her because it was rejected elsewhere.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile, not only the Viscount de Beauharnais prayed Josephine to
+      return, but also his father the marquis claimed this from his beloved
+      daughter-in-law; even Madame de Renaudin confirmed the entire conversion
+      of Alexandre, and conjured Josephine to hesitate no longer once more to
+      take possession of a heart which beat with so burning a sorrow and so
+      longing a love toward her. She pictured to her, besides, how necessary she
+      was to him; how much in these troublous and stormy days which had just
+      begun, he was in need of a quiet haven of domestic life, there to rest
+      after the labors and the conflicts of politics and of public life; how
+      many dangers surrounded him, and how soon it might happen that he would
+      need not only a household refuge but also a nurse who would bind his
+      wounds and keep watch near the bed of sickness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For the times of quietness were gone; the brand which the States-General
+      had flung over France had lit a fire everywhere, in every city, in every
+      house, in every head; and the flaming speeches of the deputies of the
+      Third Estate only fanned the fire into higher flames.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The revolution was there, and nothing could keep back the torrent of
+      blood, fire, enthusiasm, and hatred. Already the Third Estate had solemnly
+      proclaimed its separation from Old France, from the ancient monarchy of
+      the lilies, since that monarchy had abandoned the large assembly-hall
+      where the States-General held their sessions, and in which the nobility
+      and the clergy still imagined they were able to maintain the balance of
+      power against the despised Third Estate. The Tiers Etat had, in the
+      ballroom, converted itself into the National Assembly, and with enthusiasm
+      had all these deputies of the third class sworn on the 17th of June, 1789,
+      &ldquo;never to part one from the other until they had given a constitution to
+      France.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Alexandre de Beauharnais, deputy from Blois, had passed with his
+      colleagues into the ballroom, had with them taken the fatal oath; in the
+      decisive night of the 4th of August he, with burning enthusiasm, had
+      renounced all the privileges of the nobility, all his feudal rights; and,
+      breaking with the past, with all its family traditions and customs, had
+      passed, with all the passion and zest of his nine-and-twenty years, into
+      the hostile camp of the people and of liberty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The revolution, which moved onward with such rash and destructive strides,
+      had drawn Alexandre de Beauharnais more and more into its flood. It had
+      converted the king&rsquo;s major into an enthusiastic speaker of the Jacobins,
+      then into the secretary of the National Assembly, and finally into its
+      president.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The monarchy was not yet powerless; it fought still with all the
+      bitterness of despair, of the pains of death, against its foes; it still
+      found defenders in the National Assembly, in the faithful regiments of the
+      Swiss and of the guards, and in the hearts of a large portion of the
+      people. The passions of parties were let loose one against another; and
+      Alexandre de Beauharnais, the president of the National Assembly, stood
+      naturally in the first rank of those who were threatened by the attacks of
+      the royalists.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yes, Alexandre de Beauharnais was in danger! Since Josephine knew this,
+      there was for her but one place which belonged to her, to which she could
+      lay claim&mdash;the place at her husband&rsquo;s side.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How could she then have withstood his appeals, his prayers? How could she
+      then have remained in the solitude and stillness of Martinique, when her
+      husband was now in the fight, in the very struggle? She had, now that fate
+      claimed it, either to share her husband&rsquo;s triumphs, or to bring him
+      comfort if he fell.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The intercessions of her family, even the tears of her mother, could no
+      longer retain Josephine; at the side of her husband, the father of her two
+      children, there was her place! No one could deprive her of it, if she
+      herself wished to occupy it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was entitled to it, she was still the wife of the Viscount de
+      Beauharnais. The Parliament, which had pronounced its verdict against the
+      demands of a divorce from the viscount, had, in declaring Josephine
+      innocent, condemned her husband to receive into his house his wife, if she
+      desired it; or else, in case she waived this right, to pay her a fixed
+      annual income.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Josephine had parted voluntarily from her husband, since she had not
+      returned to him, but had exiled herself with her father-in-law and her
+      aunt in Fontainebleau; but she had never laid claims to nor received the
+      income which Parliament had appointed. She had never assumed the rights of
+      a divorced wife, but she retained still all the privileges of a married
+      woman, who at God&rsquo;s altar had bound herself to her husband for a whole
+      life, in a wedlock which, being performed according to the laws of the
+      Catholic Church, was indissoluble.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now the viscount claimed his wife, and who dared keep her back if she
+      wished to follow this call? Who could stand between husband and wife, when
+      their hearts claimed and longed for this reunion?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The tears of Madame de la Pagerie had attempted it, but had not succeeded!
+      The soft, patient, pliant Josephine had suddenly become a strong-minded,
+      joyous, courageous woman; the inconveniences of a long sea-voyage, the
+      perils of the revolution, into whose open crater she was to enter,
+      affrighted her not. All the energies of her being began to develop
+      themselves under the first sunbeams of a renewed love! The years of sorrow
+      had passed away. Life, love called Josephine again, and she listened to
+      the call, jubilant and full of friendly trust of undimmed hope!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the first days of September, 1790, Josephine, with the little Hortense,
+      embarked from Martinique, and after a short, favorable passage, landed in
+      France, in the middle of October. [Footnote: If, in the work &ldquo;Queen
+      Hortense, an Historical Sketch from the Days of Napoleon,&rdquo; I have given a
+      few different details of Josephine&rsquo;s return to France and to her husband,
+      I have followed the error common to all the historians of that time, who
+      represent Josephine returning despite her husband&rsquo;s will, who receives her
+      into his house, and recognizes her as his wife, only at the instant
+      supplication of his family, and especially of his children. It is only of
+      late that all this has been satisfactorily refuted, and that it has been
+      proved that Josephine returned only at the instance of her husband&rsquo;s
+      pressing demands. See Aubenas, &ldquo;Histoire de l&rsquo;Imperatrice Josephine,&rdquo; vol.
+      i., p. 164.&mdash;L. M.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Again a prophecy accompanied Josephine to France, and perhaps this
+      prophecy is to be blamed for her sudden departure and her unwavering
+      resolution to leave Martinique. The old negro woman who, once before
+      Josephine&rsquo;s departure, had prophesied that she would wear a crown and be
+      more than a Queen of France&mdash;the old Euphemia was still living, and
+      was still considered as an infallible oracle. A few days before her
+      departure, Josephine, with all the superstitious faith of a Creole, went
+      to ask the old prophetess if her journey would be propitious.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The old Euphemia stared long and fixedly into Josephine&rsquo;s smiling
+      countenance; then, as if overcome by a sudden thought, she exclaimed: &ldquo;Go!
+      go as fast as possible, for death and danger threaten you! Already are on
+      the watch wicked and bloodthirsty fiends, who every moment are ready to
+      rush among us with fire and sword, and to destroy the colony in their
+      cruel wrath!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And shall I safely arrive in France?&rdquo; asked Josephine. &ldquo;Shall I again see
+      my husband?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will see him again,&rdquo; exclaimed the prophetess, &ldquo;but hasten to go to
+      him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is he threatened with any danger?&rdquo; demanded Josephine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not yet!&mdash;not at once!&rdquo; said the old negress. &ldquo;They now applaud your
+      husband and recognize his services. But he has powerful enemies, and one
+      day they will threaten his life, and will lead him to the scaffold and
+      murder him!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Before Josephine left Martinique, a portion of these prophecies of the old
+      negro woman were to be fulfilled. The wicked and bloodthirsty fiends, of
+      whom she said they were ready with fire and sword to rush upon the colony&mdash;those
+      fiends did light the firebrand and destroy the peace of Martinique.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The resounding cries for freedom uttered in the National Assembly, and
+      which shook the whole continent, had rushed along across the ocean to
+      Martinique. The storm-wind of the revolution had on its wings borne the
+      wondrous story to Martinique&mdash;the wondrous story of man&rsquo;s sacred
+      rights, which Lafayette had proclaimed in the National Assembly, the
+      wondrous story that man was born free, that he ought to remain free, that
+      there were to be no more slaves in the land of liberty, in France, and in
+      her colonies.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The storm-wind which brought this great news across the ocean to
+      Martinique scattered it into the negro-cabins, and at first they listened
+      to it with wondrous delight. Then the delirium of joy came over them;
+      jubilant they broke their chains, and in wild madness anticipated their
+      human rights, their personal freedom.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The revolution, with its terrible consequences of blood and horrors, broke
+      loose in Martinique, and, exulting in freedom, the slaves threw the
+      firebrand on the roof of their former masters, rushed with war&rsquo;s wild cry
+      into their dwellings, and, in freedom&rsquo;s name, punished those who so long
+      had punished them in tyranny&rsquo;s name.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Amid the barbaric shouts of those dark free men, Josephine embarked on
+      board the ship which was to carry her and her little Hortense to France;
+      and the flames which rose from the roofs of the houses as so many
+      way-marks of fire for the new era, were Josephine&rsquo;s last, sad farewell
+      from the home which she was never to see again. [Footnote: Le Normand,
+      &ldquo;Memoires de l&rsquo;Imperatrice Josephine,&rdquo; vol. i., p. 147]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0010" id="link2HCH0010"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER X. THE DAYS OF THE REVOLUTION.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Happiness had once more penetrated into the heart of Josephine. Love again
+      threw her sun-gleams upon her existence, and filled her whole being with
+      animation and joy. She was once more united to her husband, who, with
+      tears of joy and repentance, had again taken her to his heart. She was
+      once more with her relatives, who, in the day of distress, had shown her
+      so much love and faithfulness, and finally she had also her son, her own
+      dear Eugene, from whom she had been separated during the sad years of
+      their matrimonial disagreements.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How different was the husband she now found from him she had quitted! He
+      was now a man, an earnest, thoughtful man, with a fiery determination,
+      with decidedness of purpose, and yet thoughtful, following only what
+      reason approved, even if the heart had been the mover. The passions of
+      youth had died away. The excitable, thoughtless, pleasure-seeking officer
+      of the king had become a grave, industrious, indefatigable, moral, austere
+      servant of the people and of liberty. The songs of joy, of equivocal
+      jesting, of political satire, had died away on those lips which only
+      opened now in the clubs, in the National Assembly, to utter inspired words
+      in regard to liberty, fraternity, and equality.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The most beautiful dancer of Versailles had become the president of the
+      National Assembly, which made so many tears run, and awoke so much anger
+      and hatred in the king&rsquo;s palace of Versailles. He at least belonged to the
+      constitutional fraction of the National Assembly; he was the friend and
+      guest of Mirabeau and of Lafayette; he was the opponent of Robespierre,
+      Marat, and Danton, and of all the fanatics of the Mountain party, who
+      already announced their bloody views, and claimed a republic as the object
+      of their conflicts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Alexandre de Beauharnais was no republican, however enthusiastic he might
+      have been in favor of America&rsquo;s struggle for freedom, however deeply he
+      had longed to go like Lafayette to America, for the sake of assisting the
+      Americans to break the chains which yoked them to England, so as to build
+      a republic for themselves. The enthusiasm of that day, the enthusiasm for
+      France had driven him upon the path of the opposition; but while desiring
+      freedom for the people, he still hoped that the people&rsquo;s freedom was
+      compatible with the power and dignity of the crown; that at the head of
+      constitutional France the throne of a constitutional king would be
+      maintained. To bring to pass this reunion, this balance of right between
+      the monarchy and the people, such was the object of the wishes of
+      Alexandre de Beauharnais; this was the ultimate aim of his struggles and
+      longings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Josephine looked upon these tumultuous conflicts of parties, upon this
+      wild storm of politics, with wondering, sad looks. With all the tact of
+      tender womanhood she held herself aloof from every personal interference
+      in these political party strifes. At the bottom of her heart a true and
+      zealous royalist, she guarded herself carefully from endeavoring to keep
+      her husband back from his chosen path, and to bring into her house and
+      family the party strifes of the political arena. She wanted and longed for
+      peace, unity, and rest, and in his home at least her husband would have no
+      debates to go through, no sentiments to fight against.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In silence and devotedness Josephine submitted to her husband&rsquo;s will, and
+      left him to perform his political part, while she assumed the part of
+      wife, mother, of the representative of the household; and every evening
+      opened her drawing-room to her friends, and to her husband&rsquo;s associates in
+      the same conflict.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What a mixed and extraordinary assemblage was seen in the drawing-room of
+      the president of the National Assembly! There were the representatives of
+      old France, the brilliant members of the old nobility: the Duke de la
+      Rochefoucauld, the Count de Montmorency, the Marquis de Caulaincourt, the
+      Prince de Salm-Cherbourg, the Princess von Hohenzollern, Madame de
+      Montesson, the wife of the old Duke d&rsquo;Orleans; and alongside of these
+      names of the ancient regime, new names rose up. There were the deputies of
+      the National Assembly&mdash;Barnave, Mounier, Thouvet, Lafayette, and the
+      favorite of the people, the great Mirabeau. Old France and Young France
+      met here in this drawing-room of Josephine on neutral grounds, and the
+      beautiful viscountess, full of grace and prudence, offered to them both
+      the honors of her house. She listened with modest bashfulness to the words
+      of the great tribunes of the people, and oftentimes with a smile or a soft
+      word she reconciled the royalists, those old friends who sought in this
+      drawing-room for the Viscountess de Beauharnais, and found there only the
+      wife of the president of the National Assembly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The saloon of Josephine was soon spoken of, and seemed as a haven in which
+      the refined, elegant manners, the grace, the wit, the esprit, had been
+      saved from the stormy flood of political strife. Every one sought the
+      privilege of being admitted into this drawing-room, whose charming
+      mistress in her own gentleness and grace received the homage of all
+      parties, pleased every one by her loveliness, her charms, the fine,
+      exquisite tact with which she managed at all times the sentiments of the
+      company, and with which she knew how to guide the conversation so that it
+      would never dwindle into political debates or into impassioned speeches.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      However violent was the tempest of faction outside, Josephine endeavored
+      that in the interior of her home the serene peace of happiness should
+      prevail. For she was now happy again, and all the liveliness, all the joys
+      of youth, had again found entrance into her mind. The anguish endured, the
+      tears shed, had also brought their blessing; they had strengthened and
+      invigorated her heart; with their grave, solemn memories they preserved
+      Josephine, that child of the South, of the sun, and of joy, from that
+      light frivolity which otherwise is so often the common heritage of the
+      Creoles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The viscount had now the satisfaction which ten years ago, at the
+      beginning of his married life, he had so intently longed for, the
+      satisfaction of seeing his wife occupied with grave studies, with the
+      culture of her own mind and talents. It was to him a ravishment to see
+      Josephine in her drawing-room in earnest conversation with Buffon, and
+      with all the aptitude of a naturalist speak of the organization and
+      formation of the different families of plants; he exulted in the open
+      praise paid to her when, with her fine, far-reaching voice, she sang the
+      songs of her home, which she herself accompanied on the harp; he was proud
+      when, in her saloon, with all the tact and assurance of a lady of the
+      world, she took the lead in the conversation, and could speak with poets
+      and authors, with artists and savants, and that, with understanding and
+      feeling, upon their latest works and creations; he was made happy when,
+      passing from serious gravity to the most innocent gayety, she jested,
+      laughed, and danced, as if she were yet the sixteen-year-old child whom
+      ten years ago he had made his wife, and from whom he had then so cruelly
+      exacted that she should demean herself as a fine, experienced, and
+      highly-refined lady.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Life had since undertaken to mould the young Creole into an elegant,
+      highly-accomplished woman, but fortunately life had been impotent to
+      change her heart, and that heart was ever beating in all the freshness of
+      youth, in all the joyous warmth and faithfulness of the young girl of
+      sixteen years who had come to France with so many ideal visions, so many
+      illusions, so many dreams and hopes. It is true this ideal had vanished
+      away, these illusions had burst into pieces like meteors in the skies; the
+      dreams and hopes of the young maiden heart had fallen into dust, but the
+      love, the confiding, faithful, hoping love, the love assured of the
+      future, had remained alive; it had overcome the storms and conflicts; it
+      had been Josephine&rsquo;s consolation in the days of sorrow; it was now her
+      delight in these days of happiness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her whole heart, her undivided love, belonged to her husband, to her
+      children, and often from the society gathered in her reception-rooms, she
+      would slip away and hasten to the bed of her little Hortense to bid
+      good-night to the child, who never would sleep without bidding good-night
+      to its mother, who would kneel at the side of the crib with little
+      Hortense, and utter the evening prayer, asking of God to grant to them all
+      prosperity and peace!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But this peace which Josephine so earnestly longed for was soon to be
+      imperilled more and more, was to be banished from the interior of home and
+      family, from its most sacred asylum, by the revolution and its stormy
+      factions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      An important event, pregnant with results, suddenly moved all Paris, and
+      filled the minds of all with the most fearful anticipations.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The king, with his wife and children, had fled! Openly and irretrievably
+      he had separated himself from country and people; he had, by this flight,
+      solemnly expressed before all Europe the discord which existed between him
+      and his people, between the king and the constitution to which he had
+      sworn allegiance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Alexandre de Beauharnais, the president of the National Assembly, was the
+      first to be informed of this extraordinary event. On the morning of the
+      21st of June, 1791, M. de Bailly, mayor of Paris, came to announce to him
+      that the king with all his family had fled from Paris the previous
+      evening.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was the hour at which the sessions of the National assembly began every
+      morning, and Beauharnais, accompanied by Bailly, hastened to the Assembly.
+      The deputies were already seated when the president took the chair with a
+      grave, solemn countenance. This countenance told the deputies of the
+      people that the president had an important and very unusual message to
+      communicate, and a deep stillness, an oppressive silence, overspread the
+      whole assemblage as the president rose from his seat to address them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Gentlemen,&rdquo; said he, with a voice which, amid the general silence,
+      sounded solemn and powerful&mdash;&ldquo;gentlemen, I have a sad message to
+      bring before you. The mayor of Paris has just now informed me that the
+      king and his family have this night been seduced into flight by the
+      enemies of the people.&rdquo; [Footnote: Aubenas, &ldquo;Histoire de l&rsquo;Imperatrice
+      Josephine,&rdquo; vol i., p. 171.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This news had a stupendous effect on the deputies. At first they sat there
+      dumb, as if petrified with fear; then they all rose up to make their
+      remarks and motions in a whirl of confusion, and it required all the
+      energy and determination of the president to re-establish peace, and to
+      control their minds.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Assembly then, in quiet debate, resolved to declare itself in
+      permanent session until the termination of this crisis, and gave to the
+      president full power during this time to provide for the tranquillity and
+      security of the Assembly. Bailly and Lafayette were by the president
+      summoned before the deputies, to state what the sentiments of Paris were,
+      what was the attitude of the National Guards, what were the precautions
+      they had taken to preserve aright the peace of Paris.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But this peace was not in danger, and the only one whom the Parisian
+      people at this moment dreaded, was he who had fled from Paris&mdash;the
+      king. And yet, not for a moment did the people rise in anger against the
+      king; actuated by a new and overpowering thought, the people in their
+      enthusiasm for this idea forgot their anger against him who by his deed
+      had kindled this thought. The thought which was uppermost in all minds at
+      the flight of the king was this: that the state could subsist even if
+      there were no king at its head; that law and order still remained in
+      Paris, even when the king had fled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This law and order was the National Assembly, the living representation
+      and embodiment of the law; the government was there; the king alone had
+      disappeared. Such was the sentiment which animated all classes, which
+      brought the people in streaming masses to the palace where the National
+      Assembly held its sittings. A few hours after the news of the king&rsquo;s
+      flight had spread through Paris, thousands were besieging the National
+      Assembly, and shouting enthusiastically: &ldquo;Our king is here; he is in the
+      hall of session. Louis XVI. can go; he can do what he wills; our king is
+      still in Paris!&rdquo; [Footnote: Prudhomme, &ldquo;Histoire Parlementaire de la
+      Revolution,&rdquo; vol. x. p. 241.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Assembly, &ldquo;the King of Paris,&rdquo; remained in permanent session, waiting
+      for the developments of events, and working out in committees the decrees
+      passed in common deliberation, whilst the president and the secretary
+      remained the whole night in the council-room, so as to be ready at any
+      moment to rectify fresh news and to issue the necessary orders.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Early next morning the most important news had reached the president, and
+      the deputies hastened from their respective committees into the hall of
+      session, there to take their seats.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Amid the breathless silence of the Assembly, President Beauharnais
+      announced that the king, the queen, the dauphin, Madame, and divers
+      persons of their suite, had been arrested in Varennes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Assembly received this communication with dignified quietude, for they
+      were conscious that the king&rsquo;s return would in no wise impair their own
+      sovereignty, that the power was in their hands, even if the king were
+      there. In this full assurance of their dignity the National Assembly
+      passed a decree ordering the proper authorities &ldquo;to protect the king&rsquo;s
+      return, to seize and imprison all those who might forget, the respect they
+      owed to the royal dignity.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At the same time the National Assembly sent from their number two
+      deputies, Barnave and Petion, to bring back from Varennes the unfortunate
+      royal family and to accompany them to Paris.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile the news of the king&rsquo;s capture only increased the people&rsquo;s
+      enthusiasm for the National Assembly, the truly acknowledged sovereign of
+      France. Every one was anxious to give expression to this enthusiasm; the
+      National Guards of Paris begged for the privilege of taking the oath of
+      allegiance to the National Assembly, and when at the motion of the
+      president this was granted by the Assembly, a whole detachment was marched
+      into the hall so as to take the oath of allegiance to the National
+      Assembly with one voice, amid the applause of the Assembly and the
+      tribunes. This detachment was followed by fresh companies, and the people
+      filled the streets to see the National Guards come and go, and like them
+      to swear allegiance to the National Assembly with enthusiastic shouts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The provinces would not be a whit behind the enthusiasm of Paris; and
+      whilst the guards swore their oath, from all cities and provinces came to
+      the president of the National Assembly, addresses congratulating the
+      Assembly on its triumphs, and promising the most unconditional
+      devotedness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Finally after two days of restless activity, after two days, during which
+      Alexandre de Beauharnais had hardly found time to quiet his wife by a
+      note, explaining his absence from home, finally a courier brought the news
+      that the captive royal family were entering Paris. A second courier
+      followed the first. He announced that the royal family had reached the
+      Tuileries surrounded by an immense crowd, whose excitement caused serious
+      apprehensions. Petion had, therefore, thought it expedient not to allow
+      the royal family to alight, but had confined them to the two carriages,
+      and he now sent the keys of these two carriages to the president of the
+      National Assembly, as it was now his duty to adopt still further measures.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Beauharnais proposed that at once twenty deputies be chosen to speed on to
+      the Tuileries to deliver the royal family from their prison, and to lead
+      them into the palace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The motion was carried, and the deputies reached the court of the
+      Tuileries yet in time to save the affrighted family from the people, who,
+      in their wild madness, were about to destroy the carriages, and to take
+      possession of the king and queen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The presence of the deputies imposed silence on the shouts and howlings of
+      the people. The king had come into the Tuileries, and before him bowed the
+      people in dumb respect. They quietly allowed that this their king should
+      open the carriage wherein the other king, the king by God&rsquo;s grace, Louis
+      XVI., sat a prisoner; they allowed that the king by the grace of the
+      people, the National Assembly, through its twenty deputies, should render
+      liberty to Louis and to his family, and lead them quietly under their
+      protection into the Tuileries.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But from this day the Tuileries, which for centuries had been the palace
+      of the kings of France, now became a prison for the King of France!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Louis XVI. was returned, not as the head, but as the prisoner of the
+      state; from the moment he left Paris, the ermine mantle of his royalty had
+      fallen from his shoulders upon the shoulders of the National Assembly;
+      King Louis XVI. had dethroned himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Amid these fatal storms, amid these ever-swelling revolutionary floods,
+      there was yet an hour of happiness for Josephine. Out of the wild waves of
+      rebellion was to rise, for a short time, an island of bliss. The National
+      Assembly, whose president, Alexandre de Beauharnais, had once more, in the
+      course of the sessions, been re-elected by general acclamation, declared
+      itself on the 3d of September, 1791, dissolved, and its members vanished
+      to make room for the Legislative Assembly, which organized the very next
+      day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Alexandre de Beauharnais, after having so long and so zealously discharged
+      his duties as a citizen, returned to his Josephine, to his children; and,
+      weary with the storms and debates of the last months, longed for a quiet
+      little place, away from the turmoil of the capital and from the attrition
+      of parties. Josephine acquiesced gladly in the wishes of her husband, for
+      she felt her innermost being shattered by these last exciting times, and
+      perhaps she cherished the secret hope that her husband, once removed from
+      Paris, would be drawn away from the dangerous arena of politics, into
+      which his enthusiasm had driven him. She was, and remained at heart, a
+      good and true royalist; and as Mirabeau, dying in the midst of
+      revolution&rsquo;s storms, had said of himself, that &ldquo;he took to his grave the
+      mourning-badge for the monarchy,&rdquo; [Footnote: Mirabeau died on the 6th of
+      May, 1791.&mdash;See, on his death, &ldquo;Count Mirabeau,&rdquo; by Theodore Mundt,
+      vol. iv.] so also Josephine&rsquo;s heart, since the flight to Varennes, wore
+      the mourning-badge for the unfortunate royal family, who since that day
+      had to endure so much humiliation, so much insult, and to whom Josephine
+      in her loyal sense of duty consecrated the homage of a devout subject.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Josephine, therefore, gladly consented to the viscount&rsquo;s proposal to leave
+      Paris. Accompanied by their children and by the governess of Hortense,
+      Madame Lanoy, the viscount and his wife went to a property belonging to
+      one of the Beauharnais family near Solange.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Three months were granted to Josephine in the quietude, in the sweet
+      repose of country-life, at her husband&rsquo;s side, and with her children, to
+      gather strength from the anxieties and griefs which she had suffered in
+      Paris. She enjoyed these days as one enjoys an unexpected blessing, a last
+      sunshine before winter&rsquo;s near approach, with thankful heart to God. Full
+      of cheerful devotedness to her husband, to her children, her lovely
+      countenance was radiant with joy and love; she was ever busy, with the
+      sunshine of her smile, to dissipate the shadows from her husband&rsquo;s brow,
+      and to replace the impassioned excitements, the honors and distinctions of
+      his Parisian life, by the pleasantness and joys of home.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Alexandra de Beauharnais could no longer find satisfaction in the
+      quiet, harmless joys of home; he even reproached himself that he could be
+      cheerful and satisfied whilst France resounded with cries of distress and
+      complaints, whilst France was torn in her innermost life by the disputes
+      and conflicts of factions which, no more satisfied with the speeches of
+      the tribune, filled the streets with blood and wounds. The revolution had
+      entered into a new phase, the Legislative Assembly had become the
+      Constituent Assembly, which despoiled the monarchy of the last appearance
+      of power and degraded it to a mere insignificancy. The Girondists, those
+      ideal fanatics, who wanted to regenerate France after the model of the
+      states of antiquity, had seized the power and the ministerial
+      portefeuilles. The beautiful, witty, and noble Madame Roland ruled, by
+      means of her husband, the Minister Roland, and was striving to realize in
+      France the ideal of a republic after the pattern of Greece; she was the
+      very soul of the new cabinet, the soul of the Girondists, the rulers of
+      France; in her drawing-room, during the evening, the new laws to be
+      proposed next day in the Constituent Assembly, were spoken of, and the
+      government measures discussed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For a moment it had seemed as if the king, through his cabinet of
+      Girondists, would once more be reconciled with his people, and especially
+      with the Constituent Assembly, as if the nation and the monarchy would
+      once more endeavor to stand one by the other in harmony and peace. Perhaps
+      the Girondists had believed in this possibility, and had regarded the
+      king&rsquo;s assurances that he would adhere to the constitution, and that he
+      would go hand in hand with his ministers, and accept the constitution as
+      the faithful expression of his will. But when they discovered that Louis
+      was not honorable in his assurances; that he was in secret correspondence
+      with the enemies of France; that in a letter to his brother-in-law, the
+      Emperor Leopold, he had made bitter complaints about the constraint to
+      which he was subjected, then the Girondists were inflamed with animosity,
+      and had recourse to counter-measures. They decreed the exile of the
+      priests, and the formation, in the vicinity of Paris, of a camp of twenty
+      thousand militia from all the departments of France.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Foreign nations looked upon this decree as a sign of dawning hostilities,
+      and threatened France with countermeasures. France responded to the
+      challenge thus thrown at her, and, in a stormy session of the Assembly,
+      the fatherland was declared to be in danger, the organization of an army
+      to occupy the frontiers was decreed, and all the children of the
+      fatherland were solemnly called to her defence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This call awoke Alexandre de Beauharnais from the dreamy repose to which
+      he had abandoned himself during the last months. His country called him,
+      and he dared not remain deaf to this call; it was his duty to tear himself
+      from the quiet peace of the household, from the arms of his wife and
+      family, and place himself in the ranks of the defenders of his country.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Josephine heard this resolution with tears in her eyes, but she could not
+      keep back her husband, whose countenance was beaming with enthusiasm, and
+      who dreamed of fame and victory. She accompanied Alexandre to Paris, and
+      after he had been gladly received by the minister of war, and appointed to
+      the Northern army, she then took from him a last, fond farewell, entreated
+      him with all the eloquence of love to spare himself, and not wantonly to
+      face danger, but to preserve his life for his wife and children.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Deeply moved by this tender solicitude of his wife, Alexandre promised to
+      hold her requests as sacred. Once more they embraced each other before
+      they both quitted Paris on diverging roads.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Alexandre de Beauharnais went to Valenciennes, where commanded Marshal
+      Rochambeau, to whom he had been commissioned adjutant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Josephine hastened with her children toward Fontainebleau, so at least to
+      be there united with her husband&rsquo;s father, and to live under his
+      protection until the return of her husband.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0011" id="link2HCH0011"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XI. THE TENTH OF AUGUST, AND THE LETTER OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Since the death of Mirabeau, the last defender of the monarchy, since the
+      failure of the contemplated flight, royalty in France had no chance of
+      existence left; the throne had lost every prop upon which it could find
+      support, and it sank more and more into the abyss which the revolution had
+      dug under its feet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Marie Antoinette was conscious of it; her foreboding spirit foresaw the
+      coming evil; her proud soul nearly broke under the humiliations and griefs
+      which every day brought on. She had hitherto courageously and heroically
+      struggled against adversity; she had concealed tears and anguish, to smile
+      at that people which hated her and cursed her, which insulted and reviled
+      her constantly. But a day was to come in which the smile would forever
+      depart from her lip&mdash;in which Marie Antoinette, the daughter of the
+      Caesars, so deeply humbled and trodden down in the dust, would no more
+      lift up her head, would no more rise from the terrible blow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This day was the 10th of August, in the year 1792. The terrible storm,
+      which so long had filled the air with its mutterings, and had shaken the
+      throne with its thunderings, was on this day with terrific power to be let
+      loose and to dash in pieces the monarchy. The king furnished the occasion
+      for this eruption by dismissing his Girondist ministry, by not signing the
+      decree for the organization of a national militia, and for the exile of
+      the priests.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This refusal was the flash which broke open the heavy clouds that so long
+      had hung over his head&mdash;the flash which caused the tempest to burst
+      forth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Since that day Paris was in a state of rebellion; fresh disturbances took
+      place every day; and finally, on the morning of the 10th of August, bands
+      of people rushed to the palace of the Tuileries and surrounded it with
+      wild howlings and shouts. A portion of the National Guards endeavored to
+      force the people into a retreat; the other portion united with the people
+      in fierce assaults upon the Tuileries, and on its defenders the Swiss.
+      These were massacred by the people armed with pikes; with jubilant
+      howlings the armed masses rushed over the corpses of the fallen into the
+      king&rsquo;s palace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Procurator-General Roderer implored the king to save himself with his
+      family by taking refuge in the National Assembly, for there alone was
+      safety for him and the queen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Louis hesitated; but Marie Antoinette felt once more the pride of a queen
+      awake within her; she felt it was nobler and worthier to die as the loyal
+      Swiss had done, to die sword in hand, than to meet pardon and disgrace,
+      than to bow her head under the yoke. She entreated the king to remain with
+      the loyal National Guards and to fight with his soldiers and die in the
+      palace of his fathers. She spoke to the successor of Henry IV., to the
+      father of the dauphin, for whom he should maintain the inheritance
+      received; she appealed to the heart, to the honor of Louis; she spoke with
+      flaming eyes, and with the eloquence of despair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Louis listened not to her, but to the solicitations of Roderer, who
+      told him that he had but five minutes to save himself, the queen, and his
+      children; that in five minutes more all would be lost.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It cannot be helped,&rdquo; muttered the king; and then with louder voice he
+      continued: &ldquo;It is my will that we be conducted into the Legislative
+      Assembly; I command it!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A shriek of terror broke forth from the breast of the queen; her proud
+      heart resisted once more her husband&rsquo;s weakness, who, for his own and for
+      her misfortune, was not made of the stuff which moulds kings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sire,&rdquo; cried she, angrily and excited&mdash;&ldquo;sire, you must first command
+      that I be nailed to the walls of this palace! I remain here. I stir not
+      from this spot!&rdquo; [Footnote: The very words of the queen.&mdash;See
+      &ldquo;Memoires Secretes et Universelles,&rdquo; par Lafont d&rsquo;Aussone.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Madame Elizabeth, the Princesses de Lamballe and de Tarent, begged her
+      with tears to consent; the good king fixed on her sad, weeping eyes, and
+      Roderer entreated her not to abandon, by her delays, to the approaching
+      executioners, her husband, her children, and herself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Marie Antoinette offered to her husband her last and her greatest
+      sacrifice; she bowed her proud head to his will; she consented to
+      accompany the king with her children into the Assembly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She took the dauphin in her arms, Madame Therese by the hand, and, at the
+      side of the king, followed by the Princesses Lamballe and Tarent, walked
+      out of the palace of the Tuileries to go to the Convent des Peuillants,
+      where the Legislative Assembly held its sessions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What a martyrdom in this short distance from the Tuileries to the
+      Feuillants&mdash;what dishonor and fears were gathered on this path!
+      Between the deep ranks of Swiss grenadiers and National Guards was this
+      path; the queen stares fixedly on the ground, and she does not see that
+      her thin silk shoes will be torn by the hard, fallen leaves of the trees
+      under which they are moving.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the king sees every thing, notices every thing. &ldquo;How many leaves,&rdquo;
+       said he, gazing forward&mdash;&ldquo;they fall early this year!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Now at the foot of the terrace the advance of the royal family is stopped
+      by a multitude of people, who, with wild howlings, swing their pikes and
+      clubs, and in their madness shout: &ldquo;No, they must not enter the Assembly!&mdash;they
+      are the cause of all our misery! Let us put an end to all this! Down with
+      them!&mdash;down!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The queen pays no attention to these shouts; she sees not that the
+      National Guards are clearing a way by force; she walks forward with
+      uplifted head, with a countenance petrified like that of Medusa at the
+      sight of evil.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But as a man approaches her, seizes the dauphin and takes him in his arms,
+      the transfixed queen is aroused, and, with all the anguish of a mother&rsquo;s
+      despair, grapples the arm of the man who wants to rob her of all she now
+      possesses, her child!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Be not afraid,&rdquo; whispered the man, &ldquo;I will do him no harm, I am but going
+      to carry him;&rdquo; and Marie Antoinette, her eyes fixed on the child, moves
+      forward. At their entrance into the hall of the Assembly the man gives her
+      back the dauphin, and she makes him sit down near her on the seats of the
+      ministers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A rough voice issues from the midst of the Assembly: &ldquo;The dauphin belongs
+      to the nation; place him at the side of the president. The Austrian is not
+      worthy of our confidence!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They tear away from the queen the weeping child, who clings to her, and
+      who is carried to the president, at whose left hand the king has seated
+      himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Again a voice is heard reminding the Assembly of the law which forbids
+      them to deliberate in the presence of the king.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The royal family must leave the lower portion of the hall, and are led
+      into a small room, with iron trellis-work, behind the president&rsquo;s chair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The royal family, with their attendants, pressed into the small space of
+      this room, can here at least, away from the gaze of their enemies, hide
+      their dishonored heads; at least no one sees the nervousness of despair
+      which now and then agitates the tall figure of the queen, the tears
+      trembling on her eyelids when she looks to the poor little dauphin, whose
+      blond curly head lies in her bosom, asleep from exhaustion, hunger, and
+      sorrow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No one sees the king and the queen, but they see and hear every thing.
+      They hear from without the howlings of the mob, the cannon&rsquo;s roar, the
+      reports of the rifles, telling them that a bloody fratricidal strife, a
+      terrible civil war, is raging. They hear there in the hall, a few steps
+      from them, the fanatical harangues of the deputies, whose words, full of
+      blood, are like the hands of the murdering Marsellais there without. Marie
+      Antoinette hears Vergniaud&rsquo;s motion, &ldquo;to divest the king at once of his
+      power and rank,&rdquo; and she hears the acclamations of the Assembly in favor
+      of the motion. She hears the Assembly by their own power reinvesting the
+      Girondist ministers, dismissed by the king, with their dignity and power!
+      She hears the Assembly decide &ldquo;to invite the French people to form a
+      national compact.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She hears all this, and the cold perspiration of anguish and horror covers
+      her brow while she has yet strength enough to force hack her tears into
+      her heart. She asks for a handkerchief to wipe her forehead. Not one of
+      the attendants around can furnish a kerchief which is not stained with the
+      blood of the victims fallen at their side in protecting the royal family
+      with their lives. [Footnote: &ldquo;Memoires inedites du Comte de la
+      Rochefoucauld.&rdquo;]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last, at two o&rsquo;clock in the morning, is this painful martyrdom ended,
+      and the royal family are led into the upper rooms of the convent, where
+      hastily and penuriously enough a few chambers had been furnished.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The howlings of the crowd ascend to their windows. Under those of the
+      queen&rsquo;s room groups of infuriated women sing the song whose horrible
+      burden is, &ldquo;Madame Veto avait promis de faire egorger tout Paris.&rdquo; Between
+      the sentences other voices shout and howl: &ldquo;The queen is the cause of our
+      misery! Kill her! kill the queen, the murderess of France! Kill Madame
+      Veto! Throw us her head!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Three days after, the royal family are led to the Temple. The rulers of
+      the state are now state prisoners. But the queen had already found the
+      peace which misfortune generally brings to strong souls; and as she walked
+      to the Temple, and saw her foot protruding from the extremity of her shoe,
+      she said with an affecting smile, &ldquo;Who could have believed that one day
+      the Queen of France should be in want of shoes!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      With the 10th of August began the last act of the great tragedy of the
+      revolution. Its second scene had its representation in the first days of
+      September, in those days of blood and tears, in which infuriated bands of
+      the people stormed the prisons to murder the captive priests, aristocrats,
+      and royalists.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Under the guillotine fell during this month the head of the queen&rsquo;s
+      friend, the Princess de Lamballe, who was followed in crowds by the king&rsquo;s
+      faithful adherents, sealing their loyalty and their love with their death.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This loyalty and love for the royal family was during this month branded
+      as an unpardonable crime, for the National Convention, which on the 21st
+      of September had taken the place of the Constituent Assembly, on the 25th
+      declared France to be a republic, and the royalists became thereby
+      criminals, who had sinned in the respect and love which they owed to the
+      &ldquo;republic one and indivisible.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The new republic of France celebrated her saturnalia in the following
+      months, and unfurled her blood-stained standard over the nation. She was
+      not satisfied with having brought to the guillotine more than ten thousand
+      aristocrats and royalists, to terrify the faithful adherents and servants
+      of the throne. She required, moreover, the death of those for whose sake
+      so many thousands had perished&mdash;the death of the king and of the
+      queen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the 5th of December began the trial of Louis Capet, ex-King of France,
+      now accused by the Convention. The pages of history have illustrated this
+      stupendous and tragical event in all its shapes and colors. Each party has
+      preyed upon it, the poets have sung it, and made it the central point of
+      tragedy and romance: but none have painted it in so telling, in so terse,
+      masterly traits, none have so fully comprehended and expressed the already
+      stupendous event, as Lieutenant Napoleon Bonaparte, the future Emperor of
+      France.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He happened to be in Paris during these days of terror. He had, with all
+      the energies of his soul, given himself up to the new state of things, and
+      he belonged to the most upright and zealous faction of the republicans. He
+      acknowledged himself won over to their ideas, he participated in their
+      celebrations, he was the friend of many of the most influential and
+      conspicuous members of the Convention, and he was rarely absent from their
+      meetings; but in the presence of the awful catastrophe of the king&rsquo;s
+      accusation and execution his proud and daring soul shrank back, and, full
+      of misgivings, shuddered within itself. The young, enthusiastic
+      republican, to his own great horror, found in the depths of his soul a
+      holy respect and awe in the presence of this royalty which he so often in
+      words had despised, and the fall of the king, this enemy of the republic,
+      moved his heart as a calamity which had fallen upon him and upon all
+      France. He himself gave to one of his friends in Ajaccio a very correct
+      description of these days. After narrating the events of the first days of
+      the trial of the king, he continues:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The day after I heard that the advocate Target had refused to undertake
+      the king&rsquo;s defence, to which he was privileged by virtue of his office.
+      This is what may be called, in the strictest sense of the word, to erase
+      one&rsquo;s name from history. What grounds had he for such a low cunning? &lsquo;His
+      life I will not save, and mine I dare not risk!&rsquo; Malherbes, Tronchet,
+      Deseze, loyal and devoted subjects, to imitate them in their zeal would be
+      impossible for me; but were I a prince I would have them sit at my right
+      hand&mdash;united together in the most strenuous efforts to defend the
+      successor of St. Louis. If they survive this deed of sublime faithfulness,
+      never can I pass by them without uncovering my head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Business detained me unavoidably in Versailles. Only on the 16th of
+      January did I return to Paris, and consequently I had lost three or four
+      scenes of this tragedy of ambition. But on the 18th of January I went to
+      the National Convention. Ah, my friend, it is true, and the most
+      infuriated republicans avow it also, a prince is but an ordinary man! His
+      head will as surely fall as that of another man, but whosoever decrees his
+      death trembles at his own madness, and were he not urged by secret
+      motives, his vote would die on his lips ere it was uttered. I gazed with
+      much curiosity at the fearless mortals who were about deciding the fate of
+      their king. I watched their looks. I searched into their hearts. The
+      exceeding weightiness of the occasion had exalted them, intoxicated them,
+      but within themselves they were full of fear in the presence of the
+      grandeur of their victim.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Had they dared retreat, the prince had been saved. To his misfortune,
+      they had argued within themselves, &lsquo;If his head falls not to-day, then we
+      must soon give ours to the executioner&rsquo;s stroke.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This was the prominent thought which controlled their vote. No pen can
+      adequately portray the feelings of the spectators in the galleries.
+      Silent, horrified, breathless, they gazed now on the accused, now on the
+      defenders, now on the judges.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The vote of Orleans sounded forth&mdash;&lsquo;Death!&rsquo; An electric shock could
+      not have produced deeper impression. The whole assembly, seized with an
+      involuntary terror, rose. The hall was filled with the murmurs of
+      conflicting emotions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Only one man remained seated, immovable as a rock, and that one was
+      myself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I ventured to reflect on the cause of such indifference (as that of
+      Orleans) and I found that cause grounded on ambition, but this cannot
+      justify the conduct of Orleans. It is only thus that I could account for
+      his action: he seeks a throne, though without any right to it, and a
+      throne cannot be won if the pretender renounces all claims to public
+      respect and virtue.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will be brief, for to unfold a mournful story is not my business. The
+      king was sentenced to death; and if the 21st day of January does not
+      inspire hatred for the name of France, a glorious name at least will have
+      been added to the roll-call of her martyrs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What a city was Paris on that day! The population seemed to be in a state
+      of bewilderment; all seemed to exchange but gloomy looks, and one man
+      hurried on to meet another without uttering a word. The streets were
+      deserted; houses and palaces were like graves. The very air seemed to
+      mirror the executioner. In a word, the successor of St. Louis was led to
+      the scaffold through the ranks of mourning automatons, that a short time
+      before were his subjects.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If any one is at your side, my friend, when you read this, conceal the
+      following lines from him, even were he your father. It is a stain on the
+      stuff of which my character is made&mdash;that Napoleon Bonaparte, for the
+      sake of a human being&rsquo;s destruction, should have been deeply moved and
+      compelled to retire to his bed, is a thing barely credible, though it is
+      true, and I cannot confess it without being ashamed of myself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;On the night before the 21st of January I could not close my eyes, and
+      yet I could not explain to myself the cause of this unusual excitement. I
+      rose up early and ran everywhere to and fro where crowds had gathered. I
+      wondered at, or much more I despised, the weakness of those forty thousand
+      National Guards, of which the nineteenth part were practically the
+      assistants of the executioner. At the gate of St. Denis I met Santerre; a
+      numerous staff followed him. I could have cut off his ears. I spat down
+      before him&mdash;it was all I could do. In my opinion, the Duke d&rsquo;Orleans
+      would have filled his place better. He had set his eyes on a crown, and,
+      as every one knows, such a motive overcomes much hesitancy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Following the Boulevards, I came to the Place de la Revolution. The
+      guillotine, a new invention, I had not yet seen. A cold perspiration ran
+      over me. Near me stood a stranger, who attributed my uneasiness and pallor
+      to some special interest on my part for the king&rsquo;s fate. &lsquo;Do not be
+      alarmed,&rsquo; said he, &lsquo;he is not going to die; the Convention is only glad to
+      exhibit its power, and at the foot of the scaffold the king will find his
+      letters of pardon.&rsquo; &lsquo;In this case,&rsquo; said I, &lsquo;the members of the Convention
+      are not far from their own ruin, and could a guilty man have more deserved
+      his fate than they? Whoever attacks a lion, and desires not to be
+      destroyed by it, must not wound but kill on the spot.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A hollow, confused noise was heard. It was the royal victim. I pushed
+      forward, making way with my elbows, and being pushed myself. All my
+      efforts to come closer were fruitless. Suddenly the noise of drums broke
+      upon the gloomy silence of the crowd. &lsquo;This is the signal for his
+      freedom,&rsquo; said the stranger. &lsquo;It will fall back on the head of his
+      murderers,&rsquo; answered I; &lsquo;half a crime in a case like this is but
+      weakness.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A moment&rsquo;s stillness followed. Something heavy fell on the scaffold. This
+      sound went through my heart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I inquired of a gendarme the cause of this sound. &lsquo;The axe has fallen,&rsquo; 
+      said he. &lsquo;The king is not saved then?&rsquo; &lsquo;He is dead.&rsquo; &lsquo;He is dead!&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For ten times at least I repeated the words &lsquo;He is dead.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For a few moments I remained unconscious. Without knowing by whom, I was
+      carried along by a crowd, and found myself on the Quai des Theatines, but
+      could say nothing, except &lsquo;He is dead.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Entirely bewildered, I went home, but a good hour elapsed before I fully
+      recovered my senses.&rdquo; [Footnote: See &ldquo;Edinburgh Quarterly Review,&rdquo; 1830.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0012" id="link2HCH0012"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XII. THE EXECUTION OF THE QUEEN.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The king&rsquo;s execution was the signal-fire which announced to the horrified
+      world the beginning of the reign of terror, and told Europe that in France
+      the throne had been torn down, and in its stead the guillotine erected.
+      Yes, the guillotine alone now ruled over France; the days of moderation,
+      of the Girondists, had passed away; the terrorists, named also men of the
+      Mountain, on account of the high seats they occupied in the Convention,
+      had seized the reins of power, and now controlled the course of events.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Everywhere, in every province, in every city, the blood-red standard of
+      the revolution was lifted up; might had become law; death was the rule,
+      and in lieu of the boasted liberty of conscience was tyranny. Who dared
+      think otherwise than the terrorists, who presumed to doubt the measures of
+      the Convention, was a criminal who, in the name of the one and indivisible
+      republic, was to be punished with death; whose head must fall, for he had
+      cherished thoughts which agreed not with the schemes of the
+      revolutionists.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How in these days of agitation and anguish Josephine rejoiced at her good
+      fortune, that she had not to tremble for her husband&rsquo;s life; that she was
+      away from the crater of the revolution which raged in Paris, and daily
+      claimed so many victims!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Alexandre de Beauharnais was still with the army. He had risen from rank
+      to rank; and when, in May, General Custine was deposed by the Committee of
+      Public Safety from the command of the Northern army, Alexandre de
+      Beauharnais, who was then chief of the general&rsquo;s staff of this army, was
+      appointed in his place as commanding general of the Army of the Rhine; and
+      the important work now to be achieved was to debar the besieging Prussians
+      and Austrians from recapturing Mayence. The Committee of Public Safety had
+      dismissed General Custine from his post, because he had not pressed on
+      with sufficient speed to the rescue of Mayence, according to the judgment
+      of these new rulers of France, who wanted from Paris to decide all
+      military matters, and who demanded victories whilst too often refusing the
+      means necessary for victory.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      General de Beauharnais was to turn to good what General Custine, according
+      to the opinion of these gentlemen of the Convention, had failed to do.
+      This was an important and highly significant order, and to leave it
+      unfulfilled was to excite the anger of the Committee of Safety; it was
+      simply to deserve death.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      General de Beauharnais knew this well, but he shrank not back from the
+      weighty and dangerous situation in which he was placed. To his country
+      belonged his life, all his energies; and it was to him of equal importance
+      whether his head fell on the battle-field or on the scaffold; in either
+      case it would fall for his country; he would do his duty, and his country
+      might be satisfied with him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In this enthusiastic love for country, De Beauharnais accepted cheerfully
+      the offered command of the Army of the Rhine as general-in-chief, and he
+      prepared himself to march to the rescue of besieged Mayence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Whilst General de Beauharnais was on the French frontier, Josephine
+      trembled with anxious misgivings. The new dignity of her husband filled
+      her with fear, for she multiplied the dangers which surrounded him and his
+      family, for now the eyes of the terrorists were fixed on him. An
+      unfortunate move, an unsuccessful war operation, could excite the wrath of
+      these men of power, and send Beauharnais to the guillotine. It was well
+      known that he belonged not to the Mountain party, but to the moderate
+      republicans, to the Girondists; and as the Girondists were now
+      incarcerated, as the Committee of Safety had brought accusations against
+      them, and declared them guilty of treason toward France, it was also easy,
+      if it pleased the terrorists, to find a flaw in the character of General
+      Beauharnais, and to bring accusations against him as had been done against
+      the Girondists.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Such were Josephine&rsquo;s fears, which made her tremble for her husband, for
+      her children. She wished at least to secure these from the impending
+      danger, and to save and shield them from the guillotine. Her friend, the
+      Princess von Hohenzollern, was on the eve of leaving for England with her
+      brother the Prince von Salm, and Josephine was anxious to seize this
+      opportunity to save her children. She brought Eugene and Hortense to the
+      princess, who was now waiting in St. Martin, in the vicinity of St. Pol,
+      in the county of Artois, expecting a favorable moment for departure; for
+      already was the emigration watched, already it was considered a crime to
+      leave France. With bitter tears of grief, and yet glad to know her
+      children safe, Josephine bade farewell to her little ones, and then
+      returned to Paris, so as to excite no suspicion through her absence. But
+      no sooner had General Beauharnais heard of Josephine&rsquo;s plan to send her
+      children from the country, than in utmost speed he dispatched to his wife
+      a courier bearing a letter in which he decidedly opposed the departure of
+      the children, for by this emigration his own position would be imperilled
+      and his character made suspicious.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Josephine sighed, and, with tears in her eyes, submitted to her husband&rsquo;s
+      will; she sent a faithful messenger to St. Martin to bring back Eugene and
+      Hortense. But the Princess von Hohenzollern would not trust the children
+      to any one; she had sworn to her friend Josephine to watch over them,
+      never to let them go out of her sight, and she wished to keep her oath
+      until such time as she could restore the children to their mother. She
+      therefore returned herself to Paris, to bring back Eugene and Hortense to
+      Josephine; and this journey, so short and so insignificant in itself, was
+      nevertheless the occasion that the Princess von Hohenzollern remained in
+      France; that her brother, the Prince von Salm, should mount the scaffold!
+      The favorable moment for emigration was lost through this delay; the
+      journey to Paris had attracted the eyes of the authorities to the doings
+      of the princess and of her brother, the contemplated journey to England
+      was discovered, and the incarceration of the Prince von Salm and of his
+      sister was the natural consequence. A few months after, the prince paid
+      with his life the contemplated attempt to migrate; his sister, the
+      Princess von Hohenzollern, was saved from the guillotine through accident.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile, Josephine had at least her children safely returned, and, in
+      the quietude and solitude of Fontainebleau, she awaited with beating heart
+      the future developments of events; she saw increase every day the dangers
+      which threatened her, her family, and, above all things, her husband.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mayence was still besieged by the Austrian and Prussian forces. General
+      Beauharnais had not completed the organization of his army so as to press
+      onward to the rescue of the besieged, whose perils increased every day.
+      But whilst, in unwearied activity, he urged on the preliminary operations,
+      a courier arrived, who brought to the general his appointment to the
+      office of minister of war, and required his immediate presence in Paris,
+      there to assume his new dignity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Alexandre de Beauharnais had the courage to answer with a declination the
+      office. He entreated the Convention to make another choice, for he
+      considered himself more competent to serve his country against the
+      coalition of tyrants, among his companions-in-arms, than to be minister of
+      war amid revolution&rsquo;s storms.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Convention pardoned his refusal for the sake of the patriotic
+      sentiments which he had expressed. But this refusal was to have, not only
+      for the general, but also for all the aristocracy of France, the most
+      fatal results. Some of the most fanatical members of the Mountain party
+      ever considered as an audacious resistance to the commands of the
+      Convention this refusal of Alexandre de Beauharnais, to accept the office
+      which the highest powers of the land offered him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a nobleman, an aristocrat, who had dared oppose the democratic
+      Convention, and hence the welcome pretext was found to begin the
+      long-wished-for conflict against the aristocrats. One of the deputies of
+      the Mountain made the motion to remove from all public offices, from the
+      army, from the cabinet, all noblemen. Another accused General de
+      Beauharnais, as well as all officers from amongst the nobility, of
+      moderate tendencies, and requested at the same time that a list of all
+      officers from the nobility, and now in the army, should be laid before the
+      Convention.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But on this very day a letter from the general reached the Convention. In
+      this letter he expressed the hope of a speedy rescue of Mayence; he
+      announced that he had completed the organization of his forces and all his
+      preparations, and that soon from the camps of Vicembourg and Lauterburg he
+      would advance against Mayence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This letter was received by the Convention with loud acclamations, and so
+      took possession of all minds that they passed over the motion of hostility
+      against the nobility, to the order of the day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Had General de Beauharnais accomplished his purpose&mdash;had he succeeded
+      in relieving the garrison besieged in Mayence, now sorely pressed, and in
+      delivering them, this horrible decree which caused so much blood to flow,
+      this decree against the nobility, would never have appeared, and France
+      would have been spared many scenes of cruelty and horror.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Beauharnais hoped still to effect the rescue. Trusty messengers from
+      Mayence had brought him the news that the garrison held on courageously
+      and bravely, and that they could hold their ground a few days longer.
+      Dispatch was therefore necessary; and if in a few days they could be
+      re-enforced, then they would be saved, provided the other generals should
+      advance with their troops in time to attack the Austrian and Prussian
+      forces lying round about Mayence. The French had already succeeded in
+      obtaining some advantages over the enemy; and General de Beauharnais could
+      triumphantly announce to the Convention that, on the 22d of July, a warm
+      encounter with the Prussians had taken place at St. Anna&rsquo;s chapel, and
+      that he had forced the Prussians to a retreat with considerable loss.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Convention received this news with jubilant shouts, and already
+      trusted in the sure triumph of the French armies against the united forces
+      of Prussia and Austria. If in these days of joyous excitement some one had
+      dared renew the motion to dismiss Beauharnais from his command because he
+      was a nobleman, the mover would undoubtedly have been considered an enemy
+      of his country.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How much attention in these happy days was paid to the general&rsquo;s wife&mdash;how
+      busy were even the most fanatical republicans, the dreaded ones of the
+      Mountain, to flatter her, to give expression to their enthusiastic praises
+      of the general who was preparing for the arms of the republic so glorious
+      a triumph!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Josephine now came every day to be present in the gallery at the sessions
+      of the Convention, and her gracious countenance radiated a cheerful smile
+      when the minister of war communicated to the Assembly the newly-arrived
+      dispatches which announced fresh advantages or closer approaches of
+      General Beauharnais. By degrees a new confidence filled the heart of
+      Josephine, and the gloomy forebodings, which so long had tormented her,
+      began to fade away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the session of the 28th of July, Barrere, with a grave, solemn
+      countenance, mounted the tribune and with a loud, sad voice announced to
+      the Convention, in the name of the Committee of Safety, that a courier had
+      just arrived bringing the news that, on the 23d of July, Mayence, in
+      virtue of an unjust capitulation, had fallen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A loud, piercing shriek, which issued from the gallery, broke the silence
+      with which the Assembly had received this news. It was Josephine who had
+      uttered this cry&mdash;Josephine who was carried away fainting from the
+      hall. She awoke from her long swoon only to shed a torrent of tears, to
+      press her children to her heart, as if desirous to screen them from the
+      perils of death, which now, said her own forebodings, were pressing on
+      from all sides.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Josephine was not deceived: this calamitous news, all at once, changed the
+      whole aspect of affairs, gave to the Convention and to the republic
+      another attitude, and threw its dark shadows over the unfortunate general
+      who had undertaken to save Mayence, and had not been able to fulfil his
+      word.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Surely this was not his fault, for General Dubayet had capitulated before
+      it had been possible for Beauharnais to accomplish the rescue. No one
+      therefore ventured to accuse him, but undeserved misfortune always remains
+      a misfortune in the eyes of those who had counted upon success; and the
+      Convention could never forgive the generals from whom they had expected so
+      much, and who had not met these expectations.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These generals had all been men of the aristocracy. As there was no reason
+      to accuse them on account of their unsuccessful military operations, it
+      was necessary to attack them with other weapons, and seek a spot where
+      they could be wounded. This spot was their name, their ancestors, who in
+      the eyes of the republican Convention rose up like embodied crimes behind
+      their progeny, to accuse the guilty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Jacobin Club, a short time after the capture of Mayence, began again
+      in an infuriated session the conflict against the nobility, and the
+      fanatical Hebert moved:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All the noblemen who serve in the army, in the magistracy, in any public
+      office, must be driven away and dismissed. The people must require this,
+      the people themselves! They must go in masses to the Convention, and after
+      exposing the crimes and the treachery of the aristocrats, must insist on
+      their expulsion. The people must not leave the Convention, it must remain
+      in permanent session, there until it is assured that its will is carried
+      out.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The multitude with loud, jubilant tones cried, &ldquo;Yes. yes, that is what we
+      want, let us go to the Convention! No more nobility! the nobles are our
+      murderers!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The next day, the Jacobins, accompanied by thousands of shouting women and
+      infuriated men, went to the Convention to make known its will in the name
+      of the people. The Convention received their petition and decreed the
+      exile and the dissolution of the nobility, and delivered to the punishment
+      of the law the guilty subject who would dare use the name of noble.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      General de Beauharnais saw full well the blow aimed at him, and at all the
+      officers from the nobility in the army; he foresaw that they would not
+      stop at these measures; that soon he and his companions of fate would be
+      accused and charged with treason, as had been already done to General
+      Custine, and to so many others who had paid with their lives their tried
+      loyalty to the republic. He wanted to anticipate the storm, and sent in
+      his resignation. As the Convention left his petition unanswered, he
+      renewed it, and as it remained still ineffective, he gladly, forced to
+      this measure by sickness, transferred his command to General Landremont.
+      The Convention had then to grant him leave of absence, and, as it
+      maintained him in his rank, they ordered him back to Paris.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last Josephine saw her husband again, for whom during the last few
+      months she had suffered so much anxiety and pain. At last she was enabled
+      to bring to her children the father for whom every evening they had prayed
+      God to guard him from foes abroad and from foes at home. As a gift sent
+      again by Heaven, she received her husband and entreated him to save
+      himself with his family from revolution&rsquo;s yawning abyss, which was ready
+      to swallow them all, and to go away with his own into a foreign land, as
+      his brother had done, who for some months past had been in Coblentz with
+      the Prince d&rsquo;Artois.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Alexandre de Beanharnais rejected with something like anger these
+      tearful supplications of his wife. He was not blinded to the dangers which
+      threatened him, but he wanted to meet them bravely; true to the oath he
+      had taken to the republic and to his country, he wished as a dutiful son
+      to remain near her, even if his allegiance had to be paid with his death.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Josephine, on the bosom of her husband, wept hot, burning tears as he
+      communicated to her his irrevocable decision not to leave France, but in
+      the depths of her heart she experienced a noble satisfaction to find her
+      husband so heroic and so brave, and, offering him her hand, said with
+      tears in her eyes:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is well&mdash;we remain; and if we must go to the scaffold, we will at
+      least die together.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The general, with his wife and children, retired to his small property,
+      Ferte-Beauharnais, where he longed to obtain rest during a few happy
+      months of quietude.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the fearful storms which had agitated France in her innermost life,
+      now raged so violently that each household, each family, trembled; there
+      was neither peace nor rest in the home nor in the hearts of men.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Convention, threatened from outside by failures and defeats&mdash;for
+      the capture of Mayence by the Prussians and Austrians had been followed by
+      the capture of Toulon in September by the English&mdash;the Convention
+      wanted to consolidate at least its internal authority, and to terrify by
+      severe measures those who, on account of the misfortunes on the frontiers,
+      might hope for a fresh change of affairs in the interior, and who might
+      help it to pass.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Consequently the Convention issued a decree ordering all dismissed or
+      destitute soldiers to return in four-and-twenty hours to their respective
+      municipalities, under pain of ten years in chains, and at the same time
+      forbade them to enter Paris or to approach the capital nearer than ten
+      leagues.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A second decree ordered the formation of a revolutionary army in Paris, to
+      which was assigned the duty of carrying out the decrees of the Convention.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Finally a third decree, which appeared on the 17th of September, ordered
+      the arrest and punishment of all suspected persons.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This decree thus characterized the suspected ones: &ldquo;All those who, by
+      their conduct, their relations, their discourses, their writings, had
+      shown themselves the adherents of tyranny, of federalism, the enemies of
+      liberty, much more all the ex-nobles, men, women, fathers, brothers, sons
+      or daughters, sisters or brothers, or agents of the migrated ones, all who
+      had not invariably exhibited and proved their adherence to the
+      revolution.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      With this decree the days of terror had reached their deepest gloom; with
+      this decree began the wild, bloody hunting down of aristocrats and
+      ci-devants; then began suspicions, accusations which needed no evidence to
+      bring the accused to the guillotine; then were renewed the dragonnades of
+      the days of Louis XIV., only that now, instead of Protestants, the nobles
+      were hunted down, and hunted down to death. The night of the St.
+      Bartholomew, the night of the murderess Catharine de Medicis and of her
+      mad son Charles IX., found now in France its cruel and bloody repetition;
+      only this night of horror was prolonged during the day, and shrank not
+      back from the light.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The sun beamed upon the pools of blood which flowed through the streets of
+      Paris, and packs of ferocious dogs in large numbers lay in the streets,
+      and fed upon this blood, which imparted to these once tamed creatures
+      their natural wildness. The sun beamed on the scaffold, which, like a
+      threatening monster, lifted itself upon the Place de la Revolution, and
+      the sun beamed upon the horrible axe, which every day out off so many
+      noble heads, and ever glittering, ever menacing, rose up from the midst of
+      blood and death.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The sun also shone upon the day in which Marie Antoinette, like her
+      husband, ascended the scaffold, to rest at last in the grave from all her
+      dishonor and from the agonies of the last years.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This day was the 16th of October, 1793. For the last four months, Marie
+      Antoinette had longed for this day as for a long-expected bliss; four
+      months ago she had been led from the prison of the Temple into the
+      Conciergerie, and she knew that the prisoners of the Conciergerie only
+      left it to obtain the freedom which men do not give, but which God gives
+      to the suffering ones, the freedom of death.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Marie Antoinette longed for this liberty, and for this deliverance of
+      death. How distant behind were the days of happiness, of joyous youth, far
+      behind in infinite legendary distance! How long since this tall, grave
+      figure, with its proud and yet affable countenance, had lost all
+      similarity to the charming Queen Marie Antoinette, around whom had
+      fluttered the genii of beauty, of youth, of love, of happiness; who once
+      in Trianon had represented the idyl of a pastoral queen; who, in the
+      exuberance of joy, had visited in disguise the public opera-ball; who
+      imagined herself so secure amid the French people as to believe she could
+      dispense with the protection of &ldquo;Madame Etiquette;&rdquo; who then was applauded
+      by all France with jubilant acclamations, and who now was persecuted with
+      mad anger!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No, the queen of that day, Marie Antoinette, who, in the golden halls of
+      Versailles and of the Tuileries, received the homage of all France, and
+      who, with smiling grace and face radiant with happiness, responded to all
+      this homage; she had no resemblance with Louis Capet&rsquo;s widow, who now
+      stands before the tribunal of the revolution, and gravely, firmly gives
+      her answers to the proposed questions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She has also made her toilet for this day; but how different is this
+      toilet of the Widow Capet from that which once Marie Antoinette had worn
+      to be admired!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then could Marie Antoinette, the frivolous, fortunate daughter of bliss,
+      shut herself up in her boudoir for long hours with her confidante the
+      milliner, Madame Bertier, to devise some new ball-dress, some new fichu,
+      some new ornament for her robes; then could Leonard, for this queen with
+      her wondrous blond hair, tax all the wealth of his science and of his
+      imagination; to invent continually new coiffures and new head-dresses
+      wherewith to adorn the beautiful head of the Queen Marie Antoinette, on
+      whose towering curls clustered tufts of white plumes; or else diminutive
+      men-of-war unfurled the net-work of their sails; or else, for variety&rsquo;s
+      sake, on that royal head was arranged a garden, a parterre adorned with
+      flowers and fruits, with butterflies and birds of paradise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Widow Capet needs no milliner now; she needs no friseur now for her
+      toilette. Her tall, slim figure is draped in a black woollen dress, which
+      the republic at her request has granted her to mourn her beheaded husband;
+      her neck and shoulders, once the admiration of France, are now covered
+      with a white muslin kerchief, which in pity Bault, her attendant at the
+      jail, has given her. Her hair is uncovered, and falls in long natural
+      curls on either side of her transparent, blanched cheeks. This hair needs
+      no powder now; the long sleepless nights, the anxious days, have covered
+      it with their powder forever, and the thirty-eight-year-old widow of Louis
+      Capet wears on her head the gray hairs of a seventy-year-old woman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In this toilet, Marie Antoinette stands before the tribunal of the
+      revolution from the 6th to the 13th day of October. There is nothing royal
+      about her, nothing but her look and the proud attitude of her figure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And the people who fill the galleries in closely-packed masses, and who
+      weary not to gaze on the queen in her humiliation, in her toilet of
+      anguish, the people claim constantly that Marie Antoinette will rise from
+      her rush-woven seat; that she will allow herself to be stared at by these
+      masses of people, whom curiosity and not compassion have brought there.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Once, as at the call from the public in the galleries, she rose up, the
+      queen sighed: &ldquo;Ah, will not the people soon be tired of my sufferings?&rdquo;
+       [Footnote: Marie Antoinette&rsquo;s own words.&mdash;See Goncourt, &ldquo;Histoire de
+      Marie Antoinette,&rdquo; p. 404.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Another time her dry, blanched lips murmured, &ldquo;I thirst.&rdquo; But no one near
+      her dares have compassion on this sigh of agony from the queen; each looks
+      embarrassed at his neighbor; not one dares give a glass of water to the
+      thirsty woman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One of the gendarmes has at last the courage to do so, and Marie
+      Antoinette thanks him with a look which brings tears in the eyes of the
+      gendarme, and which may perchance cause his death to-morrow under the
+      guillotine as a traitor!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The gendarmes who guard the queen have alone the courage to show pity!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One night, as she is led from the hall of trial to her prison, Marie
+      Antoinette becomes so exhausted, so overpowered, that staggering, she
+      murmurs, &ldquo;I can see no longer! I can go no farther! I cannot move!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      One of the gendarmes walking alongside of her offers his arm, and
+      supported by it Marie Antoinette totters up the three stone steps which
+      lead into the prison.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last, at four o&rsquo;clock in the morning, on the 15th of August, the jury
+      have given their verdict. It runs: &ldquo;Death!&mdash;execution by the
+      guillotine!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Marie Antoinette has heard the verdict with unmoved composure, whilst the
+      noise from the excited crowd in the galleries is suddenly hushed as by a
+      magic spell, and even the faces of the infuriated fish women turn pale!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Marie Antoinette alone has remained calm; grave and cool she rises from
+      her seat and herself opens the balustrade to leave the hall and return to
+      her prison.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And then at last, on the morning of the 16th of October, her sorrows will
+      end, and Marie Antoinette can find refuge in the grave! Her soul is almost
+      joyous and serene; she has suffered so much, and for her to sink into
+      death is truly blessedness!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She has passed the undisturbed hours of the night in writing to her
+      sister-in-law, Madame Elizabeth, and this letter is also the queen&rsquo;s
+      testament. But the widow of Louis Capet has no riches, no treasures, no
+      property to will; she has nothing left which belongs to her&mdash;nothing
+      but her love, her tears, her farewell salutations. These she leaves behind
+      to all those who have loved her. She takes leave of her relatives, her
+      brothers and sisters, and cries out to them a farewell.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I had friends,&rdquo; she continues; &ldquo;the thought of being forever separated
+      from them, and your grief for my death, are my deepest sorrow; you will at
+      least know that to the last moment I have remembered you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then, when Marie Antoinette has finished this letter, some of whose
+      characters here and there are disfigured by her tears, she thinks of
+      leaving to her children a last token of remembrance&mdash;one which the
+      executioner&rsquo;s hand has not desecrated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The only ornament which remains is her long hair, whose silver-gray locks
+      are the tearful history of her sufferings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Marie Antoinette with her own hands despoils herself of this last
+      ornament; she cuts off her long hair behind the head, so as to leave it as
+      a last token to her children, to her relatives and friends. Then, after
+      having taken her spiritual farewell of life, she prepares herself for the
+      last great ceremony of her existence, for death.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She feels exhausted, weary unto death, and she strengthens herself for
+      this last toilsome journey, that she may worthily pass through it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Marie Antoinette needs food, and with courageous mind she eats a chicken&rsquo;s
+      wing which has been brought to her. After having eaten, she makes her last
+      toilet, the toilet of death.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The wife of the jailer, at the queen&rsquo;s request, gives her one of her own
+      chemises, and Marie Antoinette puts it on. Then she clothes herself with
+      the garments which she has worn during her days of trial before the
+      tribunal of the revolution, only over the black woollen dress, which she
+      has often mended and patched with her own hand, she puts on a mantle of
+      white needlework. Around her neck she ties a small plain kerchief of white
+      muslin, and, as it is not allowed her to mount the scaffold with uncovered
+      head, she puts on it the round linen hood which the peasant-women used to
+      wear. Black stockings cover her feet, and over them she draws shoes of
+      black woollen stuff.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her toilet is now ended&mdash;earthly things have passed away! Ready to
+      meet death, the queen lays herself down on her bed and sleeps.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She still sleeps when she is notified that a priest is there, ready to
+      come in, if she will confess.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Marie Antoinette has already unveiled her heart to God; she will have
+      none of these priests of reason, whom the republic has ordained, after
+      having exiled or murdered with the guillotine the priests of the Church.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As I cannot do as I please,&rdquo; she has written to Madame Elizabeth, in her
+      farewell letter, &ldquo;so must I endure it if a priest is sent to me; but I now
+      declare that I will tell him not a word, that I will consider him entirely
+      as a stranger to me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And Marie Antoinette held her word. She forbids not the priest Girard to
+      come in, but she answers in the negative when he asks her if she will
+      receive from him the consolations of religion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She paces her small cell to and fro, to warm herself, for her feet are
+      stiff with cold. As seven o&rsquo;clock strikes, the door opens.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is the executioner of Paris, Samson, who enters.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A slight tremor runs through the queen&rsquo;s frame. &ldquo;You come very early,
+      sir,&rdquo; murmurs she, &ldquo;could you not delay somewhat?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As Samson replies in the negative, Marie Antoinette assumes again a calm,
+      cold attitude. She drinks without any reluctance the cup of chocolate
+      which has been brought to her from a neighboring cafe. Proudly, calmly,
+      she allows her hands to be bound with strong ropes behind her back.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At eleven o&rsquo;clock she finally leaves her room to descend the corridor, and
+      to mount into the wagon which waits for her before the gate of the
+      Conciergerie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No one guides her on the way; no one bids her a last farewell; no one
+      shows a sympathizing or sad countenance to the departing one.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Alone, between two rows of gendarmes posted on both sides of the corridor,
+      the queen walks forward; behind her is Samson, holding in his hand the end
+      of the rope; the priest and the two assistants of the executioner follow
+      him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the path of Death&mdash;such is the suite of the queen, the daughter of
+      an emperor!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Perchance at this hour thousands were on their knees to offer to God their
+      heart-felt prayers for Marie Antoinette, whom in the silence of the soul
+      they still call &ldquo;the queen;&rdquo; perchance many thousand compassionate hearts
+      pour out warm tears of sympathy for her who now ascends into the miserable
+      wagon, and sits on a plank which ropes have made firm to both sides of the
+      vehicle. But those who pray and weep have retired into the solitude of
+      their rooms, for God alone must receive their sighs and see their tears.
+      The eyes which follow the queen on her last journey must not weep; the
+      words which are shouted at her must betray no compassion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Paris knows that this is the hour of the queen&rsquo;s execution, and the
+      Parisian crowd is ready, it is waiting. In the streets, in the windows of
+      the houses, on the roofs, the people have stationed themselves in enormous
+      masses; they fill the whole Place de la Revolution with their dark,
+      destructive forms.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now resound the drums of the National Guard posted before the
+      Conciergerie. The large white horse, which draws the chariot in which
+      Marie Antoinette sits backward, at the side of the priest, is driven
+      onward by the man who swings on its back. Behind her in the wagon is
+      Samson and his assistants.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The queen&rsquo;s face is white; all blood has left her cheeks and lips, but her
+      eyes are red; they have wept so much, unfortunate queen! She weeps not
+      now. Not one tear dims her eye, which pensively and calmly soars above the
+      crowd, then is lifted up to the very roofs of the houses, then again is
+      slowly lowered, and seems to stare over the human heads away into infinite
+      distance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Calm and pensive as the eye is the queen&rsquo;s countenance, her lips are
+      nearly closed, no nervous movement on her face tells whether she suffers,
+      whether she feels, whether she notices those tens of thousands of eyes
+      which are fixed on her, cold, curious, sarcastic! And yet Marie Antoinette
+      sees every thing! She sees yonder woman who lifts up her child; she sees
+      how this child with his tiny hands sends a kiss to the queen! Suddenly a
+      nervous agitation passes over the queen&rsquo;s features, her lips tremble, and
+      her eyes are obscured with a tear! This first, this single token of human
+      sympathy has revived the heart of the queen and awakened her from her
+      torpor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the people are bent upon this, that Marie Antoinette shall not reach
+      the end of her journey with this last comfort of pity. They press on,
+      howling and shouting, scorning and jubilant, nearer and nearer to the
+      wagon; they sing sarcastic songs on Madame Veto, they clap hands, and
+      point at her with the finger of scorn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She, however, is calm; her look, cold and indifferent, runs over the
+      crowd; only once it flames up with a last angry flash as she passes by the
+      Palais Royal, where Philippe Egalite, the ex-Duke d&rsquo;Orleans, resides, as
+      she reads the inscription which he had placed at the gate of his palace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At noon the chariot reaches at last its destination. It stops at the foot
+      of the scaffold, and Marie Antoinette alights from the wagon, and then
+      calm and erect ascends the steps of the scaffold.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her lips have not opened once on this awful journey; they now have no word
+      of complaint, of farewell! The only farewell which she has yet to say on
+      earth is told by her look&mdash;by a look which is slowly directed yonder
+      to the Tuileries&mdash;it is the farewell to past memories&mdash;it
+      deepens the pallor on the cheeks, it opens her lips to a painful sigh. She
+      then bows her head&mdash;a momentary, breathless silence follows. Samson
+      lifts up the white head, which once had been the head of the Queen of
+      France, and the people cry and shout, &ldquo;Long live the republic!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0013" id="link2HCH0013"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XIII. THE ARREST.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Uninterruptedly had the guillotine for the last three months of the year
+      1793 continued its destructive work of murder, and the noblest and
+      worthiest heads had fallen under this reaper of Death. No personal merit,
+      no nobility of character, no age, no youth, could hope to escape the
+      death-instrument of the revolution when a noble name stood up as accuser.
+      Before this accuser every service was considered as nothing; it was enough
+      to be an aristocrat, a ci-devant, to be suspected, to be dragged as a
+      criminal before the tribunal of the revolution, and to be condemned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The execution of the queen was followed by that of the Girondists; and
+      this brilliant array of noble and great men was followed in the next month
+      by names no less noble, no less great. It was an infuriated chase of the
+      aristocrats as well as of the officers, of all the military persons who,
+      in the unfortunate days of Toulon and of Mayence, had been in the army,
+      and who had been dismissed, or whose resignation had been accepted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The aristocrats were tracked in their most secret recesses, and not only
+      were they punished, but also those who dared screen them from the avenging
+      hand of the republic. The officers were recognized under every disguise,
+      and the very fact that they had disguised themselves or remained silent as
+      to their true character was a crime great enough to be punished with the
+      guillotine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      More than twenty generals were imprisoned during the last months of the
+      year 1793, and many more paid with their lives for crimes which they had
+      never committed, and which had existence only in the heated imagination of
+      their accusers. Thus had General Houchard fallen; he was followed in the
+      first days of the new year of 1794 by the Generals Luckner and Biron.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Alexandre de Beauharnais had served under Luckner, he had been Biron&rsquo;s
+      adjutant, he had been united with General Houchard in the unfortunate
+      attempt to relieve Mayence. It was therefore natural that he should be
+      noticed and espied. Besides which, he was an aristocrat, a relative of
+      many of the emigres, the brother of the Count de Beauharnais, who was now
+      residing in Coblentz with the Count d&rsquo;Artois, and it had not been
+      forgotten what an important part Alexandre de Beauharnais had played in
+      the National Assembly; it was well known that he belonged to the moderate
+      party, that he had been the friend of the Girondists.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Had the Convention wished to forget it, the informers were there to remind
+      them of it. Alexandre de Beauharnais was denounced as suspected, and this
+      denunciation was followed, in the first days of January, by an arrest. He
+      was taken to Paris, and at first shut up in the Luxemburg, where already
+      many of his companions-in-arms were incarcerated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Josephine was not in Ferte-Beauharnais when the emissaries of the republic
+      came to arrest her husband. She was just then in Paris, whither she had
+      gone to seek protection and assistance for Alexandre at the hands of
+      influential acquaintances; in Paris she learned the arrest of her husband.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The misfortune, which she had so long expected and foreseen, was now upon
+      her and ready to crush her and the future of her children. Her husband was
+      arrested&mdash;that is to say, he was condemned to die.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At this thought Josephine rose up like a lioness; the indolence, the
+      dreamy quietude of the creole, had suddenly vanished, and Josephine was
+      now a resolute, energetic woman, anxious to risk every thing, to try every
+      thing, so as to save her husband, the father of her children. She now knew
+      no timidity, no trembling, no fear, no horror; every thing in her was
+      decision of purpose; keen, daring action. Letters, visits, petitions, and
+      even personal supplications, every thing was tried; there was no
+      humiliation before which she shrank. For long hours she sat in the
+      anterooms of the tribunal of the revolution, of the ministers who, however
+      much they despised the aristocrats, imitated their manners, and made the
+      people wait in the vestibule, even as the ministers of the tyrant had
+      done; with tears, with all the eloquence of love, she entreated those men
+      of blood and terror to give her back her husband, or at least not to
+      condemn him before he had been accused, and to furnish him with the means
+      of defence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But those new lords and rulers of France had no heart for compassion;
+      Robespierre, Marat, Danton, could not be moved by the tears which a wife
+      could shed for an accused husband. They had already witnessed so much
+      weeping, listened to so many complaints, to so many cries of distress,
+      their eyes were not open for such things, their ears heard not.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      France was diseased, and only by drawing away the bad blood could she be
+      restored to health, could she be made sound, could she rise up again with
+      the strength of youth! And Marat, Danton, Robespierre, were the physicians
+      who were healing France, who were restoring her to health by thus horribly
+      opening her veins. Marat and Danton murdered from bloodthirsty hatred,
+      from misanthropy and vengeance; Robespierre murdered through principle,
+      from the settled fanatical conviction, that France was lost if all the old
+      corrupt blood was not cleansed away from her veins, so as to replenish
+      them with youthful, vitalizing blood.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Robespierre was therefore inexorable, and Robespierre now ruled over
+      France! He was the dictator to whom every thing had to bow; he was at the
+      head of the tribunal of revolution; he daily signed hundreds of
+      death-warrants; and this selfsame man, who once in Arras had resigned his
+      office of judge because his hand could not be induced to sign the
+      death-warrant of a convicted criminal [Footnote: See &ldquo;Maximilian
+      Robespierre,&rdquo; by Theodore Mundt, vol. i.]&mdash;this man, who shed tears
+      over a tame dove which the shot of a hunter had killed, could, with heart
+      unmoved, with composed look, sit for long hours near the guillotine on the
+      tribune of the revolution, and gaze with undimmed eyes on the heads of his
+      victims falling under the axe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was now at the summit of his power; France lay bleeding, trembling at
+      his feet; fear had silenced even his enemies; no one dared touch the
+      dreaded man whose mere contact was death; whose look, when coldly, calmly
+      fixed on the face of any man, benumbed his heart as if he had read his
+      sentence of death in the blue eyes of Robespierre.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the side of Robespierre sat the terrorists Fouquier-Tinville and Marat,
+      to whom murder was a delight, blood-shedding a joy, who with sarcastic
+      pleasure listened unmoved to the cries, to the tearful prayers of mothers,
+      wives, children, of those sentenced to death, and who fed on their tears
+      and on their despair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With such men at the head of affairs it was natural that the reign of
+      terror should still be increasing in power, and that with it the number of
+      the captives in the prisons should increase.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the month of January, 1794, the list of the incarcerated within the
+      prisons of Paris ran up to the number of 4,659; in the month of February
+      the number rose up to 5,892; in the beginning of April to 7,541; and at
+      the end of the same month it was reckoned that there were in Paris eight
+      thousand prisoners. [Footnote: Thiers, &ldquo;Histoire de la Revolution
+      Francaise,&rdquo; vol. vi., p. 41]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The greater the number of prisoners, the more zealous was the tribunal of
+      the revolution to get rid of them; and with satisfaction these judges of
+      blood saw the new improvements made in the guillotine, and which not only
+      caused the machine to work faster, but also prevented the axe from losing
+      its edge too soon by the sundering of so many necks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It works well,&rdquo; exclaimed Fouquier-Tinville, triumphantly; &ldquo;to-day we
+      have fifty sentenced. The heads fall like poppy-heads!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And these fifty heads falling like poppy-heads, were not enough for his
+      bloodthirstiness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It must work better still,&rdquo; cried he; &ldquo;in the next decade, I must have at
+      least four hundred and fifty poppy-heads!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And then, as if inspired by a joyous and happy thought, his gloomy
+      countenance became radiant with a grinning laughter, and, rubbing his
+      hands with delight, he continued: &ldquo;Yes, I must have four hundred and
+      fifty! Then, if we work on so perseveringly, we will soon write over our
+      prison-gates, &lsquo;House to let!&rsquo;&rdquo; [Footnote: &ldquo;Histoire de l&rsquo;Imperatrice
+      Josephine.&rdquo;]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They worked on perseveringly, and the vehicles which carried the condemned
+      to execution rolled every morning with a fresh freight through the streets
+      of Paris, where the guillotine, with its glaring axe, awaited them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The month of April, as already said, had brought the number of prisoners
+      in Paris to eight thousand; the month of April had therefore more
+      executions to engrave with its bloody pen into the annals of history. On
+      the 20th of April fell on the Place de la Revolution the heads of fourteen
+      members of the ex-Parliament of Paris; the next day followed the Duke de
+      Villeroy, the Admiral d&rsquo;Estaing, the former Minister of War Latour du Pin,
+      the Count de Bethune, the President de Nicolai. One day after, the
+      well-laden wagon drove from the Conciergerie to the Place de la
+      Revolution; in it were three members of the Constituent Assembly, and to
+      have belonged to it was the only crime they were accused of. Near these
+      three sat the aged Malesherbes, with his sister; the Marquis de
+      Chateaubriand, with his wife; the Duchess de Grammont, and Du Chatelet. It
+      will be seen that the turn for women had now come; for those women who
+      were now led to the execution had committed no other crime than to be the
+      wives or the relatives of emigrants or of accused persons, than to bear
+      names which had shone for centuries in the history of France.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Josephine also had an ancient aristocratic name; she also was related to
+      the migrated ones, the wife of an accused, of a prisoner! And she wearied
+      the tribunal of the revolution constantly with petitions, with visits,
+      with complaints. They were tired of these molestations, and it was so
+      easy, so convenient to shield one&rsquo;s self against them! There was nothing
+      else to do but to arrest Josephine; for once a prisoner, she could no
+      longer&mdash;in anterooms, where she would wait for hours; in the street
+      before the house-door, where she would stand, despite rains and winds&mdash;she
+      could no longer trouble the rulers of France, and beseech them with tears
+      and prayers for her husband&rsquo;s freedom. The prisoner could no more write
+      petitions, or move heaven and earth for her husband&rsquo;s sake.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Viscountess de Beauharnais was arrested. On the 20th of April, as she
+      happened to be at the proper authority&rsquo;s office to obtain a pass according
+      to the new law, which ordered all ci-devants to leave Paris in ten days,
+      Josephine was arrested and led into the Convent of the Carmelites, which
+      for two years had served as a prison for the bloody republic, and from
+      which so many of its victims had issued to mount the wagon which led them
+      to the guillotine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Amid this wretchedness there was one sweet joy. Alexandre de Beauharnais
+      had no sooner heard of the arrest of his wife, than he asked as a favor
+      from the tribunal of the revolution to be removed into the same prison
+      where his wife was. In an incomprehensible fit of merciful humor his
+      prayer was granted; he was transferred to the Convent of the Carmelites,
+      and if the husband and wife could not share the same cell, yet they were
+      within the same walls, and could daily (through the turnkeys, who had to
+      be bribed by all manner of means, by promises, by gold, as much as could
+      be gathered together among the prisoners) hear the news.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Josephine was united to her husband. She received daily from him news and
+      messages; she could often, in the hours when the prisoners in separate
+      detachments made their promenades in the yard and in the garden, meet
+      Alexandre, reach him her hand, whisper low words of trust, of hope, and
+      speak with him of Eugene and Hortense, of these dear children who, now
+      deserted by their parents, could hope for protection and safety only from
+      the faithfulness and love of their governess, Madame Lanoy. The thought of
+      these darling ones of her heart excited and troubled Josephine, and all
+      the pride and courage with which she had armed her heart melted into tears
+      of anxiety and into longings for her deserted children.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Madame Lanoy with the most faithful solicitude watched over the
+      abandoned ones; she had once sworn to Josephine that if the calamity,
+      which Josephine had constantly anticipated, should fall upon her and upon
+      her husband, she would be to Hortense and Eugene a second mother; she
+      would care for them and protect them as if they were her own children. And
+      Madame Lanoy kept her promise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To place them beyond the dangers which their very name made imminent, and
+      also perhaps to give by means of the children evidence of the patriotic
+      sentiments of the parents, Madame Lanoy left with the children the
+      viscount&rsquo;s house, where they had hitherto resided, and occupied with both
+      of them a small shabby house, where she established herself as seamstress.
+      The little eleven-year-old Hortense, the daughter of the Citizeness
+      Beauharnais, was now the assistant of the Citizeness Lanoy, at the trade
+      of seamstress. Eugene was apprenticed to a cabinet-maker; a leather apron
+      was put on, and then with a plank under his arm, and carrying a plane in
+      his hand, he went through the streets to the workshop of the
+      cabinet-maker, and every one lauded the patriotic sentiments of the
+      Citizeness Lanoy, who tried to educate the brood of the ex-aristocrats
+      into orderly and moral beings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Eugene and Hortense fell rapidly and understandingly into the plan of
+      their faithful governess; they transformed themselves in their language,
+      in their dress, in their whole being and appearance, into little
+      republicans, full of genuine patriotism. Like their cousin, Emile de
+      Beauharnais, whose mother (the wife of the elder brother of the Viscount
+      de Beauharnais) had already for a long time languished in prison, they
+      attended the festivals which had for its object the glorification of the
+      republic, and, alongside of the Citizeness Lanoy, the little milliner
+      Hortense followed the procession of her quarter of the city, perhaps to
+      awaken thereby the good-will of the authorities in favor of her imprisoned
+      parents.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then, when Madame Lanoy thought this good-will had been gained, she made a
+      step further, and undertook to have the children present to the Convention
+      a petition for their parents. This petition ran thus:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Two innocent children appeal to you, fellow-citizens, for the freedom of
+      their dear mother&mdash;their mother against whom no reproach can be made
+      but the misfortune of being born in a class from which, as she has proven,
+      she ever felt completely estranged, for she has ever surrounded herself
+      with the best patriots, the most distinguished men of the Mountain. After
+      she had on the 26th of Germinal requested a pass in order to obey the law,
+      she was arrested on the evening of that day without knowing the cause.
+      Citizen representatives, you cannot be guilty of oppressing innocence,
+      patriotism, and virtue. Give back to us unfortunate children our life. Our
+      youth is not made for suffering.&rdquo; Signed: EUGENE BEAUHARNAIS, aged twelve
+      years, and HORTENSE BEAUHARNAIS, aged eleven years. [Footnote: &ldquo;Histoire
+      de l&rsquo;Imperatrice Josephine,&rdquo; par Aubenas.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To this complaint of two deserted children no more attention was paid than
+      to the cries of the dove which the hawk carries away in its claws, but
+      perhaps the innocent touching words of the petition had awakened
+      compassion in the heart of some father.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is true no answer was given to the petition of the children, but the
+      Citizeness Lanoy was allowed to take the children of the accused twice a
+      week into the reception-room of the Carmelite Convent, that there they
+      might see and speak to their mother.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This was a sweet comfort, an unhoped-for joy, as well to Josephine as to
+      her husband; for if he was not permitted to come into the lower room and
+      see the children, yet he now saw them through the eyes of his wife, and
+      through her he received the wishes of their tender affection.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What happiness for Josephine, who loved her children with all the
+      unrestrained fondness of a Creole! what happiness to see her Eugene, her
+      Hortense, and to be permitted to speak to them! How much they had to say
+      one to another, how much to communicate one to the other!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is true much had to be passed in silence if they would not excite the
+      anger of the turnkey, who was always present at the meeting of the
+      children with their mother. Strict orders had been given that Josephine
+      should never whisper one word to the children, or speak to them of the
+      events of the day, of what was going on beyond the prison walls. The least
+      infringement of this rule was to be punished by debarring the children
+      from having any further conversation with their mother.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And yet they had so much to say; they needed her advice so much, so as to
+      know what future steps they might take to accomplish their mother&rsquo;s
+      freedom! They had so much to tell to Josephine about relatives and
+      friends, and above all so much to say about what was going on outside of
+      the prison! But how bring her news? how speak to their mother? how receive
+      her message in such a way that the jailer&rsquo;s ears could not know what was
+      said?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Love is full of invention. It turns every thing into subserviency to its
+      end. Love once turned the dove into a carrier; love made Josephine&rsquo;s
+      children find out a new mail-carrier&mdash;it made them invent the lapdog
+      mail.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Josephine, like all Creoles, had, besides her love for flowers, botany,
+      and birds, a great fondness for dogs. Never since the earliest days of her
+      childhood had Josephine been seen in her room, at the promenade, or in her
+      carriage, without one of these faithful friends and companions of man,
+      which share with the lords of creation all their good qualities and
+      virtues, without being burdened with their failings. The love, the
+      faithfulness, the cunningness of dogs are virtues, wherewith they
+      successfully rival man, and the dogs boast only of one quality which
+      amongst men is considered a despicable vice, namely, the canine humbleness
+      which these animals practise, without egotism, without calculation, whilst
+      man practises it only when his interest and his selfishness make it seem
+      advantageous.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Two years before, a friend of Josephine had given her a small, young model
+      of the then fashionable breed of dogs, a small lapdog, and at once
+      Josephine had made a pet of the little animal, which had been recommended
+      to her as the progeny of a rare and genuine race of lapdogs. It is true
+      the little Fortune had not fulfilled what had been promised; he had not
+      grown up exactly into a model of beauty and loveliness. With small feet, a
+      long body of a pale yellow rather than red, a thick, double, flat nose,
+      this lapdog had nothing of its race but the black face, and the tail in
+      the shape of a corkscrew. Besides all this, he was undoubtedly of a surly,
+      quarrelsome disposition, and he preferred the indolent and ease of his
+      cushion to either a promenade with Josephine or to a game with her
+      children.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But since Josephine was no more there, since her beautiful hands no more
+      presented him his food, a change had come over Fortune&rsquo;s character; he had
+      awakened from the effeminacy of happiness to full activity. The children
+      had but to say, &ldquo;We are going to mamma,&rdquo; and at once Fortune would spring
+      up from his cushion with a cheerful bark, and run out into the streets,
+      describing circles and performing joyous leaps. Fortune, as soon as the
+      reception-room of the prison was opened, was always the first to rush in,
+      barking loudly at the jailer; then, when his spite was over, to run with
+      all the signs of passionate tenderness toward his mistress; then he would
+      surround her with caresses, and leap, bark, and whine, until she noticed
+      him, until she should have kissed and embraced the children, and then
+      taken him up in her arms.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But one day, as the door of the reception-room opened, and Eugene and
+      Hortense entered with Madame Lanoy, Fortune&rsquo;s loud barking trumpet sounded
+      not, and he sprang not forward toward Josephine. He walked on gravely with
+      measured steps at the side of Madame Lanoy, who led him with a string
+      which she had fastened to his collar. With important, thoughtful mien, he
+      gazed resignedly and gravely at his mistress, and even for his hated foe
+      the jailer he had but a dull growl, which he soon repressed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Josephine was somewhat alarmed at this change in Fortune&rsquo;s demeanor, and
+      after she had welcomed, taken to her bosom and kissed her darling
+      children, after she had saluted the good Madame Lanoy, she inquired why
+      Fortune was so sad and why he was led as a captive.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because he is so wild and unruly, mamma,&rdquo; said Eugene, with a peculiar
+      smile, &ldquo;because he wants always to be the first to salute you, and because
+      he barks so loud that we cannot possibly for some time hear what our dear
+      mamma has to say.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And then, in the street, he is so wicked and troublesome,&rdquo; cried
+      Hortense, with eagerness, &ldquo;and he always begins quarrelling and fighting
+      with every dog which passes by, and we must stand there and wait for him
+      when we are so anxious to see our dear mamma.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For all these reasons,&rdquo; resumed Madame Lanoy, with slow, solemn
+      intonation, &ldquo;for all these reasons we have thought it necessary to chain
+      Fortune and to tighten up his collar.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you have done quite well, citizeness,&rdquo; growled the turnkey, &ldquo;for I
+      had already thought of silencing forever the abominable lapdog if he again
+      barked at me so.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Josephine said nothing, but the peculiar smile she had noticed on her
+      children&rsquo;s face had passed, at the words of Madame Lanoy, over Josephine&rsquo;s
+      radiant countenance, and she now with her pet names called Fortune to her,
+      to press him to her heart, to pat him, and by all these caresses to make
+      amends for his having his collar somewhat tightened.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But whilst thus petting him, and tenderly smoothing down his sleek fur,
+      her slim fingers quickly and cautiously passed under the wide collar of
+      Fortune. Then her eyes were rapidly directed toward the jailer. He was
+      engaged in animated conversation with Madame Lanoy, who knew how to make
+      him talk, by inquiring after the health of his little sick daughter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A second time Josephine&rsquo;s fingers were passed under Fortune&rsquo;s collar&mdash;for
+      she had well understood the words of Madame Lanoy&mdash;with a woman&rsquo;s
+      keen instinct she understood why Fortune&rsquo;s collar had been drawn closer
+      about him. She had felt the thin, closely-folded paper, which was tied up
+      with the string in the dog&rsquo;s collar, and she drew it out rapidly, adroitly
+      to hide it in her hand. She then called Hortense and Eugene, and whilst
+      she talked with them, she slowly and carefully, under pretext of adjusting
+      more closely the kerchief round her neck, secreted the paper in her bosom.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The jailer had seen nothing; he was telling Madame Lanoy, with all the
+      pride of a kind father, that all the prisoners were anxious about his
+      little Eugenie; that all, more than once a day, inquired how it fared with
+      the little one; that she was the pet of the prisoners, who were so
+      delighted to have the child with them, and for long hours to jest and play
+      with her. Unfortunate captives, who nattered the child, and feigned love
+      for it, so as to move the father&rsquo;s heart, and instil into it a little
+      compassion for their misfortune!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Eugene and Hortense came the next time with their faithful Lanoy,
+      Fortune was again led by the string as a prisoner, and this time Josephine
+      was still more affectionate than before. She not only welcomed him at his
+      entrance, and lifted him up in her arms, but she was yet, if possible,
+      more affectionate toward him at the time of departure, and embraced him,
+      and tried if the collar had not been buckled on too tightly, if the string
+      which was tied round it did not hurt him too much. And whilst she examined
+      this, Eugene was telling the jailer that he was now a worthy apprentice of
+      a cabinet-maker, and that he hoped one day to be a useful citizen of the
+      republic. The jailer was listening to him with a complacent smile, and had
+      no suspicion that at this moment Josephine&rsquo;s cunning fingers were making
+      sure with the string under the collar the note in which she gave an answer
+      to the other note that she had before found under the collar of Fortune.
+      [Footnote: &ldquo;Souvenirs d&rsquo;un Sexagenaire,&rdquo; par M.L. Arnould, vol. iii., p.
+      3.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From this day, Josephine knew every thing of importance in Paris; from
+      this time she could point out to her children the means to pursue so as to
+      win to their parents influential and powerful friends, so that they might
+      one day be delivered from their captivity. Fortune was love&rsquo;s messenger
+      between Josephine and her children; a beam of happiness had penetrated
+      both cells, where lived Alexandre de Beauharnais and Josephine, and they
+      owed this gleam only to the lapdog mail.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0014" id="link2HCH0014"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XIV. IN PRISON.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Since France had become a democratic republic, since the differences in
+      rank were abolished, and liberty, equality, and fraternity alone
+      prevailed, the aristocracy was either beyond the frontiers of France or
+      else in the prisons. Outside of the prison were but citoyens and
+      citoyennes; inside of the prison were yet dukes and duchesses, counts and
+      countesses, viscounts and viscountesses; there, behind locks and bars, the
+      aristocracy was represented in its most glorious and high-sounding names.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And there also, within these walls, was the proud, strict dame, whom Marie
+      Antoinette had once, to her misfortune, driven away from the Tuileries,
+      and who had not been permitted to possess a single foot of ground in all
+      France&mdash;there, within the prison with the aristocrats, lived also
+      Madame Etiquette. She had to leave the Tuileries with the nobility, and
+      with the nobility she had entered into the prisons of the Conciergerie and
+      of the Carmelite Convent. There she ruled with the same authority and with
+      the same gravity as once in happier days she had done in the king&rsquo;s
+      palace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The republic had mixed together the prisoners without any distinction, and
+      in the hall, where every morning they gathered together to attend to the
+      roll-call of the condemned who were to report for the guillotine; in the
+      narrow rooms and cells, where they passed the rest of the day, the
+      republic had made no distinction between all these inmates of the prison,
+      dukes and simple knights, duchesses and baronesses, princesses of the
+      blood and country nobility of inferior degree. But etiquette was there to
+      remedy this unseemliness of fate and to re-establish the natural order of
+      things&mdash;etiquette, which had enacted rules and laws for the halls of
+      kings, enforced them also in the halls of prisons. Only for the ladies of
+      the most ancient nobility, the duchesses and princesses of the blood, in
+      the prison-rooms, as once in the king&rsquo;s halls, the small stool (tabouret)
+      was reserved, and they were privileged to occupy the rush-bottomed seats
+      which were in the prisons, and which now replaced the tabouret. No lady of
+      inferior rank would consent to sit down in their presence unless these
+      ladies of superior rank had expressly requested and entitled their
+      inferior companions of misfortune to do so. When, at the appointed hour,
+      the halls were abandoned for the general promenade in the yards of the
+      Conciergerie, or in the small cloistered gardens of the Carmelites, this
+      recreation was preceded by a ceremony which shortened its already short
+      hour by at least ten minutes: the ladies and the gentlemen, according to
+      their order, rank, and nobility, placed themselves in two rows on either
+      side of the outer door, and between them passed on first in ceremonial
+      order of rank, as at a court-festival, the ladies and gentlemen who at
+      court were entitled to the high and small levees, as well as to the
+      tabouret, and to the kissing of the queen&rsquo;s hand. As they passed, each
+      bowed low, and then, with the same due observance of rank, as was
+      customary at court, the ladies and gentlemen of inferior titles followed
+      two by two, when the higher nobility had passed. [Footnote: &ldquo;Souvenirs de
+      la Marquise de Crequi,&rdquo; vol. v].
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was yet the court-society which was assembled here in the rooms and
+      cells of the prison; only this court-society, this aristocracy, had no
+      more King Louis to do homage unto, but they served another king, they
+      bowed low before another queen! This king to whom the nobility of France
+      belonged was Death; this queen to which proud heads bowed low was the
+      Guillotine!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was King Death who now summoned the aristocrats to his court; the
+      scaffold was the hall of festivity where solemn homage was made to this
+      king. It would therefore have been against all etiquette to crowd into
+      this hall of festivity with beclouded countenance; this would have
+      diminished the respect due to King Death, if he had not been approached
+      with full-court ceremonial, and with the serene, easy smile of a courtier.
+      To die, to meet death was now a distinction, an honor for which each
+      almost envied the other. When at ten o&rsquo;clock in the morning the gathering
+      took place in the large room, the conversation was of the most cheerful
+      and unaffected easiness; they joked, they laughed, they speculated on
+      politics, though it was well known that in a few minutes yonder door was
+      to open, and that on its threshold the jailer would appear, list in hand;
+      that from this list he would call out with his loud, croaking voice, as
+      Death&rsquo;s harbinger, the names of those whose death-warrants had been
+      yesterday signed by Robespierre, and who would have immediately to leave
+      the hall, to mount the wagons which were already waiting at the prison&rsquo;s
+      gate to drive them to the guillotine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While the jailer read his list, suspense and excitement were visible on
+      all faces, but no one would have so deeply lowered himself as to betray
+      fear or anguish when his name fell from the lips of the jailer. The smile
+      remained on the lip, friends and acquaintances were bidden farewell with a
+      cheerful salutation, and with easy, unaffected demeanor they quitted the
+      hall to mount the fatal vehicle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To die gracefully was now considered as much bon ton as it had been once
+      fashionable gracefully to enter the ballroom and do obeisance to the king;
+      contempt and scorn would have followed him who might have exhibited a
+      sorrowful mien, hesitation, or fear.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One morning the jailer had read his list, and sixteen gentlemen and ladies
+      of the aristocracy had consequently to leave the hall of the Conciergerie
+      to enter both wagons now ready at the gate. As they were starting for the
+      fatal journey a second turnkey appeared, to say that through some accident
+      only one of the wagons was ready, and that consequently only eight of the
+      sentenced ones could be driven to the guillotine. This meant that the
+      accident nullified eight death-warrants and saved the lives of eight
+      sentenced persons. For it was not probable that these eight persons would
+      next morning be honored with an execution. Their warrants were signed,
+      their names had been called; neither the tribunal of the revolution nor
+      the jailer could pay special attention whether their heads had fallen or
+      not. The next day would bring on new condemnations, new lists, new
+      distinctions for the wagons, new heads for the guillotine. Whoever, on the
+      day appointed for the execution, missed the guillotine, could safely
+      reckon that his life was saved; that henceforth he was amongst the
+      forgotten ones, of whom a great number filled the prisons, and who
+      expected their freedom through some favorable accident.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To-day, therefore, only eight of the sixteen condemned were to mount the
+      wagon. But who were to be the favored ones? The two turnkeys, with cold
+      indifference, left the choice to the condemned. Only eight could be
+      accommodated in the wagon, they said, and it was the same who went or who
+      remained. &ldquo;Make your choice!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A strife arose among the sixteen condemned ones&mdash;not as to who might
+      remain behind, but as to those who might mount into the wagon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The ladies declared that, according to the rules of common politeness,
+      which allowed ladies to go first, the choice belonged to them; the
+      gentlemen objected to this motion of the ladies on the plea that to reach
+      the guillotine steps had to be ascended, and as etiquette required that in
+      going up-stairs the gentlemen should always precede the ladies, they were
+      also now entitled to go first and to mount the steps of the scaffold
+      before the ladies. At last all had to give way to the claims of the
+      Duchess de Grammont, who declared that at this festival as at every other
+      the order of rank was to be observed, and that she, as well as all the
+      gentlemen and ladies of superior rank, had the undisputed privilege now,
+      as at all other celebrations, to take the precedency.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No one ventured to oppose this decision, and the Duchess de Grammont,
+      proud of the victory won, was the first to leave the room and mount the
+      wagon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Another time the turnkey began to read the list: every one listened with
+      grave attention, and at every call a clear, cheerful &ldquo;Here I am!&rdquo;
+       followed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But after the jailer, with wearied voice, had many times repeated a name
+      from his list, the accustomed answer failed. No one came forward, no one
+      seemed to be there to lay claim to that name and to the execution. The
+      jailer stopped a few minutes, and as all were dumb, he continued,
+      indifferent and unmoved, to call out the names.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We will then have only fifteen heads to deliver to-day,&rdquo; said he, after
+      reading the list, &ldquo;for there must have been a mistake. One of the names is
+      false, or else the person to whom it belongs has already been delivered.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is probably but a blunder of the pen!&rdquo; exclaimed a handsome young man
+      who, smiling, stepped out of the crowd of listeners and passed on to the
+      side where the victims stood. &ldquo;You read Chapetolle. There is no such name
+      here. The hand of the writer was probably tired of writing the numerous
+      lists of those who are sentenced to death, and he has therefore written
+      the letters wrong. My name is Chapelotte, and I am the one meant by
+      Chapetolle.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do not know,&rdquo; said the jailer, &ldquo;but it is certain that sixteen
+      sentenced ones ought to go into the wagons, and that only fifteen have
+      reported themselves in a legal way.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, then, add me in an illegal manner to your fifteen,&rdquo; said the young
+      man, smiling. &ldquo;Without doubt it is my name they intended to write. I do
+      not wish to save my life through a blunder in writing, and who knows if
+      another time I may find such good company as to-day in your chariot? Allow
+      me then to journey on with my friends.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The jailer had no reason to refuse him this journey, and he had the
+      satisfaction besides of being thus able to deliver sixteen sentenced
+      prisoners to the guillotine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Such was the society of the aristocrats, among whom Josephine lived the
+      long, dreary days of her imprisonment. The cell she occupied was shared by
+      two companions of misfortune, the Duchess de Aguillon and the beautiful
+      Madame de Fontenay, who afterward became Madame Tallien, so distinguished
+      and renowned for her beauty and wit. Therese de Fontenay knew, and every
+      one knew, that she was already sentenced, even if her sentence was not yet
+      written down and countersigned. It was recorded in the heart of
+      Robespierre. He had sentenced her, without any concealment. She had but a
+      few weeks more to endure the martyrdom, the anguish of hope and of
+      expectation. She was his secure victim; Robespierre needed not hasten the
+      fall of this beautiful head, which was the admiration of all who saw it.
+      This beauty was the very crime which Robespierre wanted to punish, for
+      with this beauty, Therese de Fontenay, who then resided in Bordeaux with
+      her husband, had captivated the old friend and associate in sentiments of
+      Robespierre, the fanatical Tallien; with this beauty she had converted the
+      man of blood and terror into a soft, compassionate being, inclined to
+      pardon and to mercy toward his fellow-beings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Tallien had been sent as commissionnaire from the Convention to Bordeaux,
+      and there with inexorable severity he had raged against the unfortunate
+      merchants, from whom he exacted enormous assessments, and whom he
+      sentenced to the guillotine if they refused, or were unable to pay. But
+      suddenly love changed the bloodthirsty tiger into a sensitive being, and
+      the beautiful Madame de Fontenay, who had become acquainted with Tallien
+      in the prison of Bordeaux, had worked a complete change in his whole
+      being. For the first time this man, who unmoved had condemned to death
+      King Louis and the Girondists, found on his lips the word &ldquo;pardon;&rdquo; for
+      the first time the hand which had signed so many death-warrants wrote the
+      order to let a prisoner go free.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This prisoner was Therese de Fontenay, the daughter of the Spanish banker
+      Cabarrus, and she rewarded him for the gift of her life with a smile which
+      forever made him her captive. From this time the death-warrants were
+      converted into pardons from his lips, and for every pardon Therese thanked
+      him with a sweet smile, with a glowing look of love.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But this leniency was looked upon as criminal by the tribunal of terror in
+      Paris. They recalled the culprit who dared pardon instead of punishing;
+      and if Robespierre did not think himself powerful enough to send Tallien
+      as a traitor and as an apostate to the scaffold, he punished him for his
+      leniency by separating from him Therese de Fontenay, who had abandoned the
+      husband forced upon her, and who had followed Tallien to Paris, and
+      Robespierre had sent her to prison.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There, at the Carmelites&rsquo;, was Therese de Fontenay; she occupied the same
+      cell as Josephine; the same misfortune had made them companions and
+      friends. They communicated one to the other their hopes and fears; and
+      when Josephine, with tears in her eyes, spoke to her friend of her
+      children, of her deep anguish, for they were alone and abandoned in the
+      world outside of the prison walls, whilst their unfortunate pitiable
+      mother languished in prison, Therese comforted and encouraged her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So long as one lives there is hope,&rdquo; said Therese, with her enchanting
+      smile. &ldquo;Myself, who in the eyes of you all am sentenced to death, hope&mdash;no,
+      I hope not&mdash;I am convinced that I will soon obtain my freedom. And I
+      swear that, as soon as I am free, I will stir heaven and earth to procure
+      the liberty of my dear friend Josephine and of her husband the Viscount de
+      Beauharnais, and to give back to the poor orphaned children their
+      parents.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Josephine answered with an incredulous smile, and a shrugging of the
+      shoulders; and then Therese&rsquo;s very expressive countenance glowed, and her
+      large, black eyes flashed deeper gleams.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have no faith in me, Josephine,&rdquo; she said, vehemently; &ldquo;but I repeat
+      to you, I will soon obtain my freedom, and then I will procure your
+      liberty and that of your husband.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But how will you obtain that?&rdquo; asked Josephine, shaking her head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will ruin Robespierre,&rdquo; said Therese, gravely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In what do your means of ruining him consist?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In this letter here,&rdquo; said Therese, as she drew out of her bosom a small
+      paper folded up. &ldquo;See, this sheet of paper; it consists but of a few lines
+      which, since they would not furnish me with writing-materials, I have
+      written with my blood on this sheet of paper, which I found yesterday in
+      the garden during the promenade. The turnkey will give this letter to-day
+      to Tallien. He has given me his word, and I have promised him that Tallien
+      will recompense him magnificently for it. This letter will ruin
+      Robespierre and make me free, and then I will procure the freedom of the
+      Viscount and of the Viscountess de Beauharnais.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What then, in that letter is the magic word which is to work out such
+      wonders?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Therese handed the paper to her friend.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Read,&rdquo; said she, smiling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Josephine read: &ldquo;Therese of Fontenay to the citizen Tallien. Either in
+      eight days I am free and the wife of my deliverer, the noble and brave
+      Tallien, who will have freed the world from the monster Robespierre, or
+      else, in eight days, I mount the scaffold; and my last thought will be a
+      curse for the cowardly, heartless man who has not had the courage to risk
+      his life for her he loved, and who suffers for his sake, for his sake
+      meets death&mdash;who had not the mind to consider that with daring deed
+      he must destroy the bloodthirsty fiend or be ruined by him. Therese de
+      Fontenay will ever love her Tallien if he delivers her; she will hate him,
+      even in death, if he sacrifices her to Robespierre&rsquo;s blood-greediness!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If, through mishap, Robespierre should receive this letter, then you and
+      Tallien are lost,&rdquo; sighed Josephine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But Tallien, and not Robespierre, will receive it, and I am saved,&rdquo;
+       exclaimed Therese. &ldquo;Therefore, my friend, take courage and be bold. Wait
+      but eight days patiently. Let us wait and hope.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, let us wait and hope,&rdquo; sighed Josephine. &ldquo;Hope and patience are the
+      only companions of the captive.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0015" id="link2HCH0015"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XV. DELIVERANCE.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile the patience of the unfortunate prisoners of the Carmelite
+      convent were to be subjected to a severe trial; and the very next day
+      after this conversation with Therese de Fontenay, Josephine believed that
+      there was no more hope for her, that she was irrevocably lost, as her
+      husband was lost. For three days she had not seen the viscount, nor
+      received any news from him. Only a vague report had reached her that the
+      viscount was no longer in the Carmelite convent, but that he had been
+      transferred to the Conciergerie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This report told the truth. Alexandre de Beauharnais had once more been
+      denounced, and this second accusation was his sentence of death. For some
+      time past the fanatical Jacobins had invented a new means to find guilty
+      ones for the guillotine, and to keep the veins bleeding, so as to restore
+      France to health. They sent emissaries into the prisons to instigate
+      conspiracies among the prisoners, and to find out men wretched enough to
+      purchase their life by accusing their prison companions, and by delivering
+      them over to the executioner&rsquo;s axe. Such a spy had been sent into that
+      portion of the prison where Beauharnais was, and he had begun his horrible
+      work, for he had kindled discord and strife among the prisoners, and had
+      won a few to his sinister projects. But Beauharnais&rsquo;s keen eye had
+      discovered the traitor, and he had loudly and openly denounced him to his
+      fellow-prisoners. The next day, the spy disappeared from the prison, but
+      as he went he swore bloody vengeance on General de Beauharnais. [Footnote:
+      &ldquo;Memoires du Comte de Lavalette,&rdquo; vol. i., p. 175.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And he kept his word; the next morning De Beauharnais was summoned for
+      trial, and the gloomy, hateful faces of his judges, their hostile
+      questions and reproaches, the capital crimes they accused him of, led him
+      to conclude that his death was decided upon, and that he was doomed to the
+      guillotine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the night which followed his trial, Alexandre de Beauharnais wrote to
+      his wife a letter, in which he communicated to her his sad forebodings,
+      and bade her farewell for this life. The next day he was transferred to
+      the Conciergerie&mdash;that is to say, into the vestibule of the scaffold.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This letter of her husband, received by Josephine the next day after her
+      conversation with Therese de Fontenay, ran thus:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The fourth Thermidor, in the second year of the republic. All the signs
+      of a kind of trial, to which I and other prisoners have been subjected
+      this day, tell me that I am the victim of the treacherous calumny of a few
+      aristocrats, patriots so called, of this house. The mere conjecture that
+      this hellish machination will follow me to the tribunal of the revolution
+      gives me no hope to see you again, my friend, no more to embrace you or
+      our children. I speak not of my sorrow: my tender solicitude for you, the
+      heartfelt affection which unites me to you, cannot leave you in doubt of
+      the sentiments with which I leave this life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am also sorry to have to part with my country, which I love, for which
+      I would a thousand times have laid down my life, and which I no more can
+      serve, but which beholds me now quit her bosom, since she considers me to
+      be a bad citizen. This heart-rending thought does not allow me to commend
+      my memory to you; labor, then, to make it pure in proving that a life
+      which has been devoted to the service of the country, and to the triumph
+      of liberty and equality, must punish that abominable slanderer, especially
+      when he comes from a suspicious class of men. But this labor must be
+      postponed; for in the storms of revolution, a great people, struggling to
+      reduce its chains to dust, must of necessity surround itself with
+      suspicion, and be more afraid to forget a guilty man than to put an
+      innocent one to death.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will die with that calmness which allows man to feel emotion at the
+      thought of his dearest inclinations&mdash;I will die with that courage
+      which is the distinctive feature of a free man, of a clear conscience, of
+      an exalted soul, whose highest wishes are the prosperity and growth of the
+      republic.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Farewell, my friend; gather consolation from my children; derive comfort
+      in educating them, in teaching them that, by their virtues and their
+      devotion to their country, they obliterate the memory of my execution, and
+      recall to national gratitude my services and my claims. Farewell to those
+      I love: you know them! Be their consolation, and through your solicitude
+      for them prolong my life in their hearts! Farewell! for the last time in
+      this life I press you and my children to my heart!&mdash;ALEXANDRE
+      BEAUHARNAIS.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Josephine had read this letter with a thousand tears, but she hoped still;
+      she believed still in the possibility that the gloomy forebodings of her
+      husband would not be realized; that some fortunate circumstance would save
+      him or at least retard his death.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But this hope was not to be fulfilled. A few hours after receiving this
+      letter the turnkey brought to the prisoners the bulletin of the executions
+      of the preceding day. It was that day Josephine&rsquo;s turn to read this
+      bulletin to her companions. She therefore began her sad task; and, as
+      slowly and thoughtfully she let fall name after name from her lips, here
+      and there the faces of her hearers were blanched, and their eyes filled
+      with tears.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Suddenly Josephine uttered a piercing cry, and sprang up with the movement
+      of madness toward the door, shook it in her deathly sorrow, as if her life
+      hung upon the opening of that door, and then she sank down fainting.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Unfortunate Josephine! she had seen in the list of those who had been
+      executed the name of General Beauharnais, and in the first excitement of
+      horror she wanted to rush out to see him, or at least to give to his body
+      the parting kiss.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the sixth Thermidor, in the year II., that is, on the 24th of July,
+      1794, fell on the scaffold the head of the General Viscount de
+      Beauharnais. With quiet, composed coolness he had ascended the scaffold,
+      and his last cry, as he laid his head on the block, was, &ldquo;Long live the
+      republic!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      In the wagon which drove him to the scaffold, he had found again a friend,
+      the Prince de Salm-Kirbourg, who was now on his way to the guillotine, and
+      who had risked his life in bringing back to Paris the children of
+      Josephine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His bloodthirsty enemies had not enough of the head of General
+      Beauharnais; his wife&rsquo;s head also should fall, and the name of the traitor
+      of his country was to be extinguished forever.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Two days after the execution of her husband, the turnkey brought to
+      Josephine the writ of her accusation, and the summons to appear before the
+      tribunal of the revolution&mdash;a summons which then had all the
+      significancy of a death-warrant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Josephine heard the summons of the jailer with a quiet, easy smile; she
+      had not even a look for the fatal paper which lay on her bed. Near this
+      bed stood the physician, whom the compassionate republic, which would not
+      leave its prisoners to die on a sick-bed, but only on the scaffold, had
+      sent to Josephine to inquire into her illness and afford her relief.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With indignation he eagerly snatched the paper from the bed, and,
+      returning it back to the jailer, exclaimed: &ldquo;Tell the tribunal of the
+      revolution that it has nothing more to do with this woman! Disease will
+      bring on justice here, and leave nothing to do for the guillotine. In
+      eight days Citoyenne Beauharnais is dead!&rdquo; [Footnote: Aubenas, &ldquo;Histoire
+      de l&rsquo;Imperatrice Josephine,&rdquo; vol. i., p. 235.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This decision of the physician was transmitted to the tribunal, which
+      resolved that the trial of Madame Beauharnais would be postponed for eight
+      days, and that the tribunal would wait and see if truly death would save
+      her from the guillotine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile, during these eight days, events were to pass which were to give
+      a very different form to the state of things, and impart to the young
+      republic a new, unexpected attitude.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Robespierre ruled yet, he was the feared dictator of France! But Tallien
+      had received the note of his beautiful, fondly-loved Therese, and he swore
+      to himself that she should not ascend the scaffold, that she should not
+      curse him, that he would possess her, that he would win her love, and
+      destroy the fiend who stood in the way of his happiness, whose
+      blood-streaming hands were every day ready to sign her death-warrant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the very same day in which he received the letter of Therese, he
+      conversed with a few trusty friends, men whom he knew detested Robespierre
+      as much as himself, and who all longed for an occasion to destroy him.
+      They planned a scheme of attack against the dictator who imperilled the
+      life of all, and from whom it was consequently necessary to take away life
+      and power, so as to be sure of one&rsquo;s life. It was decided to launch an
+      accusation against him before the whole Convention, to incriminate him as
+      striving after dominion, as desirous of breaking the republic with his
+      bloody hands, and ambitious to exalt himself into dictator and sovereign.
+      Tallien undertook to fulminate this accusation against him, and they all
+      agreed to wait yet a few days so as to gain amongst the deputies in the
+      Convention some members who would support the accusation and give
+      countenance to the conspirators. On the ninth Thermidor this scheme was to
+      be carried out; on the ninth Thermidor, Tallien was to thunder forth the
+      accusation against Robespierre and move his punishment!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This enterprise, however, seemed a folly, an impossibility, for at this
+      time Robespierre was at the height of his power, and fear weighed upon the
+      whole republic as a universal agony. No one dared oppose Robespierre, for
+      a look from his eye, a sign from his hand sufficed to bring death, to lead
+      to the scaffold.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The calm, peaceful, and united republic for which Robespierre had toiled,
+      which had been the ultimate end of his bloodthirstiness, was at last
+      there, but this republic was built upon corpses, was baptized with streams
+      of blood and tears. And now that the republic had given up all opposition,
+      now that she bowed, trembling under the hand of her conqueror, now,
+      Robespierre wanted to make her happy, he wanted to give her what the
+      storms of past years had ravished from her&mdash;he wanted to give the
+      republic a God! On the tribune of the Convention, on this tribune which
+      was his throne, rose Robespierre, to tell with grave dignity to the
+      republic that there was a Supreme Being, that the soul of man was
+      immortal. Then, accompanied by the Convention, he proceeded to the Champ
+      de Mars, to inaugurate the celebration of the worship of a Supreme Being
+      as his high-priest. But amid this triumph, on his way to the Champ de
+      Mars, Robespierre the conqueror had for the first time noticed the murmurs
+      of the Tarpeian rock; he had noticed the dark, threatening glances which
+      were directed at him from all sides. He felt the danger which menaced him,
+      and he was determined to remove it from his person by annihilating those
+      who threatened.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But already terror had lost its power, no one trembled before the
+      guillotine, no one took pleasure in the fall of the axe, in the streams of
+      blood, which empurpled the Place de la Revolution. The fearful stillness
+      of death hung round the guillotine, the people were tired of applauding
+      it, and now and then from the silent ranks of the people thundered forth
+      in threatening accents the word &ldquo;tyrant!&rdquo; which, as the first weapon of
+      attack, was directed against Robespierre, who, on the heights of the
+      tribune, was throned with his unmoved, calm countenance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Robespierre felt that he must strike a heavy, decisive blow against his
+      foes and annihilate them. On the eighth Thermidor, he denounced a plot
+      organized by his enemies for breaking up the Convention. Through St. Just
+      he implicated as leaders of this conspiracy some eminent members of the
+      committees, and requested their dismissal. But the time was past when his
+      motions were received with jubilant acclamations, and unconditionally
+      obeyed. The Convention decided to submit the motion of Robespierre to a
+      vote, and the matter was postponed to the next morning&rsquo;s session.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the night which preceded the contemplated action of the Convention,
+      Robespierre went to the Jacobin Club and requested assistance against his
+      enemies in the Convention. He was received with enthusiasm, and a general
+      uprising of the revolutionary element was decided upon, and organized for
+      the following morning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The same night, Tallien, his friends and adherents, met together, and the
+      mode of attack for the following day, the ninth Thermidor, was discussed,
+      and the parts assigned to each.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The prisoners in the Carmelite convent did not of course suspect any thing
+      of the events which were preparing beyond the walls of their prison. Even
+      Therese de Fontenay was low-spirited and sad; for this day, the ninth
+      Thermidor, was the last day of respite fixed by her to Tallien for her
+      liberty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This was also the last day of respite which had saved Josephine from the
+      tribunal of the revolution, through the decision of her physician. Death
+      had spared her head, but now it belonged to the executioner. The captives
+      feared the event, and they were confirmed in this fear by the jailer, who,
+      on the morning of the ninth Thermidor, entered the room which Josephine,
+      the Duchess d&rsquo;Aiguillon, and Therese de Fontenay occupied, and who removed
+      the camp-bed which Josephine had hitherto used as a sofa, to give it to
+      another prisoner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How,&rdquo; exclaimed the Duchess d&rsquo;Aiguillon, &ldquo;do you want to give this bed to
+      another prisoner? Is Madame de Beauharnais to have a better one?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The turnkey burst into a coarse laugh. &ldquo;Alas! no,&rdquo; said he, with a
+      significant gesture, &ldquo;Citoyenne Beauharnais will soon need a bed no more.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Her friends broke into tears; but Josephine remained composed and quite.
+      At this decisive moment a fearful self-possession and calmness came over
+      her; all sufferings and sorrow appeared to have sunk away, all anxiety and
+      care seemed overcome, and a radiant smile illumined Josephine&rsquo;s features,
+      for, through a wondrous association of ideas, she suddenly remembered the
+      prophecy of the negro-woman in Martinique.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Be calm, my friends,&rdquo; said she, smiling; &ldquo;weep not, do not consider me as
+      destined to the scaffold, for I assure you I am going to live: I must not
+      die, for I am destined to be one day the sovereign of France. Therefore,
+      no more tears! I am the future Queen of France!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah!&rdquo; exclaimed the Duchess d&rsquo;Aiguillon, half angry and half sad, &ldquo;why not
+      at once appoint your state dignitaries?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are right,&rdquo; said Josephine, eagerly; &ldquo;this is the best time to do so.
+      Well, then, my dear duchess, I now appoint you to be my maid of honor, and
+      I swear it will be so.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My God! she is mad!&rdquo; exclaimed the duchess, and, nearly fainting, she
+      sank upon her chair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Josephine laughed, and opened the window to admit some fresh air. She
+      perceived there below in the street a woman making to her all manner of
+      signs and gestures. She lifted up her arms, she then took hold of her
+      dress, and with her hand pointed to her robe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was evident that she wished through these signs and motions to convey
+      some word to the prisoners, whom perhaps she knew, for she repeatedly took
+      hold of her robe with one hand, and pointed at it with the other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Robe?&rdquo; cried out Josephine interrogatively.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The woman nodded in the affirmative, then took up a stone, which she held
+      up to the prisoner&rsquo;s view.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pierre?&rdquo; ask Josephine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The woman again nodded in the affirmative, and then placed the stone
+      (pierre) in her robe, made several times the motion of falling, then of
+      cutting off the neck, and then danced and clapped her hands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My friends,&rdquo; cried Josephine, struck with a sudden thought, &ldquo;this woman
+      brings us good news, she tells us Robespierre est tombe.&rdquo; (Robespierre has
+      fallen.)
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, it is so,&rdquo; exclaimed Therese, triumphantly; &ldquo;Tallien has kept his
+      word; he conquers, and Robespierre is thrust down!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And, overpowered with joy and emotion, the three women, weeping, sank into
+      each other&rsquo;s arms.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They now heard from without loud cries and shouts. It was the jailer,
+      quarrelling with his refractory dog. The dog howled, and wanted to go out
+      with his master, but the jailer kicked him back, saying: &ldquo;Away, go to the
+      accursed Robespierre!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Soon joyous voices resounded through the corridor; the door of their cell
+      was violently opened, and a few municipal officers entered to announce to
+      the Citizeness Madame Fontenay that she was free, and bade her accompany
+      them into the carriage waiting below to drive her to the house of Citizen
+      Tallien. Behind them pressed the prisoners who, from the reception-room,
+      had followed the authorities, to entreat them to give them the news of the
+      events in Paris.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was now no reason for the municipal authorities to make a secret of
+      the events which at this hour occupied all Paris, and which would soon be
+      welcomed throughout France as the morning dawn of a new day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Robespierre had indeed fallen! Tallien and his friends had in the
+      Convention brought against the despot the accusation that he was striving
+      for the sovereign power, and that he had enthroned a Supreme Being merely
+      to proclaim himself afterward His visible representative, and to take all
+      power in his own hands. When Robespierre had endeavored to justify
+      himself, he had been dragged away from the speaker&rsquo;s tribune; and, as he
+      defended himself, Tallien had drawn a dagger on Robespierre, and was
+      prevented from killing the tyrant by a few friends, who by main force
+      turned the dagger away. Immediately after this scene, the Convention
+      decided to arrest Robespierre and his friends Couthon and St. Just; and
+      the prisoners, among whom Robespierre&rsquo;s younger brother had willingly
+      placed himself, were led away to the Luxemburg. [Footnote: The next day,
+      on the tenth Thermidor, Robespierre, who in the night had attempted to put
+      an end to his life with a pistol, was executed with twenty-one companions.
+      His brother was among the number of the executed.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The prisoners welcomed this news with delight; for with the fall of
+      Robespierre, had probably sounded for them the hour of deliverance, and
+      they could hope that their prison&rsquo;s door would soon be opened, not to be
+      led to the scaffold, but to obtain their freedom.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Therese de Fontenay, with the messengers sent by Tallien, left the
+      Carmelite cloisters to fulfil the promise made by her to Tallien in her
+      letter, to become his wife, and to pass at his side new days of happiness
+      and love.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She embraced Josephine tenderly as she bade her farewell, and renewed to
+      her the assurance that she would consider it her dearest and most sacred
+      duty to obtain her friend&rsquo;s liberty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the evening of the same day, Josephine&rsquo;s camp-bed was restored to her;
+      and, stretching herself upon it with intense delight, she said smilingly
+      to her friends: &ldquo;You see, I am not yet guillotined; I will be Queen of
+      France.&rdquo; [Footnote: &ldquo;Memoires sur l&rsquo;Imperatrice Josephine,&rdquo; ch. xxxiii.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Therese de Fontenay, now Citoyenne Tallien, kept her word. Three days
+      after obtaining her liberty, she came herself to fetch Josephine out of
+      prison. Her soft, mild disposition had resumed its old spell over Tallien,
+      whom the Convention had appointed president of the Committee of Safety.
+      The death-warrants signed by Robespierre were annulled, and the prisons
+      were opened, to restore to hundreds of accused life and liberty. The
+      bloody and tearful episode of the revolution had closed with the fall of
+      Robespierre, and on the ninth Thermidor the republic assumed a new phase.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Josephine was free once more! With tears of bliss she embraced her two
+      children, her dear darlings, found again! In pressing her offspring to her
+      heart with deep, holy emotion, she thought of their father, who had loved
+      them both so much, who had committed to her the sacred trust of keeping
+      alive in the hearts of his children love for their father.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Encircling still her children in her arms, she bowed them on their knees;
+      and, lifting up to heaven her eyes, moist with tears, she whispered to
+      them: &ldquo;Let us pray, children; let us lift up our thoughts to heaven, where
+      your father is, and whence he looks down upon us to bless his children.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Josephine delayed not much longer in Paris, where the air was yet damp
+      with the blood of so many murdered ones; where the guillotine, on which
+      her husband had died, lifted yet its threatening head. She hastened with
+      her children to Fontainebleau, there to rest from her sorrows on the heart
+      of her father-in-law, to weep with him on the loss they both had suffered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The dream of her first youth and of her first love had passed away, and to
+      the father of her beheaded husband Josephine returned a widow; rich in
+      gloomy, painful experiences, poor in hopes, but with a stout heart, and a
+      determination to live, and to be at once a father and a mother to her
+      children.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0017" id="link2H_4_0017"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      BOOK II. THE WIFE OF GENERAL BONAPARTE.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0016" id="link2HCH0016"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XVI. BONAPARTE IN CORSICA.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The civil war which for four years had devastated France had also with its
+      destruction and its terrors overspread the French colonies, and in
+      Martinique as well as in Corsica two parties stood opposed to each other
+      in infuriated bitterness&mdash;one fighting for the rights of the native
+      land, the other for the rights of the French people, for the &ldquo;liberty,
+      equality, and fraternity&rdquo; which the Convention in Paris had adopted for
+      its motto, since it delivered to the guillotine, on the Place de la
+      Revolution, the heads of those who dared lay claim for themselves to this
+      liberty of thought so solemnly proclaimed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In Corsica both parties fought with the same eagerness as in France, and
+      the execution of Louis XVI. had only made the contest more violent and
+      more bitter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One of these parties looked with horror on this guillotine which had drunk
+      the blood of the king, and this party desired to have nothing in common
+      with this French republic, with this blood-streaming Convention which had
+      made of terror a law, and which had destroyed so many lives in the name of
+      liberty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the head of this party stood the General Pascal Paoli, whom the
+      revolution had recalled to his native isle from his exile of twenty years,
+      and who objected that Corsica should bend obediently under the
+      blood-stained hand of the French Convention, and whose wish it was that
+      the isle should be an independent province of the great French republic.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To exalt Corsica into a free, independent republic had been the idea of
+      his whole life. For the sake of this idea he had passed twenty years in
+      exile; for, after having made Corsica independent of Genoa, he had not
+      been able to obtain for his native isle that independence for which he had
+      fought with his brave Genoese troops. During eight years he had
+      perseveringly maintained the conflict&mdash;during eight years he had been
+      the ruler of Corsica, but immovable in his republican principles; he had
+      rejected the title of king, which the Corsican people, grateful for the
+      services rendered to their fatherland, had offered him. He had been
+      satisfied to be the first and most zealous servant of the island, which,
+      through his efforts, had been liberated from the tyrannical dominion of
+      Genoa. But Genoa&rsquo;s appeal for assistance had brought French troops to
+      Corsica; the Genoese, harassed and defeated everywhere by Paoli&rsquo;s brave
+      troops, had finally transferred the island to France. This was not what
+      Paoli wanted&mdash;this was not for what he had fought!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Corsica was to be a free and independent republic; she was to bow no more
+      to France than to Genoa; Corsica was to be free.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In vain did the French government make to General Paoli the most brilliant
+      offers; he rejected them; he called the Corsicans to the most energetic
+      resistance to the French occupation; and when he saw that opposition was
+      in vain, that Corsica had to submit, he at least would not yield, and he
+      went to England.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The cry for liberty which, in the year 1790, resounded from France, and
+      which made the whole world tremble, brought him back from England to
+      Corsica, and he took the oath of allegiance to free, democratic France.
+      But the blood of the king had annulled this oath, the Convention&rsquo;s reign
+      of terror had filled his soul with horror; and, after solemnly separating
+      himself from France, he had, in the year 1793, convoked a Consulta, to
+      decide whether Corsica was to submit to the despotism of the French
+      republic, or if it was to be a free and independent state. The Consulta
+      chose the latter position, and named Paoli for president as well as for
+      general-in-chief of the Corsicans.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The National Convention at once called the culprit to its bar, and ordered
+      him to Paris to justify his conduct, or to receive the punishment due. But
+      General Paoli paid no attention to the imperious orders of the Convention,
+      which, as the chief appeared not at its bar, declared him, on the 15th of
+      May, 1793, a traitor to his country, and sent commissioners to Corsica to
+      arrest the criminal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This traitor to the state, the General Pascal Paoli, was then at the head
+      of the Moderate party in Corsica, and he loudly and solemnly declared
+      that, in case of absolute necessity, it would be preferable to call
+      England to their assistance than to accept the yoke of the French
+      republic, which had desecrated her liberty, since she had soiled it with
+      the blood of so many innocent victims.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But in opposition to General Paoli rose up with wild clamor the other
+      party, the party of young, enthusiastic heads, who were intoxicated with
+      the democratic ideas which had obtained the sway in France, and which they
+      imagined, so great was their impassioned devotedness to them, possessed
+      the power and the ability to conquer the whole world.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the head of this second party, which claimed unconditional adherence to
+      France, to the members of the Convention&mdash;at the head of this
+      fanatical, Corsican, republican, and Jacobin party, stood the Bonaparte
+      family, and above them all the two brothers Joseph and Napoleon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Joseph was now, in the year 1793, chief justice of the tribunal of
+      Ajaccio; Napoleon, who was captain of artillery in the French army of
+      Italy, had then obtained leave of absence to visit his family. Both
+      brothers had been hitherto the most affectionate and intimate admirers of
+      Paoli, and especially Napoleon, who, from his earliest childhood, had
+      cherished the most unbounded admiration for the patriot who preferred
+      exile to a dependent grandeur in Corsica. Even now, since Paoli&rsquo;s return
+      to Corsica, and Napoleon had had many opportunities to see him, his
+      admiration for the great chief had lost nothing of its force or vitality.
+      Paoli seemed sincerely to return this inclination of Napoleon and of his
+      brother, and in the long evening walks, which both brothers made with him,
+      Napoleon&rsquo;s mind opened itself, before his old, experienced companion, the
+      great general, the noble republican, with a freedom and a candor such as
+      he had never manifested to others. With subdued admiration Paoli listened
+      to his short, energetic explanations, to his descriptions, to his
+      war-schemes, to his warm enthusiasm for the republic; and one day, carried
+      away by the warmth of the young captain of artillery, the general, fixing
+      his glowing eyes upon him, exclaimed: &ldquo;Young man, you are modelled after
+      the antique; you belong to Plutarch!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And to General Paoli!&rdquo; replied Napoleon, eagerly, as he pressed his
+      friend&rsquo;s hand affectionately in his own.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But now this harmonious concord between General Paoli and the young men
+      was destroyed by the passion of party views. Joseph as well as Napoleon
+      belonged to the French party; they soon became its leaders; they were at
+      the head of the club which they had organized according to the maxims and
+      principles of the Jacobin Club in Paris, and to which they gave the same
+      name.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In this Jacobin Club at Ajaccio Napoleon made speeches full of glowing
+      enthusiasm for the French republic, for the ideas of freedom; in this club
+      he enjoined on the people of Corsica to adhere loyally to France, to keep
+      fast and to defend with life and blood the acquired liberty of republican
+      France, to regard and drive away as traitors to their country all those
+      who dared guide the Corsican people on another track.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the Corsican people were not there to hear the enthusiastic speeches
+      about liberty and to follow them. Only a few hundred ardent republicans of
+      the same sentiment applauded the republican Napoleon, and cried aloud that
+      the republic must be defended with blood and life. The majority of the
+      Corsican people flocked to Paoli, and the commissioners sent by the
+      Convention from Paris to Corsica, to depose and arrest Paoli, found
+      co-operation and assistance only among the inhabitants of the cities and
+      among the French troops. Paoli, the president of the Consulta, was located
+      at Corte; the messengers of the Convention gathered in Bastia the
+      adherents of France, and excited them to strenuous efforts against the
+      rebellious Consulta and the insurgent Paoli. Civil war with all its
+      horrors was there; the raging conflicts of the parties tore apart the holy
+      bonds of family, friendship, and love. Brother fought and argued against
+      brother, friend rose up against friend, and whole families were destroyed,
+      rent asunder by the impassioned rivalries of sentiment and partisanship.
+      Denunciations and accusations, suspicions and enmities, followed. Every
+      one trembled at his own shadow; and, to turn aside the peril of death, it
+      was necessary to strike. [Footnote: &ldquo;Memoires du Roi Joseph,&rdquo; vol. i., p.
+      51.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Bonaparte brothers opposed General Paoli with violent bitterness;
+      bloody conflicts took place, in which the national Corsican party remained
+      victorious. Irritated and embittered by the opposition which some of the
+      natives themselves were making to his patriotic efforts, Paoli persecuted
+      with zealous activity the conquered, whom he resolved to destroy, that
+      they might not imperil the young Corsican independence. Joseph and
+      Napoleon Bonaparte were the leaders of this party, and Paoli knew too well
+      the energy and the intellectual superiority of Napoleon not to dread his
+      influence. Him, above all things, him and his family, must he render
+      harmless, so as to weaken and to intimidate the French party. He sent
+      agents to Ajaccio, to arrest the whole Bonaparte family, and at the same
+      time his troops approached the town to occupy it and make the French
+      commissioners prisoners. But these latter, informed in time of the danger,
+      had gained time and saved themselves on board the French frigate lying in
+      the harbor, and with them the whole Bonaparte family had embarked.
+      Napoleon, on whom the attention of Paoli&rsquo;s agents had been specially
+      directed, was more than once in danger of being seized by them, and it was
+      due to the advice of a friend that, disguised as a sailor, he saved
+      himself in time on board the French frigate and joined his family.
+      [Footnote: &ldquo;Memoires de la Duchess d&rsquo;Abrantes,&rdquo; vol. i.] The commissioners
+      of the Convention at once ordered the anchor to be weighed, and to steer
+      toward France.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This frigate, on board of which the Bonaparte family in its flight had
+      embarked, carried to France the future emperor and his fortune.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The house, the possessions of the Bonaparte family, fell a prey to the
+      conquerors, and on them they gave vent to their vengeance for the
+      successful escape of the fugitives. A witness of these facts is a
+      certificate which Joseph Bonaparte a few months later procured from
+      Corsica, and which ran as follows:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I, the undersigned, Louis Conti, procurator-syndic of the district of
+      Ajaccio, department of Corsica, declare and certify: in the month of May
+      of this year, when General Paoli and the administration of the department
+      had sent into the city of Ajaccio armed troops, in concert with other
+      traitors in the city, took possession of the fortress, drove away the
+      administration of the district, incarcerated a large portion of the
+      patriots, disarmed the republican forces, and, when these refused to give
+      up the commissioners of the National Convention, Paoli&rsquo;s troops fired upon
+      the vessel which carried these commissioners:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That these rebels endeavored to seize the Bonaparte family, which had the
+      good fortune to elude their pursuit:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That they destroyed, plundered, and burnt everything which belonged to
+      this family, whose sole crime consisted in their unswerving fidelity to
+      the republicans, and in their refusal to take any part in the scheme of
+      isolation, rebellion, and disloyalty, of which Paoli and the
+      administration of the department had become guilty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I moreover declare and certify that this family, consisting of ten
+      individuals, and who stood high in the esteem of the people of the island,
+      possessed the largest property in the whole department, and that now they
+      are on the continent of the republic.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;(Signed) CONTI, Proc.-Synd. Delivered on the 5th of September, 1793, Year
+      II. of the republic.&rdquo; [Footnote: &ldquo;Memoires du Roi Joseph,&rdquo; vol. i., p.
+      52.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Paoli, the conqueror of the French republic, the patriotic enemy of the
+      Bonaparte family, drove Napoleon Bonaparte from his native soil! The
+      cannon of the Corsican patriots fired upon the ship on which the future
+      emperor of the French was steering toward his future empire!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But this future lay still in an invisible, cloudy distance&mdash;of one
+      thing, however, was the young captain of artillery fully conscious: from
+      this hour he had broken with the past, and, by his dangers and conflicts,
+      by the sacrifice of his family&rsquo;s property, by his flight from Corsica,
+      given to the world a solemn testimony that he recognized no other country,
+      that he owed allegiance to no other nation than to France. He had proved
+      that his feelings were not Corsican, but French.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The days of his childhood and youth sank away behind him, with the
+      deepening shadows of the island of Corsica, and the shores which rose
+      before him on the horizon were the shores of France. There lay his future&mdash;his
+      empire!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0017" id="link2HCH0017"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XVII. NAPOLEON BONAPARTE BEFORE TOULON.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Whilst Paris, yet trembling, bowed under the bloody rule of the
+      Convention, a spirit of opposition and horror began to stir in the
+      provinces; fear of the terrorists, of the Convention, began to kindle the
+      courage, to make defiance to these men of horror, and to put an end to
+      terrorism. The province of Vendee, in her faithfulness and loyalty to the
+      royal family, arose in deadly conflict against the republicans; the large
+      cities of the south, with Toulon at their head, had shielded themselves
+      from the horrors which the home government would have brought them, by
+      uniting with the enemies who now from all sides pressed upon France.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Toulon gave itself up to the combined fleet of England and Spain.
+      Marseilles, Lyons, and Nismes, contracted an alliance together, and
+      declared their independence of the Convention and of the terrorists.
+      Everywhere in all the cities and communities of the south the people rose
+      up, and seditions and rebellions took place. Everywhere the Convention had
+      to send its troops to re-establish peace by force, and to compel the
+      people to submit to its rule. Whole army corps had to be raised to win
+      back to the republic the rebellious cities, and only after hard fighting
+      did General Carteaux subdue Marseilles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Toulon held out still, and within its protecting walls had the
+      majority of the inhabitants of Marseilles taken refuge before the wrath of
+      the Convention, which had already sent to the latter some of its
+      representatives, to establish there the destructive work of the
+      guillotine. Toulon offered them safety; it seemed impregnable, as much by
+      its situation as by the number and strength of its defenders. It could
+      also defy any siege, since the sea was open, and it could by this channel
+      be provisioned through the English and Spanish fleet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No one trembled before the little army of seventeen thousand men which,
+      under General Carteaux, had invested Toulon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But in this little army of the republicans was a young soldier whom yet
+      none knew, none feared, but whose fame was soon to resound throughout the
+      world, and before whom all Europe was soon tremblingly to bow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This young man was Napoleon Bonaparte, the captain of artillery. He had
+      come from Italy (where his regiment was) to France, to make there, by
+      order of his general, some purchases for the park of artillery of the
+      Italian army. But some of the people&rsquo;s representatives had had an
+      opportunity of recognizing the sharp eye and the military acquirements of
+      the young captain of artillery; they interceded in his favor, and he was
+      promoted to the army corps which was before Toulon, and at once sent in
+      the capacity of assistant to General Carteaux, with whom also was
+      Napoleon&rsquo;s brother Joseph, as chief of the general&rsquo;s staff.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From this moment the siege, which until now had not progressed favorably,
+      was pushed on with renewed energy, and it was due to the cautious
+      activity, the daring spirit of the captain of artillery, that marked
+      advantages were gained over the English, and that from them many redoubts
+      were taken, and the lines of the French drawn closer and closer to the
+      besieged city.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But yet, after many months of siege, Toulon held out still. From the sea
+      came provisions and ammunition, and on the land-side Toulon was protected
+      against capture by a fort occupied by English troops, and which, on
+      account of its impregnable position, was called &ldquo;Little Gibraltar.&rdquo; From
+      this position hot-balls and howitzers had free range all over the
+      seaboard, for this fort stood between the two harbors of the city and
+      immediately opposite Toulon. The English, fully appreciating the
+      importance of the position, had occupied it with six thousand men, and
+      surrounded it with intrenchments.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It came to this, as Napoleon in a council of war declared to the general,
+      that the English must be driven out of their position; then, when this
+      fort was taken, in two days Toulon must yield.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The plan was decided upon, and from this moment the besiegers directed all
+      their strength no more against Toulon, but against the important fort,
+      &ldquo;Little Gibraltar,&rdquo; &ldquo;for there,&rdquo; as Napoleon said, &ldquo;there was the key to
+      Toulon.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      All Europe now watched with intense anxiety the events near Toulon; all
+      France, which hitherto with divided sentiments had wished the victory to
+      side now with the besieged, now with the besiegers, forgot its differences
+      of opinion, and was united in the one wish to expel the hated enemy and
+      rival, the English, from the French city, and to crown the efforts of the
+      French army with victory.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Convention, irritated that its orders should not have been immediately
+      carried out, had in its despotic power recalled from his command General
+      Carteaux, who could not succeed in capturing Toulon, and had appointed as
+      chief of battalion the young captain of artillery, Napoleon Bonaparte, on
+      account of his bravery in capturing some dangerous redoubts. The successor
+      of Carteaux, the old General Dugommier, recognizing the superior mind of
+      the young chief of battalion, willingly followed his plans, and was
+      readily guided and led by the surer insight of the young man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The position of new Gibraltar had to be conquered so as to secure the fall
+      of Toulon; such was, such remained Napoleon&rsquo;s unswerving judgment. No
+      effort, no cost, no blood, was to be spared to attain this result. He
+      placed new batteries against the fort; stormed the forts Malbosquet and
+      Ronge; a terrible struggle ensued, in which the English General O&rsquo;Hara was
+      taken prisoner by the French, and the English had to leave the fort and
+      retreat into the city.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The first great advantage was won, but Little Gibraltar remained still in
+      the hands of the English, and Napoleon desired, and felt it as an
+      obligation, to subdue it at any price.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But already the Convention began to be discouraged, and to lose energy,
+      and the deputies of the people, Barras and Freron, who until now had
+      remained with the besieging army, hastened to Paris to implore the
+      Convention to give up the siege, and to recall the army from Toulon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But before they reached Paris the matter was to be decided before Toulon.
+      The fate of the Little Gibraltar was to be fulfilled; it was to be taken,
+      or in the storming of it the French army was to perish.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thousands of shells were thrown into the fort, thirty cannon thundered
+      against it. Napoleon Bonaparte mixed with the artillerymen, encouraged by
+      his bold words their activity, their energy, and their bravery, and
+      pointed to them the spots where to direct their balls. Whilst he was in
+      conversation with one of the cannoneers near whom he stood, a cannon-ball
+      from the English tore away the head of the artilleryman who had just
+      lifted up the match to fire his cannon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Napoleon quietly took up the burning match out of the hand of the dead
+      man, and discharged the gun. Then, with all the zeal and tact of an
+      experienced cannoneer, he began to load the piece, to send forth its balls
+      against the enemy and for many hours he remained at this post, until
+      another artilleryman was found to relieve the chief of division.
+      [Footnote: This brave action of Napoleon was to have for him evil results.
+      The cannoneer, from whose hand he took the match, was suffering from the
+      most distressing skin-disease, generally breaking out with the greatest
+      violence in the hand. The match which the cannoneer had for hours held in
+      his hand was yet warm with its pressure, and imparted to Napoleon&rsquo;s hand
+      the poison of the contagious disease. For years he had to endure the
+      eruption, which he could not conquer, as he had conquered nations and
+      princes, but to its destructive and painful power he had to subdue his
+      body. The nervous agitations to which he was subject, the shrugging of his
+      right shoulder, the white-greenish complexion of his face, the leanness of
+      his body, were all consequences of this disease. It was only when Napoleon
+      had become emperor, that Corvisart succeeded, by his eloquence, in
+      persuading him to follow a regular course of treatment. This treatment
+      cured him; his white-greenish complexion and his leanness disappeared. The
+      nervous movement of the shoulder remained, and became a habit.&mdash;See
+      &ldquo;Memoires de Constant,&rdquo; vol. i.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But whilst Napoleon made himself a cannoneer in the service of his
+      country, he remained at the same time the chief of division, whose
+      attention was everywhere, whose eagle glance nothing escaped, and who knew
+      how to improve every advantage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A body of troops was at a distant point, and Bonaparte wanted to send them
+      an important order. Whilst loading his cannon, he called aloud to an
+      under-officer to whom he might dictate the dispatch. A young man hastened
+      to the call, and said he was ready to write. Upon a mound of sand he
+      unfolded his pocket-book, drew out of it a piece of paper, and began to
+      write what Napoleon, with a voice above the cannon&rsquo;s roar, was dictating
+      to him. At this very moment, as the order was written, a cannon-ball fell
+      quite near the officer, burrowing the ground, and scattering some of the
+      light sand over the written paper. The young man raised his hat and made a
+      bow to the cannon-ball, that buried itself in the sand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I thank you,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;you have saved me sand for my paper.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Napoleon smiled, and looked with a joyous, sympathizing glance at the
+      young officer, whose handsome pleasing countenance was radiant with bold
+      daring and harmless merriment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now, I need a brave messenger to carry this order to that exposed
+      detachment,&rdquo; said Napoleon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will be the messenger,&rdquo; cried out the officer, eagerly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I accept you, but you must remove your uniform, and put on a
+      blouse, so as not to be too much exposed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That I will not do,&rdquo; exclaimed the young man. &ldquo;I am no spy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What! you refuse to obey?&rdquo; asked Napoleon, threateningly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, I refuse to assume a disguise,&rdquo; answered the officer &ldquo;I am ready to
+      obey, and even to carry the order into the very hands of the devil. But
+      with my uniform I go, otherwise those cursed Englishmen might well imagine
+      that I am afraid of them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you imperil your life if you go in your glittering uniform.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My life does not belong to me,&rdquo; cried out gayly the young soldier. &ldquo;Who
+      cares if I risk it? You will not be sorry about it, for you know me not,
+      citizen-officer, and it is all the same to me. Shall I not go in my
+      uniform? I should be delighted to encounter those English gentlemen, for,
+      with my sword and the sprightly grains in my patron&rsquo;s pocket, the
+      conversation will not sleep, I vow. Now, then, shall I go,
+      citizen-officer?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Go,&rdquo; said Napoleon, smiling. &ldquo;But you are wrong if you think I will not
+      be sorry in case you pay this duty with your life. You are a brave fellow,
+      and I love the brave. Go; but first tell me your name, that when you
+      return I may tell General Dugommier what name he has to inscribe in his
+      papers of recommendation for officers; that will be the reward for your
+      message.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My name is Junot, citizen-officer,&rdquo; exclaimed the young man as, swinging
+      the paper in his hand, he darted away eagerly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The roar of the cannon was still heard, when Napoleon&rsquo;s messenger
+      returned, after a few hours, and reported to him. The chief of division
+      received him with a friendly motion of his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Welcome, Junot,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;I am glad to see you back, and that you have
+      successfully accomplished your task. I must now make a change of position
+      in yonder battallion. To-morrow I will give you your commission of
+      lieutenant, citizen-soldier.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And to-day grant me a nobler reward, citizen-officer,&rdquo; said the young
+      man, tenderly; &ldquo;give me your hand, and allow me to press it in mine.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Napoleon, smiling, gave him his hand. The eyes of both young men met in
+      radiant looks, and with these looks was sealed the covenant which united
+      them both in a friendship enduring to the tomb. For not one of his
+      companions-in-arms remained attached to Napoleon with so warm, true,
+      nearly impassioned tenderness as Junot, and none of them was by the
+      general, the consul, the emperor, more implicitly trusted, more heartily
+      beloved than his Junot, whom he exalted to the ranks of general, governor
+      of Lisbon, Duke d&rsquo;Abrantes, who was one of the few to whom in his days of
+      glory he allowed to speak to him in all truth, in all freedom, and without
+      reserve.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But whilst the two young men were sealing this covenant of friendship with
+      this look of spiritual recognition, the cannon was thundering forth on all
+      sides. The earth trembled from the reports of the pieces; all the elements
+      seemed unloosed; the storm howled as if to mingle the noise of human
+      strife with the uproar of Nature; the sea dashed its frothy, mound-like
+      waves with terrible noise on the shore; the rain poured down from the
+      skies in immense torrents, and everything around was veiled in mists of
+      dampness and smoke. And amid all this, crackled, thundered, and hissed the
+      shells which were directed against Little Gibraltar, or whizzed from
+      Toulon, to bring death and destruction among the besiegers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Night sank down, and yet Little Gibraltar was not taken. &ldquo;I am lost,&rdquo;
+       sighed General Dugommier. &ldquo;I shall have to pay with my head, if we are
+      forced to retreat.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then we must go forward,&rdquo; cried Bonaparte; &ldquo;we must have Little
+      Gibraltar.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      An hour after, a loud cry of victory announced to General Dugommier that
+      the chief of division had reached his aim, that Little Gibraltar was
+      captured by the French.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As the day began to dawn, the French had already captured two other forts;
+      and Bonaparte roused all his energies to fire from Little Gibraltar upon
+      the enemy&rsquo;s fleet. But the English admiral, Lord Hood, knew very well the
+      terrible danger to which he was exposed if he did not at once weigh
+      anchor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The chief of division had prophesied correctly: in Little Gibraltar was
+      the key of Toulon; and since the French had now seized the keys, the
+      English ships could no longer close the city against them. Toulon was lost&mdash;it
+      had to surrender to the conquerors. [Footnote: Toulon fell on the 18th of
+      December, 1793.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is true, defensive operations were still carried on, but Napoleon&rsquo;s
+      balls scattered death and ruin into the city; the bursting of shells
+      brought destruction and suffering everywhere, and in the city as well as
+      in the harbor columns of flames arose from houses and ships.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Toulon was subdued; and the chief of division, Napoleon Bonaparte, had
+      achieved his first brilliant pass of arms before jubilant France and
+      astonished Europe; he had made his name shine out from the obscurity of
+      the past, and placed it on the pages of history.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Convention showed itself thankful to the daring soldier, who had won
+      such a brilliant victory alike over the foreign as well as over the
+      internal enemies of the republic; and Napoleon Bonaparte, the chief of
+      division, was now promoted to the generalship of division.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He accepted the nomination with a quiet smile. The wondrous brilliancy of
+      his eyes betrayed only to a few friends and confidants the important
+      resolves and thoughts which moved the soul of the young general.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In virtue of the order of the Convention, the newly-appointed General
+      Bonaparte was to go to the army of the republic which was now stationed in
+      Italy; and he received secret instructions from the Directory concerning
+      Genoa. Bonaparte left Paris, to gather, as he hoped, fresh laurels and new
+      victories.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0018" id="link2HCH0018"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XVIII. BONAPARTE&rsquo;S IMPRISONMENT.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      On the 25th day of March, 1794. General Bonaparte entered the headquarters
+      of the French army in Nice. He was welcomed with joy and marks of
+      distinction, for the fame of his heroic deeds before Toulon had preceded
+      him; and on Bonaparte&rsquo;s pale, proud face, with its dark, brilliant eyes,
+      was written that he was now come into Italy to add fresh laurels to the
+      victor&rsquo;s crown won before Toulon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The old commander-in-chief of the French army, General Dumerbion, confined
+      oftentimes to his bed through sickness, was very willing to be represented
+      by General Bonaparte, and to place every thing in his hands; and the two
+      representatives of the people, Ricord and Robespierre (the younger brother
+      of the all-powerful dictator)&mdash;these two representatives in the army
+      corps of Italy bound themselves in intimate friendship with the young
+      general, who seemed to share their glowing enthusiasm for the republic,
+      and their hatred against the monarchy and the aristocrats. They cherished,
+      moreover, an unreserved confidence in the military capacities of young
+      Bonaparte, and always gave to his plans their unconditional assent and
+      approbation. Upon Napoleon&rsquo;s suggestion batteries were erected on the
+      coast of Provence for the security of the fleet and of trading-vessels;
+      and when this had been accomplished, the general began to carry out the
+      plan which he had laid before the representatives of the republic, and
+      according to which the republican army, with its right and left wings
+      advancing simultaneously on the sea-coast, was to march through the
+      neutral territory of Genoa into Italy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This plan of Bonaparte was crowned with the most unexpected success.
+      Without observing the neutrality of Genoa, Generals Massena and Arena
+      marched through the territory of the proud Italian republic, and thus
+      began the bloody war which was to desolate the Italian soil for so many
+      years.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ever faithful to Bonaparte&rsquo;s war-schemes, which the general-in-chief,
+      Dumerbion, and the two representatives of the people, Ricord and
+      Robespierre, had sanctioned, the French columns moved from the valleys,
+      within whose depths they had so long and so uselessly shed their blood, up
+      to the heights and conquered the fortresses which the King of Sardinia had
+      built on the mountains for the protection of his frontiers. Thus Fort
+      Mirabocco, on the pass of the Cross, fell into the hands of General Dumas,
+      who then conquered the intrenched Mount Cenis; thus the pass of Tenda,
+      with the fortress Saorgio, was captured by the French; and there, in the
+      general depot of the Piedmontese army, they found sixty cannon and war
+      materials of all kinds.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The French had celebrated their first victories in Italy, and both
+      commanding officers of the fortresses of Mirabocco and Saorgio had to pay
+      for these triumphs in Turin with the loss of their lives; whilst General
+      Bonaparte, &ldquo;as the one to whose well-matured plans and arrangements these
+      brilliant results were due,&rdquo; received from the Convention brilliant
+      encomiums.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But suddenly the state of affairs assumed another shape, and at one blow
+      all the hopes and plans of the young, victorious general were destroyed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Maximilian Robespierre had fallen; with him fell the whole party; then
+      fell his brother, who a short time before had returned to Paris, and had
+      there endeavored to obtain from Maximilian new and more ample powers for
+      Bonaparte, and even the appointment to the chief command of the army&mdash;there
+      fell also Ricord, who had given to General Bonaparte the letter of secret
+      instructions for energetic negotiations with the government of Genoa, and
+      to carry out which instructions Bonaparte had at this time gone to that
+      city.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As he was returning to his headquarters in Saona, from Paris had arrived
+      the new representatives, who came to the army of Italy as delegates of the
+      Convention, and were armed with full powers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These representatives were Salicetti, Albitte, and Laporte. The first of
+      these, a countryman of Bonaparte, had been thus far his friend and his
+      party associate. He was in Corsica at the same time as Napoleon, in the
+      year 1793; he had been, like his young friend, a member of the Jacobin
+      Club of Ajaccio, and Salicetti&rsquo;s speeches had not been inferior to those
+      of Napoleon, either in wildness or in exalted republicanism.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But now Salicetti had become the representative of the moderate party; and
+      it was highly important for him to establish himself securely in his new
+      position, and to give to the Convention a proof of the firmness of his
+      sentiments by manifesting the hatred which he had sworn to the terrorists,
+      and to all those who, under the fallen regime, had obtained recognition
+      and distinction.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      General Bonaparte had been a friend of the young Robespierre; loudly and
+      openly he had expressed his republican and democratic sentiments; he had
+      been advanced under the administration of Robespierre, from simple
+      lieutenant to general; he had been sent to Genoa, with secret instructions
+      by the representatives of the Committee of Safety, made up of terrorists&mdash;all
+      this was sufficient to make him appear suspicious to the moderate party,
+      and to furnish Salicetti an opportunity to show himself a faithful
+      partisan of the new system of moderation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      General Bonaparte was, by order of the representatives of the people,
+      Salicetti and Albitte, arrested at his headquarters in Saona, because, as
+      the warrant for arrest, signed by both representatives, asserted: &ldquo;General
+      Bonaparte had completely lost their confidence through his suspicious
+      demeanor, and especially through the journey which he had lately made to
+      Genoa.&rdquo; The warrant of arrest furthermore ordered that General Bonaparte,
+      whose effects should be sealed and his papers examined, was to be sent to
+      Paris, under sure escort, and be brought for examination before the
+      Committee of Safety.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If this order were carried into execution, then Bonaparte was lost; for,
+      though Robespierre had fallen, yet with his fall the system of blood and
+      terror had not been overthrown in Paris; it had only changed its name.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The terrorists, who now called themselves the moderates, exercised the
+      same system of intimidation as their predecessors; and to be brought
+      before the Committee of Safety, signified the same thing as to receive a
+      death-warrant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bonaparte was lost, if it truly came to this, that he must be led to
+      Paris.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This was what Junot, the present adjutant of Napoleon, and his faithful
+      friend and companion, feared. It was therefore necessary to anticipate
+      this order, and to procure freedom to Bonaparte.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A thousand schemes for the rescue of his beloved chief, crossed the soul
+      of the young man. But how make them known to the general? how induce him
+      to flee, since all approaches to him were forbidden? His zeal, his
+      inventive friendship, succeeded at last in finding a means. One of the
+      soldiers, who was placed as sentry at the door of the arrested general,
+      was bribed by Junot; through him a letter from Junot reached Bonaparte&rsquo;s
+      hands, which laid before him a scheme of flight that the next night could
+      be accomplished with Junot&rsquo;s help.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Not far from Bonaparte&rsquo;s dwelling Junot awaited the answer, and soon a
+      soldier passed by and brought it to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This answer ran thus: &ldquo;In the propositions you make, I acknowledge your
+      deep friendship, my dear Junot; you are also conscious of the friendship I
+      have consecrated to you for a long time, and I trust you have confidence
+      in it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Man may do wrong toward me, my dear Junot; it is enough for me to be
+      innocent; my conscience is the tribunal which I recognize as sole judge of
+      my conduct.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This conscience is quiet when I question it; do, therefore, nothing, if
+      you do not wish to compromise me. Adieu, dear Junot. Farewell, and
+      friendship.&rdquo; [Footnote: Abrantes, &ldquo;Memoires,&rdquo; vol. i., p. 241.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile, notwithstanding his quiet conscience, Bonaparte was not willing
+      to meet his fate passively and silently, and, perchance, it seemed to him
+      that it was &ldquo;not enough to be innocent,&rdquo; so as to be saved from the
+      guillotine. He therefore addressed a protest to both representatives of
+      the people who had ordered his arrest, and this protest, which he dictated
+      to his friend Junot, who had finally succeeded in coming to Bonaparte, is
+      so extraordinary and so peculiar in its terseness of style, in its
+      expressions of political sentiment; it furnishes so important a testimony
+      of the republican democratic opinions of the young twenty-six-year-old
+      general, that we cannot but give here this document.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bonaparte then dictated to his friend Junot as follows:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To the representatives Salicetti and Albitte:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have deprived me of my functions, you have arrested me and declared
+      me suspected.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am, then, ruined without being condemned; or else, which is much more
+      correct, I am condemned without being heard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In a revolutionary state exist two classes: the suspected and the
+      patriots.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When those of the first class are accused, they are treated as the common
+      law of safety provides.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The oppression of those of the second class is the ruin of public
+      liberty. The judge must condemn only after mature deliberation, and when a
+      series of unimpeachable facts reaches the guilty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To denounce a patriot as guilty is a condemnation which deprives him of
+      what is most dear&mdash;confidence and esteem.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In which class am I to be ranked?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have I not been, since the beginning of the revolution, faithful to its
+      principles?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have I not always been seen at war with enemies at home, or as a soldier
+      against the foreign foe?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have sacrificed my residence in my country and my property to the
+      republic; I have lost all for her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;By serving my country with some distinction at Toulon and in the Italian
+      army, I have had my share in the laurels which that army has won at
+      Saorgio, Queille, and Tanaro.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;At the time of the discovery of Robespierre&rsquo;s conspiracy, my conduct was
+      that of a man who is accustomed to recognize principles only.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is therefore impossible to refuse me the title of patriot.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, then, am I declared suspect without being heard? Why am I arrested
+      eight days after the news of the death of the tyrant?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am declared suspect, and my papers are sealed!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The reverse ought to have taken place: my papers ought to have been
+      unsealed; I ought to have been tried; explanations ought to have been
+      sought for, and then I might have been declared suspect if there were
+      sufficient motives for it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is decided that I must go to Paris under a warrant of arrest which
+      declares me suspect. In Paris they will conclude that the representatives
+      have acted thus only after sufficient examination, and I shall be
+      condemned with the sympathy which a man of that class deserves.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Innocent, patriotic, slandered, whatever may be the measures which the
+      committee take, I cannot complain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If three men were to declare that I have committed a crime, I could not
+      complain if the jury should declare me guilty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Salicetti, you know me. Have you, during the five years of our
+      acquaintance, found in my conduct any thing which could be suspected as
+      against the revolution?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Albitte, you know me not. No one can have given you convincing evidence
+      against me. You have not heard me; you know, however, with what smoothness
+      calumny oftentimes whispers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Must I then be taken for an enemy of my country? Must the patriots ruin,
+      without any regard, a general who has not been entirely useless to the
+      republic? Must the representatives place the government under the
+      necessity of acting unjustly and impolitically?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mark my words; destroy the oppression which binds me down, and
+      re-establish me in the esteem of the patriots.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If, then, at some future hour, the wicked shall still long for my life,
+      well, then I consider it of so little importance&mdash;I have so often
+      despised it&mdash;yes, the mere thought that it can be useful to the
+      country, enables me to bear its burden with courage.&rdquo; [Footnote:
+      Bourienne, &ldquo;Memoires sur Napoleon,&rdquo; etc., vol. i., p. 63.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Whether these energetic protestations of Bonaparte, or whether some other
+      motives, conduced to the result, Salicetti thought that with Napoleon&rsquo;s
+      arrest he had furnished sufficient proof of his patriotic sentiments; it
+      seemed to him enough to have obscured the growing fame of the young
+      general, and to have plunged back into obscurity and forgetfulness him
+      whose first steps in life&rsquo;s career promised such a radiant and glorious
+      course!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It matters not, however, what circumstances may have wrought out; the
+      representatives Salicetti and Albitte issued a decree in virtue of which
+      General Bonaparte was, after mature consideration and thorough examination
+      of his papers, declared innocent and free from all suspicion.
+      Consequently, Bonaparte was temporarily set at liberty; but he was
+      suspended from his command in the Italian army, and was recalled to Paris,
+      there to be made acquainted with his future destination.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This destination was pointed out to him in a commission as
+      brigadier-general of infantry in the province of Vendee, there to lead on
+      the fratricidal strife against the fanatical Chouans, the faithful
+      adherents of the king.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bonaparte refused this offer&mdash;first, because it seemed to him an
+      insulting request to ask him to fight against his own countrymen; and
+      secondly, because he did not wish to enter the infantry service, but to
+      remain in the artillery.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Committee of Safety responded to this refusal of Bonaparte by striking
+      his name from the list of generals appointed for promotion, because he had
+      declined to go to the post assigned him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This decision fell upon the ambitious, heroic young man like a
+      thunderbolt. He had dreamed of brilliant war deeds, of laurels, of fame,
+      of a glorious future, won for him by his own sword; and now, all at once,
+      he saw himself dragged away from this luminous track of fame upon which he
+      had so brilliantly entered&mdash;he saw himself thrust back into
+      obscurity, forgetfulness, and inactivity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A gloomy, misanthropic sentiment took possession of him; and, though a
+      prophetic voice within said that the future still belonged to him, with
+      its fame, its laurels, its victories, yet inactivity, care, and the wants
+      of the present, hung with oppressive weight upon his mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He withdrew from all social joys and recreations, he avoided his
+      acquaintances, and only to a few friends did he open his foreboding heart;
+      only with these did he associate, and to them alone he made his complaints
+      of broken hopes, of life&rsquo;s career destroyed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To these few friends, whom Bonaparte in his misfortune found faithful and
+      unchanged, belonged the Ferment family, and above all belonged Junot, who
+      had come to Paris at the same time as Bonaparte, and who, though the
+      latter was dismissed from the service, continued to call himself the
+      adjutant of General Bonaparte.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the Permont family Napoleon was received with the same friendship and
+      attention as in former days; Madame de Permont retained ever for the son
+      of the friend of her youth, Letitia, a kindly smile, a genial sympathy, an
+      intelligent appreciation of his plans and wishes; her husband manifested
+      toward him all the interest of a parental regard; her son Albert was full
+      of tenderness and admiration for him; and her younger daughter Laura
+      jested and conversed with him as with a beloved brother.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In this house every thing seemed pleasant and friendly to Bonaparte;
+      thither he came every day, and mixed with the social circles, which
+      gathered in the evening in the drawing-rooms of the beautiful, witty
+      Madame de Permont; and where men even of diverging political sentiments,
+      aristocrats and ci-devants of the first water, were to be found. But
+      Madame de Permont had forbidden all political discussion in her saloon;
+      and General Bonaparte, now compelled to inactivity, dared no more show his
+      anger against the Committee of Safety, or against the Convention, than the
+      Count de Montmorency or any of the proud ladies of the former quarter of
+      St. Germain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Not only the inactivity to which he was condemned, not only the
+      destruction of all his ambitious hopes, burdened the mind of Bonaparte,
+      but also the material pressure under which he now and then found himself,
+      and which seemed to him a shame and a humiliation. With gloomy grudge he
+      gazed at those young elegants whom he met on the Boulevards in splendid
+      toilet, on superb horses&mdash;at these incroyables who, in the first rays
+      of the sun of peace, from the soil of the republic, yet moist with blood,
+      had sprung up as so many mushrooms of divers colors and varied hues.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And such men enjoy their happiness!&rdquo; exclaimed Bonaparte, contemptuously,
+      as once in the Champs Elysees he sat before a coffee-house, near one of
+      those incroyables, and with violent emotion starting up, he pushed his
+      seat back and nearly broke the feet of his exquisitely dressed neighbor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To be forgotten, to be set in the background, to be limited in means, was
+      always to him a source of anger, which manifested itself now in
+      impassioned vehemence, now in vague, gloomy dreaminess, from which he
+      would rise up again with some violent sarcasm or some epigrammatic remark.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But whilst he thus suffered, was in want, and had so much to endure, his
+      mind and heart were always busy. His mind was framing new plans to bring
+      to an end these days of inactivity, to open a new path of fame and glory;
+      his heart dreamed of a sweet bliss, of another new love!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The object of this love was the sister of his brother&rsquo;s wife, the young
+      Desiree Clary. Joseph Bonaparte, who was now in Marseilles as
+      war-commissioner, had married there one of the daughters of the rich
+      merchant Clary; and her younger sister Desiree was the one to whom
+      Napoleon had devoted his heart. The whole Bonaparte family was now in
+      Marseilles, and had decided to make their permanent residence in France,
+      as their return to Corsica was still impossible; for General Paoli, no
+      longer able to hold the island, had called the English to his help, and
+      the assembled Consulta, over which Paoli presided, had invited the King of
+      England to become sovereign of the island. The French party, at whose head
+      had been the Bonaparte family, was overcome, and could no longer lift up
+      head or voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bonaparte came often to Marseilles to visit his family, which consisted of
+      his mother Letitia, her three daughters, her two younger sons, and her
+      brother, the Abbe Fesch. There, he had seen every day, in the house of his
+      brother, Desiree Clary, and the beautiful, charming maid had not failed to
+      leave in the heart of the young general a deep impression. Desiree seemed
+      to return this inclination, and a union of the two young lovers might soon
+      have taken place, if fate, in the shape of accident, had not prevented it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Joseph was sent by the Committee of Safety to Genoa, with instructions;
+      his young wife and her sister Desiree accompanied him. Perhaps the new,
+      variable impressions of the journey, perhaps her separation from
+      Bonaparte, and her association with other officers less gloomy than the
+      saturnine Napoleon, all this seemed to cool the love of Desiree Clary; she
+      no more answered Napoleon&rsquo;s letters, and, in writing to his brother
+      Joseph, he made bitter complaints: &ldquo;It seems that to reach Genoa the River
+      Lethe must first be crossed, and therefore Desiree writes no more.&rdquo;
+       [Footnote: See &ldquo;Memoires du Roi Joseph,&rdquo; vol. i.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The only confidant to whom Bonaparte imparted these heart-complaints, was
+      Junot. He had for him no secrecy of his innermost and deepest
+      inclinations; to him he complained with grave and impassioned words of
+      Desiree&rsquo;s changeableness; and Junot, whose worshipful love for his friend
+      could not understand that any maiden, were she the most beautiful and
+      glorious on earth, could ever slight the inclination of General Bonaparte,
+      Junot shared his wrath against Desiree, who had begun the rupture between
+      them by leaving unanswered two of Napoleon&rsquo;s letters.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After having been angry and having complained in concert with Bonaparte,
+      Junot&rsquo;s turn to be confidential had come. Bewildered, and blushing like a
+      young maid, he avowed to his dear general that he also loved, and that he
+      could hope for happiness and joy only if Napoleon&rsquo;s younger sister, the
+      beautiful little Pauline, would be his wife.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bonaparte listened to him with a frowning countenance, and when Junot
+      ended by asking his mediation with Pauline&rsquo;s mother, Napoleon asked in a
+      grave tone, &ldquo;But, what have you to live upon? Can you support Pauline? Can
+      you, with her, establish a household which will be safe against want?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Junot, radiant with joy, told him how, anticipating this question of
+      Napoleon, he had written to his father, and had asked for information in
+      regard to his means; and that his father had just now answered his
+      questions, and had replied that for the present he could not give him
+      anything, but that after his death the inheritance of his son would amount
+      to twenty thousand francs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall be one day rich,&rdquo; exclaimed Junot, gayly, as he handed to
+      Napoleon the letter of his father, &ldquo;for with my pay I will have an income
+      of twelve hundred livres. My general, I beseech you, write to the
+      Citoyenne Bonaparte; tell her that you have read the letter of my father,
+      and say a good word in my favor.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bonaparte did not at once reply. He attentively read the letter of Junot,
+      senior, then returned it to his friend, and with head sunk down upon his
+      breast he stared gloomily, with contracted eyebrows.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You answer not, general,&rdquo; exclaimed Junot, in extreme anguish. &ldquo;You do
+      not wish to be my mediator?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bonaparte raised his head; his cheeks were paler than before, and a gloomy
+      expression was in his eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I cannot write to my mother to make her this proposition,&rdquo; said he, in a
+      rough, severe tone. &ldquo;That is impossible, my friend. You say that one day
+      you will have an income of twelve hundred livres. That is, indeed, very
+      fair, but you have them not now. Besides, your father&rsquo;s health is
+      remarkably good, and he will make you wait a long time. For the present
+      you have nothing; for your lieutenant&rsquo;s epaulets can be reckoned as
+      nothing. As regards Pauline, she has not even that much. Let us then sum
+      up: you have nothing; she has nothing! What is the total amount? Nothing.
+      You cannot, therefore, be married now: let us wait. We shall, perhaps,
+      friend, outlive these evil days. Yes, we shall outlive them, even if I
+      have to become an exile, to seek for them in another portion of the world!
+      Let us, then, wait!&rdquo; [Footnote: Bonaparte&rsquo;s words.&mdash;See Abrantes,
+      &ldquo;Memoires,&rdquo; vol. i., p. 284.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And a wondrous, mysterious brilliancy and flash filled the eyes of General
+      Bonaparte, as with a commanding voice he repeated, &ldquo;Let us wait!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Was this one of those few and pregnant moments in which the mind with
+      prophetic power gazes into the future? Had a corner of the veil which hid
+      the future been lifted up before the glowing eagle-eye of Napoleon, and
+      did he see the splendor and the glory of that future which were to be his?
+      However great his imagination, however ambitious his dreams, however wide
+      his hopes, yet they all were to be one day surpassed by the reality. For
+      would he not have considered a madman him, who, at this hour, would have
+      told him: &ldquo;Smooth the furrows on your brow, Bonaparte; be not downcast
+      about the present. You are now in want, you are thrust aside;
+      forgetfulness and obscurity are now your lot; but be of good cheer, you
+      will be emperor, and all Europe will lie trembling at your feet. You love
+      the young Desiree Clary, and her indifference troubles you; but be of good
+      cheer, you will one day marry the daughter of a Caesar, and the little
+      Desiree, the daughter of a merchant from Marseilles, will one day be
+      Sweden&rsquo;s queen! You refuse to Junot, your friend, the gratification of his
+      wishes, because he possesses nothing but his officer&rsquo;s epaulets: but be of
+      good cheer, for you will one day convert the little Lieutenant Junot into
+      a duke, and give him a kingdom for a dowry! You feel downhearted and
+      ashamed, because your sister Pauline is not rich, because she possesses
+      nothing but her beauty and her name: but be of good cheer, she will one
+      day be the wife of the wealthiest prince of Italy; all the treasures of
+      art will be gathered in her palace, and yet she will be the most precious
+      ornament of that palace!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Surely the General Bonaparte would have laughed at the madman, who, in the
+      year 1795, should have thus spoken to him&mdash;and yet a mere decade of
+      years was to suffice for the realization of all these prophecies, and to
+      turn the incredible into a reality.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0019" id="link2HCH0019"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XIX. THE THIRTEENTH VENDEMIAIRE.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The days of terror, and of blood, under which France has sighed so long,
+      were not to end with the fall of Robespierre. Another enemy of the rest
+      and peace of France had now made its entrance into Paris&mdash;hunger
+      began to exercise its dreary rale of horror, and to fill the hearts of men
+      with rage and despair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Everywhere throughout France the crops had failed, and the republic had
+      too much to do with the guillotine, with the political struggles in the
+      interior, with the enemies on the frontier, she had been so busy with the
+      heads of her children, that she could have no care for the welfare of
+      their stomachs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The corn-magazines were empty, and in the treasury of the republican
+      government there was no money to buy grain in foreign markets. Very soon
+      the want of bread, the cry for food, made itself felt everywhere; soon
+      hunger goaded into new struggles of despair the poor Parisian people,
+      already so weary with political storms, longing for rest, and exhausted by
+      conflicts. Hunger drove them again into politics, hunger converted the
+      women into demons, and their husbands into fanatical Jacobins. Every day,
+      tumults and seditious gatherings took place in Paris; the murmuring and
+      howling crowd threatened to rise up. Every day appeared at the bar of the
+      Convention the sections of Paris, entreating with wild cries for a remedy
+      for their distress. At every step in the streets one was met by
+      intoxicated women, who tried to find oblivion of their hunger in wine, and
+      to whom, notwithstanding their drunkenness, the consciousness of their
+      calamity remained. These drunken women, with the gestures of madness,
+      shouted: &ldquo;Bread! give us bread! We had bread at least in the year &lsquo;93!
+      Bread! Down with the republic! Down with the Convention, which leaves us
+      to starve!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      To these shouts responded other masses of the people: &ldquo;Down with the
+      constitutionalists! Long live the Mountain! Long live the Convention!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Civil war, which in its exhaustion had remained subdued for a moment,
+      threatened to break out with renewed rage, for the parties stood face to
+      face in determined hostility, and &ldquo;Down with the constitutionalists!&mdash;down
+      with the republicans!&rdquo; was the watchword of these parties.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For a moment it seemed as if the Mountain, as if the revolution, would
+      regain the ascendency, as if the terrorists would once more seize the
+      rudder which had slipped from their blood-stained hands. But the
+      Convention, which for a time had remained undecided, trembling and
+      vacillating, rose at length from its lethargy to firm, energetic measures,
+      and came to the determination to restore peace at any price.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The people, stirred up by the terrorists, the furious men of the Mountain,
+      had to be reduced to silence, and the cry, &ldquo;Long live the constitution of
+      &lsquo;93!&mdash;down with the Convention!&rdquo;&mdash;this cry, which every day
+      rolled on through the streets of Paris like the vague thunderings of the
+      war-drum,&mdash;had to be put down by armed force. Barrere, Collot
+      d&rsquo;Herbois, Billaud Varennes, the remnant of the sanguinary administration
+      of Robespierre, the terrorists who excited the people against the
+      Convention, who pressed on the Thermidorists, and wanted to occupy their
+      place, these were the ones who with their adherents and friends threatened
+      the Convention and imperilled its existence. The Convention rose up in its
+      might and punished these leaders of sedition, so as through fear and
+      horror to disperse the masses of the people.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Barrere, Collot d&rsquo;Herbois, and Billaud Varennes, were arrested and sent to
+      Cayenne; six of their friends, six republicans and terrorists, were also
+      seized, and as they were convicted of forging plots against the Convention
+      and the actual administration, they were sentenced to death. A seventh had
+      also been at the head of this conspiracy; and this seventh one, who with
+      the others had been sentenced to death, and whom the Committee of Safety
+      had watched for everywhere, to bring down upon him the chastisement due,
+      this seventh one was Salicetti&mdash;the same Salicetti who after the fall
+      of Robespierre had arrested General Bonaparte as suspect. Bonaparte had
+      never forgiven him, and though he often met him in the house of Madame de
+      Permont, and appeared to be reconciled with him, yet he could not forget
+      that he was the one who had stopped him in the midst of his course of
+      fame, that it was he who had debarred him from his whole career.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Salicetti has done me much harm,&rdquo; said Bonaparte to Madame de Permont,
+      and a strange look from his eyes met her face&mdash;&ldquo;Salicetti has
+      destroyed my future in its dawn. He has blighted my plans of fame in their
+      bud. I repeat, he has done me much harm. He has been my evil spirit. I can
+      never forget it,&rdquo; but added he, thoughtfully, &ldquo;I will now try to forgive.&rdquo;
+       [Footnote: Abrantes, vol. i, p. 300.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And again a peculiar, searching look of his eyes met the face of Madame de
+      Permont.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She, however, turned aside, she avoided his look, for she dared not tell
+      him that Salicetti, for whom the Convention searched throughout Paris so
+      as to bring upon him the execution of his death-warrant&mdash;that
+      Salicetti, whom Bonaparte so fiercely hated, was hid a few steps from him
+      in the little cabinet near the drawing-room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Like Bonaparte, Salicetti was the countryman of Madame de Permont; in the
+      days of his power, he had saved the husband and the son of Panonia from
+      the persecution of the terrorists, and lie had now come to ask safety from
+      those whom he had once saved.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Madame de Permont had not had the courage to refuse an asylum to
+      Salicetti; she kept him secreted in her house for weeks; and during all
+      these weeks, Bonaparte came daily to visit Madame de Permont and her
+      children, and every day he turned the conversation upon Salicetti, and
+      asked if they knew not yet where he was secreted. And every time, when
+      Madame de Permont answered him in the negative, he gazed at her with a
+      piercing look, and with his light, sarcastic smile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile Salicetti&rsquo;s danger for himself, and those who secreted him,
+      increased every day, and Madame de Permont resolved to quit Paris. The
+      sickness of her husband, who was in Toulon, furnished her with the
+      welcomed opportunity of a journey. She made known to the friends and
+      acquaintances who visited her house, and especially to Bonaparte, that she
+      had received a letter from the physician in Toulon, requesting her
+      presence at her husband&rsquo;s bed of sickness. Bonaparte read the letter, and
+      again the same strange look met the face of Madame de Permont.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is, indeed, important,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;that you should travel, and I advise
+      you to do so as soon as possible. Fatal consequences might ensue to M. de
+      Permont, were you to delay any longer in going to Toulon.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Madame de Permont made, therefore, all her arrangements for this journey.
+      Salicetti, disguised as a servant, was to accompany her. Bonaparte still
+      came as usual every day, and took great interest in the preparations for
+      her journey, and conversed with her in the most friendly and pleasant
+      manner. On the day of departure, he saluted her most cordially, assured
+      her of his true, unswerving attachment, and, with a final, significant
+      look, expressed a wish that her journey might be accomplished without
+      danger.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Madame de Permont had overcome all difficulties, and she and her
+      daughter had left Paris and passed the barriere, as the carriage rolled on
+      without interruption (Salicetti, disguised as a servant, sitting near the
+      postilion on the driver&rsquo;s seat), the housemaid handed to her a letter
+      which General Bonaparte had given her, with positive orders to hand it to
+      her mistress only when they should be beyond the outer gates of Paris.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The letter ran thus: &ldquo;I have never been deceived: I would seem to be in
+      your estimation, if I did not tell you that, for the last twenty days, I
+      knew that Salicetti was secreted in your house. Remember what I told you
+      on the first day, Prairial, Madame de Permont&mdash;I had then the mental
+      conviction of this secrecy. Now it is a matter of fact.&mdash;Salicetti,
+      you see I could have returned to you the wrong which you perpetrated
+      against me, and by so doing I should have revenged myself, whilst you
+      wronged me without any offence on my part. Who plays at this moment the
+      nobler part, you or I? Yes, I could have revenged myself, and I have not
+      done it. You will, perhaps, say that your benefactress acted as a
+      protecting shield. That is true, and it also is taken into consideration.
+      Yet, even without this consideration, such as you were&mdash;alone,
+      disarmed, sentenced&mdash;your head would even then have been sacred to
+      me. Go, seek in peace a refuge where you can rise to nobler sentiments for
+      your country. My mouth remains closed in reference to your name, and will
+      no more utter it. Repent, and, above all things, do justice to my
+      intentions. I deserve it, for they are noble and generous.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Madame de Permont, my best wishes accompany you and your daughter. You
+      are two frail beings, without protection. Providence and prayers will
+      accompany you. Be prudent, and during your journey never stop in large
+      towns. Farewell, and receive the assurance of my friendship.&rdquo; [Footnote:
+      Abrantes, &ldquo;Memoires,&rdquo; vol. i., p. 351.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The nobility of mind which Bonaparte displayed toward his enemy was soon
+      to receive its reward; for, whilst Salicetti, a fugitive, sick, and
+      sentenced to death, was compelled to remain hidden, Bonaparte was emerging
+      from the oblivion to which the ambitious zeal of Salicetti would have
+      consigned him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Napoleon, dismissed from his position, arrived in Paris, and appealed
+      to Aubry, the chief of the war department, to be re-established in his
+      command, he was told: &ldquo;Bonaparte is too young to command an army as
+      general-in-chief;&rdquo; and Bonaparte answered: &ldquo;One soon becomes old on the
+      battle-field, and I come from it.&rdquo; [Footnote: Norvins, &ldquo;Histoire de
+      Napoleon,&rdquo; vol. i., p. 60.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Aubry, in his functions of chief of the war department, was soon
+      superseded by the representative Douclet de Ponte-Coulant, and this event
+      gave to the position of the young general a different aspect.
+      Ponte-Coulant had for some time followed with attention the course of the
+      young general, whose military talents and warlike reputation had filled
+      him with astonishment. He had especially been surprised at the plan for
+      the conduct of the war and the conquest of Italy which Bonaparte had laid
+      before the war committee. Now that Ponte-Coulant had been promoted to be
+      chief of the war department, he sent for General Bonaparte, and attached
+      him to the topographic committee, where the plans of campaigns were
+      decided and the movements of each separate corps delineated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The forgotten one, doomed to inactivity, General Napoleon Bonaparte, now
+      arose from his obscurity, and before him again opened life, the world, and
+      fame&rsquo;s pathway, which was to lead him up to a throne. But the envy and
+      jealousy of the party-men of the Convention ever threw obstacles before
+      him on his glorious course, and the war-scheme which he now unfolded to
+      the committee for the campaign did not receive the approbation of the
+      successor of Ponte-Coulant in the war department, and it was thrust aside.
+      A new political crisis was needed to place in the hands of Napoleon the
+      command of the army, the ruling authority over France, and this crisis was
+      at hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Paris, diseased, still bleeding in its innermost life with a thousand
+      wounds, was devoured by hunger. The unfortunate people, wretched from want
+      and pain, during many past years, were now driven to despair. The
+      political party leaders understood but too well how to take advantage of
+      this, and to prey upon it. The royalists were busy instilling into the
+      people&rsquo;s minds the idea that the return of the Bourbons would restore to
+      miserable France peace and happiness. The terrorists told the people that
+      the Convention was the sole obstacle to their rest and to their peace,
+      that it was necessary to scatter it to the winds, and to re-establish the
+      Constitution of 1793. The whole population of Paris was divided and broken
+      into factions, struggling one against the other with infuriated passions.
+      The royalists, strengthened by daily accessions of emigrants, who, under
+      fictitious names and with false passports, returned to Paris to claim the
+      benefit of the milder laws passed in their favor, constituted a formidable
+      power in that city. Whole sections were devoted to them, and were secretly
+      supplied by them with arms and provisions, so as finally to be prepared to
+      act against the Convention. An occasion soon presented itself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Convention had, through eleven of its committee members, prepared a
+      new constitution, and had laid it before the people for adoption or
+      rejection, according to the majority of votes. The whole country, with the
+      exception of Paris, was in favor of this new constitution&mdash;she alone
+      in her popular assemblies rejected it, declared the Convention dissolved,
+      and the armed sections arose to make new elections. The Convection
+      declared these assemblies to be illegal, and ordered their dissolution.
+      The armed sections made resistance, congregated together, and by force
+      opposed the troops of the Convention&mdash;the National Guards&mdash;commanded
+      by General Menou. On the 12th Vendemiaire all Paris was under arms again;
+      barricades were thrown up by the people, who swore to die in their defence
+      sooner than to submit to the will of the Convention; the noise of drums
+      and trumpets was heard in every street; all the horrors and cruelties of a
+      civil war once more filled the capital of the revolution, and the city was
+      drunk with blood!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The people fought with the courage of despair, pressed on victoriously,
+      and won from General Menou a few streets; whole battalions of the National
+      Guards abandoned the troops of the Convention and went over to the
+      sections. General Menou found himself in so dangerous a position as to be
+      forced to conclude an armistice until the next day with the Section
+      Lepelletier, which was opposed to him, up to which time the troops on
+      either side were to suspend operations.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Section Lepelletier declared itself at once en permanence, sent her
+      delegates to all the other sections, and called upon &ldquo;the sovereign
+      people, whose rights the Convention wished to usurp,&rdquo; to make a last and
+      decisive struggle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Convention found itself in the most alarming position; it trembled for
+      its very existence, and already in fancy saw again the days of terror, the
+      guillotine rising and claiming for its first victims the heads of the
+      members of the Convention. A pallid fear overspread all faces as
+      constantly fresh news of the advance of the sections reached them, when
+      General Menou sent news of the concluded armistice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At this moment a pale young man rushed into the hall of session, and with
+      glowing eloquence and persuasive manner entreated the Convention not to
+      accept the armistice, not to give time to the sections to increase their
+      strength, nor to recognize them as a hostile power to war against the
+      government.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This pale young man&mdash;whose impassioned language filled the minds of
+      all his hearers with animosity against General Menou, and with fresh
+      courage and desire to fight&mdash;was Napoleon Bonaparte.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After he had spoken, other representatives rushed to the tribune, to make
+      propositions to the Assembly, all their motions converging to the same end&mdash;all
+      desired to have General Menou placed under arrest, and Bonaparte appointed
+      in his place, and intrusted with the defence of the Convention and of the
+      legislative power against the people.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Assembly accepted this motion, and appointed Bonaparte commanding
+      officer of the troops of the Convention, and, for form&rsquo;s sake, named
+      Barras, president of the Convention, commander-in-chief.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bonaparte accepted the commission; and now, at last, after so much
+      waiting, so many painful months of inactivity, he found himself called to
+      action; he stood again at the head of an army, however small it might be,
+      and could again lift up the sword as the signal for the march to the
+      fight.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is true this fight had a sad, horrible purpose; it was directed against
+      the people, against the sections which declared themselves to be the
+      committee of the sovereign people, and that they were fighting the holy
+      fight of freedom against those who usurped their rights.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      General Bonaparte had refused to go to Vendee, because he wished not to
+      fight against his own countrymen, and could not take part in a civil war;
+      but now, at this hour of extreme peril, he placed himself in opposition to
+      the people&rsquo;s sovereignty, and assumed command over the troops of the
+      Convention, whose mission it was to subdue the people.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Every thing now assumed a more earnest attitude; during the night the
+      newly-appointed commanding officer sent three hundred chasseurs, under
+      Murat, to bring to Paris forty cannon from the park of artillery in
+      Sablons, and, when the morning of the 13th Vendemiaire began to dawn, the
+      pieces were already in position in the court of the Tuileries and pointed
+      against the people. Besides which, General Bonaparte had taken advantage
+      of the night to occupy all the important points and places, and to arm
+      them; even into the hall of session of the Convention he ordered arms and
+      ammunition to be brought, that the representatives might defend
+      themselves, in case they were pressed upon by the people.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As the sun of the 13th Vendemiaire rose over Paris, a terrible
+      street-fight began&mdash;the fight of the sovereign people against the
+      Convention. It was carried on by both sides with the utmost bitterness and
+      fierceness, the sections rushing with fanatic courage, with all the energy
+      of hatred, against these soldiers who dared slay their brothers and bind
+      their liberty in chains; the soldiers of the Convention fought with all
+      the bitterness which the consciousness of their hated position instilled
+      into them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The cannon thundered in every street and mingled their sounds with the
+      cries of rage from the sectionnaires&mdash;the howlings of the women, the
+      whiz of the howitzers, the loud clangs of the bells, which incessantly
+      called the people to arms. Streams of blood flowed again through the
+      streets; everywhere, near the scattered barricades, near the houses
+      captured by storm, lay bloody corpses; everywhere resounded the cries of
+      the dying, the shrieks and groans of the wounded, the wild shouts of the
+      combatants. In the Church of St. Roche, and in the Theatre Francaise, the
+      sectionnaires, driven from the neighboring streets by the troops of
+      General Bonaparte, had gathered together and endeavored to defend these
+      places with the courage of despair. But the howitzers of Bonaparte soon
+      scattered them, and the contest was decided.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The sections were defeated; the people, conquered by the Convention, had
+      to recognize its authority; they were no more the sovereigns of France;
+      they had found a ruler before whom they must bow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This ruler was yet called the Convention, but behind the Convention stood
+      another ruler&mdash;General Bonaparte!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was he who had defeated the people, who had secured the authority to
+      the Convention, and it was therefore natural that it should be thankful
+      and exhibit its gratitude. General Bonaparte, in acknowledgment for the
+      great services done to his country, was by the Convention appointed
+      commander-in-chief of the army of the interior, and thus suddenly he saw
+      himself raised from degrading obscurity to pomp and influence, surrounded
+      by a brilliant staff, installed in a handsome palace by virtue of his
+      office as chief officer, entitled to and justified in maintaining an
+      establishment wherein to represent worthily the dignity of his new
+      position.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The 13th Vendemiaire, which dethroned the sovereign people, brought
+      General Bonaparte a step nearer to the throne.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0020" id="link2HCH0020"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XX. THE WIDOW JOSEPHINE BEAUHARNAIS.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile Josephine had passed the first months of her newly-obtained
+      freedom in quiet contentment with her children in Fontainebleau, at the
+      house of her father-in-law. Her soul, bowed down by so much misery and
+      pain, needed quietness and solitude to allow her wounds to cease bleeding
+      and to heal; her heart, which had experienced so much anguish and so many
+      deceptions, needed to rest on the bosom of her children and her relatives,
+      so as to be quickened into new life. Only in the solitude and stillness of
+      Fontainebleau did she feel well and satisfied; every other distraction,
+      every interruption of this quiet, orderly existence brought on a nervous
+      trembling, which mastered her whole body, as if some other adversity was
+      about to break upon her. The days of terror which she had passed in Paris,
+      and especially the days she had outlived in prison, were ever fresh before
+      her mind, and tormented her with their reminiscences alike in her vigils
+      and in her dreams.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She wanted to hear nothing of the world&rsquo;s events, nothing from Paris, the
+      mention of which place filled her with fear and horror; and with tears in
+      her eyes she entreated her father-in-law to omit all mention of the
+      political changes and revolutions which took place there.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, alas! the politics from which Josephine fled, to which she closed her
+      ears, rushed upon her against her will&mdash;they came to her in the shape
+      of want and privation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Josephine, who wished to have nothing more to do with the affairs of this
+      world, learned, through the deprivations which she had to endure, the want
+      to which she and her family were exposed, that the world had not yet been
+      pushed back into the old grooves, out of which the revolution had so
+      violently lifted it up; that the republic yet exercised a despotic
+      authority, and was not prepared to return to the heirs the property of the
+      victims of the guillotine! The income and property of General Beauharnais
+      had all been confiscated by the republic, for he had been executed as a
+      state criminal, and the procedure had this in common with the ordinary
+      actions of the government, that it never returned what it had once
+      usurped. Even Josephine&rsquo;s father-in-law, as well as her aunt&mdash;Madame
+      de Renaudin, who, after her husband&rsquo;s death, had been married to the
+      Marquis de Beauharnais&mdash;had both in the revolutionary storms lost all
+      their property, and saw themselves reduced to the last extremity. They
+      lived from day to day with the greatest economy, upon the smallest means,
+      and flattered themselves with the hope that justice would be done to the
+      innocent victims of the revolution; that at last to the widow and children
+      of the murdered General Beauharnais his income and property would be
+      returned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Another hope remained to Josephine: reliance upon her relatives,
+      especially upon her mother in Martinique. She had written to her as soon
+      as she had obtained her liberty; she had entreated her mother, who had
+      been a widow for two years, to rent all her property in Martinique, and to
+      come to France, and at her daughter&rsquo;s side to enjoy a few quiet years of
+      domestic happiness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But this hope also was to be destroyed, for the revolution in Martinique
+      had committed the same devastations as in France, and the burning houses
+      of their masters had been the bonfires whose flames were sent up to heaven
+      by the newly-freed slaves in the name of the republic and of the rights of
+      man. Madame Tascher de la Pagerie had experienced the same fate as all the
+      planters in Martinique; her house and outbuildings had been burnt, her
+      plantations destroyed, and a long time would be required before the fields
+      could again be made to produce a harvest. Until then, Madame Tascher would
+      be sorely limited in her means, and, if she did not succeed in selling
+      some of her property and raising funds, would be without the money
+      necessary to bring under cultivation the remnant of her large plantation.
+      She was, therefore, not immediately prepared to supply her daughter with
+      any considerable assistance, and Josephine endured the anguish of seeing
+      not only herself and children, but also her dear mother, suffer through
+      want and privation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To the need of gold to procure bare necessaries, was soon added the very
+      lack of them. Famine, with all its horrors, was at hand; the people were
+      clamoring for food, and the land-owners as well as the rich were suffering
+      from the want of that prime necessary of life-bread! The Convention had
+      adopted no measures to satisfy the demands of the howling populace, and it
+      had to remain contented with making accessible to all such provisions as
+      were in the land. One law, therefore, ordered all land-owners to deliver
+      to the state their stores of meal; a second law prohibited any person from
+      buying more than one pound of bread on the same day. The greatest delicacy
+      in those days of common wretchedness was white bread, and there were many
+      families that for a long time were unable to procure this luxury.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Josephine herself had with many others to endure this privation: the
+      costly white loaf was beyond her reach. In her depressed and sad lot the
+      unfortunate widowed viscountess remained in possession of a treasure for
+      which many of the wealthy and high-born longed in vain, and which neither
+      gold nor wealth could procure&mdash;Josephine possessed friends, true,
+      devoted friends, who forsook her not in the day of need, but stood the
+      more closely at her side, helping and loving.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Among these friends were, above all, Madame Dumoulin and M. Emery. Madame
+      Dumoulin, the wife of a wealthy purveyor of the republican army, was at
+      heart a true royalist, and had made it her mission, as much as was within
+      her power, to assist with her means the most destitute from whom the
+      revolution had taken their family joys and property. She aided with money
+      and clothing the unfortunate emigrants, who, as prominent and influential
+      friends of the king and of Old France, had abandoned their country, and
+      who now, as nameless, wretched beggars, returned home to beg of New France
+      the privilege at least to hunger and starve, and at last to die in their
+      motherland. Madame Dumoulin had always an open house for those aristocrats
+      and ci-devants who had the courage not to emigrate and to bow their
+      despised heads to all the fluctuations of the republic, and had remained
+      in France, though deprived by the republic of their ancestral names,
+      property, and rank. Those aristocrats who had not migrated found a
+      friendly reception in the house of the witty and amiable Madame Dumoulin,
+      and twice a week she gathered those friends of the ancient regime to a
+      dinner, which was prepared with all the luxury of former days, and which
+      offered to her friends, besides material enjoyment, the pleasures of an
+      agreeable and attractive company.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Among Madame Dumoulin&rsquo;s friends who never failed to be present at these
+      dinners was Josephine de Beauharnais, of whom Madame Dumoulin said she was
+      the sunbeam of her drawing-room, for she warmed and vitalized all hearts.
+      But this sunbeam had not the power to bring forth out of the unfruitful
+      soil of the fatherland a few ears of wheat to turn its flour into white
+      bread. As every one was allowed to buy bread only according to the numbers
+      in the household, Madame Dumoulin could not give to her guests at dinner
+      any white bread, and on her cards of invitation was the then usual form,
+      &ldquo;You are invited to bring a loaf of white bread.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But it was beyond the means of the poor Viscountess de Beauharnais to
+      fulfil this invitation; her purse was not sufficient to afford her twice a
+      week the luxury of white bread. Madame Dumoulin, who knew this, came
+      kindly to the rescue of Josephine&rsquo;s distress, and entreated her not to
+      trouble herself with bringing bread, but to allow her to procure it for
+      her friend.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Josephine accepted this offer with tears of emotion, and she never forgot
+      the goodness and kindness of Madame Dumoulin. In the days of her highest
+      glory she remembered her, and once, when empress, radiant with jewels and
+      ornaments of gold, as she stood in the midst of her court, related with a
+      bewitching smile, to the ladies around her, that there was a time when she
+      would have given a year of her life to possess but one of those jewels,
+      not to adorn herself therewith, but to sell it, so as to buy bread for her
+      children, and that in those days the excellent Madame Dumoulin had been a
+      benefactress to her, and that she had received at her hands the bread of
+      charity. [Footnote: &ldquo;Memoires sur l&rsquo;Imperatrice Josephine,&rdquo; par Mad.
+      Ducrest, chap XXXVI.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The same abiding friendship was shown to Josephine by M. Emery, a banker
+      who had a considerable business in Dunkirk, and who for many years had
+      been in mercantile relations with the family of Tascher de la Pagerie in
+      Martinique. Madame de la Pagerie had every year sent him the produce of
+      her sugar plantations, and he had attended to the sale to the largest
+      houses in Germany. He knew better than any one else the pecuniary
+      circumstances of the Pagerie family; he knew that, if at present Madame de
+      la Pagerie could not repay his advanced sums, her plantations would soon
+      produce a rich harvest, and even now be a sufficient security. M. Emery
+      was therefore willing to assist the daughter of Madame Tascher de la
+      Pagerie, and several times he advanced to Josephine considerable sums
+      which she had drawn upon her mother.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The cares of every-day life, its physical necessities, lifted Josephine
+      out of the sad melancholy in which she had lulled her sick, wounded heart,
+      within the solitude of Fontainebleau. She must not settle down in this
+      inactive twilight, nor wrap herself up in the gloomy gray veil of
+      widowhood! Life had still claims upon her; it called to her through her
+      children&rsquo;s voices, for whom she had a future to provide, as well as
+      through the voice of her own youth, which she must not intrust hopelessly
+      to the gloomy Fontainebleau.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And the young mother dared not and wanted not to close her ears to these
+      calls; she arose from her supineness, and courageously resolved to begin
+      anew life&rsquo;s battle, and to claim her share from the enjoyments and
+      pleasures of this world.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She first, by the advice of M. Emery, undertook a journey to Hamburg, to
+      make some arrangements with the rich and highly respectable banking-house
+      of Mathiesen and Sissen. Mathiesen, the banker, who had married a niece of
+      Madame de Genlis, had always shown the greatest hospitality to all
+      Frenchmen who had applied to him, and he had assisted them with advice and
+      deeds. To him Josephine appealed, at the request of M. Emery, so as to
+      procure a safe opportunity to send letters to her mother in Martinique,
+      and also to obtain from him funds on bills drawn upon her mother.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      M. Mathiesen met her wishes with a generous pleasure, and through him
+      Josephine received sufficient sums of money to protect her from further
+      embarrassments and anxieties, at least until her mother, who was on the
+      eve of selling a portion of her plantation, could send her some money.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On her return from her business-journey to Hamburg, as she was no longer a
+      poor widow without means, she adopted the courageous resolution of leaving
+      her asylum and returning to dangerous and deserted Paris, there to prepare
+      for her son an honorable future, and endeavor to procure for her daughter
+      an education suited to her rank and capacities.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the end of the year 1795, Josephine returned with her two children to
+      Paris, which one year before she had left so sorrowfully and so
+      dispirited.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What changes had been wrought during this one year! How the face of things
+      had been altered! The revolution had bled to death. The thirteenth
+      Vendemiaire had scattered to the winds the seditious elements of
+      revolution, and the republic was beginning quietly and peacefully to grow
+      into stature. The Convention, with its Mountain, its terrorists, its
+      Committee of Safety, its persecutions and executions, had outlived its
+      power, which it had consigned to the pages of history with so many tears
+      and so much blood. In a strange contradiction with its own bloody deeds,
+      it celebrated the last day of its existence by a law which, as a farewell
+      to the thousand corpses it had sacrificed to the revolution, it had
+      printed on its gory brow. On the day of its dissolution the Convention
+      gave to France this last law: &ldquo;Capital punishment is forever abolished.&rdquo;
+       [Footnote: Norvins, &ldquo;Histoire de Napoleon,&rdquo; vol. i., p. 82.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With this farewell kiss, this love-salutation to the France of the future,
+      to the new self-informing France, the Convention dissolved itself, and in
+      its stead came the Council of Elders, the Council of Five Hundred, and
+      lastly the Directory, composed of five members, among whom had been
+      elected the more eminent members of the Convention, namely, Barras and
+      Carnot.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Josephine&rsquo;s first movement in Paris was to find the lovely friend whom she
+      made in the Carmelite prison, and to whom she in some measure owed her
+      life, to visit Therese de Fontenay and see if the heart of the beautiful,
+      celebrated woman had in its days of happiness and power retained its
+      remembrances of those of wretchedness and mortal fears.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Therese de Fontenay was now the wife of Tallien, who, elected to the
+      Council of the Five Hundred, continued to play an influential and
+      important part, and therefore had his court of flatterers and time-serving
+      friends as well as any ruling prince. His house was one of the most
+      splendid in Paris; the feasts and banquets which took place there reminded
+      one, by their extravagant magnificence, of the days of ancient Rome, and
+      that this remembrance might still be more striking, ladies in the rich,
+      costly costumes of patrician matrons of ancient Rome appeared at those
+      festivities not unworthy of a Lucullus. Madame Tallien&mdash;in the ample
+      robe of wrought gold of a Roman empress, shod with light sandals, from
+      which issued the beautiful naked feet, and the toes adorned with costly
+      rings, her exquisitely moulded arms ornamented with massive gold
+      bracelets; her short curly hair fastened together by a gold bandelet,
+      which rose over the forehead in the shape of a diadem, bejewelled with
+      precious diamonds; the mantle of purple, fringed with gold and placed on
+      the shoulders&mdash;was in this costume of such a wonderful beauty, that
+      men gazed at her with astonishment and women with envy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And this beautiful woman, often worshipped and adored, though sometimes
+      slandered, had amid her triumphs kept a faithful remembrance of the past.
+      She received Josephine with the affection of a true friend. In her
+      generosity she allowed her no time to proffer any request, but came
+      forward herself with offers to intercede for her friend, and to use all
+      the means at her disposal, omitting nothing that would help Josephine to
+      recover her fortune, her lost property. With all the eagerness of true
+      love she took the arm of her friend and led her to Tallien, and with the
+      enchanting smile and attitude of a commanding princess she told him that
+      he must help Josephine to become happy again, that every thing he could do
+      for her would be rewarded by an increasing love; that if he did not do
+      justice to Josephine, she would punish him by her anger and coldness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Tallien listened with complacency to the praiseworthy commands of his
+      worshipped Therese, and promised to use all his influence to have justice
+      done to the will of the sacrificed General de Beauharnais. He himself
+      accompanied Josephine to Barras, that she might present her application to
+      him personally and request at his hands restitution of her property. She
+      was received by Barras, as well as by the other four directors, with the
+      greatest politeness; each promised to attend to her case and to return to
+      the widow and to the children of Alexandre de Beauharnais the property
+      which had been so unjustly taken from them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is true, weeks and months of waiting and uncertainty passed away, but
+      Josephine had hope for a comforter; she had, besides, her beautiful friend
+      Therese Tallien, who with affectionate eloquence endeavored to instil
+      courage into Josephine, and by her constant petitions and prayers did not
+      allow the Directory, amid its many important affairs of government, to
+      forget the case of the poor young widow. Therese took care also that
+      Josephine should appear in society at the receptions and balls given by
+      the members of the new government; and when made timid through misfortune,
+      and depressed at heart by the uncertainty of her narrow lot, she desired
+      to keep aloof from these rejoicings, Therese knew how to convince her that
+      she must sacrifice her love of retirement to her children; that it was her
+      duty to accept the invitations of the Directory, so as to keep alive their
+      interest and favor in her behalf; and that, were she to retreat into
+      solitude and obscurity, she would thereby imperil her future and that of
+      her children.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Josephine submitted to this law of necessity, and appeared in society. She
+      screened her cares and her heartsores under the covert of smiles, she
+      forced herself into cheerfulness, and when now and then the smile vanished
+      from her lip and tears filled her eyes, she thought of her children, and,
+      mastering her sorrows, she was again the beautiful, lovely woman, whose
+      elegant manners and lively and witty conversation charmed and astonished
+      every one.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last, after long months of uncertainty, Therese Tallien, her face
+      beaming with joy, came one morning to visit her friend Josephine, and
+      presented to her a paper with a large seal, which Tallien had given her
+      that very morning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was an order, signed by the five directors, instructing the
+      administrator of the domains to relieve the capital and the property of
+      General Beauharnais from the sequestration laid upon them, and also to
+      remove the seals from his furniture and his movables, and to reinstate the
+      Widow Beauharnais in possession of all the property left by her husband.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Josephine received this paper with tears of joy, and, full of religious,
+      devout gratitude, she fell on her knees and cried:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I thank Thee, my God! I thank Thee! My children will no more suffer from
+      want, and now I can give them a suitable education.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She then fell upon her friend&rsquo;s neck, thanking her for her faithfulness,
+      and swore her everlasting friendship and affection.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The dark clouds which had so long overshadowed Josephine&rsquo;s life were now
+      gone, and in its place dawned day, bright and clear.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the sun which was to illumine this day with wondrous glory had not yet
+      appeared. Therese at this hour reminded her friend of a day in prison when
+      Josephine had assured her friends trembling for her life that she was not
+      going to die, that she would one day be Queen of France.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said Josephine, smiling and thoughtful, &ldquo;who knows if this prophecy
+      will not be fulfilled? To-day begins for me a new life. I have done with
+      the past, and it will sink behind me in the abyss of oblivion. I trust in
+      the future! It must repay me for all the tears and anxieties of my past
+      life, and who knows if it will not erect me a throne?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0021" id="link2HCH0021"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXI. THE NEW PARIS.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Yes, they were now ended, the days of sufferings and privations! The wife
+      of General Beauharnais was no more the poor widow who appeared as a
+      petitioner in the drawing-rooms of the members of the Directory, and often
+      obliged, even in the worst kind of weather, to go on foot to the festivals
+      of Madame Tallien, because she lacked the means to pay for a cab; she was
+      no longer the poor mother who had to be satisfied to procure inferior
+      teachers for her children, because she could not possibly pay superior
+      ones.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, as by a spell, all was changed, and gold was the magic wand which had
+      produced it. Thanks to this talisman, the Viscountess de Beauharnais could
+      now quit the small, remote, gloomy dwelling in which she had hitherto
+      resided, and could again procure a house, gather society round about her,
+      and, above all things, provide for the education of her children.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This was her dearest duty, her most important obligation, with which she
+      busied herself even before she rented a modestly-furnished room. Her
+      Eugene, the darling of her heart, desired like his father to devote
+      himself to a military life, and his mother took him to a boarding-school
+      in St. Germain, where young men of distinguished families received their
+      education. Her twelve-year-old daughter Hortense, of whom Josephine had
+      said, &ldquo;She is my angel with the gold locks, who alone can smile away the
+      tears from my eyes and sorrow from my heart&rdquo;&mdash;Hortense entered the
+      newly-opened educational establishment of Madame Campan, once the
+      lady-in-waiting of Marie Antoinette. Josephine wept hot tears as she
+      accompanied her Hortense into the boarding-school, and, embracing her
+      blond curly-haired angel, she closely pressed her to her heart, and said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Judge how much I love you, my daughter, since I have the courage to leave
+      you and to deprive myself of the greatest of my life&rsquo;s enjoyments! Ah, I
+      shall be very lonesome, Hortense, but my thoughts will be with you
+      continually&mdash;with you and your brother Eugene. Live to be an honor to
+      your father, grow and prosper to be your mother&rsquo;s happiness!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then with a kiss she took leave of her daughter, and comfortless and alone
+      she returned to her solitary apartments in Paris.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      During the next eight days her doors were shut; she opened them to none,
+      not even to her friend Therese, and not once did Josephine leave her
+      dwelling during this time, nor did she accept any of the invitations which
+      came to her from all sides.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her heart was yet wrapped in mourning for her separation from her
+      children, and, with all the intensity of an affectionate mother&rsquo;s love,
+      she preferred leaving her anguish to die out of itself than to suppress it
+      with amusements and pleasures.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But after this last sorrow had been overcome, Josephine, with serenity and
+      a smile of cheerfulness, came again from her solitude into the world which
+      called her forth with all its voices of joy, pleasure, and flattery. And
+      Josephine no longer closed her ears to these sweet attractive voices. She
+      had long enough suffered, wept, fasted; now she ought to reap enjoyments,
+      and gather her portion of this life&rsquo;s pleasures; now she must live! The
+      past had set behind her, and, as one new-born or risen from the dead,
+      Josephine walked into the world with a young maiden heart, and a mind
+      opened to all that is beautiful, great, and good; her soul filled with
+      visions, hopes, desires, and dreams. Out of the widow&rsquo;s veil came forth
+      the young, charming Creole, and her radiant eyes saluted the world with
+      intelligent looks and an expression of the most attractive goodness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her next care was to procure a pleasant, convenient home suited to her
+      rank. She purchased from the actor Talma a house which he possessed in the
+      Street Chautereine, and where he had, during the storms of the revolution,
+      received his friends as well as all the literary, artistic, and political
+      notables of the day with the kindest hospitality. It was not a brilliant,
+      distinguished hotel, no splendid building, but a small, tastefully and
+      conveniently arranged house, with pretty rooms, a cheerful drawing-room,
+      lovely garden, exactly suited to have therein a quiet, agreeable, informal
+      pastime. Josephine possessed in the highest degree the art of her sex to
+      furnish rooms with elegance and taste, so as to make every one in them
+      comfortable, satisfied, at ease, and cheerful.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The drawing-room of the widow of General Beauharnais became soon the
+      central point where all her friends of former days found themselves
+      together again, and all the remnants of the good old society found
+      reception; where the learned, the artist, the poet, met with a refuge,
+      there to rest for a few hours from political strife, to put aside the
+      serpent&rsquo;s skin of assumed republican manners, and again assume the tone
+      and forms of the higher society. Such drawing-rooms in these revolutionary
+      days were extremely few; no one dared to become conspicuous; every one was
+      reserved and quiet; every one shrank from making himself suspected of
+      being a ci-devant, even if under the republican toga he left visible his
+      dress-coat of the upper society with its embroidery of gold. Men had
+      entirely broken with the past, wishing to deny it, and not be under the
+      yoke of its forms and rules; it was therefore necessary, out of the chaos
+      of the republic, to create a new world, a new society, new forms of
+      etiquette, and new fashions. Meanwhile, until these new fashions for
+      republican France should be found, men had recourse (so as not to go back
+      to the days of the late monarchy of France) to the republics of olden
+      times; the ladies dressed according to the patterns of the old statues of
+      the deities of Greece and Rome, giving receptions in the style of ancient
+      Greece, and banquets laid out in all the extravagant splendors of a
+      Lucullus.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The members of the republican Directory, whose residence was in the palace
+      of the Luxemburg, took the lead in all these neo-Grecian and neo-Roman
+      festivities; and, whereas they loudly proclaimed that it was necessary to
+      furnish opportunities to the working-classes and laborers to gain money,
+      and that it was incumbent on all to promote industry, they rivalled each
+      other in their efforts to exhibit an extravagant pomp and a brilliant
+      display. On reception-days of the members of the Directory the public
+      streamed in masses toward the Luxemburg, there to admire the splendors of
+      the five monarchs, and to rejoice that the days of the carmagnoles, the
+      sans-culottes, the dirty blouse, and the bonnet rouge were at least gone
+      by. The five directors, to the delight of the Parisian people, wore costly
+      silk and velvet garments embroidered with gold, and on their hats, trimmed
+      also with gold lace, waved large ostrich-plumes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Luxury celebrated its return to Paris, after having had to secrete itself,
+      so long from the blood-stained hands of the sans-culottes, in the most
+      obscure corners of the deserted palaces of St. Germain. Pleasure, which
+      had fled away horrified from the guillotine and from the terrorists, dared
+      once more to show its rose-wreathed brow and smiling countenance, and here
+      and there make its cheerful festivities resound.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Men became glad, and dared to laugh again; they came out from the
+      stillness of their homes, which anxiety had kept closed, to search for
+      amusement, pleasure, and recreation; but no citizen dared to be select,
+      none dared to assume aristocratic exclusiveness. One had to be pleased
+      with a dinner at a tavern; with a glass of ice-water in a cafe, or to take
+      part in a public ball which was opened to every one who could pay his fee
+      of admission; and especially in the evening the public rushed to the
+      theatre with the same eagerness that was exhibited in the morning to reach
+      the shops of the bakers and butchers, where each received his portion of
+      meat or bread by producing a card signed by the circuit commissioners. In
+      front of these shops, as well as in front of the theatres, the pressure
+      was so great that for hours it was necessary to fall into line, and
+      sometimes go away dissatisfied; for the republic had yet retained the
+      system of equality, so that the rich and the influential were not served
+      any sooner than the poor and the unknown; there was only one exception:
+      only one condition received distinction before the baker&rsquo;s shop and the
+      theatre: it was that of the mothers of the future, those women whose
+      external appearance revealed that they would soon bring forth a future
+      citizen, a new soldier for the republic, which had lost so many of its
+      sons upon the scaffold and on the battle-field.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was so long that one had been deprived of laughter and merriment, and
+      had walked with sad countenance and grave solemnity through the days of
+      blood and terror, that now every occasion for hilarity was received
+      eagerly and thankfully, and every opportunity for mirth and amusement
+      sought out. The theatres were therefore filled every evening with an
+      attentive, thankful audience; every jest of the actor, every part well
+      performed, elicited enthusiastic approbation. It is true no one yet dared
+      act any other pieces than those which had reference to the revolution, and
+      in some shape or other celebrated the republic, accusing and vilifying the
+      royalists. The pieces represented were&mdash;&ldquo;The Perfect Equality,&rdquo; or
+      else &ldquo;Thee and Thou,&rdquo; &ldquo;The Last Trial of the Queen,&rdquo; &ldquo;Tarquin, or the Fall
+      of the Monarchy,&rdquo; &ldquo;Marat&rsquo;s Apotheosis,&rdquo; and similar dramas, all infused
+      with republicanism; still, men faint at heart and satiated with the
+      republic, hastened notwithstanding to the theatre, to enjoy an hour of
+      recreation and merriment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To be cheerful, happy, and joyous, seemed now to the Parisians the highest
+      duty of life, and every thing was made subservient to it. The people had
+      wept and mourned so long, that now, to shake off this oppressive heaviness
+      of mind, they rushed with fanatical precipitancy into pleasure; they gave
+      themselves up to the wildest orgies and bacchanals, and without disgust or
+      shame abandoned themselves to the most immoral conduct. All tears were
+      dried up as if by magic; honest poverty began to be ashamed of itself; and
+      the wealth so carefully hid until now, was again brought to light; even
+      those who in the days of revolutionary terror had become rich through the
+      property of the sacrificed victims, exposed themselves to public gaze with
+      impunity and without shame. They plundered and adorned themselves with a
+      wealth acquired only through cunning, treachery, and murder. Everywhere
+      feasts, banquets, and balls, were organized; and it was an ordinary event
+      to find in the same company the accuser and the accused, the executioner
+      and his victim, the murderer near the daughter of the man whose head he
+      had given over to the guillotine!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This was especially the case at the so-called victim balls (bals a la
+      victime) which were given by the heirs, the sons and fathers of those who
+      had perished by the guillotine. People gathered together in brilliant
+      entertainments and balls to the honor and memory of the executed ones.
+      Every one who could pay the large fee of admission to these bals a la
+      victime were permitted to enter. Those who came there, not for pleasure,
+      but to honor their dead, showed this intention by their clothing, and
+      especially by the arrangement of their hair. To remind them that those who
+      had been led to the guillotine had had their hair cut close, gentlemen now
+      had theirs cut short, and the dressing of the hair a la victime was for
+      gentlemen as much a fashion as the dressing of the hair a la Titus (the
+      Roman emperor) was for the ladies. Besides this, the heirs of the victims
+      wore some token of the departed ones, and ladies and gentlemen were seen
+      in the blood-stained garments which their relatives had worn on their way
+      to the scaffold, and which they had purchased with large sums of money
+      from the executioner, that lord of Paris. It often happened that a lady in
+      the blood-stained dress of her mother danced with the son of the man who
+      had delivered her mother to the guillotine; that a son of a member of the
+      Convention of 1793 led, in the minuet, the graceful &ldquo;pas de chale,&rdquo; with
+      the daughter of an emigrant marquis. The most fanatical men of the days of
+      terror, now exalted into wealthy land-owners, led on in the gay waltz the
+      daughters of their former landlords; and these women pressed the hand
+      soiled with the blood of their relatives because now, as amends for their
+      traffic in blood, they could offer future wealth and distinction.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It seemed that all Paris and all France had gone mad&mdash;that the whole
+      nation was drunk with blood as with intoxicating wine, and wanted to
+      stifle the voice of conscience in the horrible revelry of the saturnalia.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Josephine never took part in these public balls and festivities; never did
+      the widow of General Beauharnais, one of the victims of the revolution,
+      attend these bals a la victime, where man prided himself on his misfortune
+      and gloried in his sorrows. The Moniteur&mdash;which then gave daily
+      notices of the balls and amusements that were to take place in Paris, so
+      as to let the world know how cheerful and happy every one felt there, and
+      which made it its business to publish the names of the ci-devants and
+      ex-nobles who had partaken in these festivities&mdash;never in its long
+      and correct list mentions the name of the widow of General Beauharnais.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Josephine kept aloof from all these wild dissipations&mdash;these balls
+      and banquets. She would neither dance, nor adorn herself in the memory of
+      her husband; she would not take a part in the splendid festivities of a
+      republic which had murdered him, and had pierced her loyal heart with the
+      deepest wounds.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0022" id="link2HCH0022"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXII. THE FIRST INTERVIEW.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      In the midst of these joys and amusements of the new-growing Paris, the
+      storm of the thirteenth Vendemiaire launched forth its destructive
+      thunderbolts, and another rent was made in the lofty structure of the
+      republic. The royalists, who had cunningly frequented these bals a la
+      victime, to weave intrigues and conspiracies, found their webs scattered,
+      and the republic assumed a new form.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Napoleon with his sword had cut to pieces the webs and snares of the
+      royalists as well as of the revolutionists, and France had to bow to the
+      constitution. In the Tuileries now sat the Council of the Elders; in the
+      Salle du Manege sat the Five Hundred; and in the palace of Luxemburg
+      resided the five directors of the republic.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the thirteenth Vendemiaire Paris had passed through a crisis of its
+      revolutionary disease; and, to prevent its falling immediately into
+      another, it permitted the newly-appointed commander-in-chief of the army
+      of the interior of France, General Napoleon Bonaparte, to have every house
+      strictly searched, and to confiscate all weapons found.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Even into the house of the Viscountess de Beauharnais, in the rue
+      Chantereine, came the soldiers of the republic to search for secreted
+      weapons. They found there the sword of Alexandre de Beauharnais, which
+      certainly Josephine had not hidden, for it was the chief ornament of her
+      son&rsquo;s room. When Eugene, on the next Saturday, came to Paris from St.
+      Germain, as he did every week, to pass the Sunday in his mother&rsquo;s house,
+      to his great distress he saw vacant on the wall the place where the sword
+      of his father had been hanging. With trembling voice and tears in her eyes
+      his mother told him that General Bonaparte, the new commander-in-chief,
+      had ordered the sword to be carried away by his soldiers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A cry of anger and of malediction was Eugene&rsquo;s answer; then with flaming
+      eyes and cheeks burning with rage he rushed out, despite the supplications
+      of his affrighted and anxious mother. Without pausing, without thinking&mdash;conscious
+      only of this, that he must have again his father&rsquo;s sword, he rushed on. It
+      was impossible, thought he, that the republic which had deprived his
+      father of the honors due to him, his property, his money&mdash;that now,
+      after his death, she should also take away his sword.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He must have this sword again! This was Eugene&rsquo;s firm determination, and
+      this made him bold and resolute. He rushed into the palace where the
+      general-in-chief, Bonaparte, resided, and with daring vehemence demanded
+      an interview with the general; and, as the door-keeper hesitated, and even
+      tried to push away the bold boy from the door of the drawing-room, Eugene
+      turned about with so much energy, spoke, scolded, and raged so loudly and
+      so freely, that the noise reached even the cabinet where General Bonaparte
+      was. He opened the door, and in his short, imperious manner asked the
+      cause of this uproar; and when the servant had told him, with a sign of
+      the hand he beckoned the young man to come in.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Eugene de Beauharnais entered the drawing-room with a triumphant smile,
+      and the eye of General Bonaparte was fixed with pleasure on the beautiful,
+      intelligent countenance, on the tall, powerful figure of the
+      fifteen-year-old boy. In that strange, soft accent which won hearts to
+      Napoleon, he asked Eugene his business. The young man&rsquo;s cheeks became
+      pallid, and with tremulous lips and angry looks, the vehement eloquence of
+      youth and suffering, Eugene spoke of the loss he had sustained, and of the
+      pain which had been added to it by despoiling him of the sword of his
+      father, murdered by the republic.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At these last words of Eugene, Bonaparte&rsquo;s brow was overshadowed, and an
+      appalling look met the face of the brave boy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You dare say that the republic has murdered your father?&rdquo; asked he, in a
+      loud, angry voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I say it, and I say the truth!&rdquo; exclaimed Eugene, who did not turn away
+      his eyes from the flaming looks of the general. &ldquo;Yes, the republic has
+      murdered my father, for it has executed him as a criminal, as a traitor to
+      his country, and he was innocent; he ever was a faithful servant of his
+      country and of the republic.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who told you that it was so?&rdquo; asked Bonaparte, abruptly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My heart and the republic itself tell me that my father was no traitor,&rdquo;
+       exclaimed Eugene, warmly. &ldquo;My mother loved him much, and she regrets him
+      still. She would not do so had he been a traitor, and then the republic
+      would not have done what it has done&mdash;it would not have returned to
+      my mother the confiscated property of my father, but would, had he been
+      considered guilty, have gladly kept it back.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The grave countenance of Bonaparte was overspread by a genial smile, and
+      his eyes rested with the expression of innermost sympathy on the son of
+      Josephine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You think, then, that the republic gladly keeps what it has?&rdquo; asked he.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I see that it gladly takes what belongs not to it,&rdquo; exclaimed Eugene,
+      eagerly. &ldquo;It has taken away my father&rsquo;s sword, which belonged to me, his
+      son, and my mother has made me swear on that sword to hold my father&rsquo;s
+      memory sacred, and to strive to be like him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your mother is, it seems, a very virtuous old lady,&rdquo; said Bonaparte, in a
+      friendly tone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My mother is a virtuous, young, and beautiful lady,&rdquo; said Eugene,
+      sturdily; &ldquo;and I am certain, general, that if you knew her, you would not
+      in your heart have caused her so much pain.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She has, then, suffered much on account of this sword being taken away?&rdquo;
+       asked Bonaparte, interested.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, general, she has wept bitterly over this our loss, as I have. I
+      cannot bear to see my mother weep; it breaks my heart. I therefore implore
+      you to give me back my father&rsquo;s sword; and I swear to you that when I am a
+      man, I will carry that sword only for the defence of my country, as my
+      father had done.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      General Bonaparte nodded kindly to the boy. &ldquo;You are a brave defender of
+      your cause,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;and I cannot refuse you&mdash;I must do as you
+      wish.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He gave orders to an ordnance officer present in the room to bring General
+      de Beauharnais&rsquo;s sword; and when the officer had gone to fetch it,
+      Bonaparte, in a friendly and sympathizing manner, conversed with the boy.
+      At last the ordnance officer returned, and handed the sword to the
+      general.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With solemn gravity Bonaparte gave it to Eugene. &ldquo;Take it, young man,&rdquo;
+       said he, &ldquo;but never forget that you have sworn to carry it only for the
+      honor and defence of your country.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Eugene could not answer: tears started from his eyes, and with deep
+      affection he pressed to his lips the recovered sword of his father.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This manifestation of true childish emotion moved Bonaparte to tender
+      sympathy, and an expression of affectionate interest passed over his
+      features as he offered his hand to Eugene.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;By Heaven, you are a good son,&rdquo; exclaimed he from his heart, &ldquo;and you
+      will be one day a good son to your country! Go, my boy, take to your
+      mother your father&rsquo;s sword. Tell her that I salute her, though unknown to
+      her&mdash;that I congratulate her in being the mother of so good and brave
+      a son.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Such was the beginning of an acquaintance to which Josephine was indebted
+      for an imperial crown, and, for what is still greater, an undying fame and
+      an undying love.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Beaming with joy, Eugene returned to Josephine with his father&rsquo;s sword,
+      and with all the glowing sentiments of thankfulness he related to her how
+      kindly and obligingly General Bonaparte had received him, what friendly
+      and affectionate words he had spoken to him, and how much forbearance and
+      patience he had manifested to his impassioned request.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Josephine&rsquo;s maternal heart was sensitive and grateful for every expression
+      of sympathy toward her son, and the goodness and forbearance of the
+      general affected her the more, that she knew how bold and wild the boy,
+      smarting under pain, must have been. She therefore hastened to perform a
+      duty of politeness by calling the next day on General Bonaparte, to thank
+      him for the kindness he had shown Eugene.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For the first time General Bonaparte stood in the presence of the woman
+      who one day was to share his fame and greatness, and this first moment was
+      decisive as to his and her future. Josephine&rsquo;s grace and elegance, her
+      sweetness of disposition, her genial cheerfulness, the expression of lofty
+      womanhood which permeated her whole being, and which protected her
+      securely from any rough intrusion or familiarity; her fine, truly
+      aristocratic bearing, which revealed at once a lady of the court and of
+      the great world; her whole graceful and beautiful appearance captivated
+      the heart of Napoleon at the first interview, and the very next day after
+      receiving her short call he hastened to return it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Josephine was not alone when General Bonaparte was announced; and when the
+      servant named him she could not suppress an inward fear, without knowing
+      why she was afraid. Her friends, who noticed her tremor and blush, laughed
+      jestingly at the timidity which made her tremble at the name of the
+      conqueror of Paris, and this was, perhaps, the reason why Josephine
+      received General Bonaparte with less complacency than she generally showed
+      to her visitors.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Amid the general silence of all those present the young general
+      (twenty-six years old) entered the drawing-room of the Viscountess de
+      Beauharnais; and this silence, however flattering it might be to his
+      pride, caused him a slight embarrassment. He therefore approached the
+      beautiful widow with a certain abrupt and perplexed manner, and spoke to
+      her in that hasty, imperious tone which might become a general, but which
+      did not seem appropriate in a lady&rsquo;s saloon. General Pichegru, who stood
+      near Josephine, smiled, and even her amiable countenance was overspread
+      with a slight expression of scorn, as she fixed her beautiful eyes on this
+      pale, thin little man, whose long, smooth hair fell in tangled disorder on
+      either side of his temples over his sallow, hollow cheeks; whose whole
+      sickly and gloomy appearance bore so little resemblance to the majestic
+      figure of the lion to which he had been so often compared after his
+      success of the thirteenth Vendemiaire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I perceive, general,&rdquo; suddenly exclaimed Josephine, &ldquo;that you are sorry
+      it was your duty to fill Paris once more with blood and horror. You would
+      undoubtedly have preferred not to be obliged to carry out the bloody
+      orders of the affrighted Convention?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bonaparte shrugged his shoulders somewhat. &ldquo;That is very possible,&rdquo; said
+      he, perfectly quiet. &ldquo;But what can you expect, madame? We military men are
+      but the automatons which the government sets in motion according to its
+      good pleasure; we know only how to obey; the sections, however, cannot but
+      congratulate themselves that I have spared them so much. Nearly all my
+      cannon were loaded only with powder. I wanted to give a little lesson to
+      the Parisians. The whole affair was nothing but the impress of my seal on
+      France. Such skirmishes are only the vespers of my fame.&rdquo; [Footnote:
+      Napoleon&rsquo;s words.&mdash;See Le Normand, vol. i., p. 214.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Josephine felt irritated, excited by the coldness with which Napoleon
+      spoke of the slaughter of that day; and her eyes, otherwise so full of
+      gentleness, were now animated with flashes of anger.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh,&rdquo; cried she, &ldquo;if you must purchase fame at such a price, I would
+      sooner you were one of the victims!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bonaparte looked at her with astonishment, but as he perceived her flushed
+      cheeks and flashing eyes, the sight of her grace and beauty ravished him,
+      and a soft, pleasant smile suddenly illumined his countenance. He answered
+      her violent attack by a light pleasantry, and with gladsome unaffectedness
+      he gave to the conversation another turn. The small, pale, gloomy general
+      was at once changed into a young, impassioned, amiable cavalier, whose
+      countenance grew beautiful under the sparkling intelligence which animated
+      it, and whose enchanting eloquence made his conversation attractive and
+      lively, carrying with it the conviction of a superior mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After the visitors who had met that morning in Josephine&rsquo;s drawing-room
+      had departed the general still remained, notwithstanding the astonished
+      and questioning looks of the viscountess, paying no attention to her
+      remarks about the fine weather, or her intention to enjoy a promenade.
+      With rapid steps, and hands folded behind his back, he paced a few times
+      to and fro the room, then standing before Josephine he fixed on her face a
+      searching look.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Madame,&rdquo; said he, suddenly, with a kind of rough tone, &ldquo;I have a
+      proposition to make: give me your hand. Be my wife!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Josephine looked at him, half-astonished, half-irritated. &ldquo;Is it a joke
+      you are indulging in?&rdquo; said she.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I speak in all earnestness,&rdquo; said Bonaparte, warmly. &ldquo;Will you do me the
+      honor of giving me your hand?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The gravity with which Bonaparte spoke, the deep earnestness imprinted on
+      his features, convinced Josephine that the general would not condescend to
+      indulge in a joke of so unseemly a character, and a lovely blush
+      overspread the face of the viscountess.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sir,&rdquo; said she, &ldquo;who knows if I might not be inclined to accept your
+      distinguished offer, if, unfortunately, fate stood not in the way of your
+      wishes?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Fate?&rdquo; asked Bonaparte, with animation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, fate! my general,&rdquo; repeated Josephine, smiling. &ldquo;But let us speak no
+      more of this. It is enough that fate forbids me to be the wife of General
+      Bonaparte. I can say no more, for you would laugh at me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you would laugh at me if you could turn me away with so vague an
+      answer,&rdquo; cried Bonaparte, with vivacity. &ldquo;I pray you, explain the meaning
+      of your words.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, then, general, I cannot be your wife, for I am destined to be Queen
+      of France&mdash;yes, perhaps more than queen!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was now Bonaparte&rsquo;s turn to appear astonished and irritated, and using
+      her own words he said, shrugging his shoulders, &ldquo;Madame, is it a joke you
+      are indulging in?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I speak in all earnestness,&rdquo; said Josephine, shaking her head. &ldquo;Listen,
+      then: a negro-woman in Martinique foretold my fortune, and as her oracular
+      words have thus far been all fulfilled, I must conclude that the rest of
+      her prophecies concerning me will be realized.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And what has she prophesied to you?&rdquo; asked Bonaparte, eagerly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She has told me: &lsquo;You will one day be Queen of France! you will be still
+      more than queen!&rsquo;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The general was silent. He had remained standing; but now slowly paced the
+      room a few times, his hands folded on his back and his head inclined on
+      his breast. Then again he stood before the viscountess, and his eyes
+      rested upon her with a wondrous bright and genial expression.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I bid defiance to fate,&rdquo; said he, somewhat solemnly. &ldquo;This prophecy does
+      not frighten me away, and in defiance of your prophetic negro-woman, I,
+      the republican general, address my prayer to the future Queen of France:
+      be my wife!&mdash;give me your hand.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Josephine felt almost affrighted at this pertinacity of the general, and a
+      sentiment of apprehension overcame her as she looked into the pale,
+      decided countenance of this man, a stranger to her, and who claimed her
+      for his wife.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, sir,&rdquo; exclaimed she, with some anguish, &ldquo;you offer me your hand with
+      as much carelessness as if the whole matter were merely for a
+      contra-dance. But I can assure you that marriage is a very grave matter,
+      which has no resemblance whatever to a gay dance. I know it is so. I have
+      had my sad experience, and I cannot so easily decide upon marrying a
+      second time.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You refuse my hand, then?&rdquo; said Bonaparte, with a threatening tone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Josephine smiled. &ldquo;On the contrary, general,&rdquo; said she, &ldquo;give me your hand
+      and accompany me to my carriage, which has been waiting for me this long
+      time.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That means you dismiss me! You close upon me the door of your
+      drawing-room?&rdquo; exclaimed Bonaparte, with warmth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She shook her head, and, bowing before him with her own irresistible
+      grace, she said in a friendly manner: &ldquo;I am too good a patriot not to be
+      proud of seeing the conqueror of Toulon in my drawing-room. To-morrow I
+      have an evening reception, and I invite you to be present, general.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      From this day Bonaparte visited Josephine daily; she was certain to meet
+      him everywhere. At first she sought to avoid him, but he always knew with
+      cunning foresight how to baffle her efforts, and to overcome all
+      difficulties which she threw in his way. Was she at her friend Therese&rsquo;s,
+      she could safely reckon that General Bonaparte would soon make his
+      appearance and come near her with eyes beaming with joy, and in his own
+      energetic language speak to her of his love and hopes. Was she to be
+      present at the receptions of the five monarchs of Paris, it was General
+      Bonaparte who waited for her at the door of the hall to offer his arm, and
+      lead her amid the respectful, retreating, and gently applauding crowd to
+      her seat, where he stood by her, drawing upon her the attention of all.
+      Did she take a drive, at the accustomed hour, in the Champs Elysees, she
+      was confident soon to see General Bonaparte on his gray horse gallop at
+      her side, followed by his brilliant staff, himself the object of public
+      admiration and universal respect; and finally, if she went to the theatre,
+      General Bonaparte never failed to appear in her loge, to remain near her
+      during the performance; and when she left, to offer his arm to accompany
+      her to her carriage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It could not fail that this persevering homage of the renowned and
+      universally admired young general should make a deep and flattering
+      impression on Josephine&rsquo;s heart, and fill her with pride and joy. But
+      Josephine made resistance to this feeling; she endeavored to shield
+      herself from it by maternal love.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She sent for her two children from their respective schools, and with her
+      nearly grown-up son on one side and her daughter budding into maidenhood
+      on the other, she thus presented herself to the general, and with an
+      enchanting smile said: &ldquo;See, general, how old I am, with a grown-up son
+      and daughter who soon can make of me a grandmother.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But Bonaparte with heart-felt emotion reached his hand to Eugene and said,
+      &ldquo;A man who can call so worthy a youth as this his son, is to be envied.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A cunning, smiling expression of the eye revealed to Josephine that he had
+      understood her war-stratagem&mdash;that neither the grown-up son nor the
+      marriageable daughter could deter him from his object.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Josephine at last was won by so much love and tenderness, but she could
+      not yet acknowledge that the wounds of her heart were closed; that once
+      more she could trust in happiness, and devote her life to a new love, to a
+      new future. She shrank timidly away from such a shaping of her destiny;
+      and even the persuasions of her friends and relatives, even of the father
+      of her deceased husband, could not bring her to a decision.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The state of her mind is depicted in a letter which Josephine wrote to her
+      friend Madame de Chateau Renaud, and which describes in a great measure
+      the strange uncertainty of her heart:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have seen General Bonaparte at my house! Well, then, he is the one
+      who wishes to be the father of the orphans of Alexandre de Beauharnais and
+      the husband of his widow. &lsquo;Do you love him?&rsquo; you will ask. Well, no!&mdash;&lsquo;Do
+      you feel any repugnance toward him?&rsquo; No, but I feel in a state of
+      vacillation and doubt, a state very disagreeable to me, and which the
+      devout in religious matters consider to be the most scandalizing. As love
+      is a kind of worship, one ought in its presence to feel animated by other
+      feelings than those I now experience, and therefore I long for your
+      advice, which might bring the constant indecision of my mind to a fixed
+      conclusion. To adopt a firm course has always appeared to my Creole
+      nonchalance something beyond reach, and I find it infinitely more
+      convenient to be led by the will of another.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I admire the courage of the general; I am surprised at his ample
+      knowledge, which enables him to speak fluently on every subject; at the
+      vivacity of his genius, which enables him to guess at the thoughts of
+      others before they are expressed; but I avow, I am frightened at the power
+      he seems to exercise over every one who comes near him. His searching look
+      has something strange, which I cannot explain, but which has a controlling
+      influence even upon our directors; judge, therefore, of his influence over
+      a woman. Finally, the very thing which might please&mdash;the violence of
+      his passion&mdash;of which he speaks with so much energy, and which admits
+      of no doubt, that passion is exactly what creates in me the unwillingness
+      I have so often been ready to express.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The first bloom of youth lies behind me. Can I therefore hope that this
+      passion, which in General Bonaparte resembles an attack of madness, will
+      last long? If after our union he should cease to love me, would he not
+      reproach me for what he had done? Would he not regret that he had not made
+      another and more brilliant union? What could I then answer? What could I
+      do? I could weep. &lsquo;A splendid remedy!&rsquo; I hear you say. I know well that
+      weeping is useless, but to weep has been the only resource which I could
+      find when my poor heart, so easily wounded, has been hurt. Write to me a
+      long letter, and do not fear to scold me if you think that I am wrong. You
+      know well that everything which comes from you is agreeable to me.&rdquo;
+       [Footnote: &ldquo;Memoires sur l&rsquo;Imperatrice Josephine,&rdquo; par Madame Ducrest p.
+      362.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While Josephine was writing this letter to her friend, General Bonaparte
+      received one which produced upon him the deepest impression, though it
+      consisted only of a few words. But these words expressed the innermost
+      thought of his soul, and revealed to him perhaps for the first time its
+      secret wishes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One evening as the general, returning home from a visit to the Viscountess
+      Josephine, entered into his drawing-room, followed by some of his officers
+      and adjutants, he observed on a large timepiece, which stood on the
+      mantel-piece, a letter, the deep-red paper and black seal of which
+      attracted his attention.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Whence this letter?&rdquo; asked he, with animation, of the servant-man walking
+      before him with a silver candlestick, as he pointed to the red envelope.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the waiter declared that he had not seen the letter, and that he knew
+      not where it came from.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ask the other servants, or the porter, who brought this red letter with
+      the black seal,&rdquo; ordered Bonaparte.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The servant hurried from the room, but soon returned, with the news that
+      no one knew any thing about the letter; no one had seen it, no one knew
+      who had placed it there.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, then, let us see what it contains,&rdquo; said Bonaparte, and he was
+      going to break the seal, when Junot suddenly seized his hand and tore the
+      letter away from him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do not read it, general,&rdquo; implored Junot; &ldquo;I beseech you do not open this
+      letter. Who knows if some of your enemies have not sent you a letter a la
+      Catharine de Medicis? Who knows if it is not poisoned&mdash;that the mere
+      touch of it may not produce death?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bonaparte smiled at this solicitude of his tender friend, yet he listened
+      to his pressing alarms, and, instead of opening and reading the letter, he
+      passed it to Junot.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Read it yourself, if you have the courage to do so,&rdquo; said be, familiarly
+      shaking his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Junot rapidly broke the black seal and tore the red paper. Then, fixing
+      his eyes on it, he threw it aside, and broke into loud, merry laughter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; asked Bonaparte, &ldquo;what does the letter contain?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A mystery, my general&mdash;nothing more than a mystery,&rdquo; cried Junot,
+      presenting the letter to Bonaparte.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The letter contained but these words:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Macbeth, you will be king.
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      &ldquo;THE RED MAN.&rdquo;
+     </h3>
+    <p>
+      Junot laughed over this mysterious note, but Bonaparte shared not in his
+      merriment. With compressed lips and frowning brow he looked at these
+      strange, prophetic words, as if in their characters he wanted to discover
+      the features of him who had dared to look into the most hidden recesses of
+      his soul; then he threw the paper into the chimney-fire, and slowly and
+      thoughtfully paced the room, while in a low voice he murmured, &ldquo;Macbeth,
+      you will be king.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0023" id="link2HCH0023"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXIII. MARRIAGE.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      At last the conqueror of Toulon conquered also the heart of the young
+      widow who had so anxiously struggled against him; at last Josephine
+      overcame all her fears, all her terror, and, with joyous trust in the
+      future, was betrothed to General Bonaparte. But even then, after having
+      taken this decisive step, after love had cast away fear, even then she had
+      not the courage to reveal to her children that she had contracted a new
+      marriage-tie, that she was going to give to the orphans of the Viscount de
+      Beauharnais a new father. Ashamed and timid as a young maid, she could not
+      force herself into acknowledging to the children of her deceased husband
+      that a new love had grown in her heart&mdash;that the mourning widow was
+      to become again a happy woman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Josephine, therefore, commissioned Madame de Campan to communicate this
+      news to her Eugene and Hortense; to tell them that she desired not only to
+      have a husband, but also to give to her children a faithful, loving
+      father, who had promised to their mother with sacred oaths to regard,
+      love, and protect them as his own children.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The children of General Beauharnais received this news with tears in their
+      eyes; they complained loudly and sorrowfully that their mother was giving
+      up the name of their father and changing it for another; that the memory
+      of their father would be forever lost in their mother&rsquo;s heart. But,
+      through pure love for their mother, they soon dried up these tears; and
+      when next day Josephine, accompanied by General Bonaparte, came to St.
+      Germain, to visit Madame de Campan&rsquo;s institution, she met there her
+      daughter and son, who both embraced her with the most tender affection,
+      and, smiling under their tears, offered their hands to General Bonaparte,
+      who, with all the sincerity and honesty of a deep, heart-felt emotion,
+      embraced them in his arms, and solemnly promised to treat them as a father
+      and a friend.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All Josephine&rsquo;s friends did not gladly give their approbation to her
+      marriage with this small, insignificant general, as yet so little known,
+      whose success before Toulon was already forgotten, and whose victory of
+      the thirteenth Vendemiaire had brought him but little fame and made him
+      many enemies.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Among the friends who in this union with Bonaparte saw very little
+      happiness for Josephine was her lawyer, the advocate Ragideau, who for
+      many years had been her family&rsquo;s agent, whose distinguished talent for
+      pleading and whose small figure had made him known through all Paris, and
+      of whom it was said that as a man he was but a dwarf; but as a lawyer, he
+      was a giant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One day, in virtue of an invitation from the Viscountess de Beauharnais,
+      Ragideau came to the small hotel of the rue Chautereine, and sent his name
+      to the viscountess. She received his visit, and at his entrance into her
+      cabinet all those present retreated into the drawing-room contiguous
+      thereto, as they well knew that Josephine had some business transactions
+      with her lawyer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Only one small, pale man, in modest gray clothing, whom Ragideau did not
+      condescend to notice, remained in the cabinet, who retired quietly within
+      the recess of a window.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Josephine received her business agent with a friendly smile, and spoke
+      long and in detail with him concerning a few important transactions which
+      had reference to her approaching marriage. Then suddenly passing from the
+      coldness of a business conversation to the tone of a friendly one, she
+      asked M. Ragideau what the world said of her second marriage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ragideau shrugged his shoulders and assumed a thoughtful attitude. &ldquo;Your
+      friends, madame,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;see with sorrow that you are going to marry a
+      soldier, who is younger than yourself, who possesses nothing but his
+      salary, and therefore cannot leave the service; or, if he is killed in
+      battle, leaves you perhaps with children, and without an inheritance.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you share the opinion of my friends, my dear M. Ragidean?&rdquo; asked
+      Josephine, smiling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said the lawyer, earnestly, &ldquo;yes, I share them&mdash;yes. I am not
+      satisfied that you should contract such a marriage. You are rich, madame;
+      you possess a capital which secures you a yearly income of twenty-five
+      thousand francs; with such an income you had claims to a brilliant
+      marriage; and I feel conscientiously obliged, as your friend and business
+      agent, in whom you have trusted, and who has for you the deepest interest,
+      to earnestly remonstrate with you while there is yet time. Consider it
+      well, viscountess; it is a reckless step you are taking, and I entreat you
+      not to do it. I speak to your own advantage. General Bonaparte may be a
+      very good man, possibly quite a distinguished soldier, but certain it is
+      he has only his hat and his sword to offer you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Josephine now broke into a joyous laugh, and her beaming eyes turned to
+      the young man there who, with his back turned to the party, stood at the
+      window beating the panes with his fingers, apparently heedless of their
+      conversation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;General,&rdquo; cried out Josephine, cheerfully, &ldquo;have you heard what M.
+      Ragideau says?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bonaparte turned slowly round, and his large eyes fell with a flaming look
+      upon the little advocate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said he, gravely, &ldquo;I have heard all. M. Ragideau has spoken as an
+      honest man, and every thing he has said fills me with esteem for him. I
+      trust he will continue to be our agent, for I feel inclined to give him
+      full confidence.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He bowed kindly to the little lawyer, who stood there bewildered and
+      ashamed, and, offering his arm to Josephine, Bonaparte led her into the
+      drawing-room. [Footnote: The little advocate Ragideau remained after this
+      Josephine&rsquo;s agent. When Bonaparte had become emperor, he appointed
+      Ragideau notary of the civil list, and always manifested the greatest
+      interest in his behalf, and never by a word or a look did he remind him of
+      the strange circumstance which brought about their acquaintance.&mdash;See
+      Meneval. &ldquo;Napoleon et Marie Louise,&rdquo; vol. i., p. 202.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The decisive word had been spoken: Josephine de Beauharnais was now the
+      bride of General Bonaparte. His hitherto pale, gloomy countenance was all
+      radiant with the bright light of love and happiness. The days of solitude
+      and privations were forgotten; the young, beautiful Desiree Clary, whom
+      Bonaparte so much loved a few months ago, and the amiable Madame Permont,
+      were also forgotten (and yet to the latter, in her loge at the theatre, as
+      a farce between acts, he had offered his hand); all the little
+      love-intrigues of former days were forgotten; to Josephine alone belonged
+      his heart, her alone he loved with all the impassioned glow and depth of a
+      first exclusive love.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But yet, now and then, clouds darkened his large pensive brow; even her
+      smile could not always illumine the gloomy expression on his features; it
+      would happen that, plunged in deep, sad cogitations, he heard not the
+      question which she addressed him in her remarkably soft and clear voice
+      which Bonaparte so much loved.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His lofty pride felt humiliated and disgraced by the part he was now
+      performing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was the general of the army of the interior, but beyond the frontiers
+      of France there stood another French army, whose soldiers had not the sad
+      mission to maintain peace and quietness at home, to fight against
+      brothers; but an army seeking for the foe, whose blood and victories were
+      to secure them laurels.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      General Bonaparte longed to be with this army, and to obliterate the
+      remembrance of the 13th Vendemiaire and its sad victory by brilliant
+      exploits beyond the Alps. It was also to him a humiliating and depressing
+      feeling to become the husband of a wealthy woman, and not bring her as a
+      glorious gift or a wedding-present the fame and laurels of a husband.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It has often been said that Josephine obtained for her husband, as a
+      wedding-gift, his appointment of commanding general of the army in Italy;
+      that she procured this appointment from Barras, with whom, before her
+      acquaintance with Bonaparte, she had been in closer relationship than that
+      of mere friendship. Even such historians as Schlosser have accepted this
+      calumny as truth, without taking pains to investigate whether the facts
+      justified this supposition. In the great historical events which have
+      shaken nations, it is really of little importance if, under the light
+      which illumines and brings out such events, a shadow should fall and
+      darken an individual. Even the hatred and scorn with which a nation,
+      trodden down in the dust, curses a tyrant, and endeavors to take vengeance
+      on his fame, ask not if the stone flung at the hated one falls upon other
+      heads than the one aimed at.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Not Josephine, but Bonaparte, did they wish to injure when stating she had
+      been the beloved of Barras. It was Bonaparte whom they wished to humble
+      and mortify, when historians published that, not to his merits, but to the
+      petitions of his wife, he was indebted for his commission as general of
+      the army in Italy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But truth justifies not this calumny; and when with the light of truth the
+      path of the widow of General Beauharnais is lighted, it will be found that
+      this path led to solitude and quietness; that at none of the great and
+      brilliant banquets which Barras then gave, and which in the Moniteur are
+      described with so much pomp, not once is, the name of Viscountess de
+      Beauharnais mentioned; that in the numerous pasquinades and lampoons which
+      then appeared in Paris and in all France, and in which all private life
+      was fathomed, not once is the name of Josephine brought out, neither is
+      there any indirect allusion to her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Calumny has placed this stain on Josephine&rsquo;s brow, but truth takes it
+      away. And that truth is, that not Josephine, but Bonaparte, was the friend
+      of Barras; that it was not Barras, but Carnot, who promoted Bonaparte to
+      the rank of commanding general of the army in Italy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Carnot, the minister of war of the republic, the noble, incorruptible
+      republican, whose character, pure, bright, and true as steel, turned aside
+      all the darts of wickedness and calumny, which could not inflict even a
+      wound, or leave a stain on the brilliancy of his spotless character, has
+      given upon this point his testimony in a refutation. At a later period,
+      when the hatred of parties, and the events of the 18th Fructidor, had
+      forced him to flee from France, he defended himself against the accusation
+      launched at him in the Council of the Five Hundred, which pointed him out
+      as a traitor to the republic; and this defence gave a detailed account of
+      the whole time of his administration, and especially what he achieved for
+      the republic, claiming as one of his services the appointment of
+      Bonaparte.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is not true,&rdquo; says he, &ldquo;that Barras proposed Bonaparte for the chief
+      command of the army in Italy. I myself did it. But time was allowed to
+      intervene, so as to ascertain whether Bonaparte would succeed before
+      Barras congratulated himself, and then only to his confidants, that it was
+      he who had made this proposition to the Directory. Had Bonaparte not
+      answered the expectations, then I should have been the one to blame: then
+      it would have been I who had chosen a young, inexperienced, intriguing
+      man; and I who had betrayed the nation, for the other members did not
+      interfere in war-matters; upon me all responsibility would have fallen.
+      But as Bonaparte is victorious, then it must be Barras who appointed him!
+      To Barras alone are the people indebted for this nomination! He is
+      Bonaparte&rsquo;s protector, his defender against my attacks! I am jealous of
+      Bonaparte; I cross him in all his plans; I lower his character; I
+      persecute him; I refuse him all assistance; I, in all probability, am to
+      plunge him into ruin!&rdquo;&mdash;such were the calumnies which at that time
+      filled the journals bribed by Barras. [Footnote: &ldquo;Response de L. N. M.
+      Carnot, citoyen francais, l&rsquo;un des fondateurs de la republique, et membre
+      constitutionnel du Directoire executif an rapport fait sur la conjuration
+      du 18 Fructidor an conseil des Cinq Cents.&rdquo;]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To Carnot, the secretary of war of the republic, did Bonaparte go, to ask
+      of him the command of the army in Italy. But Carnot answered him, as he
+      had already before Aubry, the minister of war, &ldquo;You are too young.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let us put appearances and age aside,&rdquo; said Bonaparte, impatiently.
+      &ldquo;Alexander, Scipio, Conde, and many others, though still younger than I,
+      marched armies to brilliant conquests, and decided the fate of whole
+      kingdoms. I believe I have given a few proofs of what I can achieve, if I
+      am set at the right place; and I burn with great longing to serve my
+      country, to obtain victories over despots who hate France because they
+      fear, calumniate, and envy her!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know you are a good patriot,&rdquo; said Carnot, slowly turning his head; &ldquo;I
+      know and appreciate your services, and you may rest assured that the
+      obstacles which I place in your path are not directed against you
+      personally. But do you know the situation of our army? It is devoured by
+      the quartermaster; betrayed and sold, I fear, by its general, and
+      demoralized, notwithstanding its successes! That army needs every thing,
+      even discipline, whilst the enemy&rsquo;s army has all that we need. We want
+      nearly a miracle to be victorious. Whoever is to lead to success our
+      disordered, famished, disorganized army must, above all things, possess
+      its full confidence. Besides which, without further events, I cannot
+      dismiss the commanding general, Scherer, but I must wait until some new
+      disgrace furnishes me the right to do so. You know all. Judge for
+      yourself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have already made all these objections within my own mind,&rdquo; replied
+      Bonaparte, quietly; &ldquo;yet I do not despair that if you will give me your
+      advice and assistance, I will overcome all these difficulties. Listen to
+      me, and I will let you know my plan for the arrangement of the war, and I
+      am convinced you will give it your sanction.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      With glowing eloquence, complete clearness and assurance, and the
+      convincing quietude of a persuaded, all-embracing, all-weighing mind,
+      Bonaparte unfolded the daring and astounding plan of his campaign. As he
+      spoke, his face brightened more and more, his eyes glowed with the fire of
+      inspiration, his countenance beamed with that exalted, wondrous beauty
+      which is granted to genius alone in the highest moments of its ecstasy;
+      the small, insignificant, pale young man became the bold, daring hero, who
+      was fully prepared gladly to tread a world under his feet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Carnot, who had looked on in astonishment, was finally carried away,
+      inspired by the persuasive eloquence of the young general, who in a few
+      words understood how to map out battle-fields, to measure whole
+      engagements, and to give to every one the needful and appropriate place.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are right,&rdquo; cried Carnot, delighted, and offering his hand to
+      Bonaparte. &ldquo;This plan must be carried out, and then we shall conquer our
+      enemies. I no longer doubt of the result, and from this moment you can
+      rely upon me. You shall be commander-in-chief of the army in Italy. I will
+      myself propose you to the Directory, and I will so warmly speak in your
+      favor, that my request will be granted.&rdquo; [Footnote: &ldquo;Memoires historiques
+      et militaires, sur Carnot,&rdquo; vol. ii.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On this day the face of General Bonaparte was irradiated with a still
+      deeper lustre than when Josephine avowed that his love was returned, and
+      when she consented to be his.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Josephine&rsquo;s affianced, in the depths of his heart, retained a deep,
+      unfulfilled desire, an unreached aim of his existence. The commanding
+      general of the army in Italy had nothing more to wish, or to long for; he
+      now stood at hope&rsquo;s summit, and saw before him the brilliant, glorious
+      goal of ambition toward which the path lay open before him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Love alone could not satisfy the heart of Napoleon; the larger portion of
+      it belonged to ambition&mdash;to the lust for a warrior&rsquo;s fame.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am going to live only for the future,&rdquo; said Bonaparte, that day, to
+      Junot, as he related to him the successful result of his interview with
+      Carnot. &ldquo;None of you know me yet, but you will soon. You will see what I
+      can do: I feel within me something which urges me onward. Too long has the
+      war been limited to a single district; I will take it into the heart of
+      the continent, I will bring it on fresh soil, and so carry it out that the
+      men of habit will lose their footing, and the old officers their heads, so
+      that they will no more know where they are. The soldiers will see what one
+      man, with a will of iron, can accomplish. All this I will do&mdash;and
+      from this day I strike out from the dictionary the word &lsquo;impossible!&rsquo;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Carnot was true to his word. On the 23d day of February, 1796, Bonaparte
+      was appointed by the Directory commander-in-chief of the army of Italy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From the face of the young general beamed forth the smile of victory; he
+      was now certain of the future! He now knew that to his Josephine he could
+      offer more than a hat and a sword, that he would bring her undying fame
+      and victory&rsquo;s brilliant crown. This was to be the dowry before which the
+      twenty-five thousand francs&rsquo; yearly income, which the little giant
+      Ragideau had so highly prized, would fall into the background.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the 9th of March the marriage between General Bonaparte and the widow
+      Viscountess Josephine de Beauharnais took place. Barras, as member of the
+      government, was Bonaparte&rsquo;s first witness; his second was Captain
+      Lemarrois, his adjutant; and the choice of this witness was a delicate
+      homage which Napoleon paid to his dear Josephine: for Lemarrois was the
+      one who had first led the boy Eugene to Bonaparte, and had thus been the
+      means of his acquaintance with Josephine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The two witnesses of Josephine were Tallien, who had delivered her from
+      prison, and to whom she owed the restoration of her property, and a M.
+      Calmelet, an old friend and counsellor of the Beauharnais family.
+      [Footnote: &ldquo;Souvenirs historiques du Baron de Meneval,&rdquo; vol. i., p. 340.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the pure modesty of her heart, Josephine had not desired that the two
+      children of her deceased husband should be the witnesses of her second
+      marriage, and Bonaparte was glad that Josephine&rsquo;s bridal wreath would not
+      be bedewed with the tears of memory.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On this happy day of Bonaparte&rsquo;s marriage, so much of the past was set
+      aside, that the certificate of baptism of the betrothed was forgotten, and
+      the number of years which made Josephine older than Bonaparte was struck
+      out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The civil record, which M. Leclerc received of the marriage of Bonaparte
+      and Josephine, describes them as being nearly of the same age, for it ran
+      thus: &ldquo;Napoleon Bonaparte, born in Ajaccio, on the 5th of February, 1768;
+      and Marie Josephe Rosa Tascher de la Pagerie, born in Martinique, the 23d
+      of June, 1767.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bonaparte&rsquo;s glowing and impassioned love led him&mdash;in order to spare
+      his Josephine the smallest, degree of humiliation&mdash;to alter and
+      destroy the dates of the certificate of their baptism; for Bonaparte was
+      born on the 15th of August, 1769, and Josephine on the 23d of June, 1763.
+      She was consequently six years older than he; but she knew not that these
+      six years would, one day, be the abyss which was to swallow her happiness,
+      her love, her grandeur.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Two days after his marriage with Josephine, Bonaparte left Paris for the
+      army, to travel in haste, an uninterrupted journey toward Italy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I must hasten to my post,&rdquo; said he smiling to Josephine, &ldquo;for an army
+      without a chief is like a widow who can commit foolish deeds and endanger
+      her reputation. I am responsible for the army&rsquo;s conduct from the moment of
+      my appointment.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0024" id="link2HCH0024"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXIV. BONAPARTE&rsquo;S LOVE-LETTERS.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Carnot had told Bonaparte the truth concerning the state of the army in
+      Italy. His statements were sustained by the proclamation which the new
+      commander-in-chief of the army in Italy addressed to his soldiers, as for
+      the first time he welcomed them at Nice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Soldiers,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;you are naked and badly fed; the government owes you
+      much, and can give you nothing. Your patience and the courage you have
+      exhibited amid these rocks are worthy of admiration; but you gain no fame:
+      no glory falls upon you here. I will lead you into the fertile plains of
+      the world; rich provinces and large cities will fall into your power;
+      there you will find honor, fame, and abundance. Soldiers of Italy, would
+      you fail in courage and perseverance?&rdquo; [Footnote: Norvins, &ldquo;Histoire de
+      Napoleon,&rdquo; vol. i., p. 89.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The mangled, ragged, half-starved soldiers answered with loud enthusiastic
+      shouts. When the vivats had died away, an old veteran came out of the
+      ranks, and with countenance half-defiant, half-smiling, looking at the
+      little general, he asked: &ldquo;General, what must we do that the roasted
+      partridges, which are promised to us, may fly into our mouths?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Conquer,&rdquo; cried Bonaparte, with a loud resounding voice&mdash;&ldquo;conquer!
+      To the brave, glory and good repasts! To the coward, disgrace! To the
+      faint-hearted, misery! I will lead you into the path of victory. Will you
+      follow?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We will, we will!&rdquo; shouted the soldiers. &ldquo;Long live the little general
+      who is to deliver us from our wretchedness, who is to lead us into
+      victory&rsquo;s path!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bonaparte kept his word. He led them to Voltri, to the bridge of Arcola,
+      to Lodi. But amid his wild career of fights, hardships, vigils, studies,
+      and perils, the thought of Josephine was the guiding star of his heart.
+      His mind was with her amid the battle&rsquo;s storm; he thought of her in the
+      camp, on the march, in the greatest conflict, and after the most brilliant
+      victories. This was shown in the letters he wrote every day to Josephine;
+      and in the brilliant hymns which the warrior, amid the carnage of war,
+      sung with the enthusiastic fervor of a poet to his love and to his
+      happiness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is the mission of eminent historians, when describing his victorious
+      campaign of Italy, to narrate his conquests; our mission is simply to
+      observe him in his conduct toward Josephine, and to show how under the
+      uniform of the warrior beat the heart of the lover.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The letters which Bonaparte then wrote to Josephine are consequently what
+      concerns us most, and from which we will select a few as a proof of the
+      impassioned love which Napoleon felt for his young wife.
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      LETTERS OF GENERAL BONAPARTE TO JOSEPHINE.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      I. &ldquo;PORT MAURICE, the 14th Germinal (April 3), 1796.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have received all your letters, but none has made so much impression on
+      me as the last one. How can you, my adored friend, speak to me in that
+      way? Do you not believe that my situation here is already horrible enough,
+      without your exciting my longings, and still more setting my soul in
+      rebellion? What a style! what emotions you describe! They glow like fire,
+      they burn my poor heart! My own Josephine, away from you, there is no joy;
+      away from you, the world is a wilderness in which I feel alone, and have
+      no one in whom I can confide. You have taken from me more than my soul;
+      you are the only thought of my life. When I feel weary with the burden of
+      affairs, when I dread some inauspicious result, when men oppose me, when I
+      am ready to curse life itself, I place my hand upon my heart, your image
+      beats there; I gaze on it, and love is for me absolute bliss, and
+      everything smiles except when I am away from my beloved.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;By what art have you been able to enchain all my powers, and to
+      concentrate in yourself all my mental existence? It is an enchantment, my
+      dear friend, which is to end only with my life. To live for Josephine,
+      such is the history of my life! I am working to return to you, I am dying
+      to approach you! Fool that I am, I see not that I am more and more
+      drifting away from you! How much space, how many mountains separate us!
+      how long before you can read these words, the feeble expression of a
+      throbbing soul in which you rule! Ah, my adored wife, I know not what
+      future awaits me, but if it keeps me much longer away from you, it will be
+      intolerable; my courage reaches not that far. There was a time when I was
+      proud of my reputation; and sometimes when I cast my eyes on the wrong
+      which men could have done me, on the fate which Providence might have in
+      reserve for me, I prepared myself for the most unheard-of adversities
+      without wrinkling the brow or suffering fear; but now the thought that my
+      Josephine should be uncomfortable, or sick, or, above all, the cruel,
+      horrible thought that she might love me less, makes my soul tremble, and
+      my blood to remain still, bringing on sadness, despondency, and taking
+      away even the courage of anger and despair. In times past I used to say,
+      &lsquo;Men have no power over him who dies without regret.&rsquo; But now to die
+      without being loved by you, to die without the certainty of being loved,
+      is for me the pains of hell, the living, fearful feeling of complete
+      annihilation. It is as if I were going to suffocate! My own companion, you
+      whom fate has given me, to make life&rsquo;s painful journey, the day when no
+      more I can call your heart mine, when nature will be for me without
+      warmth, without vitality. ... I will give way, my sweet friend (ma douce
+      amie); my soul is sorrowful, my body languishes; men weary me. I have a
+      good right to detest them, for they keep me away from my heart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am now in Port Maurice, near to Oneglia; to-morrow I go to Albenga.
+      Both armies are moving forward; we are endeavoring to deceive each other.
+      Victory belongs to the swiftest. I am well satisfied with General
+      Beaulieu, he manoeuvres well; he is a stronger man than his predecessor. I
+      trust to beat him soundly. Be without care; love me as your eyes; but no,
+      that is not enough, as yourself, more than yourself, as your thoughts, as
+      your spirit, your life, your all! Sweet friend, pardon me; I am beyond
+      myself; nature is too weak for him who feels with passion, for him whom
+      you love.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To Barras, Sucy, Madame Tallien, my heart-felt friendship; to Madame
+      Chateau Renaud, kindest regards; for Eugene and Hortense, my true love. N.
+      B.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      II. &ldquo;ALBENGA, the 18th Germinal (April 7), 1796 [Footnote: The three
+      following letters have never been published until recently, and are not to
+      be found in any collection of letters from Napoleon and Josephine, not
+      even among those published by Queen Hortense: &ldquo;Lettres de Napoleon a
+      Josephine, et de Josephine a Napoleon.&rdquo; They are published for the first
+      time in the &ldquo;Histoire de l&rsquo;Imperatrice Josephine,&rdquo; by Aubenas, and were
+      communicated to this author in Napoleon&rsquo;s manuscript by the well-known and
+      famous gatherer of autographs, Feuillet de Couches.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have just now received your letter, which you break off, as you say, to
+      go to the country; and then, you assume a tone as if you were envious of
+      me, who am here nearly overwhelmed by affairs and by exertion! Ah, my dear
+      friend, ... it is true, I am wrong. In the spring it is so pleasant in the
+      country; and then the beloved one of eighteen years will be so happy
+      there; how would it be possible to lose one moment for the sake of writing
+      to him who is three hundred miles away from you, who lives, breathes,
+      exists only in remembering you, who reads your letters as a man, after
+      hunting for six hours, devours a meal he is fond of.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am satisfied. Your last letter is cold, like friendship. I have not
+      found in it the fire which glows in your eyes, the fire which I have at
+      least imagined to be there. So far runs my fancy. I found that your first
+      letters oppressed my soul too much; the revolution which they created in
+      me disturbed my peace and bewildered my senses. I wanted letters more
+      cold, and now they bring on me the chill of death. The fear of being no
+      more loved by Josephine&mdash;the thought of having her inconstant&mdash;of
+      seeing her ... But I martyrize myself with anguish! There is enough in the
+      reality, without imagining any more! You cannot have inspired me with this
+      immeasurable love without sharing it; and with such a soul, such thoughts,
+      such an understanding as you possess, it is impossible that, as a reward
+      for the most glowing attachment and devotion, you should return a mortal
+      blow. ...
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You say nothing of your bodily sufferings; they have my regret. Farewell
+      till to-morrow, mio dolce amor. From my own wife a thought&mdash;and from
+      fate a victory; these are all my wishes: one sole, undivided thought from
+      you, worthy of him who every moment thinks of you.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My brother is here. He has heard of my marriage with pleasure. He longs
+      to become acquainted with you. I am endeavoring to persuade him to go to
+      Paris, His wife has recently given birth to a daughter. They send you a
+      box of bonbons from Genoa as a present. You will receive oranges,
+      perfumes, and water of orange-flowers, which I send you. Junot and Murat
+      send their best wishes.
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      &ldquo;N. B.&rdquo;
+     </h3>
+    <p>
+      The victory which Bonaparte implored from his destiny was soon to take
+      place; and the battle of Mondovi, which followed the capitulation of
+      Cherasco, made Bonaparte master of Piedmont and of the passes of the Alps.
+      He sent his brother Joseph to Paris, to lay before the Directory pressing
+      considerations concerning the necessity and importance of concluding a
+      permanent peace with the King of Sardinia, so as to isolate Austria
+      entirely in Italy. At the same time Junot was to take to the Directory the
+      conquered standards. Joseph and Junot travelled together from Nice by
+      means of post-horses, and they made so rapid a journey that in one hundred
+      and twenty hours they reached Paris.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The victor&rsquo;s messengers and the conquered flags were received in Paris
+      with shouts of rapture, and with a glowing enthusiasm for General
+      Bonaparte. His name was on every tongue. In the streets and on the squares
+      crowds gathered together to talk of the glorious news, and to shout their
+      acclamations to the brave army and its general. Even the Directory, the
+      five monarchs of France, shared the universal joy and enthusiasm. They
+      received Joseph and Junot with affable complacency, and communicated to
+      the army and to its general public eulogies. In honor of the messengers
+      who had brought the standards and the propositions of peace, they gave a
+      brilliant banquet; and Carnot, proud of having been the one who had
+      brought about Bonaparte&rsquo;s appointment, went so far in his enthusiasm as at
+      the close of the banquet to tear his garments open and exhibit to the
+      assembled guests Napoleon&rsquo;s portrait which he carried on his breast.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tell your brother,&rdquo; cried he to Joseph, &ldquo;that I carry him here on my
+      heart, for I foresee he will be the deliverer of France, and therefore he
+      must know that in the Directory he has only admirers and friends.&rdquo;
+       [Footnote: &ldquo;Memoires du Roi Joseph,&rdquo; vol. i., p. 62.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But something else, more glorious than these salutations of love from
+      France and from the Directory, was to be brought back by his messengers to
+      the victorious commander-his wife, his Josephine; he claimed her as the
+      reward of battles won. Joseph was not only the messenger of the general,
+      he was also the messenger of the lover; and before delivering his papers
+      to the Directory, he had first, as Bonaparte had ordered him, to deliver
+      to Josephine his letter which called her to Milan. Napoleon had thus
+      written to her:
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      III. &ldquo;TO MY SWEET FRIEND!
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;CAEN, the 3rd Floreal (May 24), 1796.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My brother will hand you this letter. I cherish for him the most intimate
+      friendship. I trust he will also gain your affection. He deserves it.
+      Nature has gifted him with a tender and inexhaustibly good character; he
+      is full of rare qualities. I write to Barras to have him appointed consul
+      to some Italian port. He desires to live with his little wife away from
+      the world&rsquo;s great stream of events. I recommend him to you.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have received your letters of the 16th and of the 21st. You have indeed
+      for many days forgotten to write. What, then, are you doing? Yes, my dear
+      friend, I am not exactly jealous, but I am sometimes uneasy. Hasten, then,
+      for I tell you beforehand that if you delay I shall be sick. So great
+      exertion, combined with your absence, is too much.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your letters are the joys of my days, and my happy days are not too many.
+      Junot takes to Paris twenty-two standards. You will come back with him,
+      will you not? .... Misery without remedy, sorrow without comfort,
+      unmitigated anguish, will be my portion if it is my misfortune to see him
+      come back alone, my own adored wife! He will see you, he will breathe at
+      your shrine, and perhaps you will even grant him the special and
+      unsurpassed privilege of kissing your cheeks, and I, I will be far, far
+      away! You will come here, at my side, to my heart, in my arms! Take wings,
+      come, come! Yet, journey slowly; the road is long, bad, fatiguing! If your
+      carriage were to upset, if some calamity were to happen, if the exertion.
+      ... Set out at once, my beloved one, but travel slowly!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have received a letter from Hortense, a very acceptable one indeed. I
+      am going to answer it. I love her much, and will soon send her the
+      perfumes she desires. N. B.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But Josephine could not meet at once the ardent wishes of her husband. She
+      had, on the receipt of his letter, made with Joseph all the necessary
+      preparations for the journey; but the ailment which had so long troubled
+      her, broke out, and a violent illness prostrated her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bonaparte&rsquo;s suffering and anger at this news were unbounded; a terrible
+      restlessness and anxiety took possession of him, and, to obtain speedy and
+      reliable news from Josephine, he sent from Milan to Paris a special
+      courier, whose only business it was to carry a letter to Josephine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The general had nothing to communicate to the Directory; it was only the
+      lover writing to his beloved! What fire, what energy of passion,
+      penetrated him, is evident from the following letter:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      IV. &ldquo;TORTONA, at noon, the 27th Prairial,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In the Year IV. of the Republic (15th June, 1796).
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To Josephine: My life is a ceaseless Alpine burden. An oppressive
+      foreboding prevents me from breathing. I live no more, I have lost more
+      than life, more than happiness, more than rest! I am without hope. I send
+      you a courier. He will remain only four hours in Paris, and return with
+      your answer. Write me only ten lines; they will be some comfort to me. ...
+      You are sick, you love me, I have troubled you; you are pregnant, and I
+      cannot see you. This thought bewilders me. I have done you so much wrong,
+      that I know not how to make amends for it. I found fault because you
+      remained in Paris, and you were sick! Forgive me, my beloved. The passion
+      you have inspired in me has taken my reason away; I cannot find it again.
+      One is never cured of this evil. My contemplations are so horrible, that
+      it would be a satisfaction to see you; to press you for two hours to my
+      heart, and then, to die together! Who takes care of you? I imagine that
+      you have sent for Hortense. I love this child a thousand times more, when
+      I think she can comfort you somewhat. As regards myself, there will be no
+      solace, no rest, no hope, before the courier whom I have sent to you has
+      returned, and you have told me in a long letter the cause of your illness,
+      and how serious it is. I tell you beforehand that if it is dangerous I
+      will at once go to Paris. My presence would be called for by your
+      sickness. I have always been fortunate. Never has Fate stood against my
+      wishes, and to-day it strikes me where only wounds are possible.
+      Josephine, how can you delay so long in writing to me? Your last laconic
+      note is dated the 3d of this month, and this adds to my sorrow. Yet I have
+      it always in my pocket. Your portrait and your letters are always under my
+      eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am nothing without you. I can scarcely understand how I have lived
+      without knowing you. Ah, Josephine, if you know my heart, could you remain
+      without writing from the 29th of May to the 16th of June, and not travel
+      hither? Have you lent an ear to faithless friends, who wish to keep you
+      away from me? I am angry with the whole world; I accuse every one round
+      about you. I had calculated that you would leave on the 5th, and be at
+      Milan on the 15th.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Josephine, if you love me, if you believe that all depends on the
+      recovery of your health, take good care of yourself. I dare not tell you
+      not to undertake so long a journey&mdash;not to travel in the heat, if you
+      possibly can move. Make small journeys; write to me at every
+      stopping-place, and send me each time your letters by a courier. ... Your
+      sickness troubles me by night and by day. Without appetite or sleep,
+      without regard for friendship, reputation, or country!&mdash;you and you
+      alone! The rest of the world exists no more for me than if it were sunk
+      into oblivion. I still cling to honor, for you hold to it; to fame, for it
+      is a joy to you; if it were not for this, I would have abandoned every
+      thing to hasten to your feet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sometimes, I say to myself: &lsquo;I trouble myself without cause, she is
+      already well, she has left Paris and is on the way, she is perhaps in
+      Lyons.&rsquo; ... Fruitless deception! You are in your bed, suffering&mdash;more
+      interesting&mdash;more worthy of adoration; you are pale, and your eyes
+      are more languishing than ever! when you are well again, if one of us is
+      to be sick, cannot I be the one? for I am stronger, I have more vital
+      power, and would therefore sooner conquer sickness. Fate is cruel, it
+      strikes me through you.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What sometimes comforts me is to know that on fate depends your sickness,
+      but that it depends on no one to oblige me to outlive you.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Be careful, my dearly-beloved one, to tell me in your letter that you are
+      convinced that I love you above all that can be conceived; that never has
+      it come to me to think of other women; that they are all in my eyes
+      without grace, beauty, or wit; that you, you entirely, you as I see you,
+      as you are, can please me and fetter all the powers of my soul; that you
+      have grasped it in all its immeasurableness; that my heart has no folds
+      closed from your eyes, no thoughts which belong not to you; that my
+      energies, arms, mind, every thing in me, is subject to you; that my spirit
+      lives in your body; that the day when you will be inconstant or when you
+      will cease to live, will be the day of my death, and that nature and earth
+      are beautiful to my eyes only because you live in them. If you do not
+      believe all this, if your soul is not convinced of it, penetrated with it,
+      then I am deceived in you, then you love me no more. A magnetic fluid runs
+      between persons who love one another. You know that I could never see,
+      much less could I endure, a lover: to see him and to tear his heart would
+      be one and the same thing; and then I might even lay hands on your sacred
+      person.... no, I would never dare do it, but I would fly from a world
+      where those I deem the most virtuous have deceived me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I am certain of your love, and proud of it. Accidents are probations
+      which keep alive all the energies of our mutual affections. My adored one,
+      you will give birth to a child resembling his mother; it will pass many
+      years in your arms. Unfortunate that I am, I would be satisfied with one
+      day! A thousand kisses on your eyes and lips! .... adored wife, how mighty
+      is your spell! I am ill on account of your illness. I have a burning
+      fever. Retain the courier no longer than six hours; then let him return,
+      that he may bring me a letter from my sovereign. N. B.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      These were the first letters which Josephine received from her loving,
+      tender husband. They are a splendid monument of affection with which love
+      adorns the solitary grave of the departed empress; and surely in the dark
+      hours of her life, the remembrance of these days of happiness, of these
+      letters so full of passionate ardor, must have alleviated the bitterness
+      of her grief and given her the consolation that at least she was once
+      loved as perhaps no other woman on earth can boast! All these letters of
+      Bonaparte, during the days of his first prosperity, and of his earnest
+      cravings, Josephine had carefully gathered; they were to be, amid the
+      precious and costly treasures which the future was to lay at her feet, the
+      most glorious and most prized, and which she preserved with sacred loyalty
+      as long as she lived.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This is the reason that, out of all the letters which Bonaparte wrote to
+      Josephine during long years, not one is lost; that there is no gap in the
+      correspondence, and that we can with complete certainty, from week to week
+      and year to year, follow the relations which existed between them, and
+      that the thermometer can be placed on Bonaparte&rsquo;s heart to observe how by
+      degrees the heat diminishes, the warmth of passion disappears into the
+      cool temperature of a quiet friendship, and how it never sinks to cold
+      indifference, even when Josephine had to yield to the young and proud
+      daughter of Austria, and give up her place at the side of the emperor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Of all the letters of Josephine to Bonaparte, which were now so glowing
+      that they seemed to devour him with flames of fire and bewildered his
+      senses, and then so cold and indifferent that they caused the chill of
+      death to pass over his frame&mdash;of all these, not one has been
+      preserved to posterity. Perhaps the Emperor Napoleon destroyed them; when
+      in the Tuileries he received Josephine&rsquo;s successor, his second wife, and
+      when he endeavored to destroy in his own proud heart the memory of the
+      beautiful, happy past, he there destroyed those letters, that they might
+      return to dust, even as his own love had returned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0025" id="link2HCH0025"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXV. JOSEPHINE IN ITALY.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Bonaparte&rsquo;s letter, which the courier brought to Josephine, found her
+      recovered, and ready to follow her husband&rsquo;s call, and go to Milan. But
+      she was deprived of one precious and joyous hope: the child, which
+      Bonaparte so much envied because it would pass many years in Josephine&rsquo;s
+      arms, was never to be born.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the last days of the month of June Josephine arrived in Milan. Her
+      whole journey had been one uninterrupted triumph. In Turin, at the court
+      of the King of Sardinia, she had received the homage of the people as if
+      she were the wife of a mighty ruler; and wherever she went, she was
+      received with honors and distinction. To Turin Bonaparte had sent before
+      him one of his adjutants, General Marmont, afterward Duke de Ragusa, to
+      convey to her his kindest regards and to accompany her with a military
+      escort as far as Milan. In the palace de Serbelloni, his residence in
+      Milan, adorned as for a feast, Bonaparte received her with a countenance
+      radiant with joy and happy smiles such as seldom brightened his pale,
+      gloomy features.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Bonaparte had neither much time nor leisure to devote to his domestic
+      happiness, to his long-expected reunion with Josephine. Only three days
+      could the happy lover obtain from the restless commander; then he had to
+      tear himself away from his sweet repose, to carry on further the deadly
+      strife which he had begun in Italy against Austria&mdash;which had decided
+      not to give away one foot of Lombardy without a struggle&mdash;and not to
+      submit to the conqueror of Lodi. A new army was marched into Italy under
+      the command of General Wurmser, the same against whom, three years before,
+      on the shores of the Rhine, Alexandre de Beauharnais had fought in vain.
+      At the head of sixty thousand men Wurmser moved into Italy to relieve
+      Mantua, besieged by the French.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This alarming news awoke Bonaparte out of his dream of love, and neither
+      Josephine&rsquo;s tears nor prayers could keep him back. He sent couriers to
+      Paris, to implore from the Directory fresh troops and more money, to
+      continue the campaign. The Directory answered him with the proposition to
+      divide the army of Italy into two columns, one of which would act under
+      the commander-in-chief, General Kellermann, the other under Bonaparte.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But this proposition, which the jealous Directory made for the sake of
+      breaking the growing power of Bonaparte, only served to lift him a step
+      higher in his path to the brilliant career which he alone, in the depths
+      of his heart, had traced, and the secret of which his closed lips would
+      reveal to no one.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bonaparte&rsquo;s answer to this proposition of the Directory was, that if the
+      power were to be divided, he could only refuse the half of this division,
+      and would retire entirely from command.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He wrote to Carnot: &ldquo;It is a matter of indifference to me whether I carry
+      on the war here or elsewhere. To serve my country, and deserve from
+      posterity one page of history, is all my ambition! If both I and
+      Kellermann command in Italy, then all is lost. General Kellermann has more
+      experience than I, and will carry on the war more ably. But the matter can
+      only be badly managed if we both command. It is no pleasure for me to
+      serve with a man whom Europe considers the first general of the age.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Carnot showed this letter to the Directory, and declared that if Bonaparte
+      were to be given up, he would himself resign his position of secretary of
+      war. The Directory was not prepared to accept this twofold responsibility,
+      and they sacrificed Kellermann to the threats of Napoleon and Carnot.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      General Bonaparte was confirmed in his position of commander-in-chief of
+      the army in Italy, even for the future, and the conduct of the war was
+      left in his hands alone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With this fresh triumph over his enemies at home, Bonaparte marched from
+      Milan to fight the re-enforced enemy of France in Italy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On this new war-path, amid dangers and conflicts, the tumults of the
+      fight, the noise of the camp, the confusion of the bivouac, the young
+      general did not for one moment forget the wife he so passionately loved.
+      Nearly every day he wrote to her, and those letters, which were often
+      written between the dictation of the battle&rsquo;s plan, the dispatches to the
+      Directory, and the impending conflict, were faithful waymarks, whose
+      directions it is easy to follow, and thus trace the whole successful
+      course of the hero of Italy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To refer here to Bonaparte&rsquo;s letters to Josephine, implies at once the
+      mention of Bonaparte&rsquo;s deeds and of Josephine&rsquo;s happiness. The first
+      letter which he wrote after the interview in Milan is from Roverbella, and
+      it tells her in a few words that he has just now beaten the foe, and that
+      he is going to Verona. The second is also short and hastily written, but
+      is full of many delicate assurances of love, and also that he has met and
+      defeated the foe at Verona. The third letter is from Marmirolo, and shows
+      that Bonaparte, notwithstanding his constant changes of position, had
+      taken the precautions that Josephine&rsquo;s letters should everywhere follow
+      him; for in Marmirolo he received one, and this tender letter filled him
+      with so much joy, thanks, and longings, that, in virtue of it, he forgets
+      conquests and triumphs entirely, and is only the longing, tender lover. He
+      writes:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;MARMIROLO, the 29th Messidor, 9 in the evening&rdquo; (July 17), 1796.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am just now in receipt of your letter, my adored one; it has filled my
+      heart with joy. I am thankful for the pains you have taken to send me news
+      about yourself; with your improved health, all will be well; I am
+      convinced that you have now recovered. I would impress upon you the duty
+      of riding often; this will be a healthy exercise for you.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Since I left you I am forever sorrowful. My happiness consists in being
+      near you. Constantly does my memory renew your kisses, your tears, your
+      amiable jealousy; and the charms of the incomparable Josephine kindle
+      incessantly a burning flame within my heart and throughout my senses. When
+      shall I, free from all disturbance and care, pass all my moments with you,
+      and have nothing to do but to love, nothing to think of but the happiness
+      to tell it and prove it to you? I am going to send you your horse, and I
+      trust you will soon be able to be with me. A few days ago I thought I
+      loved you, but since I have seen you again, I feel that I love you a
+      thousand times more. Since I knew you, I worship you more and more every
+      day; this proves the falsity of La Bruyere&rsquo;s maxim, which says that love
+      springs up all at once. Every thing in nature has its growth in different
+      degrees. Ah, I implore you, let me see some of your faults; be then less
+      beautiful, less graceful, less tender, less good; especially be never
+      tender, never weep: your tears deprive me of my reason, and change my
+      blood into fire. Believe me, that it is not in my power to have a single
+      thought which concerns you not, or an idea which is not subservient to
+      you.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Keep very quiet. Recover soon your health. Come to me, that at least
+      before dying we may say, &lsquo;We were happy so many, many days!&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Millions of kisses even for Fortune, notwithstanding its naughtiness.
+      [Footnote: Fortune was that little peevish dog which, when Josephine was
+      in prison, served as love-messenger between her and her children.]
+      BONAPARTE.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But this letter, full of tenderness and warmth, is not yet enough for the
+      ardent lover; it does not express sufficiently his longing, his love. The
+      very next day, from the same quarters of Marmirolo, he writes something
+      like a postscript to the missive of the previous day. He tells her that he
+      has made an attack upon Mantua, but that a sudden fall of the waters of
+      the lake had delayed his troops already embarked, and that this day he is
+      going to try again in some other way; that the enemy a few days past had
+      made a sortie and killed a few hundred men, but that they themselves, with
+      considerable loss, had to retreat rapidly into the fortress, and that
+      three Neapolitan regiments had entered Brescia. But between each of these
+      sentences intervene some strong assurance of his love, some tender or
+      flattering words; and finally, at the end of the letter, comes the
+      principal object, the cause why it was written. The tender lover wanted
+      some token from his beloved: it is not enough for him always to carry her
+      portrait and her letters, he must also have a lock of her hair. He writes:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have lost my snuffbox; I pray you find me another, somewhat more flat,
+      and pray have something pretty written upon it, with a lock of your hair.
+      A thousand burning kisses, since you are so cold, love unbounded, and
+      faithfulness beyond all proof.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Two days afterward he writes again from Marmirolo, at first hastily, a few
+      words about the war, then he comes to the main point. He has been guilty,
+      toward Josephine, of a want of politeness, and, with all the tenderness
+      and humility of a lover, he asks forgiveness. Her pardon and her constant
+      tardiness in answering his letters, are to him more weighty matters than
+      all the battles and victories of his restless camp-life, and therefore he
+      begins at once with a complaint at his separation from her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;MARMIROLO, the 1st Thermidor, Year IV. (July 19, 1796.)&rdquo; For the last two
+      days I am without letters from you. This remark I have repeated thirty
+      times; you feel that this for me is sad. You cannot, however, doubt of the
+      tenderness and undivided solicitude with which you inspire me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We attacked Mantua yesterday. We opened upon it, from two batteries, a
+      fire of shells and red-hot balls. The whole night the unfortunate city was
+      burning. The spectacle was terrible and sublime. We have taken possession
+      of numerous outworks, and we open the trenches to-night. To-morrow we make
+      our headquarters at Castiglione, and think of passing * the night there.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have received a courier from Paris. He brought two letters for you: I
+      have read them. Though this action seems to me very simple, as you gave me
+      permission so to do, yet, I fear, it will annoy you, and that troubles me
+      exceedingly. I wanted at first to seal them over again; but, pshaw! that
+      would have been horrible. If I am guilty, I beg your pardon. I swear to
+      you I did it not through jealousy; no, certainly not; I have of my adored
+      one too high an opinion to indulge in such a feeling. I wish you would
+      once for all allow me to read your letters; then I should not have any
+      twittings of conscience or fear.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Achilles, the courier, has arrived from Milan; no letter from my adored
+      one! Farewell, my sole happiness! When will you come, and be with me? I
+      shall have to fetch you from Milan myself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A thousand kisses, burning as my heart, pure as yours!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have sent for the courier; he says he was at your residence, and that
+      you had nothing to say, nothing to order! Fie! wicked, hateful, cruel
+      tyrant!&mdash;pretty little monster! You laugh at my threats and my
+      madness; ah, you know very well that if I could shut you up in my heart, I
+      would keep you there a prisoner.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let me know that you are cheerful, right well, and loving!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <h3>
+      &ldquo;BONAPARTE.&rdquo;
+     </h3>
+    <p>
+      But Josephine seems not to have answered this letter as Napoleon desired.
+      She knew that it was nothing but unfounded jealousy which had induced him
+      to read the letters sent to her, and to punish him for this jealousy she
+      forbade him to read her letters in the future.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But while she reproached him in a jesting manner, and punished him for
+      this jealousy, she, herself, with all the inconsistency of a lover, fell
+      into the same fault, and could not hide from him the jealous fears which
+      the ladies from Brescia, especially the beautiful Madame de Te&mdash;&mdash;,
+      had created within her mind. Bonaparte answered this letter as general,
+      lover, and husband; he gives an account of his war operations, submits to
+      her will as a lover, and commands her as a husband to come to him in
+      Brescia.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;CASTIGLIONE, the 4th Thermidor, Year IV. (July 22, 1796).
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The wants of the army require my presence in these parts; it is
+      impossible for me to go so far away as Milan; it would require for that
+      purpose five or six days, and during that time circumstances might arise
+      which would make my presence here absolutely necessary.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You assure me that your health is now good; consequently, I pray you to
+      come to Brescia. At this moment I am sending Murat into the city to
+      prepare you such a house as you wish.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I believe that you can very well sleep in Cassano on the 6th, if you
+      leave Milan late, so as to be in Brescia on the 7th, where the most tender
+      of lovers awaits you. I am in despair that you can believe, my dear
+      friend, that my heart can be drawn toward any one but yourself; it belongs
+      to you by right of conquest, and will be enduring and ever-lasting. I do
+      not understand why you speak of Madame de Te&mdash;&mdash;. I trouble
+      myself no more about her than any other woman in Brescia. Since it annoys
+      you that I open your letters, the enclosed one will be the last that I
+      open; your letter did not reach me till after I had opened this.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Farewell, my tender one; send me often your news. Break up at once and
+      come to me, and be happy without disquietude; all is well, and my heart
+      belongs to you for life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Be sure to return to the Adjutant Miollis the box of medallions which, as
+      he writes, he has given you. There are so many babbling and bad tongues,
+      that it is necessary to be always on one&rsquo;s guard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Health, love, and speedy arrival in Brescia!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have in Milan a carriage which is suited for city and country; use it
+      on your journey. Bring your silver and a few necessary things. Travel by
+      short stages, and during the cool of the morning and evening, so as not to
+      weary you too much. The troops need only three days to reach Brescia, a
+      distance of fourteen miles. I beg of you to pass the night of the 6th in
+      Cassano; on the 7th I will come to meet you as far as possible.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Farewell, my Josephine; a thousand tender kisses!
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      &ldquo;BONAPARTE.&rdquo;
+     </h3>
+    <p>
+      Josephine gladly obeyed the wishes of her husband, and exactly on the 7th
+      Thermidor (July 25) she entered Brescia. Bonaparte had ridden an hour&rsquo;s
+      distance to meet her, and, amid the shouts of the population, he led her
+      in triumph into the house prepared for her reception.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Three days were allowed to the general to enjoy his happiness and
+      Josephine&rsquo;s presence. On the 28th of July he received the intelligence
+      that Wurmser was advancing, and that he was in Marmirolo. At once
+      Bonaparte broke up from Brescia, to meet him and offer battle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Brescia was no longer a dwelling-place for Josephine now that the enemy
+      threatened it; she therefore accompanied her husband, and the effeminate
+      creole, the tender Parisian, accustomed to all the comforts of life, the
+      lady surrounded by numerous attendants in Milan, saw herself at once
+      obliged, as the true wife of a soldier, to share with her husband all the
+      hardships, inconveniences, and dangers of a campaign.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The news of the advance of the Austrians became more and more precise. No
+      sooner had Bonaparte arrived in Peschiera with his Josephine, than he
+      learned that Montevaldo was attacked by the enemy. In great haste they
+      pursued their journey; the next day they reached Verona, but Wurmser had
+      been equally swift in his movements, and on the heights surrounding Verona
+      were seen the light troops of Austria.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Even a serious skirmish at the outposts took place, and Josephine, against
+      her will, had to be the witness of this horrible, cannibal murder, which
+      we are pleased to call war.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bonaparte, who had preceded his army, was forced to retreat from Verona,
+      and went with Josephine to Castel Nuovo, where the majority of his troops
+      were stationed. But it was a fearful journey, beset with dangers.
+      Everywhere on the road lay the dying and the wounded who had remained
+      behind after the different conflicts, and who with difficulty were
+      crawling along to meet the army. Josephine&rsquo;s sensitive heart was painfully
+      moved by the spectacle of these sufferings and these bleeding wounds.
+      Napoleon noticed it on her pale cheeks and trembling lips, and in the
+      tears which stood in her eyes. Besides which, a great battle was at hand,
+      threatening her with new horrors. To guard her from them, Bonaparte made
+      another sacrifice to his love, and resolved to part from her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was to return to Brescia, while Napoleon, with his army, would meet
+      the foe. With a thousand assurances of love, and the most tender vows, he
+      took leave of Josephine, and she mastered herself so as to repress her
+      anxiety and timidity, and to appear collected and brave. With a smile on
+      her lip she bade him farewell, and began the journey, accompanied by a few
+      well-armed horsemen, whom Bonaparte, in the most stringent terms,
+      commanded not to leave his wife&rsquo;s carriage for an instant, and in case of
+      attack to defend her with their lives.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At first the journey was attended with no danger, and Josephine&rsquo;s heart
+      began to beat with less anxiety; she already believed herself in safety.
+      Suddenly, from a neighboring coppice, there rushed out a division of the
+      enemy&rsquo;s cavalry; already were distinctly heard the shouts and cries with
+      which they dashed toward the advancing carriage. To oppose this vast
+      number of assailants was not to be thought of; only the most rapid flight
+      could save them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The carriage was turned; the driver jumped upon the horses, and, in a mad
+      gallop, onward it sped. To the swiftness of the horses Josephine owed her
+      escape. She reached headquarters safely, and was received by Bonaparte
+      with loud demonstrations of joy at her unexpected return.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Josephine had not the strength to conceal the anxiety of her heart,
+      her fears and alarms. These horrible scenes of war, the sight of the
+      wounded, the dangers she had lately incurred, the fearful preparations for
+      fresh murders and massacres&mdash;all this troubled her mind so violently
+      that she lost at once all courage and composure. A nervous trembling
+      agitated her whole frame, and, not being able to control her agony, she
+      broke into loud weeping.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bonaparte embraced her tenderly, and as he kissed the tears from her
+      cheeks, he cried out, with a threatening flash in his eyes, &ldquo;Wurmser will
+      pay dearly for the tears he has caused!&rdquo; [Footnote: Bonaparte&rsquo;s words.&mdash;&ldquo;Memorial
+      de Ste. Helene,&rdquo; vol. i., p. 174.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was, however, a fortunate accident that the enemy&rsquo;s cavalry had
+      hindered Josephine from reaching Brescia. A quarter of an hour after her
+      return to headquarters the news arrived that the Austrians had advanced
+      into Brescia. Meanwhile Josephine had already regained all her courage and
+      steadfastness; she declared herself ready to abide by her husband, to bear
+      with him the dangers and the fatigues of the campaign; that she wished to
+      be with him, as it behooved the wife of a soldier.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Bonaparte felt that her company would cripple his courage and
+      embarrass his movements. Josephine once more had to leave him, so that the
+      tender lover might not disturb the keen commanding general, and that his
+      head and not his heart might decide the necessary measures.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He persuaded Josephine to leave him, and to retire into one of the central
+      cities of Italy. She acceded to his wishes, and travelled away toward
+      Florence. But, to reach that city, it was necessary to pass Mantua, which
+      the French were investing. Her road passed near the walls of the besieged
+      city, and one of the balls, which were whizzing around the carriage,
+      struck one of the soldiers of her escort and wounded him mortally. It was
+      a dangerous, fearful journey&mdash;war&rsquo;s confusion everywhere, wild
+      shouts, fleeing, complaining farmers, constant cries of distress, anxiety,
+      and want.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Josephine had armed her heart with great courage and resolution; she
+      shrank from no danger, she overcame it all; she already had an undaunted
+      confidence in her husband&rsquo;s destiny, and believed in the star of his
+      prosperity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And this star led her on happily through all dangers, and protected her
+      throughout this reckless and daring journey. Through Bologna and Ferrara,
+      she came at last to Lucca; there to rest a few days from her hardships and
+      anxieties. There, in Lucca, she was to experience the proud satisfaction
+      of being witness of the deep confidence which had struck root in the heart
+      of the Italians, in reference to the success of the French
+      commander-in-chief. Though it was well known that Wurmser, with a superior
+      force, was advancing against General Bonaparte, and his hungry, tattered
+      troops, and that they were on the eve of a battle which, according to all
+      appearances, promised to Napoleon a complete defeat, and to the Austrians
+      a decisive victory, the town of Lucca was not afraid to give to the wife
+      of Bonaparte a grand and public reception. The senate of Lucca received
+      her with all the marks of distinction shown only to princesses; the senate
+      came to her in official ceremony, and brought her as a gift of honor, in
+      costly gold flasks, the produce of their land, the fine oil of Lucca.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Josephine received these marks of honor with that grace and amiability
+      with which she won all hearts, and, with her enchanting smile, thanking
+      the senators, she told them, with all the confidence of a lover, that her
+      victorious husband would, for the magnificent hospitality thus shown her,
+      manifest his gratitude to the town of Lucca by the prosperity and liberty
+      which he was ready to conquer for Italy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This confidence was shortly to be justified. No sooner had Josephine
+      arrived in Florence, whither she had come from Lucca, than the news of the
+      victory of the French army, commanded by her husband, reached there also.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Suddenly abandoning the siege of Mantua, Bonaparte had gathered together
+      all his forces, and with them he dealt blow after blow upon the three
+      divisions of the army corps of Wurmser, until he had completely defeated
+      them. The battles of Lonato and Castiglione were the fresh trophies of his
+      fame. On the 10th of August Bonaparte made his victorious entry into
+      Brescia, which only twelve days before he had been suddenly obliged to
+      abandon with his Josephine, to whom he had then been barely reunited, and
+      was still luxuriating in the bliss of her presence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bonaparte had fulfilled his word: he had revenged Josephine, and Wurmser
+      had indeed paid dearly for the tears which he had caused Josephine to
+      shed!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But after these days of storm and danger, the two lovers were to enjoy a
+      few weeks of mutual happiness and of splendid triumphs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Josephine had returned from Florence to Milan, and thither Bonaparte came
+      also in the middle of August, to rest in her arms after his battles and
+      victories.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0026" id="link2HCH0026"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXVI. BONAPARTE AND JOSEPHINE IN MILAN.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The days of armistice which Bonaparte passed in Milan were accompanied by
+      festivities, enjoyments, and triumphs of all kinds. All Milan and Lombardy
+      streamed forth to present their homage to the deliverer of Italy and to
+      his charming, gracious wife; to give feasts in their honor, to praise them
+      in enthusiastic songs, to celebrate their fame in concerts, serenades, and
+      illuminations.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The palace Serbelloni served Italy&rsquo;s deliverer once more as a residence,
+      and it was well calculated for this on account of its vastness and
+      elegance. This was one of the most beautiful buildings among the palaces
+      of Milan. Over its massive lower structure, and its rez-de chaussee of red
+      granite, sparkling in the sun with its play of many colors, arose bold and
+      steep its light and graceful facade. The interior of this beautiful palace
+      of the Dukes of Serbelloni was adorned with all the splendors which
+      sculpture and painting gathered into the palaces of the Italian nobility.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In those halls, whose roofs were richly decorated and gilded, and
+      supported by white columns of marble, and whose walls were covered with
+      those splendid and enormous mirrors which the republic of Venice alone
+      then manufactured; and from whose tall windows hung down in long, heavy
+      folds curtains of purple velvet, embroidered with gold, the work of the
+      famous artisans of Milan&mdash;in those brilliant halls the happy couple,
+      Bonaparte and Josephine, received the deputies of applauding Italy and the
+      high aristocracy of all Lombardy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      An eye-witness thus describes a reception-evening in the Serbelloni
+      palace: &ldquo;The hall in which the general received his visitors was a long
+      gallery divided by marble columns into three smaller rooms; the two
+      extreme divisions formed two large drawing-rooms, perfectly square, and
+      the middle partition formed a long and wide promenade apartment. In the
+      drawing-room, into which I entered, was Madame Bonaparte, the beautiful
+      Madame Visconti, Madame Leopold Berthier, and Madame Ivan. Under the
+      arches, at the entrance of the middle room, stood the general; around him,
+      but at a distance, the chiefs of the war department, the magistrates of
+      the city, with a few ministers of the Italian governments, all in
+      respectful attitude before him. Nothing seemed to be more striking than
+      the bearing of this little man among the dignitaries overawed by his
+      character. His attitude had nothing of pride, but it had the dignity of a
+      man conscious of his worth, and who feels that he is in the right place.
+      Bonaparte tried not to increase his stature, so as to be on the same level
+      with those around him; they already spared him that trouble, and bowed to
+      him. None of those who conversed with him appeared taller than he.
+      Berthier, Silmaine, Clarke, Augerean, awaited silently till he should
+      address them, an honor which this evening was not conferred upon all.
+      Never were headquarters so much like a court: they were the prelude to the
+      Tuileries.&rdquo; [Footnote: Arnold, &ldquo;Souvenirs d&rsquo;un Sexagenaire,&rdquo; vol. iii., p.
+      10.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To Milan came the ambassadors of princes, of the free cities, and of the
+      Italian republics. They all claimed Bonaparte&rsquo;s assistance and protection;
+      they came bearers of good-will, of utterances of hope and fear, and
+      expecting from him help and succor. The princes trembled for their
+      thrones; the cities and republics for their independence; they wanted to
+      conciliate by their submission the general whose sword could either
+      threaten them all or give them ample protection. Bonaparte received this
+      homage with the composure of a protector, and sometimes also with the
+      proud reserve of a conqueror.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He granted to the Duke of Parma the protection which he had sought, and
+      permitted him to remain on his territory as prince and ruler, though the
+      strongest expostulations had been made to Bonaparte on that point.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is a Bourbon,&rdquo; they said; &ldquo;he must no longer rule.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is an unfortunate man,&rdquo; replied Bonaparte, proudly; &ldquo;it is not worth
+      while to attack him. If we leave him on his lands, he will rule only in
+      our name; if we drive him away, he will be weaving intrigues everywhere.
+      Let him remain where he is, I wish him no wrong; his presence can be
+      useful, his absence would surely he hurtful.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But he is a Bourbon, citizen general, a Bourbon!&rdquo; exclaimed Augereau,
+      with animation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bonaparte&rsquo;s countenance darkened, and his brow was overspread with frowns.
+      &ldquo;Well, then,&rdquo; cried he, with threatening tone, &ldquo;he is a Bourbon! Is he
+      therefore by nature of so despicable a family? Because three Bourbons have
+      been killed in France, must we therefore hunt down all the others? I
+      cannot approve of proscriptions which thus fall upon a whole family, a
+      whole class of people. An absurd law has prohibited all the nobles from
+      serving the republic, and yet Barras is in the Directory, and I am at the
+      head of the army in Italy. We are consequently liable to punishment in
+      virtue of your absurd and cruel system! Hunt down those who do wrong, but
+      not masses who are innocent. Can you punish Paris and France for the
+      crimes of the sans-culottes? The Bourbons are, it is said, the enemies of
+      freedom; they have been led to the scaffold under the action of a right
+      which I do not acknowledge. The Duke of Parma is weak, and a poltroon,&mdash;he
+      will not stir. His people seem to love him, for we are here, and they rise
+      not, they utter no complaint. Let him, then, continue to rule as long as
+      he pays all that I exact from him.&rdquo; [Footnote: Napoleon&rsquo;s words.&mdash;See
+      Hazlitt, &ldquo;Histoire de Napoleon,&rdquo; vol. v., p. 1.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thanks to the good-will and protection of the republican general, the Duke
+      of Parma remained on his little throne&mdash;on the same throne which was
+      one day to be to Napoleon&rsquo;s second wife a compensation for her lost
+      imperial crown. The Empress of France was to become a Duchess of Parma;
+      and now to her husband, the present general of the republic, the actual
+      Duke of Parma was indebted that his little dukedom was not converted into
+      a republic.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is true that the duke had to pay dearly for the protection which
+      Bonaparte granted. He had to pay a war-subsidy of two million francs, and,
+      besides, give from his collection his most beautiful painting, that of St.
+      Jerome by Correggio, for the Museum of the Louvre in Paris. [Footnote:
+      This splendid picture is now in the Vatican at Rome.] The duke, as a lover
+      of art, was more distressed at the loss of this picture than at the
+      enormous contribution he had to pay; for he soon caused the proposition to
+      be made to General Bonaparte, to redeem from the French government that
+      painting, for the sum of two hundred thousand francs, a proposition which
+      Bonaparte, without any further consultation with the authorities in Paris,
+      rejected with some degree of irritation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Duke of Parma remained therefore the sovereign of his duchy, because
+      it so pleased Bonaparte; but Bonaparte was led into error when he thought
+      that, as his people rebelled not, they therefore loved their duke, and
+      were satisfied with him. The women and the priests controlled entirely the
+      feeble duke; and not only the people, but the better classes and the
+      aristocracy, submitted to all this with great unwillingness. Once, when
+      Joseph Bonaparte, whom the French republic had sent to give assurance of
+      protection and recognition to the little Duke of Parma, was walking with a
+      few cavaliers in the gardens around the duke&rsquo;s palace in Colorno, he
+      expressed his admiration at the symmetry and beauty of the buildings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is true,&rdquo; was the answer, &ldquo;but just look at the buildings of the
+      neighboring cloister! do you not see how superior that dwelling is to that
+      of the sovereign? Wretched is the country where this can take place!&rdquo;
+       [Footnote: &ldquo;Memoires du Roi Joseph,&rdquo; vol. i., p. 65.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Even the representatives of the republic of Venice came to Bonaparte. They
+      came not only to secure his friendship, but also to complain that the
+      French army, in its advance upon Brescia, had done injury to the neutral
+      territory of Venice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bonaparte directed at them a look of imperious severity, and, instead of
+      laying stress on their neutrality, he asked in a sharp tone, &ldquo;Are you for
+      us, or against us?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Signor, we are neutral, and&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do not be neutral,&rdquo; interrupted Bonaparte, with vehemence, &ldquo;be strong,
+      otherwise your friendship is useful to none.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And, with imperious tone, he reproached them for the vacillating,
+      perfidious conduct which, since 1792, had been the policy of Venice, and
+      he threatened to punish and destroy that republic if she did not
+      immediately prove herself to be the loyal friend of the French.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While Bonaparte used the few short weeks of rest to bring Italy more and
+      more under the yoke of France, it was Josephine&rsquo;s privilege to draw to
+      herself and toward her husband the minds of the Italians, to win their
+      hearts to her husband, and through him to the French republic, which he
+      represented. She did this with all the grace and affability, all the
+      genial tact and large-heartedness of a noble heart, which were the
+      attributes of her beautiful and amiable person. She was unwearied in
+      well-doing, in listening to all the petitions with which she was
+      approached; she had for every complaint and every request an open ear; she
+      not only promised to every applicant her intercession, but she made him
+      presents, and was ever ready, by solicitations, flatteries, and
+      expostulations, and, if necessary, even with tears, to entreat from her
+      husband a mitigation of the punishment and sentence which he had decided
+      upon in his just severity; and seldom had Bonaparte the courage to oppose
+      her wishes. These were for Josephine glorious days of love and triumph.
+      She depicts them herself in a letter to her aunt in plain, short words.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Duke de Serbelloni,&rdquo; writes she, &ldquo;will tell you, my dear aunt, how I
+      have been received in Italy; how, wherever I passed, they celebrated my
+      arrival; how all the Italian princes, even the Duke of Tuscany, the
+      emperor&rsquo;s brother, gave festivities in my honor. Well, then, I would
+      prefer to live as a plain citizeness of France. I like not the honorable
+      distinctions of this country. They weary me. It is true, my health
+      inclines me to be sad. I often feel very ill. If fate would bring me good
+      health, then I should be entirely happy. I possess the most amiable
+      husband that can be found. I have no occasion to desire anything. My
+      wishes are his. The whole day he is worshipping me as if I were a deity;
+      it is impossible to find a better husband. He writes often to my children&mdash;he
+      loves them much. He sent to Hortense, through M. Serbelloni, a beautiful
+      enamelled repeating watch, ornamented with fine pearls; to Eugene he sent
+      also a fine gold watch.&rdquo; [Footnote: Aubenas, &ldquo;Histoire de l&rsquo;Imperatrice
+      Josephine,&rdquo; vol. i., p. 349.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But soon these days of quietness and happiness were to be broken; the
+      armistice was drawing to a close, when, with redoubled energy, Bonaparte,
+      who had received from the government the wished-for re-enforcements,
+      longed to resume the war with Austria, which on her side had sent another
+      army into Italy, under General Alvinzi, to relieve Mantua, and to deliver
+      Wurmser from his peril.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the 13th of August Bonaparte left Milan and returned to Brescia, where
+      he established his headquarters, and where, with all the speed and
+      restlessness of a warrior longing for victory, he made his preparations
+      for the coming conflict.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But amid the anxieties, the cares, the chances of this new campaign, his
+      heart remained behind in Milan with his Josephine; when the general began
+      to rest, the lover began to breathe. No sooner were the battle-plans, the
+      fight, the preparations and the dispositions accomplished, than all his
+      thoughts returned to Josephine, and he had again recourse to his written
+      correspondence with his adored wife; for although he longed so much to
+      have her with him, yet he was unwilling to occasion her so much
+      inconvenience and so many privations.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bonaparte&rsquo;s letters are again way-marks during his glorious path of
+      victory and triumph, while he was over-running Italy with wondrous
+      rapidity&mdash;but, instead of relating these conquests, we turn to his
+      letters to Josephine. Already, on his way to Brescia, he had written her
+      several times. The very day after reaching there, after having made the
+      necessary military arrangements, Bonaparte wrote to her:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;BRESCIA, the 14th Fructidor, Year IV. (August 31, 1795).
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am leaving for Verona. I have hoped in vain to receive a letter from
+      you; this makes me wretched and restless. At the time of my departure, you
+      were somewhat suffering; I pray you, do not leave me in such a state of
+      disquietude. You had promised me a greater punctuality; your tongue, then,
+      chimed in with your heart...; you, whom Nature has gifted with a sweet
+      disposition, with joyousness, and every thing which is agreeable, how can
+      you forget him who loves you so warmly? Three days without a letter from
+      you! I have during that time written to you several. Separation is
+      horrible; the nights are long, tiresome, and insipid; the days are
+      monotonous.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To-day, alone with thoughts, works, men, and their destructive schemes, I
+      have not received from you a single note that I can press to my heart.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Headquarters are broken up; I leave in one hour. I have this night
+      received expresses from Paris; there was nothing for you but the enclosed
+      letter, which will afford you some pleasure.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Think on me; live for me; be often with your beloved, and believe that
+      there is for him but one sorrow; that he shrinks only from this&mdash;to
+      be no more loved by his Josephine. A thousand right sweet kisses, right
+      tender, right exclusive kisses.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <h3>
+      &ldquo;BONAPARTE.&rdquo;
+     </h3>
+    <p>
+      Three days after he tells her that he is now in the midst of war
+      operations; that hostilities have begun again, and that he hopes in a few
+      days to advance upon Trieste. But this occupied his mind less than his
+      solicitude for Josephine. After a short paragraph on his military affairs,
+      he continues:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No letter from you yet; I am really anxious; but I am assured that you
+      are well, and that you have made an excursion on the Como Lake. Every day
+      I wait impatiently for the courier who is to bring me news from you; you
+      know how precious this is to me. I live no longer when away from you; the
+      joy of my life is to be near my sweet Josephine. Think of me; write often,
+      very often; this is the only remedy for separation; it is cruel, but I
+      trust it will soon be over.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <h3>
+      &ldquo;BONAPARTE.&rdquo;
+     </h3>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile this separation was to last longer than Bonaparte had imagined.
+      War held him entangled in its web so fast, that he had not time even to
+      write to Josephine. In the next two letters he could only tell her, in a
+      few lines, what had happened at the theatre of war; that he had again
+      defeated Wurmser, and had surrounded him, and that he hopes to take
+      Mantua. Even for his constant complaint about Josephine&rsquo;s slothfullness in
+      writing, he finds no room in these short letters. In the next letter,
+      however, it appears the more violently. He has no time to give her, as was
+      his usual practice, any account of the war. He begins at once with the
+      main object, which is&mdash;&ldquo;Josephine has not written:&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;VERONA, 1st day of Complementaires in Year V,&rdquo; &ldquo;(September 17, 1796).
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I write to you often, my beloved one, but you write seldom to me. You are
+      wicked and hateful, very hateful&mdash;as hateful as you are inconstant.
+      It is indeed faithlessness to deceive a wretched man, a tender lover! Must
+      he lose his rights because he is away, burdened with hardship and labor?
+      Without his Josephine, without the certainty of her love, what is there on
+      earth for him? What would he do here?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We had yesterday a very bloody affair; the enemy has lost many men, and
+      is well beaten. We have taken his advanced works before Mantua.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Farewell, adored Josephine! One of these nights the doors will open with
+      a loud crash: as a jealous man, I am in your arms!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A thousand dear kisses! BONAPARTE.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But the doors were not to be opened on any of the following nights for the
+      jealous one! The events of war were to keep him away a long time from his
+      Josephine. The Austrian Generals Wurmser and Alvinzi, with their two
+      armies, demanded all the energy and activity of Bonaparte. Meanwhile, as
+      he was preparing for the great battles which were to decide the fate of
+      Italy, his thoughts were always turned to his Josephine; his deep longings
+      grew day by day, still he had no longer cause to complain that Josephine
+      did not write, that she had forgotten him! Contrariwise, Josephine did
+      write; she had, while he was writing her angry letters about her silence,
+      written several times, for Bonaparte in the following letter says that he
+      has received many letters from her, which, probably on account of the
+      difficulties of communication, had been delayed. He had received them with
+      the highest delight, and pressed them to his lips and heart. But no sooner
+      had he rejoiced over them, than he complains that they are cold, reserved,
+      and old. No word, no expression, satisfies his ardent love. He complains
+      that her letters are cold, and then, when she dips her pen in the fire of
+      tender love, he complains again that her glowing letters &ldquo;turn his blood
+      into fire, and stir up his whole being.&rdquo; Love, with all its wantonness and
+      all its pains, holds him captive in its hands, and the general has no
+      means of appeasing the lover.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The letter which complains of Josephine&rsquo;s coldness is dated
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;MODENA, 26th Vendemiaire of the Year V.&rdquo; (October 17, 1796),
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was yesterday the whole day on the field. To-day I have kept my bed.
+      Fever and a violent headache have debarred me from writing to my adored
+      one; but I have received her letters, I pressed them to my lips and to my
+      heart, and the anguish of a separation of hundreds of miles disappeared.
+      At this moment I see you at my side, neither capricious nor angry, but
+      soft, tender, and wrapped in that goodness which is exclusively the
+      attribute of my Josephine. It was a dream&mdash;judge if it could drive
+      the fever away. Your letters are as cold as if you were fifty years old;
+      they seem to have been composed after a marriage of fifteen years. One can
+      see in them the friendship and sentiments of the winter of life. Pshaw!
+      Josephine, ... that is very naughty, very abominable, very treasonable on
+      your part. What more remains to make me worthy of pity? All is already
+      done! To love me no more! To hate me! Well, then, let it be so! Every
+      thing humiliates but hatred, and indifference with its marmoreal pulse,
+      its staring eyes, and its measured steps. A thousand thousand kisses as
+      tender as my heart! I am somewhat better. I leave to-morrow. The English
+      are cruising on the Mediterranean. Corsica is ours. Good news for France
+      and for the army.
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      &ldquo;BONAPARTE.&rdquo;
+     </h3>
+    <p>
+      Bonaparte had gone to wage the last decisive battle. He writes to her from
+      Verona a few lines that he has arrived there, and that he is just going to
+      mount his horse to pursue the march. In this letter, however, he does not
+      tell Josephine that General Vaubois, with his fugitive regiments, has been
+      beaten by the Tyrolese, and that, driven from their mountains, he has
+      arrived in Verona; that Alvinzi occupies the Tyrol and has pushed on to
+      Brenta and to Etsch. Bonaparte was gathering his troops to drive away
+      General Alvinzi, who had occupied the heights of Caldiero, from these
+      important positions, and to take possession of them by main force. A
+      violent and desperate struggle ensued, and the day ended with victory on
+      the side of the Austrians. Bonaparte had to return to Verona; Alvinzi
+      maintained himself on the heights.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To the irritated general, disappointed in his plans and humiliated, his
+      love becomes his &ldquo;bete de souffrance,&rdquo; upon which he takes vengeance for
+      the defeat of Caldiero. Josephine has to endure the flaming wrath of
+      Bonaparte, in whom now general and lover are fused into one; but in his
+      expressions of anger the general has no complaints&mdash;it is the lover
+      who murmurs, who reprimands, and is irritated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the evening of the 12th November, the day of the defeat of Caldiero,
+      Bonaparte returned to Verona. The next day he wrote to Josephine:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;VERONA, the 3d Frimaire, Year V.&rdquo; (November 13, 1796)
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I love you no more; on the contrary, I hate you. You are a wicked
+      creature, very inconsistent, very stupid, very silly. You do not write to
+      me. You do not love your husband. You know how much pleasure your letters
+      would afford, and you do not write to him even six lines, which you can
+      readily scribble out.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How, then, do you begin the day, madame? What important occupation takes
+      away your time from writing to your very excellent lover? What new
+      inclination chokes and thrusts aside the tender, abiding love which you
+      have promised him? What can this wonderful, this new love be, which lays
+      claim to all your time, and rules over your days, and hinders you from
+      occupying yourself with your husband? Josephine, be on your guard; on some
+      evil night the doors will be burst open and I shall stand before you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In truth, I am restless, my dear one, because I receive no news from you.
+      Write me at once four pages about those things, which fill my heart with
+      emotion and pleasure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I trust soon to fold you in my arms, and then I will overwhelm you with a
+      million of kisses burning like the equator.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <h3>
+      &ldquo;BONAPARTE.&rdquo;
+     </h3>
+    <p>
+      Whilst Bonaparte was pursuing and engaging with Wurmser and Alvinzi in
+      bloody hostilities, and writing to Josephine tender and angry letters of a
+      lover ever jealous, ever dissatisfied and envious, Josephine was leading
+      in Milan a life full of pleasure and amusement, full of splendor and
+      triumphs, of receptions and festivities. Every new victory, every onward
+      movement, was for the inhabitants of Milan, and her proud and rich nobles,
+      a fresh and welcome occasion to celebrate and glorify the wife of General
+      Bonaparte, and, through her, the hero who was to take away from their
+      necks the yoke of the Austrian, and who suspected not that he was so soon
+      to place upon them another yoke.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Josephine, true to the wishes and commands of Bonaparte, accepted these
+      festivities and this homage with all the affability and grace which
+      distinguished her. She had by degrees become familiar with this ceaseless
+      homage, which at first seemed so wearisome; by degrees she took delight in
+      this life of pleasure, in the incense of adulation, and the brilliancies
+      of fame. All the indolence, the dreamy carelessness, the graceful
+      abandonment of the creole had been again awakened in her. She cradled
+      herself playfully on the lulling, bright waves of pleasure as an insect
+      with golden wings, and she smiled complacently at the stream of encircling
+      festivities.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bonaparte had told her to use all the arts of a woman to bind the Milanese
+      and the Lombards to herself and to her husband. With her smiles she was to
+      continue the conquest begun by Bonaparte&rsquo;s sword.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She could not, therefore, live alone in quiet solitude; she could not
+      remain in obscurity while her husband was performing his part on the
+      theatre of war; she could not, by an appearance of gravity, or by a
+      clouded brow, furnish occasion to the suspicion that there existed doubt
+      in the future success of her husband, or in his prosperity and victory.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Roses were to crown her brow&mdash;a cheerful smile was to beam on her
+      countenance; with joyous spirit, she was to take part in the festivities
+      and pleasures&mdash;that the Milanese might see with what earnest
+      confidence she believed in Napoleon&rsquo;s star! But Bonaparte, with all the
+      instinct of a genuine lover, had read the deepest secret of her soul; he
+      was envious and jealous, because he felt that Josephine did not belong to
+      him with her whole heart, her whole being, all her emotions and thoughts.
+      Her heart, which had received from the past so many scars and wounds,
+      could not yet have blossomed anew; it had been warmed by the glow of
+      Bonaparte&rsquo;s love, but it was not yet thoroughly penetrated with that
+      passion which Bonaparte so painfully missed, so intensely craved.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The earnest, unfettered nature of his love intimidated her, while it
+      ravished and flattered her vanity; but her heart was not entirely his, it
+      had yet room for her children, for her friends, for the things of this
+      world!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Josephine loved Bonaparte with that soft, modest, and retiring affection,
+      which only by degrees&mdash;by the storms of anguish, jealousy, agony, and
+      the possibility of losing him&mdash;was to be fanned into that vitality
+      and glow which never cooled again in her heart, and which at last gave her
+      the death-stroke.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She therefore thought she was fulfilling her task when she, while
+      Bonaparte was fighting with weapons, conquered with smiles, and received
+      the homage of the conquered only as a tribute which they brought through
+      her to the warlike genius of her husband.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile Bonaparte had taken vengeance for his defeat at Caldiero.
+      Through a ruse of war, he had decoyed Alvinzi from his safe and
+      impregnable position into one where he could meet him with his army
+      anxious for the fray, and give him battle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The gigantic struggle lasted three days&mdash;and the close of the third
+      day brought to the conqueror, Bonaparte, the laurel-wreath of undying
+      glory, which, more enduring and dazzling than an imperial crown,
+      surrounded with a halo the hero&rsquo;s brow long after that crown had fallen
+      from it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This was the victory of Arcola, which Bonaparte himself decided by
+      snatching from the flag-bearer the standard of the retreating regiment,
+      and rushing with it, through a shower of balls, over the bridge of death
+      and destruction, and, with a voice heard above the thundering cannon,
+      shouting jubilant to his soldiers&mdash;&ldquo;En avant, mes amis!&rdquo; And bravely
+      the soldiers followed him&mdash;a brilliant victory was the result.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Elevated by this deed, the grandest and most glorious of his heroic
+      career, Napoleon returned to Verona on the 19th November. The whole city&mdash;all
+      Lombardy&mdash;sang to his praise their inspired hymns, and greeted with
+      enthusiasm the conqueror of Arcola. He, however, wanted a sweeter reward;
+      and after obtaining a second victory, on the 23d of November, by defeating
+      Wurmser near Mantua, he longed to rest and enjoy an hour&rsquo;s happiness in
+      the arms of his Josephine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From Verona he wrote to her on the day after the battle of Mantua, on the
+      24th of November:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hope soon to be in your arms, my beloved one; I love you to madness! I
+      write by this courier for Paris. All is well. Wurmser was defeated
+      yesterday under Mantua. Your husband needs nothing but the love of his
+      Josephine to be happy. BONAPARTE.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But the most terrible doubts hung yet over this love. The letter in which
+      Napoleon announced his coming had not reached Josephine; and, as the next
+      day he came to Milan with all the cravings and impatience of a lover, he
+      did not find Josephine there.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She had not suspected his coming; she had not dreamed that the commanding
+      officer could stop in his victorious course and give way to the lover. She
+      thought him far away; and, ever faithful to Bonaparte&rsquo;s direction to
+      assist him in the conquest of Italy, she had accepted an invitation from
+      the city of Genoa, which had lately and gladly entered into alliance with
+      France. The most brilliant festivities welcomed her in this city of wealth
+      and palaces, and &ldquo;Genova la superba&rdquo; gathered all its magnificence, all
+      the splendor of its glory, to offer, under the eyes of all Europe, her
+      solemn homage to the wife of the celebrated hero of Arcola.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While Josephine, with joyous pride was receiving this homage, Bonaparte,
+      gloomy and murmuring, sat in his cabinet at Milan, and wrote to her:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;MILAN, the 7th Frimaire, Year V.,&rdquo; Three o&rsquo;clock. afternoon (November 27,
+      1796).
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have just arrived in Milan, and rush to your apartments. I have left
+      every thing to see you, to press you in my arms; .... you are not there!
+      You are pursuing a circle of festivities through the cities. You go away
+      from me at my approach; you trouble yourself no more about your dear
+      Napoleon. A spleen has made you love him; inconstancy renders you
+      indifferent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Accustomed to dangers, I know a remedy against ennui and the troubles of
+      life. The wretchedness I endure is not to be measured; I am entitled not
+      to expect it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will wait here until the 9th. Do not trouble yourself. Pursue your
+      pleasures; happiness is made for you. The whole world is too happy when it
+      can please you, and your husband alone is very, very unhappy.
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      &ldquo;BONAPARTE.&rdquo;
+     </h3>
+    <p>
+      But this cry of anguish from this crushed heart did not reach Josephine;
+      and the courier, who next day came to Milan from Genoa, brought from
+      Josephine only a letter with numerous commissions for Berthier.
+      Bonaparte&rsquo;s anger and sorrow knew no bounds, and he at once writes to her
+      with all the utterances of despair and complaint of a lover, and the proud
+      wrath of an injured husband:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;MILAN, the 8th Frimaire, Year V., eight o&rsquo;clock, evening.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The courier whom Berthier had sent to Milan has just arrived. You have
+      had no time to write to me; that I can understand very well. In the midst
+      of pleasures and amusements it would have been too much for you to make
+      the smallest sacrifice for me. Berthier has shown me the letter you wrote
+      to him. It is not my purpose to trouble you in your arrangements or in the
+      festivities which you are enjoying; I am not worth the trouble; the
+      happiness or the misery of a man you love no longer has not the right to
+      interest you.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As regards myself, to love you and you alone, to make you happy, to do
+      nothing that can wrong you in any way, is the desire and object of my
+      life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Be happy, have nothing to reproach me, trouble not yourself about the
+      felicity of a man who only breathes in your life, who finds enjoyment only
+      in your happiness. When I claim from you a love which would approach mine,
+      I am wrong: how can one expect that a cobweb should weigh as much as gold?
+      When I sacrifice to you all my wishes, all my thoughts, all the moments of
+      my life, I merely obey the spell which your charms, your character, your
+      whole person, exercise over my wretched heart. I am wrong, for Nature has
+      not endowed me with the power of binding you to me; but I deserve from
+      Josephine in return at least consideration and esteem, for I love her unto
+      madness, and love her exclusively.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Farewell, adorable wife! farewell, my Josephine! May fate pour into my
+      heart every trouble and every sorrow; but may it send to my Josephine
+      serene and happy days! Who deserves it more than she? When it is well
+      understood that she loves me no more, I will garner up into my heart my
+      deep anguish, and be content to be in many things at least useful and good
+      to her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I open this letter once more to send you a kiss.... ah! Josephine. ...
+      Josephine! BONAPARTE.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile it was not yet well understood that Josephine loved him no more;
+      for as soon as she knew of Bonaparte&rsquo;s presence in Milan, she hastened to
+      dispatch him a courier, and to apprise him of her sudden departure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bonaparte did not leave Milan on the 9th; he remained there, waiting for
+      Josephine, to lift her up in his arms from her carriage, and to bear her
+      into her apartments; to enjoy with her a few happy days of a quiet,
+      domestic, and mutual love, all to themselves.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His presence with the army, however, soon became a matter of necessity;
+      for Alvinzi was advancing with considerable re-enforcements, with two army
+      corps to the relief of Mantua, and Bonaparte, notwithstanding his pressing
+      remonstrances to the Directory, having received but few re-enforcements
+      and very little money, had to exert all his powers and energy to press a
+      few advantages from the superior forces of the enemy. Everywhere his
+      presence and personal action were needed; and, constantly busy with war,
+      ever sword in hand, he could not, for long weeks, even once take pen IN
+      HAND and write to his Josephine. His longings had to subside before the
+      force of circumstances, which claimed the general&rsquo;s whole time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the 3d of February, 1797, he again finds time to send her a few lines,
+      to say that he is breaking up and going to Rimini. Then, after Alvinzi had
+      been again defeated, after the fortress of Mantua had capitulated,
+      Bonaparte had to break up again and go to Rome, to require from the pope
+      the reason why he had made common cause with Austria, and shown himself
+      the enemy of the French republic. In Bologna he lingered a few days, as
+      Josephine, in compliance with his wishes, had come there to make amends by
+      her presence for so long a separation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She remained in Bologna, while Bonaparte advanced toward the city of the
+      Church. But the gloomy quietude, the constant rumors of war, the
+      threatening dangers, the intrigues with which she was surrounded, the
+      hostile exertions of the priests, the want of society, of friendly faces,
+      every thing had a tendency to make Josephine&rsquo;s residence in Bologna very
+      disagreeable, and to bring on sadness and nervousness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In this gloomy state of mind she writes to Bonaparte that she feels sick,
+      exhausted and helpless; that she is anxious to return to Paris. He answers
+      her from Ancona:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The 8th Pluviose, Year V. (February 16, 1797).
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are sad, you are sick, you write to me no longer, you wish to return
+      to Paris! Do you no longer love your friend? This thought makes me very
+      unhappy. My dear friend, life is intolerable to me, since I have heard of
+      your sadness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I send you at once Moscati to take care of you. My health is somewhat
+      feeble; my cold hangs on. I pray you spare yourself, and love me as much
+      as I love you, and do write every day. My restlessness is horrible.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have given orders to Moscati to accompany you to Ancona, if you will
+      come. I will write to you and let you know where I am.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I may perhaps make peace with the pope, and then will soon be with you;
+      it is the most intense desire of my life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I send a hundred kisses. Think not that any thing can equal my love,
+      unless it be my solicitude for you. Write to me every day yourself, my
+      dearly-beloved one!
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      &ldquo;BONAPARTE.&rdquo;
+     </h3>
+    <p>
+      But Josephine, in her depressed state of mind, and her nervous
+      irritability, did not have the courage to draw nearer the scenes of war,
+      and she dreaded to face again such dangers as once she had encountered in
+      Brescia and on her journey to Florence. She had not been able to overcome
+      the indolence of the Creole so much as to write to Bonaparte. Fully
+      conscious of his love and pardon, she relied upon them when, in her
+      reluctance to every exertion, she announced to him, through the physician
+      Moscati, that she would not come to Ancona, but would wait for him in
+      Bologna.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This news made a very painful impression upon Bonaparte, and filled him
+      with sorrow, though it reached him on a day in which he had obtained a new
+      triumph, a spiritual victory without any shedding of blood. The pope,
+      frightened at the army detachments approaching Rome, as well as at the
+      menacing language of the victor of Arcola, signed a peace with the French
+      republic, and with the general whose sword had bowed into the dust all the
+      princes of Italy, and freed all the population from their duties as
+      subjects. Bonaparte announced this to Josephine, and it is evident how
+      important it was to him that this news should precede even his
+      love-murmurings and reproaches. His letter was dated
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;TOLONTINO, the 1st Ventose, Year V. (February 19,1797).
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Peace with Rome is signed. Bologna, Ferrara, Romagna fall into the hands
+      of the French republic. The pope has to pay us in a short time thirty
+      millions, and gives us many precious objects of art.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I leave to-morrow for Ancona, and then for Rimini, Ravenna, and Bologna.
+      If your health permits, come over to meet me in Ravenna, but, I implore
+      you, spare yourself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not a word from your hand! What have I done? To think only of you, to
+      love but you, to live but for my wife, to enjoy only my beloved&rsquo;s
+      happiness, does this deserve such a cruel treatment from her? My friend, I
+      implore you, think of me, and write to me every day. Either you are sick,
+      or you love me no longer. Do you imagine, then, that my heart is of
+      marble? Why do you have so little sympathy with my sorrow? You must have a
+      very poor idea of me! That I cannot believe. You, to whom Nature has
+      imparted so much understanding, so much amiability, and so much beauty,
+      you, who alone can rule in my heart, you know, without doubt, what power
+      you have over me!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Write to me, think of me, and love me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yours entirely, yours for life,
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      &ldquo;BONAPARTE.&rdquo;
+     </h3>
+    <p>
+      This is the last letter of Bonaparte to Josephine during his first Italian
+      campaign&mdash;the last at least in the series of letters which Queen
+      Hortense has made public, as the most beautiful and most glorious monument
+      to her mother. [Footnote: &ldquo;Lettres de Napoleon a Josephine et de Josephine
+      a Napoleon et a sa fille. Londres et Leipzic, 1833.&rdquo;]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We have dwelt upon them because these letters, like sunbeams, throw a
+      bright light on the new pathway of Josephine&rsquo;s life&mdash;because they are
+      an eloquent and splendid testimony to the love which Josephine had
+      inspired in her young husband, and also to her amiableness, to her
+      sweetness of disposition, to her grace, and to all the noble and charming
+      qualities which procured her so much admiration and affection, and which
+      still caused her to be loved, sought for and celebrated, when she had to
+      descend from the height of a throne, and became the deserted, divorced
+      wife of the man who loved her immeasurably, and who so often had sworn to
+      her that this love would only end with his life!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0027" id="link2HCH0027"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXVII. THE COURT OF MONTEBELLO.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      On the 18th of April were finally signed, in Leoben, the preliminaries of
+      peace between Austria and France, and which finally put an end to this
+      cruel war. Austria was compelled to acknowledge herself defeated, for even
+      the Archduke Charles, who had pushed forward from the Rhine with his army
+      to oppose the conqueror of Wurmser and of Alvinzi, had not been able to
+      arrest Bonaparte in his victorious career.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bonaparte had publicly declared he would march toward Vienna, and dictate
+      to the Emperor of Germany, in his very palace, terms of peace. He was at
+      the point of carrying into execution this bold plan. Since the battle of
+      Tagliamento, on the 16th of March, the army of the archduke was broken,
+      and he could no longer prevent Bonaparte from marching with his army over
+      Laybach and Trieste into Germany. On the 25th of March, Bonaparte entered
+      into Klagenfurt; and now that he was but forty miles from the capital, the
+      Austrian court began to tremble at the approach of this army of
+      sans-culottes who, under the leadership of General Bonaparte, had been
+      transformed into heroes. She therefore accepted the propositions of peace
+      made by Bonaparte, and, as already said, its preliminaries were signed in
+      Leoben.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now Bonaparte could rest after such constant and bloody work, now he could
+      again hasten to his Josephine, who was waiting for him in the palace of
+      Serbelloni. The whole city&mdash;all Lombardy&mdash;was with her, awaiting
+      him. His journey from Leoben to Milan was a continuous triumph, which,
+      however, reached its culminating point at his entrance into the city.
+      Milan had adorned herself for this day as a bride to receive her hero.
+      From every balcony waved the united French and Italian standards, costly
+      tapestries were hanging down, every window was occupied by beautiful women
+      gayly attired, and who, with large bouquets of flowers and waving
+      handkerchiefs, greeted the conqueror. All the dignitaries of the city went
+      to meet him in processional pomp; from every tower sounded the welcome
+      chimes, and the compact masses of the people in the streets and on the
+      roofs of the houses filled the air with the jubilant shout: &ldquo;Long live the
+      deliverer of Italy! the conqueror of Austria!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Josephine, surrounded by ladies of the highest aristocracy of Lombardy,
+      received her husband in the Palace Serbelloni. With radiant smiles, and
+      yet with tears in her eyes, she received him, her heart swelling with a
+      lofty joy at this ovation to Bonaparte; and through the glorification of
+      this victory he appeared to her more beautiful, more worthy of love, than
+      ever before. On this day of his return from so many battles and victories
+      her heart gave itself up with all its power, all its unreservedness and
+      fulness, to this wondrous man who had won so many important battles, and
+      who bowed before her alone with all the submissive humility of a conquered
+      man! From this day she loved him with that warm, strong love which was to
+      end only with her death.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Josephine had good reason to be happy on this day, for it brought her not
+      only her husband, but also a new source of happiness, her son, her dear
+      Eugene. Bonaparte had sent for him from Paris, and given him a commission
+      of second lieutenant in the first regiment of hussars, and had also
+      appointed him adjutant of the commanding general of the army of Italy,
+      perhaps as much to give to Josephine a new proof of his affection as to
+      attach Eugene to his person, for whom he felt the love of a father.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Near the returned general, Josephine, to her supreme delight, saw her dear
+      son, from whom she had been separated so long; and Eugene, whom she had
+      left in Paris a mere boy, presented himself to her in Milan, in his
+      officer&rsquo;s uniform, as a youth, with countenance beaming with joy and eyes
+      full of lustre, ready to enter upon fame&rsquo;s pathway, on which his
+      step-father, so brilliant a model, was walking before him. The maternal
+      heart of Josephine felt both love and pride at the sight of this young
+      man, so remarkable for his healthy appearance, and his youthful vigor and
+      genius, and she thanked Bonaparte with redoubled love for the joyous
+      surprise which his considerate affection had prepared for her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now began for Josephine and Bonaparte happy days, illumined by all the
+      splendor of festivities, of fealty exhibited, of triumphs realized. After
+      lingering a few days in Milan, Bonaparte, with his wife, the whole train
+      of his friends, his adjutants and servants, removed to the pleasure-castle
+      of Montebello, near Milan.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Here, amid rich natural scenery, in this large, imposing castle, which,
+      built on the summit of a hill, mantled with olive-groves and vineyards,
+      afforded on all sides a view of the surrounding, smiling plains of
+      Lombardy&mdash;here Bonaparte wished to rest from the hardships and
+      dangers of his last campaign; here, he wished to organize the great
+      Italian republic which was then the object of his exertions, and whose
+      iron crown he afterward coveted to place on his head. At Montebello he
+      wished to enact new laws for Italy, create new institutious, reduce to
+      silence, with threatening voice, the opposition of those who dared to
+      oppose to the new law of liberty the old centennial rights of possession
+      and of citizenship.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Italy was to be free, such was the will of her deliverer; and he took
+      great care not to let any one suspect or read the secret thoughts which he
+      kept hid behind the pompous proclamations of his authority. He therefore
+      answered evasively and vaguely those who came to fathom his designs, and
+      to become acquainted with his plans.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Grand-duke of Tuscany sent to Montebello for this purpose, the Marquis
+      Manfredini. He was instructed to ask General Bonaparte if it was his
+      intention to destroy the grand-duchy of Tuscany, and to incorporate its
+      territory into the great Italian republic. The marquis implored Bonaparte
+      with persuasive, touching accents, to tell him what his plans were, and if
+      he would allow Tuscany to subsist as an independent state.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bonaparte, smiling, shrugged his shoulders: &ldquo;Signor marquis,&rdquo; said he,
+      &ldquo;you remind me of that creditor who once asked the Cardinal de Rohan when
+      he wished to pay him. The cardinal simply answered: &lsquo;My dear sir, do not
+      be so curious.&rsquo; If your grand-duke will keep quiet, he will suffer no
+      injury.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Napoleon exhibited less friendliness and good-nature toward the republic
+      of Venice, which had also sent her delegates to Montebello for the sake of
+      reconciling the general, who had sworn vengeance against the republic,
+      because a sort of Sicilian Vespers had been organized there against the
+      French; and because, especially in Verona, and throughout the Venetian
+      provinces, thousands of Frenchmen had been murdered by the revolted
+      peasants, whom the fanatical priesthood had stirred to sedition.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, that Bonaparte had defeated the Grand-duke Charles, the hope of the
+      rebels, Venice humbly sent her most distinguished sons to plead for
+      forgiveness and indulgence, and to promise full reparation. But Napoleon
+      received them with contempt and threatening anger, and to their humble
+      petitions replied in a thundering voice, &ldquo;I will be an Attila to Venice!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile the same general, who swore the ruin of Venice, showed himself
+      conciliating and lenient toward Rome, and instead of being an Attila, he
+      endeavored to be a preserver and a protector.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Directory in Paris was not fully satisfied with the peace which
+      Bonaparte had concluded with the pope. They thought Napoleon had been too
+      lenient with him; that he ought to have taken Rome from him, as he tore
+      away Milan from the Emperor of Germany. The five rulers of France went so
+      far as to make reproaches against Bonaparte for his leniency, and to
+      require from him the downfall of the pope, and with him that of
+      Catholicism.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Bonaparte had the boldness to oppose these demands of the Directory,
+      and to set up his will in defiance to their supreme authority.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He wrote to the Directory: &ldquo;You say with reason that the Roman religion
+      will long be the enemy of the republic; that is very true, but it is
+      equally true that, on account of the great distance you are from the scene
+      of events, you cannot measure the amount of difficulty there is in
+      carrying out your orders.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You wish to destroy the Catholic Church in a city where it has ruled so
+      many years. Believe me, it is useless to burden ourselves with fruitless
+      labor. We have already enough to do; to defeat our enemies on the field of
+      battle, it is not necessary to arouse all Europe against us&mdash;even the
+      heretics, through policy, would defend the cause of the Holy See. Are you
+      fully convinced that France would calmly look on? France needs a religious
+      worship: that which you propose cannot, on account of its simplicity,
+      replace this one. Follow my advice: let the pope be pope! If you bury his
+      earthly power, acknowledge at least his spiritual authority. Force him not
+      to seek refuge at a foreign court, where by his mere presence it would
+      gain an immense ascendency. Italy wants religion and the pope. If she is
+      wounded in her faith, she will be hostile to us, while now she is
+      peaceably inclined. I repeat, the present difficulties are too weighty, to
+      add new ones. Who can fathom the future? Who can assume the responsibility
+      of such a deed as the one you propose? I shall not, therefore, do it,
+      since you leave it with me to inform you on the subject. I consider it
+      dangerous to conjure up fanaticism. The Catholic religion is that of the
+      arts, and the arts are absolutely necessary to Italy&rsquo;s welfare. Be sure
+      that if you destroy the former, you give a fatal blow to the latter, and
+      that the Italians are good accountants. Ponder well these matters, then,
+      and be sure that Catholicism has ceased to exist in France. Are you well
+      satisfied that no one there will go back to it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      While in Montebello, though the sword had been laid aside, Bonaparte was
+      still busy with war affairs, and the quarrels of princes and nations.
+      Josephine at the same time passed there the honored life of a mighty
+      princess, whose favors and intercessions the great and the powerful of
+      earth endeavored to obtain by every conceivable means. The ladies of the
+      aristocracy of Milan were eager to pay their homage to the wife of the
+      deliverer; the courts of Italy, as well as other parts of Europe, sent
+      ambassadors to General Bonaparte; and these gentlemen were naturally
+      zealous in offering their incense to Josephine, in surrounding her with
+      courtly and flattering attentions. The Marquis de Gallo, the ambassador of
+      Spain at the court of Verona, came with the Austrian ambassador, the Count
+      von Meerfeld, to Montebello, to enter into negotiations about the peace
+      which was to form the precious key-stone to the preliminaries of Leobeu;
+      and these two gentlemen, who opposed to the plain manners of Bonaparte&rsquo;s
+      companions-in-arms the very essence of refined, polished, and witty
+      courtiers, rivalled each other in showing to Josephine their highest
+      consideration by their festivities and amusements; to win her favor and
+      interest through the most complacent and considerate attention to all her
+      views, wishes, and plans.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Josephine received all this homage with the enchanting and smiling
+      quietude of a woman who, without exaltation or pride, feels no surprise at
+      any flattery or homage, but kindly and thankfully accepts what is due to
+      her. Among this brilliant Italian aristocracy which surrounded her&mdash;among
+      the ambassadors of the powers who sued not so much for alliance with
+      France as for General Bonaparte&rsquo;s favor&mdash;among the generals and
+      superior officers who had shared with Bonaparte the dangers of the
+      battle-field and the laurels of victory&mdash;among learned men, artists,
+      and poets, whom Bonaparte had often invited to Montebello&mdash;among so
+      brilliant, so wealthy, so superior, so intelligent a society, Josephine
+      shone as the resplendent sun around which all these planets moved, and
+      from which they all received life, light, and happiness. She received the
+      ambassadors of sovereigns with the dignity and affability of a princess;
+      she conversed with the most distinguished ladies in cheerful simplicity,
+      and with the unaffected joyousness and harmless innocency of a young
+      maiden; she conversed with men of learning and artists in profound and
+      serious tones, about their labors, their efforts, and success; she allowed
+      the generals to relate the momentous events of the late great battles, and
+      her eye shone with deeper pride and pleasure when from the mouth of the
+      brave she heard the enthusiastic praise of her husband.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then her keen looks would be directed toward Bonaparte, who perchance
+      stood in a window recess, engaged in some grave, solemn conversation with
+      an eminent ambassador; her eyes again would glance from her husband to her
+      son, to this young officer of seventeen years, who now laughed, jested,
+      and played, as a boy, and then with respectful attention listened to the
+      conversation of the generals, and whose countenance beamed with
+      inspiration as they spoke to him of the mighty deeds of war and the plans
+      of battle of his step-father, whom Eugene loved with the affection of a
+      son, and the enthusiasm of a disciple who looks up to and reveres his
+      master.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yes, Josephine was happy in these days of Montebello. The past, with its
+      sad memories, its deceptions and errors, had sunk behind her, and a
+      luminous future sent its rays upon her at the side of the man whom
+      jubilant Italy proclaimed &ldquo;her deliverer,&rdquo; and whom Josephine&rsquo;s joyous
+      heart acknowledged to be her hero, her beloved. For now she loved him
+      truly, not with that love of fifteen years past, with the marmoreal pulse,
+      of which Bonaparte had spoken to her in his letters, but with all the
+      depth and glow of which a woman&rsquo;s heart is capable, with all the passion
+      and jealousy of which the heart of a creole alone is susceptible.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Happy, sunny days of Montebello! days full of love, of poetry, of beauty,
+      of happiness!&mdash;full of the first, genial, undisturbed, mutual
+      communion!&mdash;days of the first triumphs, of the first homage, of the
+      first dawn of a brilliant future! Never could the memory of those days
+      fade away from Josephine&rsquo;s heart; never could the empress, in the long
+      series of her triumphs and rejoicings, point to an hour like one of those
+      she had, as the wife of the general, enjoyed at Montebello!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Every day brought new festivities, new joys, new receptions: balls,
+      official banquets, select friendly dinners, came by turns; in brilliant
+      soirees, they received the aristocracy of Lombardy, who, with ever-growing
+      zeal, struggled for the honor of being received at the court of
+      Montebello, and to see the doors of the drawing-room of the wife of
+      General Bonaparte open to them. Sometimes parties were made up for a
+      chase, of which Berthier acted as master, and who was not a whit behind in
+      organizing hunting-parties in the style of those of the former court of
+      Versailles, where he once had acted as page.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At times, in the warm days of May, the whole company went out together on
+      the large and splendid piazza which ran along the castle, on the garden
+      side, and which was supported by slender marble columns, and whose roof,
+      made of thin wire-work, was thickly shaded by the foliage of the vine, the
+      ivy, and the delicate leaves of the passion-flower. Here, resting on the
+      marble settees, one listened in blessed happiness to the music of bands
+      secreted in some myrtle-grove and playing military symphonies or patriotic
+      melodies. Then, as the evening faded away, when the court of Montebello,
+      as the Italians now called the residence of the general of the republic,
+      had no brilliant reception, they gathered in the drawing-room, where
+      Josephine, with all the affability of a lady from the great world,
+      received her guests, and with all the modesty and grace of a simple
+      housewife served herself the tea.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These quiet social evenings in the little drawing-room of Josephine, away
+      from excitement, were among Bonaparte&rsquo;s happiest moments; there, for a few
+      hours at least, he forgot the mighty cares and schemes which occupied his
+      mind, and abandoned himself to the joys of society, and to a cheerful
+      intercourse with his family and friends. In these quiet evenings Josephine
+      exerted all the art and refinement of her great social nature to render
+      Bonaparte cheerful and to amuse him. She sometimes organized a party of
+      vingtet-un, and Bonaparte with his cards was as eager for the victory as
+      in days past he had been with his soldiers. Very often, when success did
+      not favor him, and his cards were not such as suited him, the great
+      general would condescend to correct fate (de corriger la fortune); and he
+      was much delighted when in his expertness he succeeded, and, thanks to his
+      correction of fate, obtained the victory over his play-mates. When the
+      parti was ended, they went out on the terrace to enjoy the balmy air and
+      refreshing coolness of the evening, and to take delight in witnessing the
+      enchanting spectacle afforded by the thousands of little stars with which
+      the fire-flies illumined the darkness of the summer night and encircled
+      the lake as with a coronet of emeralds.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When they grew tired of this, they returned to the drawing-room to listen
+      to Josephine&rsquo;s fine, full, soul-like voice singing the songs of her
+      island-home, or else to find amusement in the recital of fairy tales and
+      marvellous stories. None understood this last accomplishment better than
+      Bonaparte; and it required only the gracious request, the lovely smiles of
+      his Josephine, to convert the general into one of those improvisatores who
+      with their stories, more resembling a dramatic representation than a
+      narrative, could exalt the Italian mind into ecstasy, and be ever sure to
+      attract an attentive audience.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bonaparte understood the art of holding his audience in suspense, and
+      keeping them in breathless attention, quite as well as an improvisator of
+      the Place of St. Mark or of Toledo Street. His stories were always full of
+      the highest dramatic action and thrilling effect; and it was his greatest
+      triumph when he saw his hearers turn pale, and when Josephine, shuddering,
+      clung anxiously to him, as if seeking from the soldier&rsquo;s hand protection
+      against the fearful ghosts he had evoked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After the marvellous stories came grave scientific conversations with men
+      of learning, whom Bonaparte had invited for the sake of deriving from
+      their intercourse both interest and instruction. Among these were the
+      renowned mathematicians Maria Fontana, Monge, and Berthelet; and the
+      famous astronomer Oriani, whom Bonaparte, through a very flattering
+      autographic note, had invited to Montebello.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Oriani, little accustomed to society and to conversation with any one
+      but learned men, was very reluctant to come to Montebello, and would
+      gladly have avoided it had he not been afraid of exciting the wrath of the
+      great warrior. Bonaparte, surrounded by his generals, his staff-officers
+      and adjutants, was in the large and splendidly-illumined drawing-room when
+      Oriani made his appearance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The savant, timid and embarrassed, remained near the door, and dared not
+      advance a single step farther on this brilliant floor, where the lights of
+      the chandeliers were reflected, and which filled the savant with more
+      bewilderment than the star-bespangled firmament.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Bonaparte&rsquo;s keen eye understood at once his newly-arrived guest; he
+      advanced eagerly toward him, and as Oriani, stammering and embarrassed,
+      was endeavoring to say something, but grew silent in the midst of his
+      speech, the former smilingly asked:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What troubles you so much? You are among your friends; we honor science,
+      and I willingly bow to it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, general,&rdquo; sighed Oriani, sorrowfully, &ldquo;this magnificence dazzles me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bonaparte shrugged his shoulders. &ldquo;What!&rdquo; said he, looking around with a
+      contemptuous glance on the mirrors and rich tapestries which adorned the
+      walls, and on the glittering chandeliers, the embroidered uniforms of the
+      generals, and the costly toilets of the ladies&mdash;&ldquo;what, do you call
+      this magnificence? Can these miserable splendors blind the man who every
+      night contemplates the far more lofty and impressive glories of the
+      skies?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The savant, recalled by these warning words of Bonaparte to the
+      consciousness of his own dignity, soon recovered his quiet demeanor and
+      conversed long and gladly with the general, who never grew tired of
+      putting questions to him, and of gaining from him information.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But there were also cloudy moments in Montebello, oftentimes overshadowing
+      the serene sunshine. They came from France&mdash;from Rome&mdash;and there
+      were even some which had their origin in Montebello. These clouds which
+      were formed in Montebello, and which caused slight showers of tears with
+      Josephine, and little tempests of anger with Bonaparte, were certainly not
+      of a very serious nature; they owed their origin to a lapdog, and this pet
+      dog was Fortune, the same which in days gone by had been the
+      letter-carrier between Josephine and her children when she was in the
+      Carmelite prison. Notwithstanding Fortune had become old and peevish,
+      Josephine and her children loved him for the sake of past reminiscences,
+      while Bonaparte simply hated and detested him. Bonaparte had, however,
+      perhaps without wishing it, erected for him an abiding monument in the
+      &ldquo;Memorial de Ste. Helene,&rdquo; where he gave a report of his hostilities with
+      the lapdog Fortune, along with those of his wars with the European powers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was then,&rdquo; says Bonaparte, in his &ldquo;Memorial,&rdquo; &ldquo;the ruler of Italy, but
+      in my own house I had nothing to say; there Josephine&rsquo;s will was supreme.
+      There was an ugly, growling personage, at war with everybody, whose bad
+      qualities made him intolerable to me and to others, yet he was an
+      important individual, who was by Josephine and her children flattered from
+      morning till evening, and who was the object of their most delicate
+      attentions. Fortune, to me a hateful beast, was a horrible lapdog, with
+      crooked legs and deformed body, without the slightest beauty or kindness,
+      but of a most malicious disposition. I would gladly have killed him, and
+      often prayed Heaven to deliver me from him. This happiness was, however,
+      reserved for me in Montebello. A bull-dog which belonged to my cook became
+      tired of his churlish incivilities, and not having the same
+      considerateness as the rest of the inmates of the palace of Montebello, he
+      attacked the detestable animal so violently as to kill him on the spot.
+      Then began tears and sighs in the house. Josephine could not be comforted;
+      Eugene wept, and I myself against my will put on a sorrowful countenance.
+      But I gained nothing by this fortunate accident. After Fortune had been
+      stuffed, sung in sonnets, and made immortal by funeral discourses, he was
+      replaced by two setters, male and female. Then came the amiable displays
+      and the bickerings of this love-couple, and afterward their progeny. So
+      that I knew not what to do.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Soon after this, as I was walking in the park, I noticed my cook, who, as
+      soon as he saw me, disappeared on a side-path.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;Are you afraid of me?&rsquo; said I. &ldquo;&rsquo; Ah, general,&rsquo; replied he, timidly,
+      &lsquo;you have good reason to be angry with me.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;I? What have you done?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;My unfortunate dog has indeed killed poor little Fortune.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;Where is your dog?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;He is in the city. God have mercy on us! he dares not come here.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;Listen, my good fellow&rsquo; (but I spoke in a low voice, for fear of being
+      heard), &lsquo;let your dog run about just as he likes&mdash;perhaps he may
+      deliver me from the others.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But this happiness was not in reserve for me. Josephine, not satisfied
+      with dogs, soon after this procured a cat, which brought me into a state
+      of despair; for this detestable animal was the most vicious of its race.
+      ....&rdquo; [Footnote: Memorial de Ste. Helene.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The strifes with Fortune, with the setters, and with the cat, troubled
+      Bonaparte less than the intrigues which his enemies in Italy, as well as
+      in France, stirred up against him, and through them endeavored to destroy
+      him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In Italy it was the priests who had sworn deadly enmity to Bonaparte, and
+      who, with all the weapons which the arsenal of the Church, fanaticism, and
+      superstition, furnished them, fought against the general who had dared to
+      break the power of the pope, and to restrict within narrower limits the
+      rule of the priests. It was these priests who continually made the most
+      furious opposition to the ascendency which Bonaparte had won over the
+      Italian mind, and sought constantly to rouse up, within the minds of the
+      people, opposition to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One day, Marmont announced that a certain Abbe Sergi was exciting the
+      peasants against the French, and especially against Bonaparte; that he was
+      preaching sedition and rebellion in Christ&rsquo;s name, and was showing to the
+      ignorant laborers a letter, which he had received from Christ, in which it
+      was declared that General Bonaparte was an atheist and a heretic, whom one
+      ought to destroy and drive away from Italy&rsquo;s sacred soil.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bonaparte at once ordered Marmont to arrest this Abbe Sergi, who lived in
+      Poncino, and to bring him to Montebello. His orders were followed, and,
+      after a few days, the captive abbe was brought before the general. He
+      seemed cheerful, unaffected, and assumed the appearance of being
+      unconscious of guilt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you the man,&rdquo; exclaimed Bonaparte, &ldquo;to whom Christ writes letters
+      from Paradise?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah! signor general, you are joking,&rdquo; replied the abbe, smiling&mdash;but
+      one of Bonaparte&rsquo;s angry looks fell upon his broad, well-fed face, and
+      forced the priest into silence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am not joking,&rdquo; answered Bonaparte, angrily; &ldquo;you, however, are joking
+      with the peasants, since you are telling these poor, superstitious men
+      that you are in correspondence with Christ.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Alas! signor general,&rdquo; sighed the abbe, with contrite mien, &ldquo;I wanted to
+      do something in the defence of our cause, and what can a poor clergyman
+      do?&mdash;he has no weapons&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mind that in future you procure other weapons!&rdquo; interrupted Bonaparte,
+      vehemently. &ldquo;That will be better for you than to dare use the Deity for
+      your schemes of wickedness. I order you to receive no more letters from
+      Paradise, not even from Christ. Correspond with your equals, and be on
+      your guard, or you will soon find that I can punish the disobedient!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The abbe bowed penitently, and with tears in his eyes. Bonaparte turned
+      his back to him, and ordered him to be taken to Poncino.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From that day, however, much as he hated General Bonaparte, the Abbe Sergi
+      received no more letters from Paradise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nevertheless, the letters of the Abbe Sergi were not those which gave the
+      most solicitude to Bonaparte; much worse were those he received from
+      Paris, which gave him an account of the persevering intrigues of his
+      enemies, and the malicious slanders that were circulated against him by
+      the Directory, who were envious of his power and superiority, and which
+      mischievous and poisonous calumnies were re-echoed in the newspapers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These insidious attacks of the journals, more than any thing else, excited
+      Bonaparte&rsquo;s vehement anger. The hero who, on the battle-field, trembled
+      not before the balls which whizzed about his head, had a violent dislike
+      to those insect-stings of critics who, like wasps humming round about the
+      laurel-wreath on his brow, ever found between the leaves of his fame some
+      place where with their stings they could wound him, and who was as
+      sensitive as a young blameless maiden would be against the wasp-stings of
+      slander.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This irritable sensitiveness led him to consider those detestable attacks
+      of the journals worth a threatening denunciation to the Directory.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Citizen-directors,&rdquo; wrote he to them, &ldquo;I owe you an open confession; my
+      heart is depressed and filled with horror through the constant attacks of
+      the Parisian journals. Sold to the enemies of the republic, they rush upon
+      me, who am boldly defending the republic. &lsquo;I am keeping the plunder,&rsquo; 
+      whilst I am defeating them; &lsquo;I affect despotism,&rsquo; whilst I speak only as
+      general-in-chief; &lsquo;I assume supreme power,&rsquo; and yet I submit to law! Every
+      thing I do is turned to a crime against me; the poison streams over me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Were any one in Italy to dare give utterance to the one-thousandth part
+      of those calumnies, I would impose upon him an awful silence!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In Paris, this is allowed to go on unpunished, and your tolerance is an
+      encouragement. The Directory is thus producing the impression that it is
+      opposed to me. If the directors suspect me, let them say so, and I will
+      justify myself. If they are convinced of my uprightness, let them defend
+      me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In this circle of argument, I include the Directory with me, and cannot
+      go beyond it. My desire is, to be useful to my country. Must I, for
+      reward, drink the cup of poison?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can no longer be satisfied with empty, evasive arguments; and if
+      justice is not done to me, then I must take it myself. Therefore, I am
+      yours. Salutation and brotherly love. BONAPAKTE.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But all these vexations, hostilities, and calumnies, were, however, as
+      already said, mere clouds, which now and then obscured the bright sunshine
+      at the court of Montebello. At a smile or a loving word from Josephine,
+      they flew away rapidly, and the sunshine again in all its splendor, the
+      pleasures, feasts, and joys, continued in their undisturbed course. All
+      Italy did homage to the conqueror, and it was therefore very natural that
+      sculptors and painters should endeavor to draw some advantage from this
+      enthusiasm for its deliverer, and that they should endeavor to represent
+      to the admirers of Bonaparte his peculiar form and countenance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Bonaparte did not like to have his portrait painted. The staring,
+      watchful gaze of an artist was an annoyance to him; it made him restless
+      and anxious, as if he feared that the scrutinizing look at his face might
+      read the secrets of his soul. Yet at Josephine&rsquo;s tender and pressing
+      request he had consented to its being taken by a young painter, Le Gros,
+      whose distinguished talent had been brought to his notice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Le Gros came therefore to Montebello, happy in the thought that he could
+      immortalize himself through a successful portrait of the hero whom he
+      honored with all the enthusiasm of a young heart. But he waited in vain
+      three days for Bonaparte to give him a sitting. The general had not one
+      instant to spare for the unfortunate young artist.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last, at Josephine&rsquo;s pressing request, Bonaparte consented on the
+      fourth day to sit for him one-quarter of an hour after breakfast. Le Gros
+      came therefore delighted, at the time appointed, into the cabinet of
+      Josephine, and had his easel ready, awaiting the moment when Bonaparte
+      would sit in the arm-chair opposite. But, alas! the painter&rsquo;s hopes were
+      not to be realized. The general could not bring himself to sit in that
+      arm-chair, doing nothing but keeping his head quiet, so that the painter
+      might copy his features. He had no sooner been seated, than he sprang up
+      suddenly, and declared it was quite impossible to endure such martyrdom.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Le Gros dared not repeat his request, but with tears in his eyes gathered
+      up his painting-materials. Josephine smiled. &ldquo;I see very well,&rdquo; said she,
+      &ldquo;that I must have recourse to some extraordinary means to save for me and
+      for posterity a portrait of the hero of Arcola.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She sat down in the arm-chair, and beckoned to Le Gros to have his easel
+      in readiness. Then with a tender voice she called Napoleon to her, and
+      opening both arms she drew him down on her lap, and in this way she
+      induced him to sit down quietly a few moments and allow the painter the
+      sight of his face, thus enabling him to sketch the portrait. [Footnote:
+      &ldquo;Memoires et Souvenirs du Comte Lavalette,&rdquo; vol. i., p. 168.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the end of this peculiar sitting, Bonaparte smilingly promised that he
+      would next day grant the painter a second one, provided Josephine would
+      again have the &ldquo;extraordinary means&rdquo; ready. She consented, and for four
+      days in succession Le Gros was enabled to sit before him a quarter of an
+      hour, and throw upon his canvas the features of the general, while he
+      quietly sat on Josephine&rsquo;s lap.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This picture, which Le Gros thus painted, thanks to the sweet ruse of
+      Josephine, and which was scattered throughout Europe in copperplate
+      prints, represented Bonaparte, with uncovered head, holding a standard in
+      his hand, and with his face turned toward his soldiers, calling on them to
+      follow him as he dashed on the bridge of Arcola, amid a shower of Austrian
+      balls.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is a beautiful, imposing picture, and contemporaries praised it for its
+      likeness to the hero, but no one could believe that this pale, grave
+      countenance, these gloomy eyes, and earnest lips, which seemed incapable
+      of a smile, were those of Bonaparte as he sat on the lap of his beloved
+      Josephine when Le Gros was painting it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0028" id="link2HCH0028"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXVIII. THE PEACE OF CAMPO FORMIO.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      After three months the time drew nigh when the peace negotiations were to
+      reach a final conclusion, and when it was to be decided if the Emperor of
+      Germany would make peace with the French republic or if he would renew the
+      war.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For three months had the negotiations continued in Montebello&mdash;three
+      months of feasts, pleasures, and receptions. To the official and public
+      rejoicings had been also added domestic joys. Madame Letitia came to Italy
+      to warm her happy, proud mother&rsquo;s heart at the triumphs of her darling
+      son; and she brought with her her daughter Pauline, while the youngest,
+      Caroline, remained behind in Madame Campan&rsquo;s boarding-school. It could not
+      be otherwise than that the sisters of the commander-in-chief, whose true
+      beauty reminded one of the classic features of ancient Greece, should find
+      among the officers of the army of Italy most enthusiastic admirers and
+      worshippers, and that many should long for the favor of being more
+      intimately connected by the ties of affection with the celebrated general.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bonaparte left his sisters entirely free to make a choice among their
+      suitors, and he hesitated not to give his consent when Pauline became
+      affianced to General Leclerc. After a few weeks, the marriage was
+      celebrated in Montebello; and, soon after, the happy couple left that city
+      to return to Paris, whither Madame Letitia had preceded them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Josephine, however, remained with her husband; she accompanied him from
+      Montebello to Milan, where Bonaparte, now that the Austrian envoys had
+      taken their leave, tarried some time, awaiting the final decision of the
+      Austrian court upon his propositions. Meanwhile, the imperial court, for
+      good reasons, still hesitated. It was known that in France there was
+      secretly preparing an event which in a short time might bring on a new
+      order of things, putting an end to the hateful republic, and once more
+      placing the Bourbons on the throne of the lilies.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      General Pichegru, a zealous royalist, and intimate friend of the Prince de
+      Conde, with whom he had been in secret correspondence for several months,
+      had organized a conspiracy which had for its object the downfall of the
+      Directory, the ruin of the republican administration, the recall of the
+      monarchy to Paris, and the re-establishment of the Bourbons.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But General Moreau, who, with his army on the Rhine, stood opposite to
+      that of the royalists, had the good fortune to discover the conspiracy, by
+      intercepting Pichegru&rsquo;s whole correspondence. The Directory, informed by
+      Moreau, took secretly precautionary measures, and on the 18th Fructidor,
+      Pichegru, with all his real or supposed guilty companions, was arrested.
+      To these guilty ones belonged also, according to the opinion of the
+      Directory, two out of their number, Carnot and Barthelemy, besides
+      twenty-two deputies and one hundred and twenty-eight others, all among the
+      educated classes of society. These were exiled to Cayenne; Carnot alone
+      escaped from this distant and cruel exile by a timely flight to Geneva.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The 18th Fructidor, which disarmed the royalists and destroyed their
+      plans, had a great influence upon the negotiations carried on between
+      France and Austria, which were entangled with so many difficulties.
+      Austria, which had vacillated and delayed&mdash;for she was informed of
+      the schemes of the royalists, and hoped that if Louis XVIII. should ascend
+      the throne, she would be delivered from all the burdensome exactions of
+      the republic&mdash;now saw that this abortive attempt had removed the
+      royalists still further from their object and more firmly consolidated the
+      republic; she was therefore inclined to push on negotiations more
+      speedily, and to show greater readiness to bring on a final settlement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The conferences broken off in Montebello were resumed in Udine. Thither
+      came the Austrian and French plenipotentiaries. Bonaparte, however, felt
+      that his presence was also necessary, so as not to allow these conferences
+      again to remain in abeyance. He therefore, accompanied by Josephine, went
+      to Passeriano, a beautiful residence of the Doge Marini, not far from
+      Udine, charmingly situated on the shores of the Tagliamento, and in the
+      midst of a splendid park. But the residence in Passeriano was not
+      enlivened by the pleasures, recreations, and festivities of Montebello.
+      Politics alone occupied Bonaparte&rsquo;s mind, and not only the peace
+      negotiations, but also the Directory of the republic, furnished him with
+      too many occasions for ill-will and anger.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Austria, which had added the Count von Coblentz to her plenipotentiaries,
+      adhered obstinately to her former claims; and the Directory, which now
+      felt stronger and more secure by their victory of the 18th Fructidor, were
+      so determined not to accept these claims, that they wrote to General
+      Bonaparte that they would sooner resume hostilities than concede to &ldquo;the
+      overpowered, treacherous Austria, sworn into all the conspiracies of the
+      royalists, her unreasonable pretensions.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But Bonaparte knew better than the proud lords of the Directory, that
+      France needed peace as well as Austria; that France lacked gold, men, and
+      ammunition, for the vigorous prosecution of the war. While, therefore, the
+      Directory, enthroned in the Luxemburg, amid peace and luxury, desired a
+      renewal of hostilities, it was the man of battles who desired peace, and
+      who was inclined to make to Austria insignificant concessions sooner than
+      see the work of peace dashed to pieces.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The sole recreation in Passeriano consisted in the banquets which were
+      interchanged between it and Udine, and where Josephine found much
+      pleasure, at least in the conversation of the Count von Coblentz, who
+      could speak to her with spirit and grace of his sojourn in Petersburg&mdash;of
+      Catharine the Great, at whose court he had been accredited so long as
+      ambassador from Austria, and who had even granted him the privilege of
+      being present at her private evening circles at the Hermitage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bonaparte was still busy with the glowing tenderness of a worshipping
+      lover, in procuring for his Josephine pleasures and recreations, as each
+      favorable opportunity presented itself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The republic of Venice, now laboring under the greatest anxiety and fear
+      on account of Bonaparte&rsquo;s anger at her perfidy and enmity, had descended
+      from the height of her proud attitude to the most abject humility. Her
+      solicitude for mere existence made her so far forget her dignity, that she
+      humbly invited Bonaparte, whose loud voice of anger pronounced only
+      vengeance and destruction, to come and receive in person their homage and
+      the assurance of their loyalty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bonaparte refused this invitation as regarded his own person, for in his
+      secret thoughts the ruin of Venice was a settled matter; and as the
+      death-warrant of this republic of terror and secret government was already
+      signed in his thoughts, he could not accept her feasts and her homage. But
+      he did not wish before the time to betray to the republic his own
+      conclusions, and his refusal to accept their invitation ought not to have
+      the appearance of a hostile demonstration. He therefore sent to Venice a
+      representative, who, in his name, was to receive the humble homage and the
+      assurances of friendship from the republic. This representative was
+      Josephine, and she gladly undertook this mission, without foreseeing that
+      Venice, which adorned itself for her sake with flowers and festivities,
+      was but the crowned victim at the eve of the sacrifice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As Bonaparte himself could not accompany his wife, he sent with her as an
+      escort the ex-magistrate Marmont; and in his memoirs the latter relates
+      with enthusiasm the feasts which the republic of Venice gave in honor of
+      the general upon whom, as she well knew, her future fate depended.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Madame Bonaparte,&rdquo; says he, &ldquo;was four days in Venice. I accompanied her
+      hither. Three days were devoted to the most splendid feasts. On the first
+      day there was a regatta, a species of amusement which seems reserved only
+      to Venice, the queen of the sea. ... Six or seven gondolas, each manned by
+      one or two oarsmen, perform a race which begins at St. Mark&rsquo;s Square, and
+      ends at the Rialto bridge. These gondolas seem to fly; persons who have
+      never seen them can form no idea of their swiftness. The beauty of the
+      representation consists especially in the immense gatherings of the
+      spectators. The Italians are extremely fond of this spectacle; they come
+      from great distances on the continent to see it; there is not in Venice an
+      individual who rushes not to the Canal Grande to enjoy the spectacle; and
+      during the time of the regatta of which I am speaking, the wharves on the
+      Canal Grande were covered with at least one hundred and fifty thousand
+      persons, all full of curiosity. More than five hundred small and large
+      barges, adorned with flowers, flags, and tapestries, followed the
+      contesting gondolas.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The second day we had a sea-excursion; a banquet had been prepared on the
+      Lido: the population followed in barges adorned with wreaths and flowers,
+      and to the sound of music re-echoing far and near.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The third day, a night promenade took place. The palace of the doge, and
+      the houses along the Canal Grande, were illuminated in the most brilliant
+      manner, and gave light to hundreds of gondolas, which also were made
+      luminous with divers-colored lamps. After a promenade of two hours, and a
+      splendid display of fireworks in the midst of the waters, the ball opened
+      in the palace of the doge. When we think of the means which the situation
+      of Venice offers, the beauty of her architecture, the wonderful animation
+      of the thousand gondolas closely pressed together, causing the impression
+      of a city in motion; and when we think of the great exertions which such
+      an occasion would naturally call forth, the brilliant imagination of this
+      people so remarkable for its refined taste, and its burning lusts for
+      pleasure&mdash;then we can form some idea of the wondrous spectacle
+      presented by Venice in those days. It was no more the mighty Venice, it
+      was the elegant, the luxurious Venice.&rdquo; [Footnote: &ldquo;Memoires du Due de
+      Raguse,&rdquo; vol. i., p. 287.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After those days of festivities, Josephine, the queen of them, returned to
+      the quietude of Passeriano, which, after the sunshine of Venice, must have
+      appeared to her still more gloomy and sad.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Bonaparte himself was weary of all this useless repose, and he
+      resolved with a daring blow to cut into shreds those diplomatic knots of
+      so many thousand interwoven threads.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The instrument with which he was to give the blow was not the sword&mdash;it
+      was not that which Alexander had used, but it was a cup. This cup, at a
+      dejeuner given to him by the Count von Coblentz, where was displayed the
+      costly porcelain service presented to him by the Empress Catharine, was
+      dashed at the feet of the Count von Coblentz by Bonaparte, who, with a
+      thundering voice, exclaimed: &ldquo;In fourteen days I will dash to pieces the
+      Austrian monarchy as I now break this!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Count von Coblentz, infuriated at this, was still staring in
+      bewilderment at the fragments of the imperial gift, when Bonaparte left
+      the room, to enter his carriage. With a loud voice he called to one of the
+      officers of his suite, and gave him orders to go at once to the camp of
+      the Archduke Charles, and to tell him, in the name of General Bonaparte,
+      that the peace negotiations were broken, and that hostilities would be
+      resumed next day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But as Bonaparte was going toward his carriage, he met the Marquis de
+      Gallo, who besought him to re-enter the room; he assured him that it had
+      been resolved to accept Bonaparte&rsquo;s ultimatum&mdash;that is to say, to
+      renounce all claims to the fortress of Mantua.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the next day [Footnote: The 17th of October, 1797.] the treaty of peace
+      between Austria and France was signed. It had been decided that the
+      ceremony of signing it should take place in the village of Campo Formio,
+      which for this reason was declared to be neutral ground. It lay midway
+      between Udine and Passeriano; and Bonaparte sent his adjutant, Marmont,
+      into the village to select a house where the ceremony might take place.
+      But there was not a single building which was in any way fitted to receive
+      such distinguished guests. The Austrian diplomats, therefore, consented to
+      come to Passeriano to ratify the terms of peace, provided, it should be
+      named after the neutral territory of Campo Formio.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Count von Coblentz and the Marquis de Gallo passed the whole day at
+      Passeriano, in the company of Bonaparte and Josephine. In Josephine&rsquo;s
+      drawing-room each abandoned himself to the most cheerful and unaffected
+      conversation, while at the same time the secretaries of both the Austrian
+      and French embassies were in the cabinet of the French general, writing
+      two copies of the mutual agreements of peace which were to be signed by
+      Bonaparte and by the Austrian plenipotentiaries.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      During the whole day Bonaparte was in high spirits. He had reached his
+      aim: the strife was over; diplomatic bickerings were at rest; the small as
+      well as the great war was ended; peace was gained at last! Bonaparte had,
+      not only on the battle-field, but also at the green-table, been
+      victorious; he had not only overcome Austria, but also the Directory.
+      During the whole day he remained in the drawing-room with Josephine and
+      his Austrian guests, and without any affectation he took his part in the
+      conversation. It was so pleasant to him to be thus in confidential
+      intercourse, that, as the evening came on, he would not allow lights to be
+      brought into the drawing-room. As if they were in a sociable family
+      circle, in some old remote castle, they amused themselves in relating
+      ghost-stories, and here, too, Bonaparte won a victory. His story surpassed
+      all others in horrors and thrilling fears, and the dramatic mode of its
+      delivery increased its effect. Josephine became excited as if by some
+      living reality; and while Bonaparte, with an affrighted, trembling voice,
+      was describing how the door opened, how the blood-stained ghost with
+      hollow eyes entered, she screamed aloud, and tremblingly clung to his arm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At this moment it was announced that the secretaries had prepared the
+      documents of the treaty, and that nothing was wanting to make it operative
+      but the signatures.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bonaparte laughingly thanked his Josephine with a kiss for the flattering
+      effect produced by his ghost-story, and then he hastened into his cabinet
+      to attach his signature to the peace of Campo Formio. [Footnote:
+      Lavalette, &ldquo;Memoires,&rdquo; vol. i., p. 250.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This peace gave to France the left bank of the Rhine, with the fortress of
+      Mayence: it delivered Italy from the rule of Austria, but it repaid
+      Austria by giving her possession of the beautiful city of the lagoons,
+      Venice, which made Austria mistress of the Adriatic Sea.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Peace was concluded, and now Bonaparte, with his laurels and victories,
+      could return to Paris; now he could hope that he had swept away, from the
+      memory even of his adversaries, the sad success of the 13th Vendemiaire,
+      by the series of brilliant victories and conquests which he had obtained
+      in the name of their common country.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bonaparte prepared himself therefore to return home to France. But the
+      Emperor of Germany, full of admiration for the hero of Arcola, and of joy
+      at a peace which had given him Venice, and which gave to France little
+      more than the captured cannon, standards, and prisoners, but undying
+      glory, wished to show himself thankful to Bonaparte. He offered to the
+      general millions of treasure, and, still more, a magnificent estate, and
+      promised him the title of duke.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Bonaparte refused alike the money and the title. As a simple French
+      general he wished to return to France, and, though in future days he
+      created at his will many dukes, he now disdained to become a duke by the
+      grace of the Emperor of Germany. He accepted nothing out of all the
+      offered presents, but six splendid gray horses which the Emperor Francis
+      had sent him from his own stalls. Bonaparte had won too many victories, to
+      need the title of a German duke; he had obtained a sufficiently ample
+      share of the war-booty not to need the wealth and the treasures of
+      sovereign gifts. He was no longer the poor general, of whom his enemies
+      could say that he had married the widow of General de Beauharnais on
+      account of her riches and of her influence; he now, besides fame,
+      possessed a few millions of francs, which, as a small portion of his share
+      of the victory&rsquo;s rewards, he brought home with him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His work in Italy was accomplished; and in Milan, whither Bonaparte had
+      returned with Josephine, they bade each other farewell: they wished to
+      return to Paris by different routes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bonaparte desired first to go to Rastadt, there to attend the great peace
+      congress of Germany and France. His journey thither was a complete
+      triumph. He was everywhere received with enthusiasm; everywhere the people
+      applauded the conqueror of so many battles, the hero who, only
+      twenty-eight years old, had, by his series of victories, gained
+      immortality. His reception in Berne, especially, was enthusiastic and
+      flattering; both sides of his pathway were lined with brilliant equipages,
+      and the beautiful, richly apparelled ladies who sat in them threw him
+      kisses, crowns of flowers and bouquets, shouting, &ldquo;Long live the
+      peace-maker!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He travelled over Mount Cenis to Rastadt, where he found in the crowd of
+      German and French diplomats many generals and learned men, who had come
+      there to see the man whom his very enemies admired, amongst whom he was
+      nearly as popular as with his friends. However, Bonaparte remained but a
+      few days there; for, after having attended the opening of the Congress, he
+      pursued his journey to Paris, where he arrived on the 6th of December.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Josephine, as we have already said, did not accompany her husband to
+      Paris. Before leaving Italy, she desired to accomplish two objects of her
+      heart. She wished to see Rome, the everlasting city of fame and of arts,
+      the city of the ancient gods, and of the seat of St. Peter; and she wished
+      also to embrace her son Eugene, who was there as an attache of Joseph
+      Bonaparte, the ambassador of the French republic. Wherever she went, she
+      was received with enthusiasm, not only as the wife of Italy&rsquo;s deliverer,
+      but also on account of her personal merits. Through her affability, her
+      amiableness, and her sweet disposition, which shunned every haughty
+      exaltation, and yet was never lacking in dignity or in reserve&mdash;through
+      the goodness of her heart, which was ever ready to help the unfortunate&mdash;through
+      all those exquisite and praiseworthy qualities which adorned and
+      beautified her, she had won the love and admiration of all Italy; and long
+      afterward, when the deliverer of Italy had become her lord and her
+      oppressor, when she had no longer cause to love Bonaparte, but only to
+      curse him, Italy preserved for Josephine a memory full of admiration and
+      love.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0029" id="link2HCH0029"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXIX. DAYS OF TRIUMPH.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      On the 5th of December, 1797, Bonaparte returned to Paris; and, a few days
+      after, Josephine arrived also. In her little hotel, in the Street
+      Chautereine, where she had passed so many bright and happy days, she
+      hoped, after so many storms and hardships, to enjoy again new and cheerful
+      sunny days of domestic enjoyments&mdash;she hoped to rest from all those
+      triumphs which had accompanied at each step both her and her husband.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This hope, however, was not to be realized, for greater triumphs still
+      than those she had enjoyed in Italy awaited Bonaparte in Paris. The days
+      of quietude, and the pleasures of home, which Josephine so much loved, and
+      which she so well understood how to embellish with friendships and joys,
+      were now forever past away. Placed at the side of a hero whose fame
+      already filled all Europe, she could no longer calculate upon living in
+      modest retirement, as she would have wished to do: it was her lot to share
+      his burden of glory, as she also was illumined by its beams.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From this moment nothing of former days remained; all was changed, all was
+      altered by Bonaparte&rsquo;s laurels and victories. He was no more the servant
+      of the republic, he was nearly its master; he had not only defeated
+      Austria in Italy, but he had also defeated in France the Directory, which
+      had sent him as its general to Italy, and which now saw him return home as
+      the master of the five monarchs of France.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Every thing now, as already said, assumed a new shape: even the house in
+      which they lived, the street in which this house stood, had to be changed.
+      Hitherto this street had been called &ldquo;Rue Chautereine;&rdquo; since Bonaparte&rsquo;s
+      return the municipality of Paris gave it the name &ldquo;Rue de la Victoire,&rdquo;
+       and now to this Street of Victory the people of Paris streamed forth to
+      see the conqueror; to stand there patiently for hours before the little
+      hotel, and watch for the moment when at one of the windows the pale
+      countenance of Bonaparte, with his long, smooth hair, might appear.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Even the little hotel was to be altered. Bonaparte&mdash;who, in earlier
+      days, had described, as his dream of happiness, the possession of a house,
+      of a cabriolet, and to have at his table the company of a few friends,
+      with his Josephine&mdash;now found that the little house in the Rue de la
+      Victoire was too small for him; that it must be altered even as the street
+      had been. The modest and tasteful arrangements which had sufficed the
+      Widow Josephine de Beauharnais, appeared now to her young husband as
+      insufficient; the little saloon, in which at one time he had felt so happy
+      at the side of the viscountess, was no longer suited to his actual wants.
+      Large reception-rooms and vestibules were needed, magnificent furniture
+      was necessary, for the residence of the conqueror of Italy, in the Rue de
+      la Victoire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Architects were engaged to enlarge and transform the small house into a
+      large hotel, and it was left to Josephine&rsquo;s taste to convert the hitherto
+      elegant private dwelling into a magnificent residence for the renowned
+      general who had to be daily in readiness to receive official visits,
+      delegations of welcome from the authorities, and the institutions of
+      Paris, and from the other cities of France.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For France was desirous to pay her homage to the hero of Arcola, and to
+      celebrate his genius&mdash;to wish him prosperity, and to applaud him. The
+      Directory had to adapt themselves to the universal sentiment; to pay their
+      respects to the general with a cheerful mien and with friendly alacrity,
+      while at heart they looked on him with vexation and envy. Bonaparte&rsquo;s
+      popularity filled them with anxiety and fearful misgivings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But it was necessary to submit to this; the public sentiment required
+      those festivities in honor of the general of the republic, and the five
+      directors in the Luxemburg had no longer the power to guillotine the
+      public sentiment, the true king of Paris, as once they had guillotined
+      King Louis.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The directors, therefore, inaugurated brilliant festivities; they received
+      the conqueror of Italy in the Luxemburg with great demonstrations of
+      solemnity, in which the Parisians took a part. In the immense court in
+      front of the residence of the directors this celebration took place. In
+      the midst of the open place a lofty platform was erected; it was the
+      country&rsquo;s altar, on which the gigantic statues of Freedom, Equality, and
+      of Peace, were lifted up. Around this altar was a second platform, with
+      seats for the five hundred, the deputies, and the authorities; the
+      standards conquered in the Italian war formed over the seats of the five
+      directors a sort of canopy: they were, however, to them as the sword of
+      Damocles, ready to fall upon them at any moment and destroy them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The directors, dressed in brilliant antique robes, created no impression,
+      notwithstanding their theatrical splendor, in comparison with the
+      sensation produced by the simple, unaffected appearance of General
+      Bonaparte. He wore the plain green uniform which he had worn at Arcola and
+      Lodi; his suite was limited to a few officers only, who, like himself,
+      appeared in their ordinary uniforms, which they had worn on the
+      battle-field. The two generals, Andreossy and Joubert, carried the
+      standards which the Legislative Assembly, two years before, had presented
+      to the army of Italy, and upon which could now be read the names of
+      sixty-seven battles won.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At one of the windows of the palace of the Luxemburg, Josephine watched
+      this strange celebration, the splendors of which made her heart beat with
+      delight, and filled her eyes with tears of joy. Near her was her daughter
+      Hortense, lately withdrawn from Madame Campan&rsquo;s institution, to be with
+      her mother, who, full of ecstasy and pride, gazed at the charming maiden
+      at her side, just blooming into a young lady; and then beyond, at that
+      pale young man with pensive eyes standing near yonder altar, and before
+      whom all the authorities of Paris bowed&mdash;who was her husband, her
+      Bonaparte, everywhere conqueror! Before her only was he the conquered! She
+      listened with a happy smile to the long speech with which Talleyrand
+      saluted Bonaparte in the name of his country; she heard how Barras,
+      concealing within himself his jealousy and his envy, welcomed him; how
+      with admiration he praised him; how he said that Nature, in one of her
+      most exalted and greatest moments, had resolved to produce a masterpiece,
+      and had given to the wondering world Bonaparte!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And then, after this affected harangue, Josephine saw how Barras, with
+      tears of emotion, embraced Bonaparte, and how the other Directors of
+      France followed his example. A slight sarcastic smile for a moment played
+      on Josephine&rsquo;s lips, for she well knew how little this friendship and this
+      love of the Directory were to be trusted, how little sincerity was
+      contained in the sentiments which they so publicly manifested toward the
+      conqueror.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With love&rsquo;s anxiety and a woman&rsquo;s instinct, she watched over her hero; she
+      was ever busy to track out the meandering paths of his foes, to destroy
+      the nets wherein they wished to entangle his feet. She had even braved the
+      jealous wrath of Bonaparte when it was necessary to ferret out some
+      intrigue of the Directory. The special spy, whom Barras had sent to Italy
+      to watch the movements of Bonaparte, and to give him early reports of
+      every word, Botot, had been received by Josephine with a friendly smile
+      and with great attention; she manifested toward him a confiding
+      friendship, and thus succeeded in discovering his secret, and behind the
+      seeming friend to unveil the cunning spy of Bonaparte&rsquo;s enemies. She could
+      therefore meet Bonaparte&rsquo;s anger with serene brow and pure conscience; and
+      when he accused her of frivolity and unfaithfulness, she justified herself
+      before him by unveiling the secret schemes and machinations of his foes.
+      And these foes were chiefly the five directors. He therefore knew very
+      well what he was to expect from the embraces, the tears, the kisses of
+      Barras; and the flattering words which he spoke to him in the presence of
+      the Parisians made no impression whatever on Bonaparte&rsquo;s heart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the applause with which the people of Paris received him was not
+      deceitful, like that of the Directory; the respect they paid him was not
+      forced, and their applause therefore filled the hearts of Josephine and
+      Bonaparte with joy. Wherever he appeared, he was greeted with loud
+      demonstrations of joy; the poets praised him in their songs, the musicians
+      sang hymns in his honor, and the men of science brought to him proofs of
+      their esteem. The Institute of Sciences named him one of their members in
+      the place of Carnot; the painters and architects paid him homage with
+      their works. The renowned painter David requested the honor of taking
+      Bonaparte&rsquo;s portrait, and the general acceded to his wishes because
+      Josephine had promised that the painter&rsquo;s request should be granted. David
+      desired to paint him on horseback near the bridge of Lodi or of Arcola,
+      and he placed before him a sketch he had made for this picture. But
+      Bonaparte rejected it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;I was not there alone, I conquered only with the whole
+      army. Place me there, quiet and calm, seated upon a fiery horse.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      What did Bonaparte mean by this &ldquo;fiery horse&rdquo;? Are his words to be
+      understood in all their beauty and simplicity? or did he, by the restless
+      horse, which he so calmly reins in, already think of the republic which,
+      under the guidance of his masterly hand, was one day to be converted into
+      an empire? Who could read the depths of this man&rsquo;s heart, which screened
+      itself so carefully, and whose secrets in regard to the future he dared
+      not divulge even to his beloved Josephine?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The first few weeks after their return from Italy were passed away amid
+      festivities and demonstrations of respect. Josephine abandoned herself to
+      this pomp with a high spirit, and with a deep love for enjoyment. Her
+      whole being was thoroughly interpenetrated with the warmth of this new
+      sun, which had risen over her in so wondrous a light, and surrounded her
+      with its lustrous rays. All these festivities, banquets, representations
+      at the grand opera, and at the Theatre Francais, these public ovations
+      which accompanied Bonaparte at every step, at every promenade, at every
+      attendance at the theatre,&mdash;all these marks of honor elated
+      Josephine, filling her with an enthusiastic pride for the hero, the man
+      whom she now loved with all the excitability of a woman&rsquo;s heart, and over
+      whom fame rested as a halo, and which made him appear to Josephine still
+      greater and more exalted. To him alone now belonged her whole heart and
+      being; and now for the first time she experienced those nervous spasms of
+      jealousy which at a later date were to mix so many bitter drops of gall in
+      the golden cup of her greatness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the ovations, the tokens of affection on the part of gentlemen
+      delighted her, but she had no thanks for the ladies when, with their
+      enthusiasm, brilliant eyes, bewitching smiles, and flattering words, they
+      endeavored to manifest their adoration and gratitude to the hero of Italy;
+      she could barely keep back her tears when, at the reception which
+      Talleyrand, the minister of foreign affairs, gave to Bonaparte, the
+      beautiful songstress Grassini appeared, and, with her entrancing voice,
+      sang the fame of the conqueror who had bound captive to his triumphal car,
+      as the most precious booty, the proud songstress herself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Directory, however, would have gladly allowed the ladies to take part
+      in this enthusiasm if the men had taken no share in it; but the admiration
+      which they had everywhere manifested so strongly for Bonaparte, had
+      completely overshadowed their own greatness and importance. They were no
+      longer the monarchs of France&mdash;Bonaparte alone seemed to be its ruler&mdash;and
+      their envious jealousy told them that it would require but a sign from his
+      hand to impart to the French government a new form, to disenthrone the
+      five directors, and to place himself in their position. The sole aim was,
+      therefore, to remove Bonaparte as soon as practicable from Paris, and if
+      possible from France, so as to check his popularity, and to oppose his
+      ever-growing power.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bonaparte was but little inclined to meet these views of the Directory,
+      and to accept the propositions made to him. He declined at once to go to
+      Rastadt, there to attend to the discussions of the congress, with as much
+      resolution as he had refused to go to Rome to punish the papal government
+      for the enmity it had shown to Prance. He left it to diplomats to prattle
+      in Rastadt over the green-table, and to General Berthier to punish the
+      papal government, and to drive Pius out of the Eternal City, the seat of
+      St. Peter, and erect there the altar of the republic of Rome.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There were greater and loftier aims which Bonaparte now sought&mdash;and
+      fame, which he loved quite as much as Josephine did, and was soon to love
+      even more, was enticing him on to paths yet untrodden, where no hero of
+      past ages had sought for it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In Egypt, near the pyramids of four thousand years, he desired to gather
+      fresh laurels; from thence the astonished world was to hear the wondrous
+      recitals of his victories. His lively fancy already imagined his name
+      written on those gigantic monuments of past ages, the only earthly
+      creations which have in themselves nearly the character of immortality.
+      With his mighty deeds he wished to surpass all the heroes of modern times;
+      he desired to rival Caesar and Alexander.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Caesar had won fifty battles, Bonaparte wanted to win a hundred. Alexander
+      had gone from Macedonia to the temple of Jupiter Ammon, Bonaparte wished
+      to leave Paris to obtain victories at the cataracts of the Nile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The bitterness which existed between the Directory and Bonaparte was
+      increasing more and more. He no longer spoke to the five monarchs as an
+      obedient, submissive son of the republic; he spoke as their lord and
+      master; he threatened when his will was not obeyed; he was wroth when he
+      met with opposition. And the Directory had not the courage to reproach him
+      for his undutiful conduct, or to enter the lists with him to dispute for
+      the sovereignty, for they well knew that public sentiment would declare
+      itself in his favor, that Paris would side with the general if matters
+      were to come to a crisis between them. It was therefore better and wiser
+      to avoid this strife, and, under some good pretext, remove Bonaparte and
+      open to him some distant pathway to fame, so as to be rid of him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Egypt was far enough from Paris to give to the Directory guaranties of
+      security, and it fell in with Bonaparte&rsquo;s plans. It was resolved therefore
+      to send an expedition to Egypt, and he was appointed its
+      commander-in-chief.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bonaparte had directed his eyes to the East when in Passeriano he was
+      making peace with Austria. In Egypt were the battle-fields which were to
+      surround his name with a fresh halo of glory.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Josephine learned this resolution of Bonaparte with fear and anxiety, but
+      she dared not betray this to any one, since this expedition was to remain
+      a secret to all the world. Only in private could her tears flow, only
+      before Bonaparte could she complain. Once, as she encircled him
+      convulsively with her arms, her mind full of misgivings and her eyes of
+      tears she asked him how many years he thought of remaining in Egypt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She had put this question only in a jesting form. He took it in full
+      earnestness, and answered:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Either a few months or six years. All depends upon circumstances. I must
+      win Egypt to civilization. I will gather there artists, learned men,
+      mechanics of all trades, even women&mdash;dancers, songstresses, and
+      actresses. I want to mould Egypt into a second France. One can do a great
+      deal in six years. I am now twenty-nine years old, I shall be thirty-five
+      when I return&mdash;that is not old. But I shall want more than six years
+      if I go to India.&rdquo; [Footnote: Bourrienne, vol. ii., p. 49.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Josephine cried aloud with anguish and horror, and, embracing him in her
+      arms, implored him with all the delicate tenderness of her anxious
+      affection not to thrust her aside, but to allow her to accompany him to
+      Egypt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Bonaparte refused, and this time her tears, which he had never before
+      denied, were fruitless. He felt that Josephine&rsquo;s presence would damp his
+      ardent courage, retard his onward march, and that he would not have the
+      necessary fearless energy to incur risks and perils if Josephine were to
+      be threatened by their consequences. He could not expose her to the
+      privations and restless wanderings of a campaign, and his burning love for
+      her was too real for him to yield to her wishes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Josephine, meanwhile, was not silenced by his refusal; she persevered in
+      her supplications, and Bonaparte, at last softened by her prayers, was
+      obliged to come to terms. It was decided that Josephine should follow him
+      to Egypt, that he would select a place of residence and prepare every
+      thing for her reception there, so that she might without danger or too
+      much inconvenience undertake the journey.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But before commencing such an undertaking, Josephine&rsquo;s health needed
+      recruiting; she was to go to the baths of Plombieres, and Bonaparte was to
+      hold a ship in readiness in Toulon to bring her to Egypt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The ship which was chosen to transport her was the Pomona, the same in
+      which, when only sixteen years old, she had come from Martinique to
+      France. Then she had gone forth to an unknown world and to an unknown
+      husband; now she was on the same ship to undertake a journey to an unknown
+      world, but it was a beloved husband whom she was going to meet, and love
+      gave her the strength to do so.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Josephine, full of the sweetest confidence that she was soon to follow
+      Bonaparte, and hereafter to see him again, accompanied him to Toulon. She
+      had the strength to repress her tears as she bade him farewell, and to
+      smile as he entreated her to keep her heart faithful to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She showed herself at this separation stronger than Bonaparte himself, for
+      while her eyes were bright with joyous love, his were sad and obscured by
+      tears.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The difference was this: Bonaparte knew that he was bidding farewell to
+      Josephine for long years; she trusted that in a few months she would be
+      reunited to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bonaparte imprinted a last kiss on the lips of Josephine. She embraced him
+      tenderly in her arms, and, to shield herself against the deep anguish of
+      the separation, she cried aloud:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In three months we meet again! The Pomona, which brought me to France,
+      will bear me back to my hero, to my Achilles! In three months I shall be
+      with you again. You have often called me the star of your fortune. How
+      could this star abandon you when you are going to fight against your
+      foes?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He gazed at her with a look at once full of deep love and sorrow:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Josephine,&rdquo; said he, solemnly, &ldquo;my enemies are neither in Asia nor in
+      Africa, but they are all in France. I leave you behind me in their midst,
+      for you to watch them, and to unravel their schemes. Think of this, and be
+      my strong and prudent wife.&rdquo; [Footnote: Bonaparte&rsquo;s words.&mdash;See Le
+      Normand, vol. i., p. 278.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Deeply moved, he turned away, and hastened from her to the boat that was
+      to bear him to the flag-ship, which was waiting only for the commanding
+      general to come aboard before weighing anchor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0032" id="link2H_4_0032"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      BOOK III. THE EMPRESS AND THE DIVORCED.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0030" id="link2HCH0030"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXX. PLOMBIERES AND HALMAISON.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      While Bonaparte with the French fleet was sailing toward the East, there,
+      in the wide valley of the Nile, to win a new fame, Josephine started for
+      Plombieres, where she had requested her daughter Hortense to meet her. The
+      splendid scenery and pleasant quietude of Plombieres offered at least some
+      comfort and satisfaction to Josephine, whose heart was not yet healed from
+      the anguish of separation. Her greatest consolation was the thought that
+      in a few months she would go to her husband; that the Pomona would bear
+      her to him who now possessed her whole soul, and surrounded her whole
+      being with an enchantment which was to cease only with her life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She counted the days, the weeks, which separated her from the wished-for
+      journey; she waited with impatient longing for the news that the Pomona,
+      which needed a few repairs, was ready and all prepared for the distant but
+      welcome voyage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her sole recreation consisted in the company of, and in the cordial
+      fellowship with Hortense, now grown up a young lady, and the companionship
+      of a few intimate ladies who had followed her to Plombieres. Surrounded by
+      these, she either sat in her drawing-room, busy with some manual labor, or
+      else, followed by a single servant, she and Hortense made long walks in
+      the wonderfully romantic vicinity of Plombieres.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One morning she was in the drawing-room with her friends, working with the
+      needle, conversing, and finding recreation in stepping through the
+      wide-open folding-doors upon the balcony, from which a most enchanting
+      view could be had of the lovely valley, and the mountains which stood
+      round about it. While there, busily embroidering a rose, one of her
+      friends, who had gone to the balcony, called her to come quickly to admire
+      a remarkably small greyhound which was passing down the street. Josephine,
+      whose love for dogs had made Napoleon pass many a restless hour, hastened
+      to obey her friend&rsquo;s call, and went out upon the balcony, whither the rest
+      of the ladies followed her, all curious to see the greyhound which had set
+      Madame de Cambis into such an excitement. But the weight of these six
+      ladies, gathered close together on the balcony, was too heavy for the
+      plank and joist-work loosely put together. A fearful crash was heard; and
+      as Hortense, who had remained in the drawing-room, busy with her painting,
+      looked out, she saw neither the ladies nor the balcony. All had
+      disappeared&mdash;nothing but a cloud of dust arose from the street,
+      amidst a confusion of cries of distress, of shouts for help, and groans of
+      pain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The balcony, with the ladies, had been precipitated into the street, and
+      all those who were on it were more or less severely injured. Josephine
+      recognized it as a providential protection that she had not paid with
+      broken limbs, like her friends, for the curiosity of seeing the beautiful
+      little greyhound, but had only received violent contusions and sprained
+      joints. For weeks she had to suffer from the consequences of this fall,
+      and was confined to her bed, not being able to lift herself up, nor with
+      her bruised, swollen hands to bring the food to her mouth during this
+      time. Hortense had to wait upon her mother as she had waited upon her when
+      she was only a small, helpless child.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While Josephine was thus for these weeks suffering, the Pomona, fully
+      equipped, was sent to sea, for she was intrusted with important
+      instructions for the commanding general Bonaparte, and could not possibly
+      be detained for Josephine&rsquo;s recovery. She received this news with bitter
+      tears, and resolutely declared that no sooner should she be recovered than
+      she would sail for Egypt in any kind of vessel; that she was firmly
+      decided to follow her husband and share his dangers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She had, however, twice received letters from Bonaparte. In the first of
+      these he had, full of tender solicitude, entreated her not to undertake
+      the fatiguing and dangerous voyage; in the second he had commanded her
+      with all the earnestness of love to give up the enterprise, and requested
+      as a proof of her affection and faithfulness, that she would listen to
+      reason, remain in Paris, and watch over his interests, and be his guardian
+      angel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Josephine read this last letter with a sorrowful smile, and, as she handed
+      it to her friend Madame de Chateau-Renaud, she said, sighing:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The days of happiness are over. While in Italy, Bonaparte required that I
+      should bid defiance to all dangers, so as to be at his side, for his
+      letters then demanded my presence. Now he orders me to avoid dangers, and
+      to remain quietly at home.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But it is out of pure love he does this!&rdquo; exclaimed her friend. &ldquo;See how
+      affectionate and how tender his letter is! Certainly no man can love his
+      wife more warmly than Bonaparte loves you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, yes,&rdquo; sighed Josephine, &ldquo;he loves me yet, but I am no longer
+      absolutely necessary&mdash;he can live without me; once love ruled over
+      his reason, now his reason rules over his love. It will be as I fear: I
+      shall day by day love him more fondly and more passionately, for he is my
+      last love, but he will every day love me less, for perhaps I am his first
+      love, and his heart will be young long after he reads upon my face that I
+      am six years older than he.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      However, she conformed to the wishes of her husband; she was resigned, and
+      gave up the thought of going to Egypt. At first she did it only with
+      tears, but soon after there came news which made her accept her husband&rsquo;s
+      wishes as the commands of Fate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Pomona, the vessel which had once brought her from Martinique to
+      France, and on board of which she was to go to Egypt, had been captured by
+      an English man-of-war, and all her passengers sent as prisoners to
+      England.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The fall from the balcony had therefore saved Josephine from being carried
+      into captivity to England. To this fall she owed her liberty! With all the
+      levity and superstition of a creole, Josephine looked upon this fortunate
+      mishap as a warning from Fate, and it seemed to her as if this had taken
+      place to hinder her journey to Egypt. She therefore dried her tears and
+      submitted to the orders alike of Fate and of her husband.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She remained in France, and accepted her mission to watch, as a true
+      friend and beloved one, over the interests of her husband, to observe his
+      friends and foes, and to send him news of every thing which it was
+      important for him to know.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Once her fate decided, and she resolved to remain in France, she
+      determined to make her life comfortable and pleasant; she wished to
+      prepare for herself and her children a joyous existence, and procure also
+      for her returning husband a gift which she knew would meet a
+      long-cherished wish of his.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She bought a residence, situated not far from Paris, the Castle Malmaison,
+      if the name of castle can be properly given to a pretty, tastefully-built
+      country residence, tolerably large and plain, but surrounded by a
+      beautiful park.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Their wishes and wants were yet simple, and the country residence,
+      Malmaison, was amply sufficient to receive the family and the friends of
+      General Bonaparte and his wife; it became too small and too narrow only
+      when it had to accommodate the Emperor Napoleon, the empress, and their
+      court-attendants and suite.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But if the Castle Malmaison was not large, the park which surrounded it
+      was all the larger and handsomer, and, with its shady walks, its wondrous
+      beds of flowers, its majestic avenues, its splendid groves and lawns, it
+      had for Josephine pleasures and joys ever new and fresh; and it furnished
+      her, moreover, with the welcome opportunity of following the inclinations
+      of her youth amidst the flowers, birds, trees, and plants.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Josephine loved botany; it was natural that she should endeavor to collect
+      together in Malmaison the most beautiful plants and flowers, and to
+      arrange them in this her little earthly paradise. She enlisted the most
+      able architects and the most skilful gardeners, and, under their
+      direction, with the hands of hundreds of workmen, there soon arose one of
+      the most beautiful hot-houses, wherein all these glories of earth,
+      splendid flowers, and fruits of distant climes, would find a home!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Josephine herself, with her fine taste and her deep knowledge of botany,
+      directed all these arrangements and improvements; the builders as well as
+      the gardeners had to submit their plans for her approbation, and it was
+      not seldom that her keen, practised eye discovered in them defects which
+      her ingenuity at once found means to correct.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In Malmaison, Josephine created around her a new world, a quiet paradise
+      of happiness, where she could dream, with blissful cheerfulness and with
+      all the youthful energy of her heart, of a peaceful future, of delightful
+      contentment, in the quiet enjoyment of Nature and of home.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the old world outside did not cease its own march; it fought its
+      battles, spun its intrigues, and continued its hostilities. Josephine
+      could not withdraw herself from this old world; she dared not place the
+      paradise of Malmaison as a wall of partition between her and the wild stir
+      and tumult of Paris; she had to rush away from the world of innocence,
+      from this country-life, into the whirlpool of the agitated, restless life
+      of Paris.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bonaparte had made it a duty for her to watch his friends as well as his
+      foes, and there were then happening in Paris events which appeared to the
+      wife of General Bonaparte worthy of close observation. His long absence
+      had diminished the number of his friends, and at the same time gave
+      strength to and increased his enemies, who were ever busy to defame and
+      vilify his heroic deeds, and to turn them into a crime; they represented
+      that the expedition to Egypt, notwithstanding the glorious exploits of the
+      French army, should have had more striking results, and the louder they
+      cried out, the more feeble and timid were the voices of his friends. The
+      latter daily found their position becoming more precarious, for they were
+      the moderate republicans, the supporters of the actual order of things,
+      and of the constitution which France had adopted. Against this
+      constitution arose, with loud cries, two hostile parties, which increased
+      every day, and assumed toward it a more and more threatening attitude.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These parties were, on the one hand, the royalists, who saw their hopes
+      increase every day, because the armies of the European powers, allied
+      against France, were approaching nearer and nearer the French frontiers;
+      and, on the other, the republicans of the past, who hoped to re-establish
+      the old days of the Convention and of the red republic.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Both parties tried to undermine society and the existing authorities; they
+      organized conspiracies, seditions, and tumults, and were constantly
+      inventing new intrigues, so as to destroy the government, and set
+      themselves up in its place.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The royalists trusted to the combined powers of the princes of Europe,
+      with whom the exiled Bourbons were approaching; and in La Vendee the
+      guerilla warfare had already begun against the republic.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The red republicans dreamed of re-establishing the guillotine, which was
+      to restore France to health by delivering her from all the adversaries of
+      the republic and bring back the glorious days of 1793; they left nothing
+      untried to excite the people into dissatisfaction and open rebellion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Against both parties stood the Directory, who in these days of tumult and
+      sedition, were themselves feeble and without energy, seeking only to
+      prolong their existence. They were satisfied to live on day by day, and
+      shrank from every decided action which might increase the wrath of the
+      parties or destroy the brilliant present of the mighty directors, in whose
+      ears the title of &ldquo;the five monarchs&rdquo; sounded so sweetly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the interior of France, anarchy, with all its horrors and confusion,
+      prevailed, and, on the frontier, its enemies were taking advantage of this
+      anarchy to give to the republic its mortal stroke.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Turkey, Russia, the Kings of Sardinia, Naples, and Sweden, were allied
+      with Austria, England, and Prussia, and they had begun to make immense
+      preparations. A Russian army, led by Suwarrow, was marching toward Italy,
+      to the help of Austria&mdash;to reconquer Lombardy. The Rastadt congress,
+      from which a universal peace had been expected, had dissolved, and the
+      only result was an increased enmity between Germany and France, the
+      deputies of the latter, as they were returning home, being shamefully
+      murdered in the open street, immediately before the gates of Rastadt, at
+      the instigation of the Austrian Count Lehrbach.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The murder of these ambassadors became the signal for the renewal of war,
+      which was now to be prosecuted with increased bitterness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At this important, critical moment, when all Europe was buckling on its
+      armor against France, which so much needed the guidance of her victorious
+      general&mdash;at this moment, Bonaparte was not only away from Paris, but
+      no news had been received from him for some months. Only a vague rumor was
+      spread through Paris: &ldquo;Bonaparte had fallen at the desperate attack on
+      Acre,&rdquo; and this sufficed to discourage entirely his friends, and to make
+      his enemies still more audacious and overbearing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At first Josephine was entirely cast down by the terrible news; but
+      afterward came the reflection, the doubt, the hope, that all this might be
+      a rumor spread by his enemies. She hastened to Paris to obtain information
+      from the Directory, so as to find out if there were any foundation for the
+      report of Bonaparte&rsquo;s death. But the Directory had as uncertain news as
+      Josephine herself, and the absence of information seemed to confirm its
+      truth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As she came one day to Barras to ask him if there were any news from the
+      army, she heard him say to Rewbell, one of the five directors: &ldquo;Here comes
+      the wife of that hypocrite Bonaparte! If he is not dead to Europe, he is
+      at least dead to France.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This expression proved to her that Barras himself did not believe in his
+      death, and gave to Josephine all her energy and presence of mind. She
+      busied herself in endeavoring to find a clew to this horrible rumor; and
+      she found that Bonaparte&rsquo;s enemies had spread it, and that only those to
+      whom his death would be welcome, and his return be objectionable, had
+      circulated this report.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her heart again beat with hope; she now felt, in the blissful joy which
+      penetrated her whole being, that Bonaparte was not dead; that he lived
+      still; that he would return home, to her great delight and to the terror
+      of his foes. A cheerful assurance sustained her whole nature. While all
+      those, who in the days of her happiness had rivalled each other in
+      assuring her of their friendship and devotedness, the Directory, the
+      ministers, the majority of the generals, turned away from her, cold and
+      indifferent; and her few true friends, low-spirited and depressed, bowed
+      their heads, while her foes and those of Bonaparte scornfully said in
+      their joy, &ldquo;Now the new King of Jerusalem and Cyprus has fallen under the
+      blows of a new savage Omar.&rdquo; While every thing was against her, Josephine
+      alone was cheerful, and confidingly looked into the future, for she felt
+      and knew that the future would soon bring back her husband, her beloved.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0031" id="link2HCH0031"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXXI. THE FIRST FAITHLESSNESS.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Josephines prophetic heart had not deceived her. Bonaparte lived! But his
+      was a life of danger, of constantly renewed battles and hardships&mdash;a
+      life in which he had constantly to guard against not only enemies, but
+      also against sickness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bonaparte had traversed the deserts with his army, visited the pyramids,
+      conquered Cairo, and, in warmly-contested and fearful combats, had
+      defeated and subdued the Mussulman. But these numerous victories had been
+      followed by some defeats, and all his successes were more than
+      counterbalanced by the fruitless storming of the impregnable Acre, and the
+      failure to conquer Syria. The English admiral, Sidney Smith, with his
+      vessels, anchored in the harbor of Acre, protected the besieged, and
+      constantly provided them with provisions and ammunition, and so
+      efficiently supported the pacha and his mercenary European soldiers, that
+      Bonaparte, after two months of fruitless efforts, abandoned the siege on
+      the 10th of May, 1799, and retreated into Egypt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This is not, however, the place to recall the stupendous enterprises of
+      Bonaparte, which remind one of the deeds of the heroes and demi-gods of
+      ancient Greece, or the nursery tales of extraordinary beings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His heroic deeds are engraven on history&rsquo;s page: there can be read the
+      wondrous events of his Egyptian campaign, of his march through the
+      wilderness, of the capture of Cairo, of his successful battles of Aboukir
+      and Tabor, which led the heroic General Kleber, forgetting all rivalry, to
+      embrace Bonaparte, exclaiming: &ldquo;General Bonaparte, you are as great as the
+      world, but the world is too small for you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There, also, one can read of the cruel massacre of three thousand captive
+      Mussulmen, of the revolt of Cairo; there are depicted the blood-stained
+      laurels which Bonaparte won in this expedition, the original plan of which
+      seems to have been conceived in the brain of one who was at once a
+      demi-god and an adventurer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We leave, therefore, to history the exclusive privilege of narrating
+      Bonaparte&rsquo;s career as a warrior; our task is with something superior&mdash;with
+      his thoughts, feelings, and sufferings, in the days of his Egyptian
+      campaign. It is not with the soldier, the captain, or his plans of battle,
+      that we have to do, but with the man, and especially with the husband of
+      Josephine&mdash;the woman who for his sake suffered, was full of
+      solicitude, contended for him, and struggled with love and loyalty, while
+      he fought only with sword and cannon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is true, Bonaparte also had to suffer, and his anxieties for the
+      success of his plans did not alone hang heavily on his heart, while with
+      his army he besieged the impregnable Acre. At this very time his heart
+      received a deep wound from his friend and confidant Junot, who drove the
+      sting of jealousy into his sensitive heart. It is the privilege of
+      friendship to pass by in silence nothing which calumny or ill-will may
+      imagine or circulate, but truly to make known to our friend every thing
+      which the public says of him, without regard to the sufferings which such
+      communications may entail upon his heart. Junot made full use of this
+      privilege. Bourrienne in his memoirs relates as follows:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;While we were in the vicinity of the springs of Messoudiah, I saw one day
+      Bonaparte, with his friend Junot, pacing to and fro, as he often did. I
+      was not very far from them, and I know not why during this conversation my
+      eyes were fixed on him. The face of the general was paler than usual,
+      though I knew not the cause. There was a strange nervousness; his eyes
+      seemed bewildered, and he often struck his head with his hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;After a quarter of an hour, he left Junot and came toward me. I had
+      noticed his angry, thoughtful expression. I went to meet him, and as I
+      stood before him, Bonaparte, with a harsh and severe tone, exclaimed: &lsquo;You
+      have no affection for me. The women! ... Josephine! ... Had you any
+      affection for me, you would long ago have given me the information which
+      Junot has now told me: he is a true friend! Josephine! ... and I am six
+      hundred miles away! ... You ought to have told me! ... Josephine! ... so
+      to deceive me! ... You! ... &ldquo;Woe to you all! I will uproot that detestable
+      race of seducers and blondins! As regards her&mdash;separation!&mdash;yes:
+      divorce, public separation before the eyes of all! ... I must write! I
+      know every thing! ... It is her fault, Bourrienne! You ought to have told
+      me.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;These vehement, broken utterances, the strange expression on his face,
+      and his excited tone of voice, revealed only too clearly what had been the
+      subject of the conversation he had had with Junot. I saw that Junot had
+      been drawn into a fatal indiscretion, and that if he had really believed
+      that charges could be made against Madame Bonaparte, he had exaggerated
+      them in an unpardonable manner. My situation was one of extreme delicacy:
+      I had, however, the good fortune to remain cool, and as soon as his first
+      excitement had subsided, I began to tell him that I knew nothing about
+      what Junot had told him; that if even such rumors, which often were
+      circulated only by slander, had reached me, and if I had thought it my
+      duty to communicate them to him, I should certainly not have chosen the
+      moment when he was six hundred miles away from France to do so. I did not
+      hesitate to tell him how blameworthy Junot&rsquo;s conduct appeared to me, and
+      how ungenerous it was to accuse a woman thoughtlessly, when she was not
+      present to justify or to defend herself; I told him that it was no proof
+      of affection for Junot to add domestic troubles to the grave anxieties
+      which already overburdened him. Notwithstanding my observations, to which,
+      however, he listened with composure, the word &lsquo;separation&rsquo; fell often from
+      his lips, and one must understand to what a pitch the excitement of his
+      feelings could carry him, to be able to imagine how Bonaparte appeared
+      during this painful scene. I did not, however, give up the point; I came
+      back to what I had said. I reminded him with what carelessness men
+      received and circulated such reckless stories, suited only to the idle
+      curiosity of gossips, and unworthy the attention of strong minds. I spoke
+      to him of his fame: &lsquo;My fame?&rsquo; cried he, &lsquo;ah, I know not what I would give
+      if what Junot has told me is not true&mdash;so much do I love this woman
+      ... if Josephine is guilty, I must be divorced from her forever. ... I
+      will not be the ridicule of the idle babblers of Paris! I must write to
+      Joseph to procure this separation.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Though he was still much excited, yet he was somewhat more quiet. I took
+      advantage of a moment&rsquo;s pause to combat this idea of separation which
+      seemed to overrule him. I called his attention to the unreasonableness it
+      would be, on such vague and probably false rumors, to write to his
+      brother. &lsquo;If you send a letter,&rsquo; said I, &lsquo;it will bear the impress of the
+      excitement which has dictated it; as regards a separation, it will be
+      time, after mature consideration, to speak of it.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;These last words made an impression on him which I had not expected so
+      soon to see; he became perfectly calm, and listened to me as if he felt
+      the need of receiving words of encouragement, and after this conversation
+      he never again alluded to the subject. Fourteen days after, before Acre,
+      he manifested to me the most violent displeasure against Junot, complained
+      of the sufferings which such indiscreet revelations had caused him, and
+      which he now considered as purely an invention of malice. I afterward
+      noticed that he did not forgive Junot this stupidity. It is easy to
+      understand why Josephine, when she learned from Napoleon this conduct of
+      Junot, never could feel for him a very warm interest, or intercede in his
+      favor.&rdquo; [Footnote: Bourrienne, &ldquo;Memoires,&rdquo; vol. ii., p. 212.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It will be seen that the very sensitive heart of Bonaparte had again been
+      kindled into jealousy, as it so often had happened before in Italy.
+      Absence&mdash;a momentary separation&mdash;was enough to enkindle these
+      flames. We have seen in the letters which Bonaparte wrote to Josephine
+      during the Italian campaign, how her silence&mdash;the least delay in her
+      answering his letters&mdash;was enough for him to incriminate her, on
+      account of his jealous affections; how, because she does not constantly
+      write, he threatens to rush in some night unexpectedly, and with the rage
+      of jealousy force the doors open, and murder &ldquo;the young lover of eighteen,
+      and curse Josephine because he must love her without bounds.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Now he swears to root out this detestable race of seducers and blondins
+      who have beguiled from him the heart of his Josephine. Full of passion and
+      jealousy, he believes in the calumnies which Junot, with all the cruel
+      inconsiderateness of a trusty friend, has whispered to him, and at once
+      Josephine is guilty! She has had a love-correspondence with Charles Botot,
+      the blond private secretary of Barras, for Charles Botot comes sometimes
+      to Malmaison, and has often been seen near Josephine and her daughter
+      Hortense in her loge! But by degrees comes reflection, and a fortnight
+      after he believes that malice alone can have invented these calumnies.
+      This noble conviction, however, was soon to be shaken by the enemy, for
+      Josephine had enemies quite near Bonaparte, who longed to draw away from
+      her a husband&rsquo;s heart and to drive him into a divorce.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      First of all there were the whole family of Bonaparte, who had seen with
+      unwillingness Napoleon&rsquo;s marriage, for he was thereby much less under
+      their influence, and they had wished that he would at all events have
+      married Desiree Clary, the sister of Joseph&rsquo;s wife, and thus have been
+      more closely united to the family.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, while he was in Egypt, another powerful enemy had been added to
+      these. This was a young and beautiful woman, Madame Foures, the beloved of
+      the ardent general.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While Bonaparte, with all the madness of jealousy at a mere groundless
+      calumny, which had come across the sea distorted and magnified, wished to
+      be divorced from Josephine; while he complained of woman&rsquo;s faithlessness,
+      frivolity, and inconstancy; while he cursed all women as coquettes, he
+      himself was guilty of faithlessness. Forgetting his vows and his
+      protestations of love for his wife, he had abandoned himself to a new
+      affection without any regard to public opinion, and even made no secret of
+      his intrigues.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Unfortunate Josephine! The fears she had anticipated and dreaded before
+      accepting Bonaparte&rsquo;s proffered hand were too soon to be realized. His
+      heart began to grow cold while her love increased every day with deeper
+      intensity; he had perchance already read in her amiable countenance the
+      first signs of age, and he thought it might well be allowed to the young
+      general not to maintain so strict a fealty to that faithfulness which he
+      claimed from her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Bonaparte still loved Josephine, although he was unfaithful to her.
+      Surely this new love might well bear the guilt of the credulousness with
+      which he judged Josephine, and the word of separation might thus easily
+      come upon his lips, because the newly-loved one, amid the vows of her
+      affection, might have whispered it in his ear.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Madame Foures had an immense advantage over Josephine; she was barely
+      twenty years old, was bewitchingly beautiful, was a coquette, and&mdash;she
+      was there in Bonaparte&rsquo;s immediate presence, while the Mediterranean
+      separated him from Josephine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bonaparte abandoned himself to this new love with all his passionate
+      nature. Not only did the whole army in Egypt know this, but his foes also
+      became acquainted with it; and Sir Sidney Smith made use of this fact to
+      attack his enemy in a way little known to the annals of warfare. Bonaparte
+      had removed from the Egyptian army Madame Foures&rsquo; injured husband, who
+      held there the rank of a cavalry officer, by sending him with a message to
+      the Directory. But the vessel in which he had sailed for France was
+      captured by the English, and Admiral Sidney Smith undertook, with all the
+      careless, open manner of an Englishman, to make him fully acquainted with
+      the relations existing between his wife and General Bonaparte.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He then gave to M. Foures, who was beside himself with anger and wrath,
+      and who threatened bloody vengeance, his freedom, and exhibited his
+      good-will toward him so far as to have him landed near Cairo, where
+      Bonaparte then was with his beautiful mistress.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Enraged with jealousy, M. Foures rushed to his wife, to make to her the
+      most violent demonstrations. Perhaps too weak to part with an adored,
+      beautiful wife, he simply ordered her to return with him to France.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Madame Foures made resistance. She called her mighty lover to her
+      help; she claimed a separation; and the war-commissioner Duprat, who in
+      the army was invested with the functions of a civil magistrate,
+      pronounced, at the request of Madame Foures and at the order of Bonaparte,
+      the decree of separation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Madame Foures was free, but this did not satisfy the secret wishes of her
+      heart. The most important point was, that Bonaparte should be free also,
+      that he also should desire to be divorced. Josephine must be removed from
+      him and thrust aside, so that the beautiful Pauline Foures might take her
+      place.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No means, either of coquetry, tears, flatteries, or promises of enduring
+      love, remained untried to induce Bonaparte to take the decisive step.
+      Sometimes Pauline would pout; sometimes her eyes shed the tears of
+      repentance over her own faithlessness, and she vowed she would take refuge
+      in a cloister if Bonaparte would not restore her to honor by exalting her
+      to the position of being his wife; sometimes she sought by her cheerful
+      humor, her genial abandonment, to bind him to her, to amuse him; and
+      sometimes, when dressed as a general, on a fiery horse, and surrounded by
+      a vast number of adjutants, she would ride up to him and win by her smiles
+      and flatteries friends, who calumniated Josephine, and represented to him
+      the necessity of a separation from his inconstant wife.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, notwithstanding all the calumnies, and all the deceiving arts of his
+      beloved, there existed in Bonaparte&rsquo;s heart something which spoke in favor
+      of the poor, slandered, and forgotten Josephine; and, amid the exciting
+      pleasures of his new passion, he remembered with longing, sorrowful heart
+      the charming, gracious woman whom he once had tenderly loved, and whom he
+      still so loved that he could not sacrifice her to his beautiful mistress.
+      Still he persevered in showing to the latter the deepest, most tender, and
+      undivided attention; and when the chances of war kept him away from her
+      for a long time, when he went to Syria and left her in Cairo, Bonaparte
+      wrote to her every day the most touching letters, which were forwarded by
+      a special courier.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This was occurring at the same time that Josephine in Paris was hoping in
+      vain with painful longing for letters from her husband, and was watching
+      over his interests with the kindest attention, while his enemies were
+      spreading news of his death.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bonaparte had now no time to write to his wife, for the beautiful Pauline
+      Foures laid claim to the little leisure which remained to the commanding
+      general, and to her he addressed warm and glowing words of love, such as
+      while in Italy he had addressed to Josephine when he swore to her never to
+      love another woman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile Fate rendered fruitless all the efforts of the beautiful Madame
+      Foures to draw Bonaparte into a separation; Fate came to Josephine&rsquo;s
+      rescue, and, strange to say, it came in the shape of the Frankfort
+      Journal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The victorious battle of Aboukir, which Bonaparte, on the 25th of July,
+      1799, had with his army won over the enemy, gave occasion to parleying
+      negotiations between the French commander-in-chief and the English
+      admiral, Sidney Smith. Bonaparte sent a commissioner on board the English
+      flag-ship, and Sir Sidney Smith was cunning enough to send through this
+      commissioner to the French general a few newspapers recently received from
+      Europe. For ten months the French army and Bonaparte were without news
+      from France, and this present of the English admiral was received by
+      Bonaparte and his generals with the deepest joy and curiosity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Among these papers was a copy of the Journal de Frankfort of the 10th of
+      June, 1799. This was the first newspaper which furnished Bonaparte with
+      news from France for ten long months, and the natural consequence was that
+      he glanced over it with the most inquisitive impatience. Suddenly he
+      uttered a cry; the pallor of death overspread his face, and, fixing his
+      flaming eyes on Bourrienne, who at this moment was alone with him&mdash;&ldquo;My
+      presentiments have not deceived me,&rdquo; exclaimed Bonaparte. &ldquo;Italy is lost!
+      The wretched creatures! All the results of our victories have vanished! I
+      must go to France at once&mdash;this very moment!&rdquo; [Footnote: Bourrienne,
+      &ldquo;Memoires,&rdquo; vol. ii., p. 305.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This newspaper informed Bonaparte of the late events in France. It told
+      him that the French Directory had experienced a change, that only one of
+      them, Barras, had remained in it, and that four new directors&mdash;Sieyes,
+      Grohier, Moulins, and Ducos&mdash;were now its members. It told him much
+      more&mdash;that the French army in Italy had suffered the most disastrous
+      reverses; that all Italy had been reconquered by the combined armies of
+      Russia and Austria under Suwarrow and the Archduke Charles, who were now
+      advancing upon France, which was on every side surrounded by the
+      revengeful enemies of the republic.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No sooner had Bonaparte read this news than his decision was taken.
+      Berthier was called into his tent, and under the seal of silence Bonaparte
+      communicated to him his unwavering resolution of going immediately to
+      France, but that this was to remain a secret to his whole army as well as
+      all the generals. Berthier, Gautheaume, Eugene Beauharnais, Monge, and
+      Bourrienne, were alone to accompany him, but the last two were not to be
+      made acquainted with their departure for Europe before they had left Cairo
+      with Bonaparte. As he noticed gleams of joy in Berthier&rsquo;s face at the news
+      of returning to France, Bonaparte once more impressed upon him the duty of
+      preserving silence and not to betray the secret by word or deed, and to do
+      nothing which might induce friends or acquaintances to believe that a
+      voyage was contemplated. The secret was indeed faithfully kept, and the
+      few confidants intrusted with it took great care to divulge nothing, for
+      fear he might punish them by leaving them in Egypt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bonaparte himself maintained the most absolute secrecy; neither his
+      beloved, the beautiful Pauline Foures, nor General Kleber, whom he had
+      chosen to be his successor in the chief command of the army of Egypt,
+      suspected any thing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To his beloved, Bonaparte said he was leaving Cairo for the sake of making
+      a tour through the Delta, and that in a few weeks he would be with her
+      again. The news he had received from Europe had suddenly cooled the glow
+      of his passion, and, at the thought of returning to France, rose up again
+      before his mind the image of Josephine in all her grace and loveliness.
+      For a long time, while she was not at his side, he had been unfaithful to
+      her, but he did not wish, for his own sake, to add scandal to
+      faithlessness. He did not wish to bring to France with him, as sole booty
+      from Egypt, a mistress.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Pauline Foures, therefore, suspected as little of his plans as General
+      Kleber. It was only after Bonaparte, with his small suite of five
+      confidants and the Mameluke Roustan, had embarked at Alexandria, that
+      Pauline learned that he had deserted&mdash;that he had abandoned her. In a
+      short note which his master of the stall, Vigogne, handed to her,
+      Bonaparte took leave of her, and made her a present of every thing he left
+      behind in Cairo, including the house he occupied, with all its costly and
+      luxurious furniture. [Footnote: The departure of Bonaparte made Madame
+      Foures comfortless, and she now watched for an opportunity to hasten back
+      to him in France. Touched by her tears and prayers, Junot furnished her
+      with an opportunity, and Pauline reached Paris in November, 1799. But
+      Bonaparte would no longer see her; he now sacrificed the mistress to the
+      wife, as he had nearly sacrificed the wife to the mistress. Pauline
+      received orders to leave Paris immediately; at the same time Bonaparte
+      sent her a large sum of money, which he afterward repeated.&mdash;See
+      Saint Elsne, &ldquo;Les Amours et Galanteries des Rois de France,&rdquo; vol. ii., p.
+      320.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      General Kleber learned Bonaparte&rsquo;s departure, only through the orders sent
+      to him by the latter to assume the chief command of the army; his troops
+      learned his absence by the order of the day, in which Bonaparte bade them
+      farewell.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After four weeks of a long voyage against tempestuous and contrary winds,
+      the two frigates, upon one of which Bonaparte and Eugene and his other
+      followers had embarked, touched at Ajaccio. The whole population had no
+      sooner learned that Bonaparte was in the harbor, than they rushed out to
+      see him, and to salute him with enthusiastic demonstrations; and it was in
+      vain that their attention was drawn to the fact that both frigates had
+      come directly from Egypt, and had to observe quarantine before any
+      communication with the population could be allowed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pestilence sooner than the Austrians!&rdquo; shouted the people, and hundreds
+      and hundreds of boats surrounded the French vessels. Every one wanted to
+      see the general, their famous countryman, Bonaparte. But Bonaparte&rsquo;s heart
+      was sorrowful amid the general rejoicing, for in Ajaccio he had learned of
+      the great battle of Novi, where the Austrians had gained the victory, and
+      which had cost General Joubert&rsquo;s life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is too great an evil,&rdquo; said he, with a sigh; &ldquo;there is no help for
+      it.&rdquo; But as he gave up Italy, all his thoughts were more strongly bent
+      upon Paris, and his desire to be there as soon as possible increased more
+      and more.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After a short stay in Ajaccio, the voyage to France, despite all
+      quarantine regulations, was continued, and the star of fortune, which had
+      hitherto protected him, still guided Bonaparte safely into the harbor of
+      Frejus, though the English fleet had watched and pursued the French
+      vessels. A courier was at once dispatched to the Directory in Paris to
+      announce the arrival of Bonaparte, and that he would, without any delay,
+      come to Paris.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Josephine was at a dinner at Gohier&rsquo;s, one of the five directors, when
+      this courier arrived, and with a shout of joy she received the news of her
+      husband&rsquo;s coming. Her longing was such that she could not wait for him in
+      Paris, in her house of the Rue de la Victoire. She resolved to meet him,
+      and to be the first to bid him welcome, and to show him her unutterable
+      love.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No sooner was this resolution taken than it was carried out. She began her
+      journey with the expectation of meeting her husband at Lyons, for in his
+      letter to the Directory he stated that he would come by way of Lyons. In
+      great haste, without rest or delay, Josephine travelled the road to that
+      city, her heart beating, her luminous eyes gazing onward, looking with
+      inexpressible expectancy at every approaching carriage, for it might bring
+      her the husband so long absent from her!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She little suspected that while she was hastening toward Lyons, Bonaparte
+      had already arrived in Paris. He had changed the plan of his journey, and,
+      entirely controlled by his impatient desires, he had driven to Paris by
+      the shortest route. Josephine was not there to receive him in her house;
+      she was not there to welcome the returning one&mdash;and the old serpent
+      of jealousy and mistrust awoke again within him. To add to this, his
+      brothers and sisters had seized the occasion to give vent to their
+      ill-will by suspicions and accusations against their unwelcome
+      sister-in-law. Bonaparte, full of sad apprehension at her absence, perhaps
+      secretly wishing to find her guilty, listened to the whisperings of her
+      enemies.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He therefore did not go to meet Josephine the next day on her return from
+      her unsuccessful journey. A few hours after, he opened his closed doors
+      and went to see her. She advanced toward him with looks full of love and
+      tenderness, and opened her arms to him, and wanted to press him closely to
+      her heart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But he coldly held her back, and with deliberate severity and an
+      expression of the highest indifference, he saluted her, and asked if she
+      had returned happy and satisfied from her pleasure excursion with her
+      light-haired friend.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Josephine&rsquo;s tears gushed forth, and, as if annihilated, she sank down, but
+      she had not a word of defence or of justification against the cruel
+      accusation. Her heart had been too deeply wounded, her love too much
+      insulted, to allow her to defend herself. Her tearful eyes only responded
+      to Bonaparte&rsquo;s cruel question, and then in silence she retired to her
+      apartments.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For three days they did not see each other. Josephine remained in her
+      rooms and wept. Bonaparte remained in his rooms and complained. To
+      Bourrienne, who then was not only his private secretary but also his
+      confidant, he complained bitterly of the faithlessness and inconstancy of
+      Josephine, of the unheard-of indifference that she should undertake a
+      pleasure-journey when she knew that he was soon to be in Paris. It was in
+      vain that Bourrienne assured him that Josephine had undertaken no
+      pleasure-excursion, that she had left Paris only to meet him, and to be
+      the first to bid him welcome. He would not believe him, for in the
+      melancholy gloominess of his jealousy he believed in the slanders which
+      Josephine&rsquo;s enemies, and his brothers and sisters, had whispered in his
+      ear, that Josephine had left Paris for a parti de plaisir with Charles
+      Botot, the beautiful blondin whom Bonaparte so deeply hated. How profound
+      his sadness was, may be seen by a letter which at this time he wrote to
+      his brother Joseph, and in which he says:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have a great deal of domestic sorrow ... your friendship to me is very
+      dear; to become a misanthrope, there was nothing further needed than to
+      lose her and to be betrayed by you. It is a sad situation indeed to have
+      in one single heart all these emotions for the same person.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will purchase a country residence either near Paris or in Burgundy; I
+      am thinking of passing the winter there and of shutting myself up; I feel
+      weary with human nature; I need solitude; I want to be alone; grandeur
+      oppresses me, my feelings are distorted. Fame appears insipid at my
+      twenty-nine years; I have tried every thing; nothing remains but to become
+      an egotist.&rdquo; [Footnote: &ldquo;Memoires du Roi Joseph.&rdquo; vol. i., p. 189.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, according to himself, &ldquo;he cherished in his heart, at the same time;
+      all manner of emotions for the same person;&rdquo; that is, he hated and
+      detested Josephine, but he also loved and admired her; was angry with her,
+      and yet longed for her; he found her frivolous and faithless, and yet
+      something in his heart ever spoke in her favor, and assured him that she
+      was a noble and faithful being.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Fortunately, there was one who confirmed into full conviction these low
+      whisperings of his heart; fortunately, Bourrienne ceased not to argue
+      against this jealousy of Bonaparte, and to assure him again and again that
+      Josephine was innocent, that she had committed nothing to excite his
+      anger.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Finally, after three days of complaints and dreary accusations, love
+      conquered in the heart of Bonaparte. He went to Josephine. She advanced to
+      meet him with tears in her eyes, but with a soft, tender smile. The sight
+      of her gracious appearance, her blanched cheeks, moved him, and, instead
+      of explanations and mutual recriminations, he opened his arms to her, and
+      she threw herself on his breast with a loud cry of exultation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then came the explanations. He now believed that she had left Paris
+      hurriedly for the sake of meeting him; and, as regarded the dangerous
+      &ldquo;blond,&rdquo; the private secretary of Barras, M. Charles Botot, Josephine
+      smilingly handed to her husband a letter she had received from him a few
+      days before. In this letter Charles Botot acknowledged his long-cherished
+      affection for her daughter Hortense, and he claimed her hand in due form.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you have doubtless accepted his offer?&rdquo; asked Bonaparte, his face
+      overcast again. &ldquo;Since, unfortunately, you are married yourself, and he
+      cannot be your husband, then of course he must marry the daughter, so as
+      to be always near the mother. M. Charles Botot is no doubt to be your
+      son-in-law? You have accepted his hand?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; said she, softly, &ldquo;we have refused it, for Hortense does not love
+      him, and she will follow her mother&rsquo;s example, and marry only through
+      love. Besides,&rdquo; continued Josephine, with a sweet smile, &ldquo;I wanted him no
+      longer.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You wanted him no longer! How is this?&rdquo; asked General Bonaparte, eagerly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Barras has sent him his dismissal,&rdquo; said she, looking at her husband with
+      an expression of cunning roguery. &ldquo;M. Botot could no longer, as he has
+      hitherto been&mdash;without, however, being conscious of it&mdash;be my
+      spy in the Directory; I could no longer learn from him what the Directory
+      were undertaking against my Bonaparte, against the hero whom they envy and
+      caluminate so much, nor in what new snares they wished to entangle him!
+      What had I to do with Botot, since he could not furnish me news of the
+      intrigues of your enemies, nor afford me the chance of counteracting them?
+      Charles Botot was nothing more to me than a mere lemon, which I squeezed
+      for your sake; when there was nothing left in it I threw it away.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And is such the truth?&rdquo; asked Bonaparte, eagerly. &ldquo;This is no invention
+      to raise my hopes, only to be cast down again?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Josephine smiled. &ldquo;I have daily taken notes of what Charles Botot brought
+      me,&rdquo; said she, gently; &ldquo;I always hoped to find a safe opportunity to send
+      this diary to you in Egypt, that you might be informed of what the
+      Directory thought, and what was the public opinion, so that you might take
+      your measures accordingly. But, for the last eight months, I knew not
+      where you were, and so I have kept my diary: here it is.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She gave the diary to Bonaparte, who, with impatient looks, ran over the
+      pages, and was fully convinced of her devotedness and care. Josephine had
+      well served his interests, and closely watched over his affairs. Then,
+      ashamed and repentant, he looked at her, who, in return, smiled at him
+      with gracious complacency.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Josephine,&rdquo; asked he, quietly, &ldquo;can you forgive me? I have been foolish,
+      but I swear to you that never again will I mistrust you, I will believe no
+      one but you. Can you forgive me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She embraced him in her arms, and tenderly said: &ldquo;Love me, Bonaparte; I
+      well deserve it!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Peace, therefore, was re-established, and Josephine&rsquo;s enemies had the
+      bitter disappointment to see that their efforts had all been in vain; that
+      again the most perfect unanimity and affection existed between them; that
+      the cloud which their enmity had conjured up, had brought forth but a few
+      tear-drops, a few thunderings; and that the love which Bonaparte carried
+      in his heart for Josephine was not scattered into atoms.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The cloud had passed away; the sun of happiness had reappeared; but it had
+      yet some spots which were never to fade away. The word &ldquo;separation&rdquo; which
+      Bonaparte, so often in Egypt, and now in Paris, had launched against
+      Josephine, was to be henceforth the sword of Damocles, ever suspended over
+      her head: like a dark, shadowy spectre it was to follow her everywhere;
+      even amid scenes of happiness, joy, and glory, it was to be there to
+      terrify her by its sinister presence, and by its gloomy warnings of the
+      past!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0032" id="link2HCH0032"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXXII. THE EIGHTEENTH BRUMAIRE.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Bonaparte&rsquo;s journey from Frejus to Paris, on his return from Egypt, had
+      been a continued triumph. All France had applauded him. Everywhere he had
+      been welcomed as a deliverer and savior; everywhere he had been hailed as
+      the hope of the future, as the man from whom was to be expected assistance
+      in distress, the restoration of peace, help, and salvation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For France was alarmed; she stood on the edge of a precipice, from which
+      only the strong hand of a hero could save her. In the interior, anarchy
+      prevailed amongst the authorities as well as the people. In La Vendee
+      civil war raged, with all its sanguinary horrors, and the authorities
+      endeavored to protect themselves against it by tyrannical laws, by
+      despotic measures, which threatened both property and freedom. There
+      existed no security either for person or for property, and a horrible,
+      fanatical party-spirit penetrated all classes of society. The royalists
+      had been defeated on the 18th Fructidor, but that very fact had again
+      given the vantage-ground to the most decided opponents of the royalists,
+      the red republicans, the terrorists of the past, who now intrigued and
+      formed plots and counterplots, even as the royalists had done. They sought
+      to create enmity and bitterness amongst the people, and hoped to
+      re-establish on the ruins of the present administration the days of terror
+      and of the guillotine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These red republicans, ever ready for the struggle, organized themselves
+      into clubs and &ldquo;constitutional circles,&rdquo; where the ruin of the actual
+      state of things, and the severe and bloody republic of Robespierre, formed
+      the substance of their harangues; and their numbers were constantly
+      increased by new members being sworn in.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The ballot in May, 1799, had been in favor of the Directory, and
+      unfavorable to the moderate party, for only fanatical republicans had been
+      elected to the Council of Five Hundred.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Against these factions and republican clubs the Directory had to make a
+      perpetual war: but their power and means failed to give them the victory
+      in the strife. It was a constant oscillation and vacillation, a constant
+      compromising and capitulating with all parties&mdash;and the natural
+      consequence was, that these parties, as soon as they had secured the ear
+      of the Directory, and gained an advantage, strove hard to obtain the
+      ruling authority. Corruption and mistrust universally prevailed. Every
+      thing had the appearance of dissolution and disorder. Highwaymen rendered
+      the roads unsafe; and the authorities, instead of carrying out the
+      severity of the law, were so corrupt and avaricious as to sell their
+      silence and indulgence. The upright citizen sighed under the weight of
+      tyrannical laws from which the thief and the seditious knew how to escape.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The nation, reduced to despair by this arbitrary rule and corruption,
+      longed for some one to deliver it from this dreadful state of dissolution;
+      and the enthusiasm which was manifested at the return of General
+      Bonaparte, was a confession that in him the people foresaw and recognized
+      a deliverer. Exhausted and wearied, France sought for a man who would
+      restore to her peace again&mdash;who would crush the foes within, and
+      drive away the enemy from without.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bonaparte appeared to the people with all the prestige of his former and
+      recent victories; he had planted the victorious French tricolor upon the
+      summit of the capitol, and of the pyramids; he had given to France the
+      most acceptable of presents, &ldquo;glory;&rdquo; he had adorned her brow with so many
+      laurels, that he himself seemed to the people as if radiant with glory.
+      All felt the need of a hero, of a dictator, to put an end to the
+      prevailing anarchy and disturbances, and they knew that Bonaparte was the
+      only one who could achieve this gigantic work.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bonaparte understood but too well these applauding and welcoming voices of
+      the people, and his own breast responded favorably to them. The secret
+      thoughts of his heart were now to be turned into deeds, and the ambitious
+      dreams of his earlier days were to become realities. All that he had
+      hitherto wanted was a bridge to throw over the abyss which separated the
+      republicans, the defenders of liberty, equality, and fraternity, from
+      rule, power, and dictatorship. Anarchy and exhaustion laid down this
+      bridge, and on the 18th Brumaire, General Bonaparte, the hero of &ldquo;liberal
+      ideas,&rdquo; passed over it to exalt himself into dictator, consul, emperor,
+      and tyrant of France.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the Directory also understood the voices of the applauding people;
+      they also saw in him the man who had come to deprive them of power and to
+      assume their authority. This was secretly yet violently discussed by the
+      Directory, the Council of the Elders, and of the Five Hundred.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One day, at a dinner given to a few friends by the Abbe Sieyes, one of the
+      members of the Directory, the abbe, Cabanis, and Joseph Bonaparte, were
+      conversing together, standing on the side of the drawing-room, near the
+      chimney. It was conceded that undoubtedly a crisis was near at hand, that
+      the republic had now reached its limit, and that, instead of five
+      directors, only three would be elected, and that, without any doubt,
+      Bonaparte would be one of the three.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; cried Sieyes, with animation, &ldquo;I am for General Bonaparte, for of
+      all military men he is the most civil; but then I know very well what is
+      in reserve for me: once elected, the general, casting aside his two
+      colleagues, will do as I do now.&rdquo; And Sieyes, standing between Canabis and
+      Joseph, placed his two arms on their shoulders, then, pushing them with a
+      powerful jerk, he leaped forward and bounded into the middle of the room,
+      to the great astonishment of his guests, who knew not the cause of this
+      gymnastic performance of the abbe. [Footnote: &ldquo;Memoires du Roi Joseph,&rdquo;
+       vol. i., p. 77.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The other directors were also conscious of this movement of Bonaparte, and
+      they secretly resolved to save themselves by causing his ruin. Either the
+      Directory or Bonaparte had to fall! One had to perish, that the other
+      might have the power! In order that the Directory might exist, Bonaparte
+      must fall.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Directory had secretly come to this conclusion on Bonaparte&rsquo;s return.
+      They were fully aware that a daring act alone could save them, and they
+      were determined not to shrink from it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The deed was to take place on the 2d Brumaire. On that day he was to be
+      arrested, and accused of having premeditated a coup d&rsquo;etat against the
+      Directory. Indeed, one M. de Mounier had come to Director Gohier and had
+      denounced Bonaparte, whom he positively knew was conspiring to destroy the
+      existing government. Gohier received these accusations with much gravity,
+      and sent at once for the other directors to hasten to him, but only one,
+      Moulins, was then in Paris to answer Gohier&rsquo;s summons. He came, and after
+      a long conference both directors agreed that the next day they would have
+      Bonaparte arrested on his return to Paris from Malmaison, where they knew
+      he was to give a large banquet that day. They sent for the chief of
+      police, and quietly gave him the order to station himself the next day
+      with twelve resolute men on the road to Malmaison, and to arrest Bonaparte
+      as he should drive that evening toward Paris.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On this very day Josephine, who did not wish to be present at the banquet
+      of gentlemen in Malmaison, had come to Paris to attend a party at the
+      house of one of her friends. The conversation went on; they talked and
+      jested, when a gentleman near Josephine told a friend that some striking
+      event would probably take place that day in Paris, for he had just now met
+      a friend who held an important office in the police. He had invited him to
+      go to the theatre, but he declined, stating that he was to be on duty this
+      evening, as some important affair was about being transacted&mdash;the
+      arrest, as he thought, of some influential personage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Josephine&rsquo;s heart trembled with horrible misgivings at these words. Love&rsquo;s
+      instinct convinced her that her husband was the one to be arrested, and
+      she thought within herself that it was Destiny itself which sent her this
+      intelligence, that she might save her husband from the fearful blow which
+      awaited him. Thus persuaded, she gathered all her strength and presence of
+      mind, and determined to act with energy, and battle against the enemies of
+      her husband. Without betraying the slightest emotion, or exciting any
+      suspicion that she had heard or noticed what was said, Josephine rose from
+      her seat with a cheerful and composed countenance, and pleasantly took
+      leave of the lady of the house. But once past the threshold of the house,
+      once in her carriage, her anxious nature woke up again, and she began to
+      act with energy and resolution. She pulled the string, to give her
+      directions to the driver. As fast as the horses could speed, he was to
+      drive his mistress to Colonel Perrin, the commanding officer of the guards
+      of the Directory. In ten minutes she was there, and knowing well how
+      devoted a guard he and all his soldiers would be to Bonaparte, she
+      communicated to him her fears, and requested from him immediate and speedy
+      assistance to remove the danger.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Colonel Perrin was prepared to enter into her plans, and he promised to
+      send to Malmaison a company of grenadiers, provided she would, as soon as
+      possible, have General Murat send him an order to that effect. Josephine
+      at once went to one of her true, reliable friends, who belonged to the
+      Council of the Elders, and, making him acquainted with the danger which
+      threatened her husband, requested him to gather a few devoted friends, and
+      to attend to the orders which Murat would send them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After having made all these preparations, Josephine drove in full gallop
+      toward Malmaison.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The dinner, to which Bonaparte had invited gentlemen from all classes of
+      society, was just over, and the guests were scattered, some in the
+      drawing-rooms, and some in the garden, where Bonaparte was walking up and
+      down in animated conversation with the secretary, Roger Ducos.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At this moment the carriage of Josephine drove into the yard; and Murat,
+      who, with a few gentlemen, stood under the porch, hastened to offer his
+      hand so as to help Josephine to alight. An eye-witness who was present at
+      this scene relates as follows:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;Where is the general?&rsquo; asked Josephine, hastily, of General Murat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;I do not know,&rsquo; was the answer; &lsquo;he is gone with Roger, but Lucien is
+      here.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;Look at once for the general!&rsquo; exclaimed Josephine, breathless, &lsquo;I must
+      speak to him immediately.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I approached her and said that he was in the garden. She ran&mdash;she
+      flew! I placed myself at a window in the first story, from which I could
+      easily see into the garden-walks. My expectations had not deceived me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No sooner did Bonaparte see Josephine approach, than he left Roger Ducos
+      and hurried to meet her. Both then walked into a path near by. I could see
+      them well. Josephine spoke with animation; the general walked on; now and
+      then she held him back. At last they took the path leading to the castle.
+      I went down to meet them on the steps near the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Madame Bonaparte held her husband by the left hand. Her animated,
+      expressive features had a bewitching pride and softness; it was a most
+      delightful admixture of tenderness and heroism. Bonaparte looked around,
+      pale and grave, but his eyes ever rested with pleasure on his wife. She
+      refused to enter into the large hall, and retired to her room. Bonaparte
+      called for Roger, and entered the saloon with him. His guests were
+      awaiting his arrival, to take their leave. The carriages drove up, and the
+      gentlemen left Malmaison to return to Paris. Only Lucien and Murat
+      remained with Bonaparte; Madame Bonaparte joined them as they entered the
+      vestibule. When she saw Murat, she exclaimed:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;How, general, you still here!&mdash;Do you not consider,&rsquo; continued she,
+      turning to Bonaparte, &lsquo;that Murat ought to be already in Paris with
+      Perrin?&mdash;Away! quick! to horse, to the Rue Varennes, or I drive
+      thither myself.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Murat laughed; but four minutes after he was riding at a gallop on the
+      road to the city. The three others returned to their rooms. I was curious
+      to know what was the conversation; but as I had nothing more to do in the
+      castle, I was about leaping on my horse to ride to Paris, when I saw a
+      detachment of infantry marching toward the castle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I thought it my duty to announce them to the general; he sat between his
+      wife and his brother. &lsquo;How!&rsquo; cried he, as he rose up hastily. &lsquo;Troops?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;What of them?&rsquo; answered Madame Bonaparte, smiling. &lsquo;Your company has
+      left you, now comes mine. It is a rendezvous; but be comforted&mdash;they
+      are not too many.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All three walked into the yard, where the troops were placing themselves
+      in line without the sound of a drum.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;You are an extraordinary man, sir,&rsquo; said Madame Bonaparte to the
+      captain. &lsquo;Nearly as soon as I?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;Madame,&rsquo; replied the officer, &lsquo;we have been ready for the march these
+      four hours.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The officers followed the general into the drawing-room, and refreshments
+      were distributed to the soldiers; it was a company of grenadiers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;At nine o&rsquo;clock in the evening, a courier arrived, bearing dispatches to
+      Bonaparte. At once he, his wife, and his brother, drove to Paris. The
+      grenadiers were ordered to follow immediately and in silence.&rdquo; [Footnote:
+      &ldquo;Memoires secretes,&rdquo; vol. i., p. 26.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These dispatches, which Bonaparte had received from Paris, brought him the
+      news that this time the danger was over&mdash;that the directors had
+      abandoned their plan. Some fortunate accident may have warned them, even
+      as Josephine herself had been warned. The spies who everywhere tracked
+      Josephine, as well as Bonaparte, had carried to Gohier intelligence of all
+      the strange movements of the wife of Bonaparte, and the director at once
+      perceived that she was informed of the danger which threatened her
+      husband, and that she was bent upon preventing it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But now that the plan of the directors had been unveiled, danger
+      threatened them in their turn, and they immediately adopted measures to
+      face this new peril. In place of Bonaparte, they must find some one whom
+      they could arrest, without withdrawing their orders. They found a
+      substitute in a wealthy merchant from Hamburg, who now resided in Paris.
+      Gohier had him arrested, and accused him of having had relations with the
+      enemies of France.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bonaparte assumed the appearance of having no doubts as to the sincerity
+      of Gohier, of suspecting nothing as to his own arrest, which had been
+      prevented by the timely and energetic action of Josephine. He thanked her
+      with increased tenderness for her love and faithfulness, and as he pressed
+      her affectionately to his breast, he swore to her that he would never
+      again doubt her; that he would, by the most unreserved confidence, share
+      with her his schemes and designs, and that henceforth he would look upon
+      her as the good angel who watched over the pathway of his life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And Bonaparte kept his word. From this day his Josephine was not only his
+      wife, but his confidante, his friend, who knew all his plans, and who
+      could assist him with her advice and her exquisite practical tact. She it
+      was who brought about a reconciliation with Moreau and Bernadotte; and by
+      her amiable nature, attractive and dignified manner, and great social
+      talents, she bound even his friends closer to Bonaparte; or with a smile,
+      a kind word, some flattering observation, or some of those little
+      attentions which often-times tell more effectually with those who receive
+      them than great services, she would often win over to him his foes and
+      opponents.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is known but to few persons,&rdquo; says the author of the &ldquo;Memoires
+      secretes,&rdquo; &ldquo;that Bonaparte always consulted his wife in civil matters,
+      even when they were of the highest importance. This fact is entirely true,
+      but Bonaparte would have been extremely mortified had he known that those
+      around him suspected it. Had it been possible for me to divide my being,
+      with what delight I should have followed this noble woman! I would relate
+      a few traits of hers if I did not know that M. D. B., who is much better
+      acquainted with her than I, is to write a biography. [Footnote: The
+      &ldquo;Memoires secretes&rdquo; appeared in 1815. The biography spoken of by the
+      author is probably that of Madame Ducrest, and which appeared in 1818.] I
+      know not what were the events of the first years of Madame de Beauharnais,
+      but if they were like those of her last fifteen years, we should have the
+      history of a perfect woman. She has known but little of me, and therefore
+      no interested motive guides my pen, no other sentiment than that of
+      truth.&rdquo; [Footnote: &ldquo;Memoires secretes,&rdquo; vol. i., p. 36.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The 2d Brumaire afforded sufficient reasons for Bonaparte to put into
+      execution his resolutions. He now knew the enmity of the Directory; he
+      knew he must cause their downfall if he himself did not wish to be
+      destroyed by them. He knew that, during his last triumphal journey through
+      France, he had heard sufficient to convince him that the voice of the
+      people was for him, that every one longed for a change, that France was
+      heartily wearied of revolutionary commotions, and above all things craved
+      for rest and peace; that it wished to lay aside all political strife, and,
+      like him, preferred to have nothing more to do with a republican majority.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Every one desires a more central government,&rdquo; said Napoleon to his
+      brother Joseph. &ldquo;Our dreams of a republic are the illusions of youth.
+      Since the 9th Thermidor the republican party has dwindled away more and
+      more; the efforts of the Bourbons and the foreigners, coupled with the
+      memories of &lsquo;93, have called forth against the republican system an
+      imposing majority. If it had not been for the 13th Vendemiaire and the
+      18th Fructidor, this majority would long ago have won the ascendency; the
+      weaknesses, the imperiousness of the Directory, have done the rest. To-day
+      the people are turning their hopes toward me, to-morrow it will be toward
+      some one else.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bonaparte did not wish to wait until to-morrow. He had made all his
+      preparations; he had made sure of his generals and officers; he knew also
+      that the soldiers were for him, and that it required but a signal from him
+      to bring about the catastrophe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He gave the signal by inviting on the 18th Brumaire, to a dejeuner in his
+      house, all his confidants and friends, all the generals and superior
+      officers, and also the commanding general of the National Guards. Nearly
+      all of them came at this invitation; only General Bernadotte kept aloof,
+      as he perceived that the breakfast had other objects than to converse and
+      to eat. Sieyes and Ducos were the only directors who made their
+      appearance; Gohier, that morning, had sent to Bonaparte an invitation to
+      dinner, so as to deceive the more securely him whom he knew was his enemy;
+      Barras and Moulins, suspecting Bonaparte&rsquo;s schemes, remained in the
+      background, silently awaiting the result.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While the guests were assembling in Bonaparte&rsquo;s house, and filling all the
+      space in it, a friend and confidant of Bonaparte, in the Council of the
+      Elders, made the following motion: &ldquo;In consideration of the intense
+      political excitement which prevails in Paris, it is necessary to remove
+      the sessions to St. Cloud, and to give to General Bonaparte the supreme
+      command of the troops.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      After a violent debate, the motion was suddenly adopted; and, when it was
+      brought to Bonaparte, he saw that the moment for action had come.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He told all those about him that at last the time was at hand to restore
+      to France rest and peace, that he was decided to do this, and he called
+      upon them to follow him. Every one was ready, and, surrounded by a
+      brilliant suite, Bonaparte went first to the Council of the Elders, to
+      express his thanks for his nomination, and solemnly to swear that he would
+      adopt every measure necessary to save the country.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Immediately after this he went to the Tuileries to hold a review of the
+      troops stationed there. The soldiers and the people, who had streamed
+      thither in masses to see him, received him with loud acclamations,
+      assuring him of their loyalty and devotedness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No one this day rose in favor of the deputies, no one seemed to desire
+      that their sittings should as heretofore take place in Paris, nor to think
+      that force would have to be used to remove them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The palace of Luxemburg, in which their sittings had hitherto taken place,
+      and St. Cloud, in which they were to meet in the future, were both, by
+      orders of Bonaparte, surrounded with troops, and the deputies as well as
+      the Council of the Elders adjourned that very day to St. Cloud.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Moulins and Gohier alone had the courage to offer opposition, and, in a
+      letter to the Council of the Elders, to describe Bonaparte as a criminal,
+      who threatened the republic, and to demand of them his arrest; and also
+      that they should immediately decree that the republic was in danger, and
+      that it must be defended with all energy. But this letter fell into
+      Bonaparte&rsquo;s hands; and the directors, when they saw that their request was
+      unheeded, resigned, as Barras had done.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The republic now had but two legitimate rulers, Sieyes and Ducos; and at
+      their side stood Bonaparte, soon to exalt himself above them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The following day, the 19th Brumaire, was actually the decisive day. The
+      Five Hundred, who now, like the Council of the Elders, held their
+      deliberations in St. Cloud, were discussing under great excitement the
+      abdication of the Directory and the necessity of a new election. The
+      debates were so vehement and so full of passion that the president, Lucien
+      Bonaparte, could not command order. A wild uproar arose, and at this
+      moment Napoleon entered the hall. Every one rushed at him with wild
+      frenzy; and the most violent recriminations were launched at him. &ldquo;He is a
+      traitor!&rdquo; they cried out. &ldquo;He is a Cromwell, who wants to seize the
+      sovereign power!&rdquo; What Bonaparte had never experienced on the
+      battle-field, in the thickest of the fight, he now felt. He became
+      bewildered by this violent strife of words, by this hailstorm of
+      accusations which whizzed around his ears. He tried to speak; he tried to
+      address the audience, but he could not&mdash;he could merely give
+      utterance to a few broken sentences; he made charges against the
+      Directory, with assurances of his own loyalty and devotedness, which the
+      audience received with loud murmurs, and then with wild shouts. Bonaparte
+      became more embarrassed and bewildered. Suddenly turning toward the door
+      of the hall, he exclaimed, &ldquo;Who loves me, let him follow me!&rdquo; and he
+      walked out hastily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The soldiers outside received him with great cheers, and this brought back
+      Bonaparte&rsquo;s presence of mind. &ldquo;General,&rdquo; whispered Augereau, as they
+      mounted their horses, &ldquo;you are in a critical position.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Think of Arcola,&rdquo; replied Bonaparte, calmly. &ldquo;There the position seemed
+      still more critical. Have patience for half an hour, and you will see how
+      things change.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bonaparte made good use of this half hour. At its expiration he re-entered
+      the hall of deliberation of the Five Hundred, surrounded by his officers,
+      at the very moment when, on a motion of a member, they were renewing their
+      oaths to the constitution. Again they received him with shouts: &ldquo;Down with
+      the tyrant!&mdash;down with the dictator! The sanctity of the law is
+      violated! Death to the tyrant who brings soldiers here to do us violence!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      One of the deputies rushed upon Bonaparte and seized him, but at that
+      instant the grenadiers also entered the room, delivered their general, and
+      carried him in triumph out of the hall.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After his departure, the waves of wrath and political frenzy rose higher
+      and higher. Shouts and imprecations filled the room with confusion;
+      reproaches fell on all sides upon the president, Lucien Bonaparte, for not
+      having immediately ordered the arrest of the traitor, who by his
+      appearance, as well as by his armed escort, had insulted the assembly.
+      When Lucien endeavored to defend Napoleon&rsquo;s conduct, he was interrupted by
+      the cries: &ldquo;He is a stain on the republic! He has tarnished his
+      reputation!&rdquo; Louder and wilder rose the cry to declare Napoleon an outlaw.
+      [Footnote: &ldquo;Memoires du Roi Joseph.&rdquo;]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lucien refused, and, as they urged their demand with increasing violence,
+      he left the presidential chair, and with deep emotion put off the insignia
+      of his office&mdash;his mantle and his sash&mdash;and was at the point of
+      making for himself an outlet through the wild crowd pressing in frenzy
+      around him, when the doors opened, and a company of grenadiers rushed in,
+      who by main force carried him away out of the hall.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lucien, whom Napoleon awaited outside with his troops, immediately mounted
+      his horse, and in this moment of deepest danger kept his presence of mind,
+      being fully aware that he must now be decided to save himself and his
+      brother or perish with him. He turned to the troops, and ordered them to
+      protect the president of the Five Hundred, to defend the constitution
+      attacked by a few fanatics, and to obey General Bonaparte, who was
+      empowered by the Council of the Elders to arrest the seditious, and to
+      protect the republic and its laws.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The soldiers answered him with the acclamation, &ldquo;Long live Bonaparte!&rdquo; But
+      a certain shudder was visible. A few warning voices were lifted up; they
+      thought it strange that weapons should be directed against the
+      representatives of the country.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      By a dramatic action Lucien brought the matter to a close, though it was
+      at the time meant by him in all sincerity. He drew his sword, and,
+      directing its point toward Napoleon&rsquo;s breast, he exclaimed: &ldquo;I swear to
+      pierce even my brother&rsquo;s heart if he ever dares touch the liberty of
+      France!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      These words had an electric effect; every one felt inspired, lifted up,
+      and swore to obey Bonaparte, and to remain loyal to him even unto death.
+      At a sign from Napoleon, Murat, with his grenadiers, dashed into the hall
+      and drove away the assembly of the Five Hundred. At ten o&rsquo;clock that
+      evening St. Cloud was vacant; only a few deputies, like homeless
+      night-birds, wandered around the palace out of which they had been so
+      violently ejected.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the interior of St. Cloud, Bonaparte was busy preparing for the people
+      of Paris a proclamation, in which he justified his deed, and repeated the
+      sacred assurance &ldquo;that he would protect liberty and the republic against
+      all her enemies at home as well as abroad.&rdquo; When this was done, it was
+      necessary to think of giving to the French people a new government,
+      instead of the one which had been broken up. Napoleon had been in
+      conference until the dawn of day with Talleyrand, Roderer, and Sieyes.
+      Meanwhile Lucien had gathered around him in a room the members of the Five
+      Hundred who were devoted to him, and had resumed the presidential chair;
+      Napoleon&rsquo;s friends among the members of the Council of the Elders also
+      gathered together, and both assemblies issued a decree, in which they
+      declared there was no longer a Directory, and in which they excluded from
+      the assembly as rebellious and factious a vast number of deputies. And
+      more, they decreed the nomination of a provisional commission, and decided
+      that it should consist of three members, who should bear the title of
+      Consuls of the Republic, and they appointed as consuls Sieyes, Ducos, and
+      Bonaparte.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At three o&rsquo;clock in the morning every thing was ready, and Napoleon,
+      accompanied by Bourrienne, went to Paris. He had reached his goal; he was
+      at the head of the administration, but his countenance betrayed no joyous
+      excitement; he was taciturn and pensive, and during the whole journey to
+      Paris he spoke not a word, but quietly leaned in a corner of the carriage.
+      Perhaps he dreamed of a great and brilliant future; perhaps he was busy
+      with the thought how he could ascend higher on this ladder to a throne,
+      whose first step he had now ascended, since he had exalted himself into a
+      consul of the republic.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Not till he arrived at his residence in the Rue de la Victoire did
+      Bonaparte&rsquo;s cheerfulness return, when, with countenance beaming with joy,
+      and followed by Bourrienne, he hastened to Josephine, who, exhausted by
+      anxiety and care during this day full of danger, had finally gone to rest.
+      Near her bed Bonaparte sank into an arm-chair, and, gazing at her and
+      seizing her hand, he turned smilingly to Bourrienne:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is it not true,&rdquo; said he&mdash;&ldquo;I said many foolish things?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, yes, general, that cannot be denied,&rdquo; replied Bourrienne, shrugging
+      his shoulders, while Josephine broke out into loud, joyous laughter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I would sooner speak to soldiers than to lawyers,&rdquo; said Bonaparte,
+      cheerfully. &ldquo;These honorable fools made me timid. I am not accustomed to
+      speak to an audience&mdash;but that will come in time.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      With affectionate sympathy Josephine requested him to relate in detail all
+      the events of the day; and she listened with breathless attention to the
+      descriptions which Bonaparte made in his own terse, brief, and lucid
+      manner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And Gohier?&rdquo; said she, at last&mdash;&ldquo;you know I love his wife, and when
+      you were in Egypt he was ever kind and attentive to me. You will not touch
+      him, will you, mon ami?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bonaparte shrugged his shoulders. &ldquo;What of it, my love?&rdquo; said he; &ldquo;it is
+      not my fault if he is pushed aside. Why has he not wished it otherwise? He
+      is a good-natured man, but a blockhead. He does not understand me.... I
+      would do much better to have him transported. He wrote against me to the
+      Council of the Elders, but his letter fell into my hands, and the council
+      has heard nothing of it. The unfortunate man!... Yesterday he expected me
+      to dinner.... And that is called statesmanship.... Let us speak no more of
+      this matter.&rdquo; [Footnote: Bonaparte&rsquo;s own words.&mdash;See Bourrienne, vol.
+      iii., p. 106.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then he began to relate to his Josephine how Bernadotte had acted,
+      refusing to take any part in the events of the day, and how, when
+      Bonaparte had requested him at least to undertake nothing against him, he
+      answered: &ldquo;As a citizen, I will keep quiet; but if the Directory gives me
+      the order to act, I will fight against every disturber of the peace and
+      every conspirator, whoever he may be.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bonaparte then suddenly turned to Bourrienne to dismiss him, that he might
+      himself take some rest; and when he extended his hand to bid him farewell,
+      he added, carelessly:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Apropos, to-morrow we sleep in the Luxemburg.&rdquo; It was decided!&mdash;the
+      long-premeditated deed was done! With the 18th Brumaire, Bonaparte had
+      made an important step forward on the path of fame and power whose end was
+      seen by him alone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bonaparte was no longer a general receiving orders from a superior
+      authority; he was no longer the servant of the Directory; but he was now
+      the one who would give orders&mdash;he was the master and ruler; he stood
+      at the head of the French nation; he made the laws, and his deep, clear
+      eye looked far beyond both consuls who stood at his side, into that future
+      when he alone would be at the head of France; when, instead of the
+      uprooted throne of the lilies, he would sit in the Tuileries, in the chair
+      of the First Consul, this chair of a Caesar, which could so easily become
+      an emperor&rsquo;s throne!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the 20th Brumaire, Napoleon occupied the residence of the Directory in
+      the palace of the Luxemburg, after he had, through his brother Louis, made
+      Gohier prisoner, the only one of the directors who still lingered there,
+      and whom he afterward released. Josephine&rsquo;s intercession procured the
+      liberty of the husband of her friend, and this generous pardon of the
+      furious letter which Gohier had written against him was the thank-offering
+      which Bonaparte presented to the gods as he made his entrance into the
+      Luxemburg.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Luxemburg itself was, however, but a relay for a change of horses in
+      the wondrous journey which Bonaparte had to travel from the lawyer&rsquo;s house
+      on the island of Corsica to the throne-room of the Bourbons in the palace
+      of the Tuileries.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In simple equipage, he with Josephine made his entrance into the
+      Luxemburg, but after the rest of a few weeks he left this station, to make
+      his entrance into the Tuileries in a magnificent carriage, drawn by the
+      six splendid grays which the Emperor of Austria had presented to General
+      Bonaparte in Campo Formio. For already another change had taken place in
+      the government of France, and the trefoil-leaf of the consuls had assumed
+      another form.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The two consuls, who had stood at the side of Bonaparte, invested with
+      equal powers, had been set aside by the new constitution of the year
+      VIII., which the people had adopted on the 17th of February, 1800 (18th
+      Pluviose, year VIII.). This constitution named Bonaparte as consul for ten
+      years, and with him two other consuls, who were more his secretaries than
+      his colleagues. Next to him was Cambaceres, as second consul for ten
+      years, and then Lebrun, as third consul for five years.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With these two consuls, Bonaparte, on the 19th of February, 1800, made his
+      solemn entry into the Tuileries. The old century, with its Bourbon throne,
+      its bloody revolution, its horrors, its party passions, had passed away,
+      and the new century found in the Tuileries a hero who wanted to crush all
+      parties with a hand of iron, and to place his foot on the head of the
+      revolution, so as to close the abyss which it had opened, in order to
+      build himself an emperor&rsquo;s throne over it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was for the present satisfied to hear himself called &ldquo;First Consul;&rdquo; he
+      was willing for a short time to grant to the two men who sat at his side
+      in the carriage drawn by the six imperial grays, that they should share
+      the power with him, and should consider themselves vested with the same
+      authority. But Cambaceres and Lebrun had a keen ear for the joyful shouts
+      with which the people followed their triumphal march from the Luxemburg to
+      the Tuileries. They knew very well that these shouts and acclamations were
+      not addressed to them, but only to General Bonaparte, the conqueror of
+      Lodi and Arcola, the hero of the pyramids, the &ldquo;savior of society,&rdquo; who,
+      on the 18th Brumaire, had rescued France from the terrorists. Both consuls
+      were shrewd enough to draw a lesson from this enthusiasm of the people,
+      and willingly to fall back into the shade rather than to be forced into
+      it. The Tuileries had been appointed for the residence of the three
+      consuls, but the next day after their triumphal entry Cambaceres left the
+      royal palace to take up his abode in the Hotel Elboeuf, on the Place de
+      Carrousel. Lebrun, who at first made the Flora Pavilion his headquarters,
+      soon found it more advisable to take his lodgings elsewhere, and he left
+      the Tuileries, to make his residence in the Faubourg St. Honore.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0033" id="link2HCH0033"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXXIII. THE TUILERIES.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The Tuileries had again found a master; the halls where Marie Antoinette
+      received her joyous guests, her beautiful lady-friends, were now again
+      alive with elegant female figures, and resounded with gay voices, cheerful
+      laughter, and unaffected pleasantry. The apartments in which Louis XVI.
+      had passed such sad and fearful days, where he had laid with his ministers
+      such nefarious schemes, and where royalty had been trodden down under the
+      feet of the infuriated populace&mdash;these rooms were now occupied by the
+      hero who had subdued the people, slain the revolution and restored to
+      France peace and glory.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Tuileries had again found a master&mdash;the throne-room was still
+      vacant and empty, for the first consul of the republic dared not yet lay
+      claim to this throne which the revolution had destroyed, and which the
+      republic had forever removed from France. But if there was no throne in
+      the Tuileries, there was at least a court; and &ldquo;Madame Etiquette,&rdquo; driven
+      away from the royal palace since the days of the unfortunate Marie
+      Antoinette, had again, though with modest and timid step, slipped into the
+      Tuileries. It is true, she now clandestinely occupied a servant&rsquo;s room;
+      but the day was not far distant when, as Egeria, she would whisper advice
+      and dictate laws to the ear of the new Numa Pompilius; when all doors
+      would be open to her, and when she alone would, at all times, have access
+      to the mighty lord of France.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the Luxemburg, the fraternity and the equality of the revolution had
+      been set aside, as, long before, on the 13th Vendemiaire, the liberty of
+      the revolution had been cast away. In the Luxemburg the &ldquo;citoyenne&rdquo;
+       Bonaparte had become &ldquo;Madame&rdquo; Bonaparte, and the young daughter of the
+      citizeness Josephine heard herself called &ldquo;Mademoiselle&rdquo; Hortense!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After the entrance into the Tuileries, fraternity and equality disappeared
+      rapidly, and the distinctions of gentlemen and servants, rulers and
+      subjects, superiors and subordinates, were again introduced. The chief of
+      the administration was surrounded with honors and distinctions; the court,
+      with all its grades, degrees, and titles, was there; it had its courtiers,
+      flatterers, and defamers; and also its brilliant festivities, splendors,
+      and pomp!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is true this was not the work of a moment, nor so rapid an achievement
+      as the transition from the Luxemburg to the Tuileries, but the
+      introduction of the words &ldquo;madame&rdquo; and &ldquo;monsieur&rdquo; removed the first
+      obstacle which held the whole French nation bound to the same platform;
+      and a second obstacle had fallen, when permission was granted to all the
+      emigres, with the exception of the royal family, to return to their native
+      country.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The aristocrats of old France returned in vast numbers; they, the bearers
+      of old names of glory, the legitimists, who had fled before the
+      guillotine, now hoped to win again the throne from the consulate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They kept themselves, however, aloof from the consul, whose greatness and
+      power were derived from the revolution, and who was to them a
+      representative of the rebellious, criminal republic; but they presented
+      themselves to his wife, they brought their homage to Josephine, the born
+      aristocrat, the relative and friend of so many emigrant families, and they
+      hoped, through her influence, to obtain what they dared not ask from the
+      first consul&mdash;the re-establishment of the throne of the Bourbons.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These aristocrats knew very well that Josephine longed for the return of
+      the royal family; that in her heart she cherished love and loyalty to the
+      unfortunate royal couple; and that, without any personal ambition, without
+      any desire for fame, but with the devotedness of a royalist, and the
+      affection of a noble, sensitive woman, she sighed for the time when
+      Bonaparte would again restore to the heir of Louis XVI. the throne of the
+      lilies, and recall to France the Count de Lille, to replace him as king on
+      his brother&rsquo;s throne.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In fact, Josephine had faith in this fairy-tale of her royal heart; she
+      believed in those dreams with which her tender conscience lulled her to
+      repose, whenever she reproached herself, that she, the subject, now walked
+      and gave orders as mistress in this palace of royalty! &ldquo;Why, indeed, could
+      she not believe in the realization of those dreams, since Bonaparte
+      himself seemed to cherish no further wishes than to rest on his laurels,
+      and to enjoy, in delightful privacy, the peace he had given to France?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am looked upon as ambitious,&rdquo; said Bonaparte one day, in the
+      confidential evening conversations with his friends in Josephine&rsquo;s
+      drawing-rooms, &ldquo;I am looked upon as ambitious, and why? Listen, my
+      friends, to what I am going to tell you, and which you may repeat to all.
+      In three years I shall retire from public life; I shall then have about
+      fifty thousand livres income, and that is sufficient for my mode of
+      living. I will get a country residence, since Josephine loves a country
+      life. One thing only I need, and this I claim&mdash;I want to be the
+      justice of the peace for my circuit. Now, say, am I ambitious?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Every one laughed at the strange conceit of Bonaparte, who wished to
+      exchange his present course for the position of a justice of the peace,
+      and Bonaparte chimed in heartily with the laughter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Josephine believed those words of Bonaparte, and their echoes had
+      perchance penetrated even to Russia, to the ears of the pretender to the
+      French throne, the Count de Lille, and to the ears of the Count d&rsquo;Artois,
+      his brother, and they both therefore based their hopes on Josephine&rsquo;s
+      winning her husband to the cause of the Bourbons.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Both sent their secret emissaries to Paris, to enter into some compact
+      with Josephine, and to prepare their pathway to the throne, after having
+      failed to negotiate directly with Bonaparte, who had repelled all their
+      efforts, and with haughty pride had answered the autograph letter of the
+      Count de Lille.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Count d&rsquo;Artois, enlightened by the fruitless efforts of his brother,
+      resorted to another scheme. He sent a female emissary to Paris&mdash;not
+      to Bonaparte, but to Josephine. Napoleon himself speaks of it, in his
+      Memorial of St. Helena, as follows:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Count d&rsquo;Artois made his advances in a more eloquent and refined
+      manner. He sent to Paris the Duchess de Guiche, a charming woman, who by
+      the elegance of her manners and by her personal attractions was well
+      calculated to bring to a favorable result the object of her mission. She
+      easily obtained an introduction to Madame Bonaparte, who was acquainted
+      with all the persons of the old court. The beautiful duchess was therefore
+      invited to a dejeuner at Malmaison; and during breakfast, when the
+      conversation ran upon London, the emigrants, and the princes, Madame de
+      Guiche stated that a few days before she had called upon the Count
+      d&rsquo;Artois. They had spoken of current events, of the future of France, of
+      the royal family, and one of the confidants had asked the prince what
+      would be the reward of the first consul if he re-established the Bourbons!
+      The prince answered: &lsquo;First of all he would be created connetable, with
+      all the privileges attached to that rank, if that were agreeable to him.
+      But that would not be enough; we would erect to him on the Place de
+      Carrousel a tall and costly column, and on it we would raise the statue of
+      Bonaparte crowning the Bourbons.&rsquo; A short time after the dejeuner the
+      consul entered, and Josephine had nothing more pressing to do than to
+      relate to him all these details. &lsquo;And have you inquired,&rsquo; asked her
+      husband, &lsquo;whether this column would have for a pedestal the corpse of the
+      first consul?&rsquo; The beautiful duchess was still present, and with her
+      winning ways she was well calculated to carry her point. &lsquo;I shall ever be
+      happy,&rsquo; said she, &lsquo;and grateful for the kindness of Madame Bonaparte in
+      having granted me the opportunity of gazing upon and listening to a great
+      man&mdash;a hero.&rsquo; But it was all in vain; the Duchess de Guiche the same
+      night received orders to depart immediately; and the beauty of this
+      emissary appeared to Josephine too dangerous for her urgently to intercede
+      in her behalf. Early next morning Madame de Guiche was on her way to the
+      frontier.&rdquo; [Footnote: &ldquo;Memorial de Ste. Helene,&rdquo; vol. i., p. 34.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Count de Lille chose for his mediator a very devoted servant, the most
+      skilful of all his agents, the Marquis de Clermont Gallerande. He also was
+      kindly received by Josephine, and he found access to her ear. With intense
+      sympathy, and tears in her eyes, she bade him tell her the sad wanderings
+      of that unfortunate man, &ldquo;his majesty the King of France,&rdquo; and who as a
+      fugitive was barely tolerated, roaming from court to court, a protege of
+      the good-will of foreign potentates. Drawn away by her generous heart, and
+      by her unswerving loyalty to the faith of her childhood, she spoke
+      enthusiastically of the young royal couple who once had ruled in the
+      Tuileries; and she went so far as to express the hope that Bonaparte would
+      again make good what the revolution had destroyed, and that he would
+      restore to the King of France his lost throne.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Marquis de Clermont, to prove to her what confidence he reposed in
+      her, and what consideration the King of France entertained for the first
+      consul and his adored wife, communicated to her a letter from the Count de
+      Lille to him, which was in itself a masterpiece, well calculated to move
+      the heart of Josephine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Count de Lille portrayed in this letter first the dangers which would
+      threaten Bonaparte if he should allow himself to be drawn into the
+      inconsiderate and criminal step of placing the crown of France on his own
+      head, and then continued:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sitting upon a volcano, Bonaparte would sooner or later be destroyed by
+      it if he hastens not in due time to close the crater. Sitting upon the
+      first step of the throne restored by his own hand, he would be the object
+      of a monarch&rsquo;s gratitude; he would receive from France the highest
+      regards, the more pure since they would be the result of his
+      administration and of public esteem. No one can convince him of these
+      truths better than she whose fortune is bound up with his, who can be
+      happy only in his happiness and honored only in his reputation. I consider
+      it a great point gained if you can come into some relation with her. I
+      know her sentiments from days of old. The Count de Vermeuil, ex-governor
+      of the Antilles, whose judgment as you know is most excellent, has told me
+      more than once that in Martinique he had often noticed how her fealty to
+      the crown deepened nearly to distraction; and the protection which she
+      grants to my faithful subjects who appeal to her, entitles her justly to
+      the name you give her, &lsquo;an angel of goodness.&rsquo; Let my sentiments be known
+      to Madame Bonaparte. You will not surprise her, but I flatter myself that
+      her soul will rejoice to know them.&rdquo; [Footnote: Thibaudeau, &ldquo;Histoire de
+      la France, et de Napoleon Bonaparte,&rdquo; vol. ii., p. 202.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Count de Lille was not deceived. Josephine&rsquo;s heart was filled with joy
+      at this confidence of the &ldquo;King of France;&rdquo; she was pleased that the
+      Marquis de Clermont had fulfilled his wishes, and that he should with this
+      letter have sent her a present. She read it with a countenance full of
+      enthusiasm, and with a tremulous voice, to her daughter Hortense, whom she
+      had educated to be as good a royalist as herself; and both mother and
+      daughter besieged, with earnest petitions, with tears and prayers, and
+      every expression of love, the first consul to realize the hopes of the
+      Count de Lille, and to recall the exiled prince to his kingdom.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bonaparte usually replied to all these requests with a silent smile;
+      sometimes also, when they were too violent and pressing, he repelled them
+      with unwilling vehemence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;These women belong entirely to the devil!&rdquo; said he, in his anger to
+      Bourrienne, &ldquo;they are mad for royalty. The Faubourg St. Germain has turned
+      their heads, they are made the protecting genii of the royalists; but they
+      do not trouble me, and I am not displeased with them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bourrienne ventured to warn Josephine, and to call her attention to this,
+      that she might not so strongly plead before Bonaparte for the Count de
+      Lille, but Josephine answered him with a sad smile: &ldquo;I wish I could
+      persuade him to call back the king, lest he himself may have the idea of
+      becoming such; for the fear that he may do this always awakens in me a
+      foreboding of evil, which I cannot banish from my mind.&rdquo; [Footnote:
+      Bourrienne, vol. iv., p. 108.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But until the king was really recalled by the first consul, Josephine had
+      to be pleased to assume the place of queen in the Tuileries, and to accept
+      the homage which France and soon all Europe brought to her. For now that
+      the republic was firmly established, and had made peace with the foreign
+      powers, they sent their ambassadors to the republic, and were received in
+      the name of France by the first consul and his wife.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was indeed an important and significant moment when Josephine for the
+      first time in her apartments received the ambassadors of the foreign
+      powers. It is true no one called this &ldquo;to give audience;&rdquo; no one spoke yet
+      in genuine courtier&rsquo;s style of &ldquo;great levee&rdquo; or &ldquo;little levee;&rdquo; the
+      appellation of &ldquo;madame&rdquo; was yet in use, and there was no court-marshal, no
+      maids of honor, no chamberlains of the palace. But the substance was the
+      same, and, instead of the high court-marshal, it was Talleyrand, the
+      secretary for foreign affairs, who introduced to Josephine the
+      ambassadors, and who called their names.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This introduction of the ambassadors was the first grand ceremony which,
+      since the revolution, had taken place in the Tuileries. With exquisite
+      tact, Josephine had carefully avoided at this festivity any pomp, any
+      luxury of toilet. In a plain white muslin dress, her beautiful brown hair
+      bound up in a string of white pearls, and holding Talleyrand&rsquo;s hand, she
+      entered the great reception hall, in which the foreign ambassadors, the
+      generals, and the high dignitaries of the republic were gathered. She came
+      without pretension or ostentation, but at her appearance a murmur of
+      admiration ran through the company, and brought on her cheeks the timid
+      blush of a young maiden. With the assurance of an accomplished lady of the
+      world she received the salutations of the ambassadors, knew how to speak
+      to each a gracious word, how to entertain them, not with those worn-out,
+      stereotyped phrases customary at royal presentations, but in an
+      interesting, intellectual manner, which at once opened the way to an
+      exciting, witty, and unaffected conversation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Every one was enchanted with her, and from this day not only the French
+      aristocracy, but all distinguished foreigners who came to Paris, were
+      anxious to obtain the honor of a reception in the drawing-room of the wife
+      of the first consul; from this day Josephine was the admiration of Europe,
+      as she had already been that of France and Italy. As the wife of the first
+      consul of France she could be observed and noticed by all Europe, and it
+      is certainly a most remarkable and unheard-of circumstance that of all
+      these thousands of eyes directed at her, none could find in her a stain or
+      blemish; that, though neither beautiful nor young, her sweet disposition
+      and grace so enchanted every one as to be accepted as substitutes for
+      them, while on account of her goodness and generosity her very failings
+      and weaknesses were overlooked, being interwoven with so many virtues.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Constant, the first chamberlain of Bonaparte, who, at the time Bonaparte
+      was elected first consul, entered his service, describes Josephine&rsquo;s
+      appearance and character in the following manner:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Napoleon&rsquo;s wife was of medium size; her figure was moulded with rare
+      perfection; her movements had a softness and an elasticity which gave to
+      her walk something ethereal, without diminishing the majesty of a
+      sovereign. Her very expressive physiognomy mirrored all the emotions of
+      her soul without losing aught of the enchanting gentleness which was the
+      very substance of her character. At the moment of joy or merriment she was
+      beautiful to behold. Never did a woman more than she justify the
+      expression that the eyes were the mirror of the soul. Hers were of a
+      deep-blue color, shadowed by long, slightly-curved lids, and overarched by
+      the most beautiful eyebrows in the world, and her simple look attracted
+      you toward her as if by an irresistible power. It was difficult for
+      Josephine to give to this bewitching look an appearance of severity, yet
+      she knew how to make it imposing when she chose. Her hair was beautiful,
+      long, and soft; its light-brown color agreed marvellously well with her
+      complexion, which was a mixture of delicacy and freshness. At the dawn of
+      her lofty power the empress was fond of putting on for a head-dress a red
+      Madras, which gave her the piquant appearance of a creole. But what more
+      than any thing else contributed to the charm which invested her whole
+      person was the sweet tone of her voice. How often it has happened to me
+      and to many others amid our occupations, as soon as this voice was heard,
+      to remain still for the sake of enjoying the pleasure of hearing it! It
+      might be said, perhaps, that the empress was not a beautiful woman; but
+      her countenance, so full of expression and goodness, the angelic grace
+      which was shed over her whole person, placed her among the most charming
+      women of the world.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Further on, speaking of her character, he continues:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Goodness was as inseparable from her character as grace from her person.
+      Good even to weakness, sensitive beyond all expression, generous to
+      extravagance, she was the delight of all those who were round about her;
+      certain it is that there never was a woman more loved and more deservedly
+      loved by those who approached her than Josephine. As she had known what
+      adversity was, she was full of compassion for the sorrows of others; with
+      a pleasant, equable temperament, full of condescension alike to foe and
+      friend, she carried peace wherever discord or disunion existed; if the
+      emperor was displeased with his brothers, or with any other person, she
+      uttered words of affection, and soon restored harmony. She possessed a
+      wondrous tact, a rare sentiment of what was becoming, and the soundest and
+      most unerring judgment one can possibly imagine. Besides all this,
+      Josephine had a remarkable memory, to which the emperor would often
+      appeal. She was a good reader, and had a peculiar charm of her own which
+      accorded with all her movements. Napoleon preferred her to all his other
+      readers.&rdquo; [Footnote: Constant, &ldquo;Memoires,&rdquo; vol. i., pp. 21, 39; vol. ii.,
+      p. 70.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Duke de Rovigo, the Duchess d&rsquo;Abrantes, Mdlle. Ducrest, the niece of
+      the Countess de Genlis, Mdlle. d&rsquo;Avrillon, General Lafayette, in a word,
+      all who have written about that period who knew Josephine, bear similar
+      testimony to her amiable disposition and her superior virtues.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the same manner the man for whom, as Mdlle. Ducrest says, &ldquo;she would
+      gladly have given her life,&rdquo; Napoleon, in his conversations with his
+      confidential friends at St. Helena, ever spoke of her. &ldquo;In all positions
+      of life, Josephine&rsquo;s demeanor and actions were always pleasant or
+      bewitching,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;It would have been impossible ever to surprise her,
+      however intrusive you might be, so as to produce a disagreeable
+      impression. I always found her in the same humor; she had the same amiable
+      complacency; she was good, gentle, and ever devoted to her husband in true
+      affection. He never saw her in bad humor; she was always constantly busy
+      in endeavoring to please him.&rdquo; [Footnote: &ldquo;Memorial de Ste. Helene,&rdquo; vol.
+      i. pp. 38, 79.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And she pleased him more than any other woman; he loved her in these happy
+      days of the consulate with all the affection of the first days of his
+      marriage; his heart might now and then be drawn aside from her to other
+      women, but it always returned true and loving to her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And this woman, whom the future King of France called an &ldquo;angel of
+      goodness,&rdquo; and the future Emperor of France, &ldquo;grace in person,&rdquo; is the one
+      who entered the Tuileries at Bonaparte&rsquo;s side to bring again into France
+      the tone of good society, refinement of manners, intellectual
+      conversation, and a love for the arts and sciences.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was fully conscious of this mission, and devoted herself with all the
+      strength, energy, and perseverance of her character. Her drawing-room soon
+      became the central rendezvous of men of science, art, learning, politics,
+      and diplomacy, and to each Josephine knew how to address friendly and
+      captivating words; she knew how to encourage every one by her noble
+      affability, by her respectful interest in their works and plans&mdash;so
+      much so that all strove to do as well as possible, and in her presence
+      appeared more amiable than they otherwise would perhaps have been.
+      Alongside of the distinguished men of every rank were seen the choicest
+      company of ladies, young, beautiful, and captivating; the most intelligent
+      women of the Faubourg St. Germain were not ashamed to appear in the
+      drawing-room of the wife of the first consul, and thought that the glory
+      of their old aristocratic names would not be tarnished by association with
+      Madame Bonaparte, who by birth belonged to them, and formed a sort of
+      connecting link between the departed royalty of the last century and the
+      republicans of the present.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This republicanism was soon to hide itself behind the columns and mirrors
+      of the large hall of reception in the Tuileries. Bonaparte&mdash;the first
+      consul, and shortly to be consul for life&mdash;would have nothing to do
+      with this republicanism, which reminded him of the days of terrorism,
+      anarchy, and the guillotine; and the words &ldquo;Liberty, Equality, and
+      Fraternity,&rdquo; which the revolution had written over the portals of the
+      Tuileries, were obliterated by the consul of the republic. France had been
+      sufficiently bled, and had suffered enough for these three words; it was
+      now to rest under the shadow of legal order and of severe discipline,
+      after its golden morning-dream of youth&rsquo;s enchanting hopes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bonaparte was to re-establish order and law; Josephine was to remodel
+      society and the saloon; her mission was to unite the aristocracy of
+      ancient France with the parvenues of the new; she was to be to the latter
+      a teacher of refinement, and of the genuine manners and habits of
+      so-called good society.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To accomplish this, the wife of the first consul needed the assistance of
+      some ladies of those circles who had remained in lofty, haughty isolation;
+      she needed the co-operation of the ladies of the Faubourg St. Germain. It
+      is true they made their morning calls, and invited the former Viscountess
+      de Beauharnais, with her daughter, to their evening receptions; but they
+      carefully avoided being present at the evening circles of Madame
+      Bonaparte, where their exclusiveness was beset with the danger of coming
+      in contact with some &ldquo;parvenu,&rdquo; or with some sprig of the army, or of the
+      financial bureaus. Josephine therefore had to recruit her troops herself
+      in the Faubourg St. Germain, so as to bring into her saloon the necessary
+      contingent of the old legitimist aristocracy, and she found what she
+      desired in a lady with whom she had been acquainted as Viscountess de
+      Beauharnais, and who then had ever shown herself kind and friendly. This
+      lady was the Countess de Montesson, the morganatic wife of the Duke
+      d&rsquo;Orleans, the father of the Duke Philippe Egalite, who, after betraying
+      the monarchy to the revolution, was betrayed by the revolution, and, like
+      his royal relatives, Louis and Marie Antoinette, had perished on the
+      scaffold!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Soon after his entrance into the Tuileries, the first consul invited,
+      through his wife, the Countess de Montesson to visit him, and when she was
+      announced he advanced to meet her with an unusual expression of
+      friendship, and endeavored with great condescension to make her say in
+      what manner he could please her or be of service to her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;General,&rdquo; said Madame de Montesson, much surprised, &ldquo;I have no right
+      whatever to claim any thing from you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bonaparte smiled. &ldquo;You are mistaken,&rdquo; said he; &ldquo;I have been under many
+      obligations to you for a long time past. Do you not know that to you I am
+      indebted for my first laurels? You came with the Duke d&rsquo;Orleans to Brienne
+      for the purpose of distributing the prizes at the great examination, and
+      when you placed on my head the laurel-crown, which has since been followed
+      by others, you said, &lsquo;May it bring you happiness!&rsquo; It is commonly believed
+      that I am a fatalist; it is therefore very natural that I should not have
+      forgotten my first coronation, and that it is still fresh in my memory. It
+      would afford me much pleasure to be of service to you; besides, you can be
+      useful to me. The tone of good society has nearly perished in France; we
+      would like to renew it again with your assistance. I need some of the
+      traditions of days gone by&mdash;you can assist my wife with them; and
+      when a distinguished foreigner comes to Paris you can give him a reception
+      which will convince him that nowhere else can so much gentleness and
+      amiableness be found.&rdquo; [Footnote: &ldquo;Memoires de Mdlle. Ducrest,&rdquo; vol. i.,
+      p. 9.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That Madame de Montesson might have a striking proof of Bonaparte&rsquo;s
+      good-will, he renewed her yearly pension of one hundred and eighty
+      thousand francs, which the duke had donated to her in his will, and which
+      Bonaparte restored to her as the property which the revolution had
+      confiscated for the nation&rsquo;s welfare. She manifested her gratitude to the
+      first consul for this liberal pension by opening the saloons to the
+      &ldquo;parvenues of the Tuileries;&rdquo; and leading the aristocrats of the Faubourg
+      St. Germain into the drawing-rooms of Josephine, and then assisting her to
+      form out of these elements a court whose lofty and brilliant centre was to
+      be Josephine herself. The ladies of the Faubourg St. Germain were no
+      longer ashamed to appear at the new court of the Tuileries, but excused
+      themselves by saying: &ldquo;We flatter Josephine, so as to keep her on our
+      side, and to strengthen her loyalty to the king. She will, by her
+      entrancing eloquence, persuade the consul to recall our King Louis XVIII.,
+      and give him his crown.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But too soon, alas! were they made aware of their error. It was not long
+      before they became convinced that, if Bonaparte&rsquo;s hands were busy in
+      raising a throne, in lifting up from the earth the fallen crown of
+      royalty, he was not doing this to place it on the brow of the Count de
+      Lille; he had a nearer object in view&mdash;he considered his own head
+      better suited to wear it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The conqueror of terrorism and of the revolution was not inclined to be
+      defeated by the enemies of the republic, who were approaching the
+      frontiers of France, to restore the Bourbons. He took up the glove which
+      Austria had thrown down&mdash;for she had made alliance with England.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the 6th of May, 1800, Bonaparte left Paris, marched with his army over
+      Mount St. Bernard, and assumed the chief command of the army in Italy,
+      which recently had suffered so many disastrous defeats from Suwarrow and
+      the Archduke Charles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At Marengo, on the 14th of June, Bonaparte obtained a brilliant triumph.
+      Soon after, at Hohenlinden, Moreau also defeated the Austrians. These two
+      decisive victories forced Austria to make peace with France, to abandon
+      her alliance with England&mdash;that is to say, with the monarchical
+      principles; and, at the peace ratified in the beginning of the year 1801
+      at Limeville, to concede to France the grand-duchy of Tuscany.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In July, Bonaparte returned in triumph to France, and was received by the
+      people with enthusiastic acclamations. Paris was brilliantly illuminated
+      on the day of his return, and round about the Tuileries arose the shouts
+      of the people, who with applauding voices demanded to see the conqueror of
+      Marengo, and would not remain quiet until he appeared on the balcony. Even
+      Bonaparte was touched by this enthusiasm of the French people; as he
+      retreated from the balcony and retired into his cabinet, he said to
+      Bourrienne. &ldquo;Listen! The people shout again and again; they still send
+      their acclamations toward me. I love those sounds; they are nearly as
+      sweet as Josephine&rsquo;s voice. How proud and happy I am to be loved by such a
+      people!&rdquo; [Footnote: Bourrienne, vol. v., p. 35.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0034" id="link2HCH0034"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXXIV. THE INFERNAL MACHINE.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The victory of Marengo, which had pleased the people, had filled the
+      royalists with terror and fear, and destroyed their hopes of a speedy
+      restoration of the monarchy, making them conscious of its fruitless
+      pretensions. With the frenzy of hatred and the bitterness of revenge they
+      turned against the first consul, who was not now their expected savior of
+      the monarchy, but a usurper who wanted to gain France for himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The royalists and the republicans united for the same object. Both parties
+      longed to destroy Bonaparte: the one to re-establish the republic of the
+      year 1793, and the other the throne of the Bourbons. Everywhere
+      conspiracies and secret associations were organized, and the watchful and
+      active police discovered in a few months more than ten plots, the aim of
+      which was to murder Bonaparte.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Josephine heard this with sorrow and fear, with tears of anxiety and love.
+      She had now given her whole heart and soul to Bonaparte, and it was the
+      torment of martyrdom to see him every day threatened by assassins and by
+      invisible foes, who from dark and hidden places drew their daggers at him.
+      Her love surrounded him with vigilant friends and servants, who sought to
+      discover every danger and to remove it from his path.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When he was coming to Malmaison, Josephine before his arrival would send
+      her servants to search every hiding-place in the park, to see if in some
+      shady grove a murderer might not be secreted; she entreated Junot or Murat
+      to send scouts from Paris on the road to Malmaison to remove all
+      suspicious persons from it. Yet her heart trembled with anxiety when she
+      knew him to be on the way, and, when he had safely arrived, she would
+      receive him with rapture, as if he had just escaped an imminent danger,
+      and would make him laugh by the exclamations of joy with which she greeted
+      him as one saved from danger.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the anxiety of her watchful love she made herself acquainted with all
+      the details of the discovered conspiracies of both the Jacobins and
+      royalists. She knew there were two permanent conspiracies at work, though
+      their leaders had been discovered and led into prison.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One of these conspiracies had been organized by the old Jacobins, the
+      republicans of the Convention; and these bands of the &ldquo;enraged,&rdquo; as they
+      called themselves, numbered in their ranks all the enemies of
+      constitutional order, all the men of the revolution of 1789; and all these
+      men had sworn with solemn oaths to kill Bonaparte, and to deliver the
+      republic from her greatest and most dangerous enemy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The other conspiracy, which had its ramifications throughout France, was
+      formed by the royalists. &ldquo;The Society of the White Mantle&rdquo; was mostly
+      composed of Chouans, daring men of Vendee, who were ever ready to
+      sacrifice their lives to the mere notion of royalty, and who like the
+      Jacobins had sworn to murder Bonaparte.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Chevalier, who, with his ingenious infernal machine, sought to kill
+      Bonaparte on his way to Malmaison, belonged to the Society of the White
+      Mantle. But he was betrayed by his confidant and associate Becyer, who
+      assisted the police to arrest him. To the conspiracy of the &ldquo;enraged&rdquo;
+       belonged the Italians Ceracchi, Arena, and Diana, who at the opera, when
+      the consul appeared in his loge, and was greeted by the acclamations of
+      the people, were ready to fire their pistols at him. But at the moment
+      they were about to commit the deed from behind the side-scenes, where they
+      had hidden themselves, they were seized, arrested, and led to prison by
+      the police. Josephine, as already said, knew all these conspiracies; she
+      trembled for Bonaparte&rsquo;s life, and yet she could not prevent him from
+      appearing in public, and she herself, smiling and apparently unsuspecting,
+      had to appear at Bonaparte&rsquo;s side at the grand parades, in the national
+      festivities, and at the theatrical performances; no feature on her face
+      was to betray the anxiety she was enduring.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One day, however, not only Bonaparte&rsquo;s life but also that of Josephine,
+      was imperilled by the conspirators; the famous infernal machine which had
+      been placed on their way to the opera, would have killed the first consul
+      and his wife, if a red Persian shawl had not saved them both.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the grand opera, that evening, was to be performed Joseph Haydn&rsquo;s
+      masterpiece, &ldquo;The Creation.&rdquo; The Parisians awaited this performance with
+      great expectation; they rushed to the opera, not only to hear the
+      oratorio, the fame of which had spread from Vienna to Paris, but also to
+      see Bonaparte and his wife, who it was known would attend the performance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Josephine had requested Bonaparte to be present at this great musical
+      event, for she knew that the public would be delighted at his presence. He
+      at first manifested no desire to do so, for he was not sufficiently versed
+      in musical matters for it to afford him much enjoyment; and besides, there
+      was but one kind of music he liked, and that was the Italian, the richness
+      of whose melody pleased him, while the German and French left him
+      dissatisfied and weary. However, Bonaparte gave way to the entreaties of
+      Josephine, and resolved to drive to the opera. The dinner that day had
+      been somewhat later than usual, for besides Josephine, her children, and
+      Bonaparte&rsquo;s sister Caroline, Murat, the Generals Bessieres and Lannes, as
+      well as Bonaparte&rsquo;s two adjutants, Lebrun and Rapp, had been present.
+      Immediately after dinner they wanted to drive to the opera; but as
+      Josephine lingered behind, busy with the arrangement of her shawl,
+      Bonaparte declared he would drive in advance with the two Generals
+      Bessieres and Lebrun, while Rapp was to accompany the ladies in the second
+      carriage. With his usual rapidity of action he seized his hat and sword,
+      and, followed by his companions, left the room to go to the carriage,
+      which was waiting.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Josephine, who imagined that Bonaparte was waiting for her at the
+      carriage, hurriedly put on, without troubling herself any longer about the
+      becoming arrangement of the folds, a red Persian shawl, which Bonaparte
+      had sent her as a present from Egypt. She was going to leave, when Rapp,
+      with the openness of a soldier, made the remark that she had not put on
+      her shawl to-day with her accustomed elegance. She smiled, and begged him
+      to arrange it after the fashion of Egyptian ladies. Rapp laughingly
+      hastened to comply with her wishes; and while Josephine, Madame Murat, and
+      Hortense, watched attentively the arrangement of the shawl in the hands of
+      Rapp, Bonaparte&rsquo;s carriage was heard moving away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This noise put a speedy end to all further movements, and Josephine, with
+      the ladies and Rapp, hastened to follow Bonaparte. Their carriage had no
+      sooner reached the Place de Carrousel, than an appalling explosion was
+      heard, and a bright flame like a lightning-flash filled the whole place
+      with its glare; at the same moment the windows of the carriage were broken
+      into fragments, which flew in every direction into the carriage, and one
+      of which penetrated so deep into the arm of Hortense, that the blood
+      gushed out. Josephine uttered a cry of horror&mdash;&ldquo;Bonaparte is
+      murdered!&rdquo; At the same moment were heard loud shrieks and groans.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Rapp, seized with fear, and only thinking that Bonaparte was in danger,
+      sprang out of the carriage, and, careless of the wounded and bleeding, who
+      lay near, ran onward to the opera to find out if Bonaparte had safely
+      reached there. While the ladies, in mortal agony, remained on the Place de
+      Carrousel, not knowing whether to return to the Tuileries or to drive
+      forward, a messenger arrived at full speed to announce that the first
+      consul had not been hurt, and that he was waiting for his wife in his
+      loge, and begged her to come without delay. Meanwhile Rapp had reached the
+      opera, and had penetrated into the box of the first consul. Bonaparte was
+      seated calmly and unmoved in his accustomed place, examining the audience
+      through his glass, and now and then addressing a few words to the
+      secretary of police, Fouche, who stood near him. No sooner did Bonaparte
+      see Rapp, than he said hastily, and in a low voice&mdash;&ldquo;Josephine?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At that moment she entered, followed by Madame Murat and Hortense.
+      Bonaparte saluted them with a smile, and with a look of unfathomable love
+      he extended his hand to Josephine. She was still pale and trembling,
+      although she had no conception of the greatness of the danger which had
+      menaced her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bonaparte endeavored to quiet her by stating that the explosion was
+      probably the result of some accident or imprudence; but at this moment the
+      prefect of the police entered who had been on the spot, and had come to
+      give a report of the dreadful effects of the explosion. Fifteen persons
+      had been killed, more than thirty had been severely wounded, and about
+      forty houses seriously damaged. This was all the work of a so-called
+      infernal machine&mdash;a small barrel filled with powder and quicksilver&mdash;which
+      had been placed in a little carriage at the entrance of the Hue St.
+      Nicaise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Until now Josephine did not realize the extent of the danger which had
+      threatened her and her husband. Had the explosion taken place a few
+      moments before, it would have killed the consul; if it had been one minute
+      later, Josephine and her companions would have been involved in the
+      catastrophe. It was the shawl which Rapp was arranging on her shoulders
+      according to the rules of art, which caused them to retard their
+      departure, and thus saved her life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      An inexpressible horror now seized her and made her tremble; her looks,
+      full of love and deep anguish, were fixed on Bonaparte, who, in a low
+      voice, entreated her to compose herself, and not to make her distress
+      public. Near Josephine sat Hortense, pale and agitated, like her mother;
+      around her wounded arm was wrapped a handkerchief, stained here and there
+      with blood. Madame Murat was quiet and composed, like Bonaparte, who was
+      then giving instructions to the prefect of police to provide immediate
+      assistance for the unfortunate persons who had been wounded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No one yet in the audience knew the appalling event. The thundering noise
+      had been heard, but it was presumed to have been an artillery salute, and
+      no evil was suspected, for Bonaparte, with his usual guards, had entered
+      his box, and, advancing to its very edge, had saluted the public in a
+      friendly way. This act of the first consul had its ordinary effect: the
+      audience, indifferent to the music, rose and saluted their hero with loud
+      acclamation and applause. Not till Josephine entered the loge had the
+      acclamations subsided, and the music begun again. A few minutes after, the
+      news of the fearful event spread all over the house: a murmur arose, and
+      the music was interrupted anew.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Duchess d&rsquo;Abrantes, who was present at this scene, gives a faithful,
+      eloquent, and graphic picture of it:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A vague noise,&rdquo; says she, &ldquo;began to spread from the parterre to the
+      orchestra, and from the amphitheatre to the boxes. Soon the news of the
+      occurrence was known all over the house, when, like a sudden clap of
+      thunder, an acclamation burst forth, and the whole audience, with a single
+      undivided look of love, seemed to desire to embrace Bonaparte. What I am
+      narrating I have seen, and I am not the only one who saw it. ... What
+      excitement followed this first explosion of national anger, which at this
+      moment was represented by the audience, whose horror at the dark plot
+      cannot be described with words! Women were seen weeping and sobbing; men,
+      pale as death, trembled with vengeance and anger, whatever might have been
+      the political standard which they followed; all hearts and hands were
+      united to prove that difference of opinion creates no difference in the
+      interpretation of the code of honor. During the whole scene my eyes were
+      fixed on the loge of the consul. He was quiet, and only seemed moved when
+      public sentiment gave utterance to strong expressive words about the
+      conspiracy, and these reached him. Madame Bonaparte was not fully
+      composed. Her countenance was disturbed; even her attitude, generally so
+      very graceful, was no longer under her control. She seemed to tremble
+      under her shawl as under a protecting canopy, and in fact it was this
+      shawl which had saved her from destruction. She was weeping; however much
+      she endeavored to compose herself, she could not repress her tears; they
+      would flow, against her will, down her pale cheeks, and, whenever
+      Josephine fixed her eyes upon her husband, she trembled again. Even her
+      daughter seemed extremely agitated, and Madame Murat alone preserved the
+      family character, and seemed entirely herself.&rdquo; [Footnote: Duchess
+      d&rsquo;Abrantes, &ldquo;Memoires,&rdquo; vol. ii., p. 66.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last, when the public excitement was somewhat abated, and the music was
+      again resumed, the audience turned its attention to Hadyn&rsquo;s masterpiece.
+      But Josephine had not the strength to bear this effort, and to submit to
+      it quietly. She entreated her husband to retire with her and the ladies;
+      and when at last he acceded to her request, and had quietly left the loge
+      with her, Josephine sat by him in the carriage, opposite Caroline and
+      Hortense, and, sobbing, threw herself on Bonaparte&rsquo;s breast, and cried out
+      in her anguish:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What a life, where I must ever be trembling for you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The infernal machine did not kill the first consul, but it gave to liberty
+      and to the republic a fatal blow; it scattered into fragments what
+      remained of the revolutionary institutions from the days of blood and
+      terror. France rose up in disgust and horror against the party which made
+      of assassins its companions, and consequently this conspiracy failed to
+      accomplish what its originators had expected. They wanted to destroy
+      Bonaparte and ruin his power, but this abortive attempt only increased his
+      popularity, enlarged his power, and deepened the people&rsquo;s love for him who
+      now appeared to them as a protecting rampart, and a barrier to the flood
+      of anarchy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      France gave herself up trembling, and without a will of her own, into the
+      hands of the hero to whom she was indebted for fame and recognition by
+      foreign powers, and through whom she hoped to secure domestic peace.
+      France longed for a strong arm to support her; Bonaparte gave her this
+      arm, but it not only supported France, it bowed her down; and from this
+      day he placed the reins on the wild republican steed, and let it feel that
+      it had found a master who had the power and the will to direct it entirely
+      in accordance with his wishes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bonaparte was determined to put an end to the seditions and conspiracies
+      of the republicans, whom he hated because they had for their aim the
+      downfall of all legitimate authority; and in turn was hated by them
+      because he had abandoned their standard and turned against the republic
+      with the faithlessness of a son who attacks the mother that gave him
+      birth. Bonaparte maintained that it was the republicans who had set the
+      infernal machine on his path, and paid no attention to the opinion of
+      Fouche, who ascribed to the royalists the origin of the plot. Bonaparte
+      wished first to do away with his most violent and bitter enemies, the
+      republicans of the year 1789; he desired to possess the power of punishing
+      such, and to render them harmless, and now the horror produced by this
+      criminal act came to his assistance in carrying out this plan.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The council of the state adopted the legislative enactment that the
+      consuls should have &ldquo;the power to remove from Paris those persons whose
+      presence they considered dangerous to the public security, and that all
+      such persons who should leave their place of banishment should be
+      transported from the country!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Under this law, George Cadoudal, Chevalier, Arena, Ceracchi, and many
+      others were executed; and one hundred and thirty persons, whose only crime
+      was that of being suspected of dissatisfaction toward the administration
+      of the consuls, and considered as Bonaparte&rsquo;s enemies, were transported to
+      Cayenne.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Such were for France the results of this infernal machine, the object of
+      which was to assassinate the Consul Bonaparte, instead of which it had
+      only the effect of destroying his enemies and strengthening his power.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0035" id="link2HCH0035"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXXV. THE CASHMERES AND THE LETTER.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      As mighty events always exercise an influence on minor ones, so this
+      fearful attempt at murder became the occasion for the introduction into
+      France of a new branch of industry, which had hitherto drawn millions from
+      Europe to the East.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Josephine, gratefully remembering her truly wonderful deliverance through
+      the means of her Persian shawl, wore it afterward in preference to any
+      other. Until then she had never fancied it, for when Bonaparte sent it to
+      her from Egypt, she wrote to him: &ldquo;I have received the shawl. It may be
+      very beautiful and very costly, but I find it unsightly. Its great
+      advantage consists in its lightness. I doubt, however, if this new fashion
+      will meet with approbation. Notwithstanding, I am pleased with it, for it
+      is rare and warm.&rdquo; [Footnote: &ldquo;Memoires sur l&rsquo;Imperatrice,&rdquo; par
+      Mademoiselle Ducrest, vol. iii., p. 227.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But after it had saved her life, she no longer thought it unsightly, she
+      was fond of wrapping herself up in it, and the natural consequence was,
+      that these Persian shawls soon formed the most fashionable and costly
+      article of apparel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Every lady of the higher classes considered it a necessity to cover her
+      tender shoulders with this valuable foreign material, and it soon became
+      &ldquo;comme il faut&rdquo; a duty of position, to possess a collection of such
+      Persian shawls, and to wear them at the balls and receptions in the
+      Tuileries.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The desire to possess such a precious article of fashion led these ladies
+      oftentimes to &ldquo;corriger la fortune&rdquo; and to obtain, by some bold but not
+      very creditable act, possession of such a shawl, which had now become in a
+      certain measure the escutcheon of the new French aristocracy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Duchess d&rsquo;Abrantes, in reference to this matter, relates two thefts
+      which at that time troubled the aristocratic society of the Tuileries,
+      which prove that the ladies had taken instructions from the gentlemen, and
+      that dishonest persons of both sexes were admitted into the society of
+      heroes and their beautiful wives!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At a morning reception in the Tuileries, the shawl of the Countess de St.
+      Martin had been stolen; and this lady was very much distressed at the
+      loss, for this cashmere was not only a present from Madame Murat, but was
+      one of uncommon beauty, on account of the rarity of the design, consisting
+      of paroquets in artistic groups, instead of the ordinary palm. The
+      countess was therefore untiring in recounting to every one her irreparable
+      loss, and uttered bitter curses against the bold female who had stolen her
+      treasure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A few weeks later,&rdquo; relates the duchess, &ldquo;at a ball given by the minister
+      Talleyrand, the countess came toward me with a bright countenance and told
+      me that she had just now found her shawl, and, strange to say, upon the
+      shoulders of a young lady at the ball!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;But,&rsquo; said I to her, &lsquo;you will not accuse this lady before the whole
+      company!&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;And why not?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;Because that would be wrong. Leave this matter to me.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She would not at first, but I pressed the subject on her consideration,
+      and she agreed at length to remain somewhat behind, while I approached the
+      young lady, who stood near the door, and was just going to leave the
+      ballroom. I told her in a low voice that in all probability she had made a
+      mistake; that she had perhaps mislaid her own cashmere, and had through
+      carelessness taken the shawl of the Countess de St. Martin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was as polite as I could possibly be in such a communication; but the
+      young lady looked at me unpleasantly for such an impertinent intrusion,
+      and replied that &lsquo;since the time the Countess de St. Martin had deafened
+      the ears of every one with the story of her stolen shawl, she had had
+      ample leisure to recognize as her property the cashmere she wore.&rsquo; Her
+      mother, who stood a few steps from her, and was conversing with another
+      lady, turned toward her when she heard her daughter speak in so loud a
+      voice. But the Countess de St. Martin, who had overheard that she &lsquo;had
+      deafened the ears of every one with the story of her stolen shawl,&rsquo; rushed
+      in to the rescue of her case.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;This cashmere belongs to me,&rsquo; said she, haughtily&mdash;seizing, at the
+      same time, the shawl with one hand, while the young lady with her fist
+      thrust her back violently. I saw that in a moment they would come to
+      blows.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;It will be easy to end this difficulty,&rsquo; said I to the Countess de St.
+      Martin. &lsquo;Madame will be kind enough to tell us where she has purchased
+      this shawl which is so much like yours, and then you will see your
+      mistake, and be satisfied.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;It does not suit me to tell where I got this shawl,&rsquo; replied the lady,
+      looking at me contemptuously; &lsquo;there is no necessity for my telling you
+      where I purchased it.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;Well, then,&rsquo; exclaimed eagerly the Countess de St. Martin, &lsquo;you confess,
+      madame, that the shawl really belongs to you?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The other answered with a sarcastic smile, and drew the shawl closer to
+      her shoulders. A few persons, attracted by the strangeness of such a
+      scene, had gathered around us, and seemed to wait for the end of so
+      extraordinary an event.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The countess continued with a loud voice:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;Well, then, madame, since the shawl belongs to you, you can explain to
+      me why the name of Christine, which is my first name, is embroidered in
+      red silk on the small edging. Madame Junot will be kind enough to look for
+      this name.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The young woman became pale as death. I shall never during my life forget
+      the despairing look which she gave me, as with trembling hand she passed
+      me the shawl, just as her father appeared from a room near the place of
+      the scene. I took the cashmere with an unsteady hand, and sought
+      reluctantly for the name of Christine, for I trusted she would at least
+      have taken it out; but the deathly paleness of the guilty one told the
+      contrary, and in fact I had no sooner unfolded the shawl, than the name
+      appeared, embroidered at the narrow edging.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;Ah!&rsquo; at last exclaimed the countess, in a triumphant tone, &lsquo;I have&mdash;&rsquo; 
+      but as she raised her eyes to the young woman, she was touched by her
+      despairing look. &lsquo;Well, then,&rsquo; cried she, &lsquo;this is one of those mistakes
+      which so often happen. To-morrow I will return your cashmere.&mdash;We
+      have exchanged cashmeres,&rsquo; said she, turning to the young lady&rsquo;s father,
+      who, surprised at seeing her naked shoulders, gazed at his daughter, not
+      understanding the matter. &lsquo;You will have the goodness to send me my shawl
+      to-morrow,&rsquo; added she, noticing how the young woman trembled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We returned into the ballroom, and the next day the young lady sent to
+      the Countess de St. Martin her precious shawl.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Something similar to this happened at the same time to Madame Hamelin.
+      She was at a ball; when rising from her seat to join in a contra-dance,
+      she left there a very beautiful black shawl; when she returned, her shawl
+      was no longer there, but she saw it on the shoulders of a well-known and
+      distinguished lady. Approaching her, she said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;Madame, you have my shawl!&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;Not at all, madame!&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;But, madame, this is my shawl, and, as an evidence, I can state the
+      number of its palms&mdash;it has exactly thirteen, a very unusual number!&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;My shawl has also, by chance, precisely thirteen palms.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;But,&rsquo; said Madame Hamelin, &lsquo;I have torn it since I came here. You can
+      see where it is torn, and by that means I recognize my shawl.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;Ah, my goodness! my shawl has also been torn; that is precisely why I
+      bought it, for I obtained it on that account somewhat cheaper.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is useless to dispute with a person who is determined to follow
+      Basil&rsquo;s receipt, that &lsquo;what is worth taking is worth keeping.&rsquo; Madame
+      Hamelin lost her shawl, and had, as a sole consolation, the petty
+      vengeance of relating to everybody how it was taken, and of pointing out
+      the thief, who was in the meanwhile perfectly shameless.&rdquo; [Footnote:
+      Abrantes, &ldquo;Memoires,&rdquo; vol. ix., pp. 70-76.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No one, however, had a larger and more choice selection of these cashmere
+      shawls than Josephine. Mdlle. Ducrest relates that the deceased empress
+      had more than one hundred and fifty of the most magnificent and costly
+      cashmere shawls. She had sent to Constantinople patterns from which she
+      had them made there, as pleasing to the eye as they were costly and
+      precious. Every week M. Lenormant, the first man-milliner in Paris, came
+      to Navarra, the country residence of the empress, and brought his most
+      beautiful shawls for her selection. The empress possessed several (having
+      a white ground covered with roses, violets, paroquets, peacocks, and other
+      objects of beauty hitherto unknown in France) each of which cost from
+      fifteen to twenty thousand francs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The empress went so far in her passion for cashmeres as to have dresses
+      made of the same material. One day she had put on one of these dresses,
+      which was so beautiful, that some gentlemen invited to dinner could not
+      withhold their admiration. One of them, Count Pourtales, thought that this
+      splendid material would be well adapted for a gentleman&rsquo;s vest. Josephine,
+      in her large-heartedness, had a pair of scissors brought; she then cut her
+      dress into several pieces sufficiently large for a vest, and divided them
+      among the gentlemen present, so that only the bodice of the dress
+      remained, with a small piece around the waist But this improvised spencer
+      over the white richly-embroidered under-dress, was so exceedingly becoming
+      to the empress, and brought out so exquisitely her beautiful bust, and
+      slender graceful waist, that it would have been easy to consider as a
+      piece of coquetry what was simply Josephine&rsquo;s spontaneous generosity.
+      [Footnote: Mademoiselle Ducrest.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Josephine, however, did not so assiduously attend to her cashmere shawls
+      as to forget the unfortunate victims of the infernal machine. On the
+      contrary, she saw with deep pain how every one was busy in inculpating
+      others, and in casting suspicions on royalists and Jacobins, so as to give
+      a pretext to punish them. She noticed that all those who wished to gain
+      the consul&rsquo;s favor were zealous in spying out fresh culprits, for it was
+      well known that Bonaparte was inclined to make of all hostile parties a
+      terrible example, so that, through the severity of the punishment and the
+      number of the punished, he might deter the dissatisfied from any further
+      plots.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Josephine&rsquo;s compassionate heart was distressed, through sympathy for so
+      many unfortunate persons, whom wicked men maliciously were endeavoring to
+      drag into guilt, so as to have them punished; and the injustice which the
+      judges manifested at every hearing filled her with anger and horror. Ever
+      ready to help the needy, and to protect the persecuted, she addressed
+      herself to Fouche, the minister of police, and requested him to use
+      mildness and compassion. She wrote to him:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Citizen minister, while trembling at the frightful calamity which has
+      taken place, I feel uneasy and pained at the fear of the punishments which
+      hang over the poor creatures who, I am told, belong to families with which
+      I have been connected in days past. I shall therefore be appealed to by
+      mothers, sisters, and despairing wives; my heart will be lacerated by the
+      sad consciousness that I cannot obtain pardon for all those who implore
+      it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The generosity of the consul is great, his affection for me is boundless,
+      I know it well; but the crime is of so awful a nature that he will deem it
+      necessary to make an example of extreme severity. The supreme magistrate
+      was not alone exposed to danger&mdash;many others were killed and wounded
+      by this sad event, and it is this which will make the consul severe and
+      implacable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I conjure you, then, citizen minister, to avoid extending your researches
+      too far, and not always to spy out new persons who might be compromised by
+      this horrible machine. Must France, which has been held in terror by so
+      many executions, have to sigh over new victims? Is it not much more
+      important to appease the minds of the people than to excite them by new
+      terrors? Finally, would it not be advisable, so soon as the originators of
+      this awful crime are captured, to have compassion and mercy upon
+      subordinate persons who may have been entangled in it through dangerous
+      sophisms and fanatical sentiments?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Barely vested with the supreme authority, ought not the first consul
+      study to win the hearts rather than to make slaves of his people?
+      Moderate, therefore, by your advice, where in his first excitement he may
+      be too severe. To punish is, alas, too often necessary! To pardon is, I
+      trust, still more. In a word, be a protector to the unfortunate who,
+      through their confession or repentance, have already made in part penance
+      for their guilt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As I myself, without any fault on my part, nearly lost my life in the
+      revolution, you can easily understand that I take an interest in those who
+      can perhaps be saved without thereby endangering my husband&rsquo;s life, which
+      is so precious to me and to France. I therefore earnestly desire that you
+      will make a distinction between the leaders of this conspiracy and those
+      who, from fear or weakness, have been seduced into bringing upon
+      themselves a portion of the guilt. As a woman, a wife, a mother, I can
+      readily feel for all the heart-rending agonies of those families which
+      appeal to me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do what you possibly can, citizen minister, to diminish their numbers;
+      you will thereby spare me much anxiety. I can never be deaf to the cries
+      of distress from the needy; but in this matter you can do a great deal
+      more than I can, and therefore pardon what may seem strange in my
+      pleadings with you.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Believe in my gratitude and loyalty of sentiment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;JOSEPHINE.&rdquo; [Footnote: Ducrest, &ldquo;Memoires,&rdquo; vol. iii., p. 231.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0036" id="link2HCH0036"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXXVI. MALMAISON.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      In the Tuileries the first consul, with his wife, resided in all the pomp
+      and dignity of his new office. There he was the sovereign, the commander;
+      there he ruled, and, like a king, all bowed to him; the people humbled
+      themselves and recognized him as their master.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the Tuileries etiquette and the stiff pomp of a princely court
+      prevailed more and more. Bonaparte required of his wife that she should
+      there represent the dignity and the grandeur of her new position; that she
+      should appear as the first, the most exalted, and the most unapproachable
+      of women. In the Tuileries there were no more evenings of pleasant social
+      gatherings, of joyous conversation with friends whom affection made
+      equals, and who, in love and admiration, recognizing Bonaparte&rsquo;s
+      ascendency, brought him of their own free choice their esteem and high
+      consideration. Now, it was all honor and duty; now, the friends of the
+      past wore servants who, for duty&rsquo;s sake, had to be subservient to their
+      master, and abide by the rules of etiquette, otherwise the frown on their
+      lofty ruler&rsquo;s brow would bring them back within their bounds.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Josephine was pained at these limits set to her personal freedom&mdash;at
+      these claims of etiquette, which did not permit her friends to remain at
+      her side, but strove to exalt above them the wife of the first consul. Her
+      sense of modesty ever accepted the pleasant, genial household affections
+      as more agreeable and more precious than the burdensome representations,
+      levees, and the tediousness of ceremonial receptions; her sense of modesty
+      longed for the quiet and repose of retirement, and she was happy when, at
+      the close of the court festivities, she could return to Malmaison, there
+      to enjoy the coming of spring, the blossoming of summer, and the glorious
+      beauty of autumn with its manifold colors.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In Malmaison were centered all her joys and pleasures. There she could
+      satisfy all the inclinations of her heart, all the fancies of her
+      imagination, all the wants of her mind; there she could be the tender wife
+      and mother, and the faithful friend; there she could receive, without the
+      annoyance of etiquette, men of learning and art; there she could cultivate
+      the soil and devote herself to botany, her favorite study, and to her
+      flowers, the dearest and most faithful friends of her whole life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Josephine sought for and found in Malmaison her earthly paradise; there
+      she was happy, and the care and the secret anguish which in Paris wove
+      around her heart its network, and every now and then whispered the
+      nefarious words of divorce and separation, followed her not in the
+      beautiful and friendly Malmaison; she left all this in Paris with the
+      stiff Madame Etiquette, who once in the Tuileries had poisoned the
+      existence of the Queen Marie Antoinette, and now sought to intrude herself
+      upon the consulate as an ill-tempered sovereign.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But in Malmaison there was no etiquette, none of the dignified coldness of
+      court-life. There you were allowed to laugh, to jest, and to be happy. In
+      Malmaison the first consul laid aside his gravity; there his gloomy brow
+      brightened, and he became again General Bonaparte, the lover of his
+      Josephine, the confidential companion of his friends, the harmless
+      individual, who seemed to have nothing to require from Heaven but the
+      happiness of the passing hour, and who could laugh at a joke with the same
+      guilelessuess as any other child of the people who never deemed it
+      necessary to cultivate a close intimacy with the grave and gloomy Madame
+      Politique.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is true Malmaison was not Bonaparte&rsquo;s sole country residence. The city
+      of Paris had presented him with the pleasure-castle of St. Cloud, the same
+      which Louis XVI. gave to his wife, and where, to the very great annoyance
+      of the proud Parisians, she had for the first time engraven on the
+      regulation-tablets, at the entrance of the park, the fatal words&mdash;&ldquo;De
+      par la Reine.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Now this royal mansion of pleasure belonged to the first consul of the
+      republic; it was his summer residence, but there he was still the consul,
+      the first magistrate, and the representative of France; and he had there
+      to give receptions, hold levees, receive the ministers, councillors of
+      state, and the foreign ambassadors, and appear in all the pomp and
+      circumstance of his position.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But in Malmaison his countenance and his being were changed. Here he was
+      the cheerful man, enjoying life; he was the joyous companion, the modest
+      land-owner, who with genial delight surveyed the produce of his soil, and
+      even calculated how much profit it could bring him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The first consul in Malmaison,&rdquo; said the English minister, Fox, &ldquo;the
+      first consul in St. Cloud, and the first consul in the Tuileries, are
+      three different persons, who together form that great and wonderful idea;
+      I should exceedingly like to be able to represent exactly after nature
+      these three portraits; they must be very much alike, and yet very
+      different.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It is certain, however, that of these three portraits that of the first
+      consul in Malmaison was the most amiable, and that of the first consul of
+      the Tuileries the most imposing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In Malmaison Bonaparte&rsquo;s countenance was cheerful and free from care; in
+      the Tuileries he was grave and dignified. On his clouded brow were
+      enthroned great designs; from the deep, dark eyes shot lightnings ready to
+      fire a world&mdash;to erect or destroy kingdoms. In Malmaison these eyes
+      with cheerful brilliancy reposed on Josephine; his otherwise earnest lips
+      welcomed there the beloved of his heart with merry pleasantry and spirited
+      raillery; there he loved to see Josephine in simple, modest toilet; and if
+      in the lofty halls of the Tuileries he exacted from the wife of the first
+      consul a brilliant toilet, the bejewelled magnificence of the first lady
+      of France, he was delighted when in Malmaison he saw coming through the
+      green foliage the wife of General Bonaparte in simple white muslin, with a
+      laughing countenance; and with her sweet voice, which he still considered
+      as the finest music he ever heard, she bade welcome to her husband who
+      here was changed into her tender lover.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In Malmaison, Bonaparte would even put off his general&rsquo;s uniform, and, in
+      his plain gray coat of a soldier, walk through the park in the
+      neighborhood, resting on the arm of his confidant, Duroc, and would begin
+      a friendly conversation with the first farmer he met, perfectly satisfied
+      when in the little man with the gray tightly-buttoned coat, no one
+      suspected or imagined to see the first consul of the republic.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Every Saturday the first consul hastened to the chateau to pass there, as
+      he said, his Sunday, his day of rest; and only on Monday morning did he
+      return to Paris, &ldquo;to take up his chain again.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      How genial and happy were these days of rest! How eagerly did Josephine
+      labor to make them days of felicity for Bonaparte! how ingenious to
+      prepare for him new festivities and new surprises! and how her eyes
+      brightened when she had succeeded in making Bonaparte joyous and
+      contented!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If the weather was favorable, the whole company in Malmaison, the young
+      generals, with their beautiful, young, and lively wives, who surrounded
+      Bonaparte and Josephine, and of whom a great number belonged to their
+      family, made promenades through the park, then they seated themselves on a
+      fine spot to repeat stories or to indulge in harmless sociable games, in
+      which Bonaparte with the most cheerful alacrity took part. Even down to
+      the game of &ldquo;catch&rdquo; and to that of &ldquo;room-renting&rdquo; did Bonaparte condescend
+      to play; and as Marie Antoinette with her husband and her court played at
+      blindman&rsquo;s-buff in the gardens of Trianon, so Bonaparte was pleased on the
+      lawns of Malmaison to play at &ldquo;room-renting.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      How often after a dark, cloudy morning, when suddenly at noon the skies
+      would become clear and the sunshine break through the clouds, would
+      Bonaparte&rsquo;s countenance gladden with all the spirit of a school-boy, in
+      the midst of holidays, and, throwing off his coat, laughingly exclaim,
+      &ldquo;Now come, one and all, and let us rent the room!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And then on the large, open lawn, surrounded on all sides by tall trees,
+      the first consul with his wife, his generals and their young wives, would
+      begin the exhilarating, harmless child&rsquo;s-play, forgetful of all care, void
+      of all fear, except that he should lose his tree, and that as a penniless
+      individual having to rent a room he would have to stand in the centre
+      before all eyes, just as first consul he stood before all eyes in the
+      centre of France, and struggled for a place the importance and title of
+      which were known only to his silent soul. But in Malmaison, at the game of
+      &ldquo;room to let,&rdquo; Bonaparte had no remembrance whatever of the ambitious
+      wishes of the first consul; the whole world seemed to have set, the
+      memories of his youth passed before his eyes in such beauty, saluting him
+      with the gracious looks of childhood, as nearly to make him an enthusiast.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How often, when on Josephine&rsquo;s arm, surrounded by a laughing, noisy group
+      of friends, and walking through shady paths, on hearing the bells of the
+      neighboring village chime their vespers, would Bonaparte suddenly
+      interrupt the conversation and stand still to hear them! With a motion of
+      the hand he would command silence, while he listened with a smile of grief
+      to sounds which recalled days long gone by. &ldquo;These bells remind me of the
+      days of my boyhood,&rdquo; said he to Josephine; &ldquo;it seems to me, when I hear
+      them, that I am still in Brienne.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      To keep alive the memories of his school-days in Brienne, he sent for one
+      of his teachers, the Abbe Dupuis, who had been remarkably kind to him, and
+      invited him to Malmaison, to arrange there a library, and to take charge
+      of it; he sent also for the porter of Brienne whose wife he had so
+      severely prohibited from entering the theatre, and made him the porter of
+      the chateau.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In bad weather and on rainy days the whole company gathered in the large
+      drawing-room, and found amusement in playing the various games of cards,
+      in which Bonaparte not only took much interest, but in which he so eagerly
+      played, that he often had recourse to apparent bungling, so as to command
+      success. Adjoining the drawing-room, where conversation and amusements
+      took place, was a room where the company sang and practised music, to the
+      delight of Bonaparte, who often, when one of his favorite tunes was
+      played, would chime in vigorously with the melody, nowise disturbed by the
+      fact that he never could catch the right tune, and that he broke out every
+      time into distressing discordance!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But all songs and music subsided, all plays were interrupted, when
+      Bonaparte, excited perhaps by the approaching twilight, or by some
+      awakened memory, began to relate one of those tragic, fearful stories
+      which no one could tell so well as he. Then, with arms folded behind his
+      back, he slowly paced the drawing-room, and with sinister looks, tragic
+      manner, and sepulchral voice, he would begin the solemn introduction of
+      his narrative:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When death strikes, at a distance, a person whom we love,&rdquo; said he, one
+      evening, with a voice tremulous with horror, &ldquo;a certain foreboding nearly
+      always makes us anticipate the event, and the person, touched by the hand
+      of death, appears to us at the moment we lose him on earth.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How very sad and mournful that sounds!&rdquo; sighed Josephine, as she placed
+      both her arms on Bonaparte&rsquo;s shoulder, as if she would hold him, and chain
+      him to earth, that he might not vanish away with every ghost-like form.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bonaparte turned to her with a genial smile, and shook his head at her, so
+      as to assure her of his existence and his love. Then he began his story
+      with all the earnestness and tragic power of an improvisator of ancient
+      Rome. He told how once Louis XIV., in the great gallery of Versailles,
+      received the bulletin of the battle of Friedlingen, and how, unfolding it,
+      he read to the assembled court the names of the slain and of the wounded.
+      Quietness reigned in the splendidly-illumined gallery; and the courtiers
+      in their embroidered coats, who, ordinarily, were so full of merriment and
+      so high-spirited, had, all at once, become thoughtful. They gathered in a
+      circle around the monarch, from whose lips slowly, like falling tears,
+      fell one by one the names of the killed. Here and there the cheeks of
+      their relatives turned pale. Suddenly the Count de Beaugre saw appear, at
+      the farther end of the gallery, stately and ghost-like, the blood-stained
+      figure of his son, who, with eyes wide open, stared at his father, and
+      saluted him with a slight motion of the head, and then glided away through
+      the door. &ldquo;My son is dead!&rdquo; cried Count de Beaugre&mdash;and, at the very
+      same moment, the king uttered his name as one of the slain!&rdquo; [Footnote:
+      Bourrienne, &ldquo;Memoires,&rdquo; vol. iii., p. 225.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah! may I never see such a ghost-like figure,&rdquo; murmured Josephine,
+      drawing closer to her husband. &ldquo;Bonaparte, promise me that you will never
+      go to war again; that you will keep peace with all the world, so that I
+      may have no cause of alarm!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And to tremble at my ghost,&rdquo; exclaimed Bonaparte, laughing. &ldquo;Look at this
+      selfish woman, she does not wish me a hero&rsquo;s death, lest I should appear
+      to her here in the shape of a bloody placard!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      With her small bejewelled hand Josephine closed his mouth, and ordered
+      lights to be brought; she asked Lavalette to play a lively dancing-tune,
+      and cried out to the joyous youthful group, at the head of whom were
+      Hortense and Eugene, to fall in for a dance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing more charming,&rdquo; writes the Duchess d&rsquo;Abrantes, &ldquo;could be seen
+      than a ball in Malmaison, made up as it was of the young ladies whom the
+      military family of the first consul brought together, and who, without
+      having the name of it, formed the court of Madame Bonaparte. They were all
+      young, many of them very beautiful; and when this lovely group were
+      dressed in white crape, adorned with flowers, their heads crowned with
+      wreaths as fresh as the hues of their young, laughing, charming faces, it
+      was indeed a bewitching sight to witness the animated and lively dance in
+      these halls, through which walked the first consul, surrounded by the men
+      with whom he discussed and decided the destinies of Europe.&rdquo; [Footnote:
+      Abrantes, &ldquo;Memoires,&rdquo; vol. iii., p. 329.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the best and most exciting amusement in Malmaison was the theatre; and
+      nothing delighted Bonaparte so much as this, where the young troop of
+      lovers in the palace performed little operas and vaudevilles, and went
+      through their parts with all the eagerness of real actors, perfectly happy
+      in having the consul and his wife for audience. In Malmaison, Bonaparte
+      abandoned himself with boundless joy to his fondness for the theatre; here
+      he applauded with all the gusto of an amateur, laughed with the
+      laisser-aller of a college-boy at the harmless jokes of the vaudevilles,
+      and here also he took great pleasure in the dramatic performances of
+      Eugene, who excelled especially in comic roles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bonaparte had a most convenient stage constructed in Malmaison for his
+      actors; he had the most beautiful costumes made for each new piece, and
+      the actors Talma and Michet had to come every week to the chateau, to give
+      the young people instruction in their parts. The ordinary actors of this
+      theatre in the castle were Eugene and Hortense, Caroline Murat, Lauriston,
+      M. Didelot, the prefect of the palace, some of the officers attached to
+      the establishment, and the Count Bourrienne, the friend of Bonaparte&rsquo;s
+      youth, who now had become the first secretary of the consul. The pieces
+      which Bonaparte attended with the greatest pleasure were the &ldquo;Barber of
+      Seville,&rdquo; and &ldquo;Mistrust and Malice.&rdquo; The young and amiable Hortense made
+      an excellent Rosine in the &ldquo;Barber of Seville,&rdquo; and Bonaparte never failed
+      to clap his hands in hearty applause to Hortense, when Josephine with
+      cheerful smiles would thank him, for she seemed as proud of her daughter&rsquo;s
+      talent as of her husband&rsquo;s applause.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bourrienne, in his memoirs, gives a faithful description of those evening
+      theatrical performances, and of the happy life enjoyed in Malmaison; he
+      lingers with a sober joy over those beautiful and innocent memories of
+      other days.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bonaparte,&rdquo; says he, &ldquo;found great pleasure in our dramatic
+      entertainments; he loved to see comedies represented by those who
+      surrounded him, and oftentimes paid us flattering compliments. Though it
+      amused me as much as it did the others, yet I was more than once obliged
+      to call Bonaparte&rsquo;s attention to the fact that my other occupations did
+      not give me time enough to learn my parts. He then, in his flattering way,
+      said: &lsquo;Ah, Bourrienne, let me alone. You have so excellent a memory! You
+      know that this is an amusement to me! You see that these performances
+      enliven Malmaison and make it cheerful! Josephine is so fond of them! Rise
+      a little earlier!&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;It is a fact&mdash;I sleep a great deal!&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;Allons, Bourrienne, do it to please me; you do make me laugh so
+      heartily! Deprive me not of this pleasure. You know well that otherwise I
+      have but few recreations.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;Ah, parbleu! I will not deprive you of it. I am happy to be able to
+      contribute something to your amusement.&rsquo; Consequently I rose earlier, to
+      learn my parts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;On the theatre days the company at Malmaison was always very large. After
+      the performance a brilliant crowd undulated like waves in the halls of the
+      first story. The most animated and varied conversation took place, and I
+      can truly affirm that cheerfulness and sincerity were the life of those
+      conversations, and their principal charm. Refreshments of all kinds were
+      distributed, and Josephine performed the honors of those gatherings with
+      so much amiableness and complacency that each one might believe she busied
+      herself more with him than with any one else. At the end of the delightful
+      soirees, which generally closed after midnight, we returned to Paris,
+      where the cares of life awaited us.&rdquo; [Footnote: Bourrienne, &ldquo;Memoires,&rdquo;
+       vol. v., p. 26.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Time was spent not only in festivities and amusements at Malmaison, but
+      sciences and arts also formed there a serious occupation, and it was
+      Josephine who was the prime mover. She invited to the chateau painters,
+      sculptors, musicians, architects, and savants of every profession, and
+      thus to the Graces she added the Arts for companions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0037" id="link2HCH0037"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXXVII. FLOWERS AND MUSIC.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Above all things, Josephine, in her retreat, devoted her time and leisure
+      hours to botany and to her dear flowers. Alexander Lenoir, the famous
+      architect of that day, had to assist her in enlarging the little castle of
+      Malinaison, and to open more suitable halls for the arts and sciences.
+      Under Josephine&rsquo;s direction there arose the splendid library-room resting
+      upon columns; it was Josephine who had the beautiful gallery of paintings
+      constructed, and also with remarkable judgment purchased a selection of
+      the finest paintings of the great masters to adorn this gallery. Besides
+      which, she gave to living painters orders of importance, and encouraged
+      them to originate new pieces, that art itself might have a part in the new
+      era of peace and prosperity, which, under the consulate, seemed to spread
+      over France.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Alongside of the paintings Josephine adorned this gallery with the finest
+      antique statues, with a collection of the rarest painted vases of Pompeii,
+      and with ten paintings on cement, memorials of Grecian art, representing
+      the nine Muses and Apollo Mersagetos. These last splendid subjects were a
+      present which the King of Naples had given to Josephine during her
+      residence in Italy. Always attentive not only to promote the arts, but
+      also to help the artists and to increase their reputation, Josephine would
+      buy some new pieces of sculpture, and give them a place in Malmaison. The
+      two most exquisite masterpieces of Canova, &ldquo;The Dancing-Girl&rdquo; and &ldquo;Paris,&rdquo;
+       were purchased by Josephine at an enormous price for her gallery, whose
+      chief ornament they were.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her fondness for flowers was such that she spared neither expense nor
+      labor to procure those worthy of Malmaison. She caused also large
+      green-houses and hot-houses to be constructed, the latter suited to the
+      culture of the pineapple and of the peach. In the green-houses were found
+      flowers and plants of every zone, and of all countries. People, knowing
+      her taste for botany, sent her from the most remote places the choicest
+      plants. Even the prince regent of England, the most violent and bitter
+      enemy of the first consul, had high esteem for this taste of Josephine;
+      and during the war, when some French ships, captured by the English, were
+      found to have on board a collection of tropical plants for her, he had
+      them carried with all dispatch to Madame Bonaparte.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Josephine had a lofty aim: she wanted to gather into her hot-houses all
+      the species and families, all the varieties of the tropical plants, and
+      she strove to accomplish this with a perseverance, a zeal, and an
+      earnestness of which no one would have thought her indolent, soft Creole
+      nature capable. To increase her precious collection, she spared neither
+      money nor time, neither supplications nor efforts. All travellers, all
+      seafaring men, who came into her drawing-room were entreated to send
+      plants to Malmaison; and even the secretary of the navy did not fail to
+      give instructions to the captains of vessels sailing to far-distant lands
+      to bring back plants for the wife of the first consul. If it were a matter
+      of purchase, nothing was too expensive, and when, through her fondness for
+      beautiful objects, Josephine&rsquo;s purse was exhausted, and her means
+      curtailed, she sooner gave up the purchase of a beautiful ornament than
+      that of a rare plant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The hot-houses of Malmaison caused, therefore, a considerable increase in
+      her expenses, and were a heavy burden to her treasury; and for their sake,
+      when the day of payment came, Josephine had to receive from her husband
+      many severe reproaches, and was forced to shed many a bitter tear. But
+      this, perhaps, made them still dearer; no sooner were the tears dried up
+      and the expenses covered, than Josephine again abandoned herself with
+      renewed zeal to her passion for collecting plants and costly studies in
+      botany, especially since she had succeeded in winning to her person the
+      renowned botanist and learned Bonpland, and in having him appointed
+      superintendent of her gardens and hot-houses. It was Bonpland who
+      cultivated Josephine&rsquo;s inclination for botany, and exalted her passion
+      into a science. He filled the green-houses of Malmaison with the rarest
+      plants, and taught Josephine at the same time their classifications and
+      sexes, and she quickly proved herself to be a zealous and tractable pupil.
+      She soon learned the names of the plants, as well as their family names,
+      as classified by the naturalists; she became acquainted with their origin
+      and their virtues, and was extremely sad and dejected when, in one of her
+      families, a single species was wanting. But what a joy when this gap was
+      filled! No price was too exorbitant, then, to procure the missing species;
+      and one day she paid for a small, insignificant plant from Chili the high
+      price of three thousand francs, filling Bonpland with ecstasy, but the
+      emperor with deep wrath as soon as he heard it. [Footnote: Avrillon,
+      &ldquo;Memoires sur l&rsquo;Imperatrice Josephine.&rdquo;]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Next to botany, it was music which Josephine delighted in and cultivated.
+      Since the cares and the numerous relations of her diversified life claimed
+      so much of her time, she had abandoned the exercises of music; and it was
+      only at the hour of unusual serenity of mind, or of more lively
+      recollections of the past, that she was heard singing softly one of the
+      songs of her own native isle, even as Bonaparte himself, when he was
+      meditating and deciding about some new campaign, would betray the drift of
+      his thoughts by singing louder and louder the favorite melody of the day,
+      Marlborough s&rsquo;en va-t-en guerre. But Josephine had the satisfaction that
+      Hortense was not only an excellent performer on the piano and the harp,
+      but that she could also write original compositions, whose softness and
+      harmonious combinations made them popular throughout France. Another
+      satisfaction was, that Eugene sang, in a fine clear voice, with great
+      talent, and that frequently he would by his excellent singing draw even
+      the first consul into loud expressions of admiration.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bonaparte was not easily satisfied as regards singing; it was seldom that
+      music elicited any commendation from him. The Italian music alone could
+      excite his enthusiasm, and through its impassioned fervor rouse him up, or
+      its humorous passages enliven him. Therefore Bonaparte, when consul or
+      emperor, always patronized the Italian music in preference to any other,
+      and he constantly and publicly expressed this liking, without considering
+      how much he might thereby wound the French artistes in their ambition and
+      love of fame. He therefore appointed an Italian to be first singer at the
+      opera. It is true this was Maestro Paesiello, whose operas were then
+      making their way through Europe, and everywhere meeting with approbation.
+      Bonaparte also was extremely fond of them, and at every opportunity he
+      manifested to the maestro his good-will and approbation. But one day this
+      commendation of Paesiello was changed to the most stinging censure. It was
+      on the occasion of the first representation of Paesiello&rsquo;s Zingari in
+      Fiera. The first consul and his wife were in their loge, and to show to
+      the public how much he honored and esteemed the composer, he had invited
+      Paesiello to attend the performance in his loge.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bonaparte followed the performance with the most enthusiastic
+      demonstrations of gratification; he heartily applauded each part, and paid
+      to Paesiello compliments which were the more flattering since every one
+      knew that the lips which uttered them were not profuse in their use. A
+      tenor part had just ended, and its effect had been remarkable. The
+      audience was full of enthusiasm. Bonaparte, who by his hearty applause had
+      given the signal to a storm of cheers, turned toward Paesiello, and,
+      offering him his hand, exclaimed:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Truly, my dear friend, the man who has composed this melody can boast of
+      being the first composer in Europe!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Paesiello became pale, his whole body trembled, and, with stammering
+      voice, he said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;General, this melody is from Cimarosa. I have placed it in my opera
+      merely to please the singers.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The first consul shrugged his shoulders.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am sorry, my dear sir,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;but I cannot recall what I have
+      said.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The next day, however, he sent to the composer of the opera, as an
+      acknowledgment of his esteem, a magnificent present, with which he no
+      doubt wished to heal the pain which he had unwittingly caused the maestro.
+      But Paesiello possessed a temper easily wounded, and the more so since he
+      considered himself as the first and greatest composer in the world, and
+      was sincere in the opinion that others could compose good music, but that
+      his alone was grand and distinguished.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bonaparte&rsquo;s present could not, therefore, heal the wound which the praise
+      of Cimarosa&rsquo;s melody had inflicted, and this wound was soon to be probed
+      deeper, and become fatal to Paesiello. Another new opera from Paesiello,
+      Proserpina, was to be represented. The first consul, who was anxious to
+      secure for his protege a brilliant success, had given orders to bring it
+      out in the most splendid style; the most beautiful decorations and the
+      richest costumes had been provided, and a stage erected for a ballet, on
+      which the favorite ballet-leaders of Paris were to practise their art.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The mighty first consul was, on the evening of the first performance of
+      the opera of Proserpina, to learn the lesson, that there exists a power
+      which will not be bound in fetters, and which is stronger and more
+      influential than the dictates of the mighty&mdash;the power of public
+      opinion. This stood in direct opposition to the first consul, by the
+      voiceless, cold silence with which it received Paesiello&rsquo;s piece.
+      Bonaparte might applaud as heartily as he pleased, and that might elicit
+      an echo from the group of his favorites, but the public remained unmoved,
+      and Bonaparte had the humiliation to see this opera, notwithstanding his
+      approbation, prove a complete failure. He felt as nervous and excited as
+      the composer himself, for he declared loudly and angrily that the French
+      knew nothing about music, and that it was necessary to teach them that the
+      Italians alone understood the art of composition.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To teach this to the French the opera of Proserpina was to be repeated
+      until the mind of the public should have been educated to its beauty, and
+      they had been forced to acknowledge it. A decided warfare ensued between
+      this opera and the public, each party being determined to have its own
+      way; the authorities persevered in having the performance repeated, and
+      the public kept away from it with equal obstinacy. The latter, however,
+      had the advantage in this case, for they could not be forced to attend
+      where they were unwilling to go, and so they won the victory, and the
+      authorities had to yield.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Paesiello, touched to the quick by the failure of Proserpina, resigned his
+      position as leader, and left Paris to return to Italy. The question now
+      was, how to fill this important and honorable position. The Parisians were
+      excited about this nomination, and divided into two parties, each of which
+      defended its candidate with the greatest zeal, and maintained that he
+      would be the one who would receive Bonaparte&rsquo;s appointment. The candidates
+      of these two parties were the Frenchman Mehul and the Italian Cherubini.
+      Those who formed the party of Cherubini calculated especially on
+      Bonaparte&rsquo;s well-known preference for Italian music. They knew that,
+      though he was much attached to Mehul, whom he had known before the
+      expedition to Egypt, and had shown him many favors, yet he had often
+      expressed his contempt for French music, and was committed against him by
+      the very fact of his maintaining that the Italians alone understood the
+      art of musical composition.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mehul had for a long time endured in silence the criticisms of Bonaparte;
+      he had patiently returned no answer when he repeated to him: &ldquo;Science, and
+      only science&mdash;that is all the French musicians understand; my dear
+      sir, grace, melody, and joyousness, are unknown to you Frenchmen and to
+      the Germans; the Italians alone are masters here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      One day Mehul, having become tired of these constant discouraging remarks,
+      resolved to let the first consul, who so often gave him bitter pills to
+      swallow, have a taste of them himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He went, therefore, to his friend, the poet Marsollier, and begged him to
+      write an extremely lively and extravagant piece, whose design would be
+      absurd enough to make it pass as the work of some Italian pamphlet-writer,
+      and at the same time he enjoined the most profound secrecy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Marsollier complied willingly with the wishes of his friend, and after a
+      few days he brought him the text for the small opera Irato. With the same
+      alacrity did Mehul sit down to the task of composing, and when the work
+      was done, Marsollier went to the committee of the comic opera to tell them
+      he had just received from Italy a score whose music was so extraordinary
+      that he was fully convinced of its success, and had therefore been to the
+      trouble, notwithstanding the weakness and foolishness of the libretto, to
+      translate the text into French. The committee tried the score, was
+      enchanted with the music, and was fully convinced of the brilliant success
+      of the little opera, inasmuch as the strange and lively text was well
+      adapted to excite the hilarity and the merriment of the public. The first
+      singers of the opera were rivals for the parts; all the newspapers
+      published the pompous advertisement that in a short time would be
+      performed at the Opera Comique a charming, entrancing opera, the maiden
+      piece of a young Italian.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Finally its first performance was announced; the first consul declared
+      that he and his wife would attend, and he invited Mehul, whom he liked to
+      tease and worry, because he loved him from his heart, to attend the
+      performance in his loge.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It will undoubtedly be a mortification to you, my poor friend,&rdquo; said he,
+      laughing; &ldquo;but perhaps when you hear this enchanting music, so different
+      from that of the French, you will imitate it, and cease composing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mehul replied with a bow; he then began to excuse himself from
+      accompanying the first consul to the theatre; and it was only after
+      Bonaparte and Josephine had pressed him very much, that he accepted the
+      invitation, and went with them to their loge.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The opera began, and, immediately after the first melody, Bonaparte
+      applauded and expressed his admiration. There never had been any thing
+      more charming&mdash;never had the French written music with so much
+      freshness, elegance, or so naturally. Bonaparte continued his praise, and
+      often-times repeated: &ldquo;It is certain there is nothing superior to Italian
+      music.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At last the opera ended amid a real storm of applause; and, with their
+      enthusiasm at the highest pitch, the audience claimed to know the names of
+      the poet and of the composer. After a long pause the curtain rose and the
+      registrar appeared; he made the three customary bows, and in a loud voice
+      named Marsollier as the author and Mehul as the composer of the opera
+      Irato.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The audience received this news with an unceasing storm of applause. They,
+      like the consul and the singers who had taken part in the opera, knew
+      nothing of the mystification, so well had the secret been kept.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Josephine turned smilingly to Bonaparte, and with her own charming grace
+      offered her hand to Mehul and thanked him for the twofold enjoyment he had
+      that day prepared for her, by furnishing her his entrancing opera, and by
+      having prepared a little defeat of Bonaparte, that traitor to his country,
+      who dared prefer the Italian music to the French.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bonaparte himself looked at the affair on its bright side; he had enjoyed
+      the opera; he had laughed; he was satisfied, and consequently he
+      overlooked the deceitful surprise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Conquer me always in this manner!&rdquo; said he, laughing, to Mehul, &ldquo;and I
+      shall enjoy both your fame and my amusement.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The friends of Cherubini thought of this little event when the question
+      arose as to the appointment to the situation of first singer at the Grand
+      Opera, and they therefore did not hesitate to wager that Cherubini would
+      be appointed, since he was an Italian.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But they knew not that Bonaparte had pardoned Mehul, and frequently joked
+      with him, whilst he ever grumbled at Cherubini on account of an expression
+      which the latter had once allowed himself to use against General
+      Bonaparte.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bonaparte had conversed with Cherubini after a representation of one of
+      his operas, and, while he congratulated him, he however added that this
+      opera did not please him as much as the other pieces of Cherubini&mdash;that
+      he thought it somewhat sober and scientific, and that he missed in it the
+      accustomed richness of the maestro&rsquo;s melodies. This criticism wounded
+      Cherubini as if pierced by a dagger, and with the irritable vehemence of
+      an Italian he replied:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;General, busy yourself in winning battles&mdash;that is your trade; but
+      leave me to practise mine, about which you know nothing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Consul Bonaparte had neither forgotten nor pardoned Cherubini&rsquo;s
+      answer; and, despite his fondness for Italian music, he was resolved to
+      give to Mehul the position vacated by Paesiello.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Josephine approved entirely of this choice, and, in order to witness
+      Mehul&rsquo;s joy, she invited him to Malmaison, that the consul might there
+      inform him of his appointment. How great, however, was her and Bonaparte&rsquo;s
+      surprise, when Mehul, instead of being delighted with this distinguished
+      appointment, positively refused to accept it!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can accept this position only under one condition,&rdquo; said Mehul, &ldquo;which
+      is, that I may be allowed to divide it with my friend Cherubini.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do not speak to me about him,&rdquo; exclaimed Bonaparte, with animation; &ldquo;he
+      is a coarse man, and I cannot tolerate him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He may have had the misfortune to displease you,&rdquo; replied Mehul, eagerly,
+      &ldquo;but he is a master to us all, and especially as regards sacred music. He
+      now is in a very inferior position; he has a large family, and I sincerely
+      desire to reconcile him to you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I repeat to you that I do not wish to know any thing about him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In that case I must decline the position,&rdquo; said Mehul, gravely, &ldquo;and
+      nothing will alter my resolution. I am a member of the Institute&mdash;Cherubini
+      is not; I do not wish it to be said that I have misused the good-will with
+      which you honor me for the sake of confiscating to my profit every
+      situation, and of despoiling a man of reputation of the reward to which he
+      is most justly entitled.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And Mehul, notwithstanding Josephine&rsquo;s intercession and Bonaparte&rsquo;s
+      ill-will, remained firm in his decision; he would not accept the honorable
+      and distinguished position of first singer at the Grand Opera; and
+      Bonaparte, after expressing his determination, would not change it.
+      Neither would he confer upon Cherubini the honor refused by Mehnl. He
+      therefore commissioned Josephine to name a successor to Paesiello; and she
+      went to Madame de Montesson, to confer with her on the matter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Madame de Montesson could suggest no definite plan, but she told Josephine
+      of a French composer, of the name of Lesueur, who, notwithstanding his
+      great talents, lived in his native city of Paris poor and unknown, and who
+      had not succeeded in having his opera, &ldquo;The Bards,&rdquo; represented at the
+      Grand Opera, simply on the ground that he was a Frenchman, and that every
+      one knew Bonaparte&rsquo;s strange aversion to French music.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Josephine&rsquo;s generous heart at once took sides with Lesueur; her exquisite
+      tact taught her that the public ought to know that the first consul would
+      not consult his own personal gratification, when the question was to
+      render justice to a Frenchman. She therefore recommended to her husband,
+      with all her ability, the poor composer Lesueur, who was unknown to fame,
+      and lost in obscurity; she represented his appointment as such an act of
+      generosity and of policy, that Bonaparte acceded to her wishes at once,
+      and appointed Lesueur to the office of first master of the Grand Opera.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And Josephine had the pleasure of seeing that the new opera-leader
+      justified her expectations. His opera, &ldquo;The Bards,&rdquo; was naturally brought
+      into requisition; it had a brilliant and unexampled success, and even
+      Bonaparte, at the first representation, forgot his prejudices against
+      French music, and applauded quite as heartily as if it had been Italian.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0038" id="link2HCH0038"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXXVIII. PRELUDE TO THE EMPIRE.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The sun of happiness which for Josephine seemed to shine so brightly over
+      Malmaison, had nevertheless its long shadows and its dark specks; even her
+      gracious countenance was obscured, her heart filled with sad forebodings,
+      and her bosom stung as if by scorpions hidden under flowers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Josephine had in her immediate circle violent and bitter enemies, who were
+      ever busy in undermining the influence which she possessed over her
+      husband, to steal from his heart the love he cherished for her, and to
+      remove from his side the woman who, by her presence, kept them in the
+      shade, and who wielded or destroyed the influence which they desired to
+      have over him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These enemies were the brothers and especially the sisters of Bonaparte.
+      Among the brothers of the first consul, Lucien showed to his sister-in-law
+      the most violent and irreconcilable enmity. He left no means untried to do
+      her injury, and to convert her into an object of suspicion, and this
+      because he was convinced that Josephine was the prime cause of the hostile
+      sentiments of Napoleon against him, and because he believed that,
+      Josephine once out of the way, Napoleon&rsquo;s ear would be open to conviction,
+      and that he, Lucien, the most powerful citizen, next to his brother, would
+      be the second &ldquo;first consul.&rdquo; He was not aware that Napoleon&rsquo;s keen eagle
+      eye had fathomed his ambitious heart; that he was the one who kept Lucien
+      away, because he mistrusted him, because he feared his ambition, and even
+      looked upon him as capable of the bold design of casting Napoleon aside,
+      and setting himself up in his place. Lucien was unaware of the influence
+      which Josephine frequently exerted over the mind of the first consul, in
+      favor of himself; that it was she who had pacified Napoleon&rsquo;s anger at
+      Lucien&rsquo;s marriage, contracted without his consent, and prevented him from
+      annulling it violently. The other brothers of Napoleon, influenced,
+      perhaps, by the enmity of Lucien, were also disaffected toward their
+      sister-in-law, and of them all, only Louis, the youngest, the one who
+      loved the first consul most tenderly and most sincerely, showed toward her
+      due respect and affection.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His three sisters were still more active in their opposition. Constantly
+      quarrelling among themselves, they, however, united heartily in the common
+      feeling of hatred to Josephine. It was she who stood in their way, who
+      every day excited anew their anger by the position she held at Napoleon&rsquo;s
+      side, and in virtue of which the three sisters were thrust into the
+      background. Josephine, the wife of the first consul, was the one to whom
+      France made obeisance, upon whom the ambassadors of foreign powers first
+      waited, and afterward upon the sisters of the first consul. It was
+      Josephine who took the precedence in solemn ceremonies, and to whom, by
+      Bonaparte&rsquo;s commands, they had to manifest respect. And this woman, who by
+      her eminence placed the sisters of Bonaparte in an inferior position, was
+      not of nobler or more distinguished blood than they; she was not young,
+      she was not beautiful, she was not even able to give birth to a child, for
+      which her husband so intensely longed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The three sisters might have been submissive to the daughter of a prince,
+      they might have conceded to her the right of precedence, but the widow of
+      the Viscount de Beauharnais was not superior to them in rank or birth; she
+      was far inferior to them in beauty and youth&mdash;and yet they had to
+      give way to her, and see her take the first place!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From these sentiments of jealousy and envy sprang the enmity which the
+      three sisters of Bonaparte, Madame Elise Bacciocchi, Madame Pauline
+      Borghese, and Madame Caroline Murat, cherished against Josephine, and
+      which her gentle words and kind heart could never assuage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Josephine was in their way&mdash;she must therefore fall. Such is the key
+      to the right understanding of the conduct of the three beautiful sisters
+      of Napoleon toward the wife of their brother. In their violence they
+      disregarded all propriety, and shrank from no calumny or malice to
+      accomplish their ends. It was a constant warfare with intrigues and
+      malicious suspicions. Every action of Josephine was observed, every step
+      was watched, in the hope of finding something to render her suspicious to
+      her husband. On every occasion the three sisters besieged him with
+      complaints concerning the lofty and proud demeanor of Josephine, and
+      ridiculed him about his old, childless wife, who stood in the way of his
+      growing fame! Though Bonaparte in these conflicts always sided with
+      Josephine against his sisters, yet there probably remained in his heart a
+      sting from the ridicule which they had directed against him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This hostility of the Bonaparte family was not unknown to Josephine; her
+      soul suffered under these ceaseless attacks, her heart was agonized at the
+      thought that the efforts of her sisters-in-law might finally succeed in
+      withdrawing from her the love of her husband. She was persuaded that even
+      in the Bonaparte family she needed a protector, that she must look for one
+      among the brothers, so as to counteract the enmity of the sisters; and she
+      chose for this Louis Bonaparte. She entreated Napoleon to give to his
+      young, beloved brother the hand of her daughter Hortense. It would be a
+      new bond chaining Bonaparte to her&mdash;a new fortress for her love&mdash;if
+      he would but make her daughter his sister-in-law, and his brother her
+      son-in-law.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Napoleon did not oppose her wishes; he consented that Hortense should be
+      married to his brother. It is true the young people were not consulted;
+      for the first time, Josephine&rsquo;s selfishness got the better of her love for
+      her child&mdash;she sacrificed the welfare of her daughter to secure her
+      own happiness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Hortense loved another, yet she yielded to the entreaties and tears of
+      her mother, and became the wife of this laconic, timid young man, whose
+      meagre, unpretending appearance resembled so little the ideal which her
+      maidenly heart had pictured of her future husband.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Louis on his side had not the slightest inclination for Hortense; he never
+      would have chosen her for his wife, for their characters were too
+      different; their inclinations and wishes were not in sympathy with each
+      other. But through obedience to the wishes of his brother, he accepted the
+      proffered hand of Josephine&rsquo;s daughter, and became the husband of the
+      beautiful, blond-haired Hortense de Beauharnais.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In February, of the year 1802, the marriage of the young couple took
+      place, and this family event was celebrated with the most magnificent
+      festivities. Josephine&rsquo;s joy and happiness were complete&mdash;she had
+      thrown a bridge over the abyss, and was now secure against the hostilities
+      of her sisters-in-law, by giving up her own daughter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Every thing was resplendent with beauty and joy at these festivities;
+      every thing wore an appearance of happiness; only the countenances of the
+      newly-married couple were grave and sad, and their deep melancholy
+      contrasted strikingly with the happiness of which they themselves were the
+      cause. Adorned with diamonds and flowers, Hortense appeared to be a
+      stranger to all the pomp which surrounded her, and to be occupied only
+      with her own sad communings. Louis Bonaparte was pale and grave, like
+      Hortense; he seldom addressed a word to the young wife that the orders of
+      his brother had given him; and she avoided her husband&rsquo;s looks, perhaps to
+      hinder him from reading there the indifference and dislike she felt for
+      him. [Footnote: &ldquo;Memoires sur l&rsquo;Imperatrice Josephine, la Cour de
+      Navarre,&rdquo; etc., par Mlle. Ducrest, vol. i., p. 49.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Josephine was happy, for she knew the noble, faithful, and generous
+      spirit of the man to whom she had given her daughter; and she trusted that
+      the two young hearts, now that they were linked together, would soon love
+      one another. She hoped much more from this alliance; she hoped not only to
+      find in it a shield against domestic animosities, but also to give to her
+      husband, even if indirectly, the children he so much desired&mdash;for the
+      offspring of his brother and the daughter of his Josephine would be nearly
+      the same as his own, and they could adopt and love them as such. This was
+      Josephine&rsquo;s hope, the dream of her happiness, when she gave her daughter
+      in marriage to the brother of her husband.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The fact that the first consul was childless was not only a family
+      solicitude, it was also a political question. The people themselves had
+      changed the face of affairs, they had by solemn vote decided to confer the
+      consulate for life upon Napoleon, who had previously been elected for ten
+      years only. In other words, the French people had chosen Bonaparte for
+      their master and ruler, and he now lacked but the title to be king. Every
+      one felt and knew that this consulate for life was but the prelude to
+      royalty; that the golden laurel-wreath of the first consul would soon be
+      converted into a golden crown, so as to secure to France an enduring
+      peace, and to make firm its political situation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With her keen political instinct, Josephine trembled at the thought that
+      the King or Emperor Bonaparte would have to establish for himself a
+      dynasty&mdash;that he would have to appease the apprehensions of France by
+      offering to the nation a son who would be his legitimate heir and
+      successor. Thus was the subject of divorce kept hanging over her head
+      until the conviction was forced upon her mind that some day Napoleon would
+      be led into sacrificing his love to politics. Josephine was conscious of
+      it, and consequently the hopes of Napoleon&rsquo;s future greatness, which so
+      pleased his brothers and sisters, only made her sorrowful, and she
+      therefore entreated Bonaparte with tender appeal to remain content with
+      the high dignity he already possessed, and not to tempt fate, nor to allow
+      it to bear him up to a dizzy height, from which the stormy winds of
+      adversity might the more easily prostrate him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bonaparte listened to her with a smile, and generally in silence. Once
+      only he replied to her: &ldquo;Has not your prophetess in Martinique told you
+      that one day you would be more than a queen?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And the prophecy is already realized,&rdquo; exclaimed Josephine. &ldquo;The wife of
+      the consul for life is more than a queen, for her husband is the elect of
+      thirty millions of hearts!&rdquo; Bonaparte laughed, and said nothing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Another time Josephine asked him&mdash;&ldquo;Now, Bonaparte, when are you going
+      to make me Empress of the Gauls?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He shrugged his shoulders. &ldquo;What an idea,&rdquo; said he; &ldquo;the little Josephine
+      an empress!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Josephine answered him with the words of Corneille&mdash;&ldquo;&lsquo;Le premier qui
+      fut roi fut un soldat heureux&rsquo;&rdquo; (the first king was a successful soldier);
+      and she added, &ldquo;The wife of this fortunate soldier shares his rank.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He placed his small, white hand, adorned with rings, under her chin, and
+      gazed at her with a deep, strange look.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now, Josephine,&rdquo; said he, after a short pause, &ldquo;your successful soldier
+      is only, for the present, consul for life, and you are sharing his rank.
+      Be careful, then, that the wife of the first consul surrounds herself with
+      all the brilliancy and the pomp which beseem her dignity. No more economy,
+      no more modest simplicity! The industry of France is at a low ebb&mdash;we
+      must make it rise. We must give receptions; we must prove to France that
+      the court of a consul can be as splendid as that of a king. You understand
+      what pomp is&mdash;none better than you! Now show yourself brilliant,
+      magnificent, so that the other ladies may imitate you. But, no foreign
+      stuffs! Silk and velvet from the fabrics of Lyons!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said Josephine, with charming tenderness, &ldquo;and when afterward my
+      bills become due, you cut them down&mdash;you find them too high.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I only cut down what is too exorbitant,&rdquo; said Bonaparte, laughing. &ldquo;I
+      have no objection for you to give to the manufacturers any amount of work
+      and profit, but I do not wish them to cheat you.&rdquo; [Footnote: Abrantes,
+      &ldquo;Memoires&rdquo; vol. iv.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Henceforth, the consulate began gradually to exhibit a splendor and pomp
+      which were behind no princely court, and which relegated, amid the dark
+      legends of the fabulous past, the fraternity and the equality of the
+      republic. The absence of pretension, and the simplicity of Malmaison, were
+      now done away with; everywhere the consul for life was followed by the
+      splendors of his dignity, and everywhere Josephine was accompanied by her
+      court.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For now she had a court, and an anteroom, with all its intrigues and
+      flatteries; and its conspiracies already wove their chains around the
+      consul and his wife. It was not suddenly, it was not spontaneously, that
+      this court of the first consul was formed; two years were required for its
+      organization&mdash;two years of unceasing labor on the new code of
+      regulations, which etiquette dictated from the remembrances of the past to
+      the palace-officers of the Consul Bonaparte. &ldquo;How was this in times past?
+      What was the practice?&rdquo; Such were the constant questions in the interior
+      of the Tuileries, and for the answers they appealed to Madame de
+      Montesson, to the old courtiers, the servants and adherents of royalty.
+      Instead of creating every thing new, they turned by degrees to the usages
+      and manners of the past. Always and in all countries have there been seen
+      at courts caricatures and persons of ill-mannered awkwardness; at the
+      opening of the court of the first consul it is probable that these
+      existed, and appeared still more strange to those who had been used to the
+      manners, traditions, and language of the ancient court of Versailles.
+      Their awkwardness, however, was soon overcome; and Josephine understood so
+      well the rare art of presiding at a court establishment&mdash;she was such
+      an accomplished mistress of refined manners and of noble deportment&mdash;she
+      united to the perfect manners of the old nobility the most exquisite
+      adroitness, and she knew so well how to adapt all these advantages to
+      every new circumstance&mdash;that soon every one bowed to her sovereignty
+      and submitted to her laws.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From the glittering halls of the Tuileries there soon disappeared the
+      sword and the uniform, to be replaced by the gold-embroidered dress, the
+      silk stockings, and the chapeau bras; and on the glassy floors of the
+      Tuileries generals and marshals appeared as fine cavaliers, who,
+      submitting to the rules of etiquette, left behind with their regiments the
+      coarse language of the camp. Many of these young generals and heroes had
+      married the beautiful but impoverished daughters of the aristocrats of old
+      monarchical France. These young women, who were the representatives of the
+      ancient noblesse, brought to the Tuileries the traditions of their
+      mothers, and distinguished themselves by the ease of their courtly
+      deportment and their graceful manners; and they thus unconsciously became
+      the teachers of the other young women, who, like their husbands, owed
+      their aristocratic name only to the sword and to their fresh laurels, and
+      not to ancient escutcheons.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the Tuileries and in St. Cloud there were reception-days,
+      audience-days, and great and small levees, at which were assembled all
+      that France possessed of rank, name, and fame, and where the ambassadors
+      of all the powers accredited at the court of the consul, where all the
+      higher clergy and the pope&rsquo;s nuncio, appeared in full dress.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bonaparte ventured to remove still further from the landmarks of the
+      revolution, and from its so-called conquests. He restored to France the
+      church; he reopened the temples of religion, and he also gave back to the
+      people their priests.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Just as in the days of old monarchical France, every Sunday, and at every
+      festival, a solemn mass was said at St. Cloud; and in the glass gallery on
+      the way to the chapel, Bonaparte received petitions and granted short
+      audiences. France, with the instinct of its old inclinations and habits,
+      readily returned to this new order of things; and even those who once had
+      with enthusiasm saluted the Goddess of Reason, went now, with hands joined
+      in prayer and eyes bent low, to Notre Dame, to offer again their
+      supplications to the God of Love.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Every thing seemed to return to the old track, every thing was as in the
+      days preceding the revolution&mdash;the re-establishment of the throne,
+      the national, willing approbation that the republic had become a monarchy,
+      was, however, still wanting.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Finally, on the 18th of May, 1804, France spoke out the decisive word,
+      and, by the voice of its representatives the senators, it offered to
+      Bonaparte the crown, and requested him to ascend as emperor the throne of
+      France.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Napoleon acceded to these wishes, and, as the senate, in a ceremonious
+      procession, marshalled by Cambaceres, came to St. Cloud to communicate to
+      Bonaparte the wish of France, and to offer to him and to Josephine the
+      dignities of an empire, he accepted it without surprise, and apparently
+      without joy, and allowed himself to be proclaimed NAPOLEON, THE FIRST
+      EMPEROR OF THE FRENCH.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On this memorable day, after Cambaceres, in the name of the senate and of
+      France, had addressed the first consul as the actual emperor, he turned to
+      Josephine, who, with that unparalleled admixture of grandeur, grace, and
+      tender womanly beauty, which were all so especially her own, was present
+      at this audience at Napoleon&rsquo;s side.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Madame,&rdquo; said Cambaceres, &ldquo;there remains yet to the senate a pleasant
+      duty to perform: to bring to your imperial majesty the homage of its
+      respect and the expression of gratitude of the French people. Yes, madame,
+      the public sentiment acknowledges the good which you are ever performing;
+      that you are always accessible to the unfortunate; that you use your
+      influence with the chief magistrate only to diminish evil, and to procure
+      a hearing to those who seek it; and that your majesty with this well-doing
+      combines the most amiable tenderness, rendering thankfulness a pleasant
+      duty. These noble qualities of your majesty foretell that the name of the
+      Empress Josephine will be a watchword of trust and hope; and, as the
+      virtues of Napoleon will ever be to his followers an example to teach them
+      the difficult art of government, so also, the lively remembrance of your
+      goodness will teach to their honorable wives that to strive to dry the
+      tear is the surest means of ruling the heart. The senate deems itself
+      happy in being the first to congratulate your imperial majesty, and he who
+      has the honor of addressing you these sentiments in the name of the
+      senate, dares trust that you will ever number him among your most faithful
+      servants.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was, then, decided! France had accepted her master, and Cambaceres in
+      his solemn address had already marked out the situation of France and of
+      her rulers. Bonaparte and Josephine were now their imperial majesties, the
+      senators were their most faithful servants. What remained to the people
+      but to call themselves &ldquo;faithful subjects?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The people, however, had made known their wishes only through the voice of
+      the senate; it was the senators who had converted Bonaparte into the
+      Emperor Napoleon; but the people were also to make their will known in a
+      solemn manner; they were, through a universal public suffrage, to decide
+      whether the imperial dignity should be given only for life to Napoleon the
+      First, Emperor of the French, or whether it should be hereditary in his
+      family.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      France, wearied with storms and divisions, decided with her five millions
+      of votes for the hereditary imperial dignity in Bonaparte&rsquo;s family, and
+      thus the people of France created their fourth dynasty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile Josephine received this new decision of the nation, not with
+      that disquietude and care which she had formerly experienced. Bonaparte
+      had given her the deepest and strongest proof of his love and
+      faithfulness. He had not only withstood the pressure of his whole family,
+      which had conjured him before his election to the empire to be divorced
+      from his childless wife, but he had in the generosity of his love
+      appointed his heirs and successors, and these were to be the sons of
+      Hortense. The senate had decreed that the imperial dignity should be
+      transmitted as a heritage to Napoleon&rsquo;s two brothers Joseph and Louis, and
+      moreover they had given to Napoleon the right to choose his successors and
+      heirs from the families of the two brothers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Napoleon had given to Josephine the strongest proof of affection&mdash;he
+      had declared the son of her daughter Hortense and of his brother Louis,
+      the little Napoleon Louis, to be his successor and heir, and the idea of a
+      divorce no longer caused apprehensions before which Josephine need
+      tremble.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bonaparte had appointed the sons of his brother and of Josephine&rsquo;s
+      daughter as his heirs, and the heir of the new imperial throne was already
+      born. Hortense&rsquo;s youth made it hopeful that she would add to the new
+      branch of the Napoleonic dynasty new leaves and new boughs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Josephine could now rejoice in her happiness and her glory; she could
+      abandon herself to the new splendors of her life with all the enjoyment of
+      her sensitive and excitable nature. She could now receive with smiles and
+      with affable condescension the homage of France, for she was not only
+      empress by a nation&rsquo;s vote, but she was also empress by the choice of
+      Napoleon her husband.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The brilliancy of this new and glorious horizon was soon overhung by a
+      sombre cloud. The execution of the Duke d&rsquo;Enghien threw its dark shadows
+      from the last days of the consulate upon the truly royalist heart of
+      Josephine; and now that heart was to receive fresh wounds through the
+      royalists, to whom she had remained true with all the memories of youth,
+      and in whose behalf she had so often, so zealously, and so warmly
+      interceded with her husband.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A new conspiracy against Napoleon&rsquo;s life was discovered, and this time it
+      was the men of the highest ranks of the old aristocracy who were
+      implicated in it. George Cadoudal, the unwearied conspirator, had, while
+      in England, planned with the leaders of the monarchical party residing in
+      France, or who were away from it, a new conspiracy, whose object was to
+      destroy Bonaparte and to re-establish the monarchy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Fate was again on the side of the hero of Arcola. His good star still
+      protected him. The conspiracy was discovered, and all those concerned in
+      it were arrested. Among them were the Generals Pichegru and Moreau, the
+      Counts de Polignac, Riviere, Saint Coster, Charles d&rsquo;Hozier, and many
+      others of the leading and most distinguished royalists. They were now
+      under the avenging sword of justice, and the tribunal had condemned twenty
+      of the accused to death, among whom were the above named. The emperor
+      alone had the power to save them and to extend mercy. But he was this time
+      determined to exhibit a merciless severity, so as to put an end to the
+      royalists, and to prove to them that he was the ruler of France, and that
+      the people without a murmur had given him the power to punish, as guilty
+      of high-treason, those who dared touch their emperor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Josephine&rsquo;s heart, however, remained true to her memories and her piety;
+      and, according to her judgment, those who, with so much heroic loyalty,
+      remained true to the exiled monarchy, were criminals only as they had
+      imperilled her husband&rsquo;s life, but criminals who, since their plans were
+      destroyed, deserved pardon, because they had sinned through devotion to
+      sacred principles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Josephine, therefore, opposed Bonaparte&rsquo;s anger, and begged for pardon for
+      the son of the former friend of Queen Marie Antoinette, the Count Jules de
+      Polignac. Bonaparte, however, remained inexorable; he repelled Josephine
+      with vehemence, reproaching her for asking for the life of those who
+      threatened his. But she would not be deterred; since Bonaparte had turned
+      her away with her petitions and prayers, she wanted at least to give to
+      the wife of the Count de Polignac an opportunity to ask pardon for her
+      condemned husband. Despite Bonaparte&rsquo;s wrath, Josephine led the Countess
+      de Polignac into a corridor through which the emperor had to pass, when he
+      went from the council-room into his cabinet, and by this means the
+      countess was fortunate enough, by her tears and prayers, to save her
+      husband&rsquo;s life. The Count de Polignac was pardoned; and now that
+      Bonaparte&rsquo;s heart had once been opened to mercy, he also granted to
+      Josephine the lives of Count Riviere and of General Lajolais, in behalf of
+      whom Hortense had appealed to the emperor. More than twenty of the
+      conspirators were accused and sentenced, some to death and some to severe
+      punishment, but one-half of the accused were, thanks to the prayers of
+      Josephine and of her daughter, pardoned; a few were put to death, and the
+      rest transported. Pichegru committed suicide in prison; Moreau received
+      permission to emigrate to America; George Cadoudal perished on the
+      scaffold.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After this last fruitless attempt to re-establish in France the throne of
+      the Bourbons, the royalists, wearied and terrified, had at least for a
+      time to withdraw into obscurity and solitude, and the newly-established
+      empire appeared in still more striking magnificence. The monarchy by God&rsquo;s
+      grace had been conquered by the empire by the people&rsquo;s grace, and Napoleon
+      wanted now to show himself to astonished Europe in all the glory of his
+      new dignity. He therefore undertook a journey with his wife through the
+      conquered German provinces; he went to Aix-la-Chapelle, to the city of
+      coronation of the ancient German emperors, and which now belonged to
+      imperial France; he went to Mayence, the golden Mayence of the old Roman
+      days, and which now, after so many streams of bloodshed, had been
+      transferred to France.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This journey of the emperor and empress was one uninterrupted triumphal
+      procession; the population of the old German city applauded, in
+      dishonorable faithlessness, the new foreign ruler; all the clergy received
+      their imperial majesties at the door of the cathedral, where Germany&rsquo;s
+      first emperor, Charlemagne, was buried; and, to flatter the Empress
+      Josephine, the clergy caused a miracle to be performed by her hand. There
+      existed in the sacred treasury of the cathedral a casket of gold,
+      containing the most precious relics, but which was never opened to the
+      eyes of mortals, and whose lock no key fitted. Only once a year was this
+      precious, sacred casket of relics shown to the worshipping crowd, and then
+      locked up in the holy shrine. But for Josephine this treasury was
+      condescendingly opened, and to the empress was presented this casket of
+      relics, and behold, the miracle took place! At the touch of the empress
+      the lid of the casket sprang up, and in it were seen the most precious
+      jewels of royalty, amongst which was the seal-ring of Charlemagne.
+      [Footnote: Constant, &ldquo;Memoires,&rdquo; vol. iii.] No one was more surprised at
+      this miracle than the clergy!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The neighboring German princes came to ancient Mayence to do homage to
+      Josephine, and to win the favor of the sovereign of France toward their
+      little principalities, and to assure him of their devotedness. Bonaparte
+      already understood how to receive the humble, flattering German princes
+      with the mien of a gracious protector, and to look upon them with the eye
+      of an emperor, to whom not only the nations but also the princes must bow;
+      and Josephine also excited the admiration of genuine princes and
+      legitimate princesses, by the graciousness and grandeur, by the unaffected
+      dignity and ease with which she knew how to represent the sovereign and
+      the empress.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0039" id="link2HCH0039"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXXIX. THE POPE IN PARIS.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Fate had reserved another triumph for the ruler of France, the Emperor
+      Napoleon&mdash;the triumph that the empire by the people&rsquo;s grace should be
+      converted and exalted into the empire by God&rsquo;s grace. Pope Pius VII., full
+      of thankfulness that Napoleon had re-established the Church in France, and
+      restored to the clergy their rights, had consented to come to Paris for
+      the sake of giving to the empire, created by the will of the French
+      people, the benediction of the Church, and in solemn coronation to place
+      the imperial crown on the head anointed by the hands of God&rsquo;s vice-gerent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bonaparte received this news with the lofty composure of an emperor who
+      finds it quite natural that the whole world should bow to his wishes, and
+      Josephine received it with the modesty and joyous humility of a pious
+      Christian. She desired above all things the blessing of God and of the
+      Church to rest upon this crown, whose possession had seemed to her until
+      now a spoliation, a sacrilege, and about which her conscience so often
+      reproached her. But when God&rsquo;s vicegerent, when the Holy Father of
+      Christendom should himself have blessed her husband&rsquo;s crown, and should
+      have made fast on Josephine&rsquo;s brow the imperial diadem, then all blame was
+      removed, then the empress could hope that Heaven&rsquo;s blessing would
+      accompany the new emperor and his wife!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But was it really Napoleon&rsquo;s wish that Josephine should take part in this
+      grand ceremony of coronation? Did he wish that, like him, she should
+      receive from the hands of the pope the consecrated crown?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Such was the deep, important question which occupied, at the approaching
+      arrival of the pope, the young imperial court; a question, too, which
+      occupied Josephine&rsquo;s mind, and also the whole family, and more especially
+      the sisters of Bonaparte.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Josephine naturally desired that it should be so, for this solemn
+      coronation would be a new bond uniting her to her husband, a new guaranty
+      against the evil which the empress&rsquo;s foreboding spirit still dreaded. But
+      for the very same reasons her enemies prepared their weapons to prevent
+      Josephine from obtaining this new consecration and this new glory, and
+      harsh and bitter conflicts took place within the inner circles of the
+      imperial family on account of it, which on both sides were carried on with
+      the deepest animosity and obstinacy, but finally to a complete triumph for
+      Josephine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thiers, in his &ldquo;History of the Consulate and of the Empire,&rdquo; relates the
+      last scenes in this family quarrel:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Napoleon vacillated between his affection for his wife and the secret
+      presentiments of his policy, when an occurrence took place which nearly
+      caused the sudden ruin of the unfortunate Josephine. Every one was in a
+      state of agitation about the new monarch&mdash;brothers, sisters, and
+      allies! In the solemnity which seemed to give to each a blessing, all
+      desired to perform parts adequate to their actual pretensions, and to
+      their hopes of the future. At the sight of this restlessness, and
+      witnessing the pretensions and claims to which Napoleon was exposed from
+      one of his sisters, Josephine, carried away by anxiety and jealousy, gave
+      utterance to an insulting suspicion against his sister and against
+      Napoleon, a suspicion which agreed with the most bitter calumnies of the
+      royalist emigrants. Napoleon grew violently angry, and, as his wrath
+      mastered his better feelings, he declared to Josephine that he wanted to
+      be divorced from her; that he would have to be, sooner or later, and that
+      it was therefore better to announce it on the spot, before other bonds
+      should unite them still closer together. He sent for his two adopted
+      children, communicated to them this decision, and thus produced on them a
+      most painful impression. Hortense and Eugene de Beauharnais declared with
+      a sad but unwavering determination that they would follow their mother
+      into the exile which was being prepared for her. Josephine manifested a
+      resigned and dignified sorrow. The contrast of their sorrow with the
+      satisfaction which the other portion of the imperial family manifested,
+      deeply lacerated Napoleon&rsquo;s heart, and he relented; for he could not
+      consent to see the companion of his youth and her children, who had been
+      the objects of his deserved affection, made so unhappy by being forced
+      into exile. He took Josephine in his arms, told her with emotion that he
+      could never have the strength to part from her, even if policy itself
+      should dictate it; and he then promised her that she should be crowned
+      with him, and at his side should receive from the pope the divine
+      blessing.&rdquo; [Footnote: Thiers, &ldquo;Histoire du Consulat et de l&rsquo;Empire.&rdquo; vol.
+      v., p. 249.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Josephine, therefore, had won a victory over the hostile sisters, but this
+      defeat made them still more embittered, and though they were now compelled
+      to recognize Josephine as the imperial wife of their brother, yet they
+      would retreat only step by step, and at &ldquo;least secure a place near the
+      imperial throne, and not be compelled by the empress to stand behind. Yet
+      this was exactly what was to take place according to the programme, which
+      prescribed for the festivity in Notre Dame that on the day of coronation
+      the brothers of the emperor should carry the trail of his mantle, and that
+      his sisters should at the same time carry the trail of the empress&rsquo;s
+      mantle. But the sisters of Napoleon decidedly opposed this arrangement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The emperor, tired of these constant wranglings and domestic strifes,
+      decided as judge, and declared he would no longer listen to these
+      unheard-of and unjustifiable pretensions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;Truly,&rsquo; said he, to the beautiful Pauline, who, as Princess Borghese,
+      considered herself justified in making opposition, &lsquo;truly, one would
+      think, after listening to you, that I have despoiled you of the
+      inheritance of the most blessed king our father.&rsquo;&rdquo; [Footnote: &ldquo;Histoire du
+      Consulat,&rdquo; vol. v., p. 251.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The ambitious sisters, kept within bounds by the angry voice of their
+      brother, who now for the first time showed himself their ruling emperor,
+      had to fall into their places, and abide by the regulations of the
+      ceremony.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nothing was wanted now to perfect the sacred celebration which was to
+      crown all the triumphs and victories of Napoleon, nothing but the arrival
+      of the pope: the whole imperial family, as well as France, awaited his
+      advent with impatience.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last the couriers brought the news that the pope had touched the French
+      soil, and that the people were streaming toward him to manifest their
+      respect, and to implore his blessing on their knees; the same people who
+      precisely ten years before had closed the churches, driven the priests
+      into exile, and consecrated their bacchanalian worship to the Goddess of
+      Reason!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last, on the 25th day of November, the pope entered Fontainebleau,
+      where the emperor and the empress had hastened to receive him. No sooner
+      was the pope&rsquo;s approach announced, than Napoleon mounted his horse and
+      rode to meet him some distance on the way. In the centre of the road took
+      place the first interview between the representative of Christendom and
+      the youngest son of the Church, a son who now sat on the throne of those
+      who in former times had enjoyed the privilege of being called the elder
+      sons of the Church.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The pope alighted from his carriage as soon as the emperor was in sight;
+      Napoleon dismounted and hastened to meet and embrace tenderly his
+      holiness, and then to ascend with him the carriage, the question of
+      precedence remaining undecided, as the pope and the emperor entered the
+      carriage at the same time from opposite sides.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Josephine, surrounded by the official dignitaries, the ministers of state,
+      and all the generals, received the pope under the peristyle of the palace
+      of Fontainebleau; and then, after Napoleon had led him into his room,
+      Josephine, accompanied by her ladies, went to welcome Pius, not as
+      empress, but as an humble, devout daughter of the Church, who wished to
+      implore a blessing from the Holy Father of Christendom. Josephine was
+      deeply moved; her whole being was agitated and exalted at once by this
+      greatest of all the privileges which destiny had reserved for her, and by
+      this consecration which she was to receive at the hands of the vicar of
+      Christ.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As the pope, agreeably affected by this respect and emotion of the
+      empress, offered her his hand with a genial smile, Josephine, humble as a
+      little girl, sank down on her knees before him, kissed his hand, and with
+      streaming eyes implored his benediction. Pius, in his soft, winning
+      manner, promised to love her as a daughter, and that she should ever find
+      in him a father.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The empress, deeply moved by this affectionate condescension of the pope,
+      and impressed by the importance and solemnity of the moment, bade her
+      ladies withdraw, whilst she, in solitude and silence, as a confessing
+      child before the priest, should unveil her innermost heart to the Holy
+      Father. She then sank down upon her knees, and, stammering, ashamed, with
+      her voice broken by her sobs, acknowledged to the pope that her marriage
+      to Napoleon had never received, the consecration of the Church; that,
+      contracted amid the stormy days of the revolution, it still lacked the
+      blessing hand of the priest, and that her own husband was to be blamed for
+      this neglect. In vain had she often besought him that, since he had
+      restored the Church to Prance, he should himself give to the world a
+      striking example of his own return by having his marriage blessed by it.
+      But Napoleon refused, although he had been the cause of Cardinal Caprera
+      giving to the marriage of his sister Caroline Murat, long after it had
+      been contracted, the blessing of the Church.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Pius heard this confession of his imperial penitent with holy resentment,
+      and he promised her his aid and protection, assuring her he would refuse
+      the act of coronation if the ecclesiastical marriage did not precede it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No sooner had Josephine left him, than the pope asked for an interview
+      with the emperor, to whom he declared, with all the zeal of a true servant
+      of the Church, and the conviction of a devout, God-fearing man, that he
+      was willing to crown him, and to grant him the blessing of the Church, for
+      the state of the conscience of emperors had never been examined before
+      their anointment; but if his wife was to be crowned with him, he must
+      refuse his co-operation, because in crowning Josephine he dare not grant
+      the divine sanction to concubinage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Napoleon, though inwardly much irritated at Josephine, who, as he at once
+      supposed, had made this confession to the pope in her own interest, was
+      still willing to abide by the circumstances. He did not wish to irritate
+      the pope, who as was well known was unyielding in all matters pertaining
+      to faith; moreover, he could not change any thing in the already published
+      ceremonial of the day, and thus he consented to have the ecclesiastical
+      marriage. After this conversation with the pope, Napoleon went at once to
+      Josephine, and the whole strength of his anger was spent in violent
+      reproaches against her untimely indiscretion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Josephine endured these silently, and full of inward satisfaction; she did
+      not listen to Napoleon&rsquo;s angry words; she only heard that he was decided
+      to have his marriage sanctioned by the Church, and now she would be his
+      wife before God, as she had been before men for the last ten years. Now at
+      last her fate was decided, and her marriage made irrevocable; now she
+      would no longer dread that Napoleon would punish her childlessness by a
+      divorce.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      During the night which preceded the day of the coronation, the night of
+      the 1st of December, the ecclesiastical marriage of Napoleon and Josephine
+      took place in the chapel of the Tuileries. The only witnesses were
+      Talleyrand and Berthier, from both of whom the emperor had exacted an oath
+      of profound silence. Cardinal Fesch, the emperor&rsquo;s uncle, performed the
+      ceremony, and pronounced the benediction of the Church over this marriage,
+      which Bonaparte&rsquo;s love for Josephine had induced him to consent to, and
+      which her love endeavored to make indissoluble.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This marriage, which she desired both as a loving woman and as a devout
+      Christian, was the most glorious triumph which Josephine had ever obtained
+      over the enmity of her husband&rsquo;s sisters, for it was a new proof of the
+      love and faithfulness of this man, whom neither expediency, nor family,
+      nor state reasons, could remove from her, and who, with the hand of love,
+      had guided her away from all the dangers which had surrounded her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0040" id="link2HCH0040"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XL.
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      THE CORONATION.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      At last, on the 2d of December, came the day which Napoleon had during
+      many years past longed for within the recesses of his heart; the day which
+      his ambition had hoped for, the day of his solemn coronation. And now the
+      victorious soldier was to see all his laurels woven into an imperial crown&mdash;that
+      which Julius Caesar had tried to win, and for which the republic punished
+      him with death.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But now the republicans were silent: before this new Julius Caesar they
+      dare not lift up their swords, for the power belonged to him, and that he
+      knew how to punish had been seen by trembling France not long ago at the
+      execution of George Cadoudal and his associates, the people sanctioning
+      those executions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was no Brutus there to plunge the dagger into the breast of the new
+      Cassar. His was the victory, the throne, the crown; and all France was in
+      joyous excitement at this new triumph, that the pope himself should come
+      from Rome to Paris so as to place the crown on the head of an emperor by
+      the grace of the people, and to make of the elect of the people an elect
+      of God.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The day had scarcely begun to dawn when all the streets of Paris through
+      which the imperial as well as the papal procession had to move toward
+      Notre Dame were filled with wave-like masses of human beings, who soon
+      occupied not only the streets but all the windows and all the roofs of the
+      houses. Those who were fortunate enough to be provided with cards of
+      admission into Notre Dame, went at six o&rsquo;clock in the morning to the
+      cathedral, for whose adorning during the last fourteen days more than a
+      thousand workmen had been busy, and who had not yet quite finished their
+      work, retiring only when the approach of the pope and of his suite was
+      announced. In the interior of the Tuileries began from the commencement of
+      the day, on three different sides, a lively movement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Here, in the apartments which the pope occupied, gathered together the
+      cardinals, the clergy, and all the church dignitaries who in the pope&rsquo;s
+      suite were to proceed to Notre Dame.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There, in the apartments of the emperor, a host of courtiers and officers
+      waited from early dawn for the moment when the toilet of the emperor
+      should be completed, and he should go to the great throne-room, where the
+      empress and the imperial family would await him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The greatest excitement, however, naturally prevailed in the apartments of
+      the empress, whose toilet occupied a host of chambermaids and ladies of
+      the court, and which had already been for months the subject of thought,
+      labor, and art, for painter and embroiderer, and for all manner of
+      professions, as well as for the master of ceremonies. For this imperial
+      toilet-ceremonial was to be in accordance with the traditions of ancient
+      France, but was not, at the same time, to be a mere imitation of the
+      coronation-toilet of the Bourbons, whom the revolution had dethroned, the
+      same revolution which had opened for Napoleon the way to the throne.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For this important ceremony, therefore, special costumes, somewhat
+      resembling those of former centuries, had been found. The painter Ingres
+      had furnished the designs for these costumes, and also plans for the
+      procession and for the groupings in Notre Dame; he had prepared all this
+      in pictures of great effect for the emperor&rsquo;s inspection. But in order to
+      show to advantage the several costumes, as well as the train of
+      personages, and the subdivisions of the different groups of the imperial
+      dignitaries, Ingres had caused small puppets to be dressed in similar
+      costumes, and arrayed in the order of the procession according to the
+      prescribed ceremonies for that day; and for weeks the imperial court had
+      been studying these costumes, and every one&rsquo;s duty had been to impress on
+      his mind the position assigned to him for the day of coronation.
+      [Footnote: Constant, &ldquo;Memoires,&rdquo; vol. iii., p. 111.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The pope&rsquo;s toilet was the first completed; and at nine o&rsquo;clock, all
+      dressed in white, he entered a carriage drawn by eight grays; over it in
+      gilt bronze were the tiara and the attributes of papacy. In front of the
+      carriage rode one of his chamberlains upon a white ass, bearing a large
+      silver cross before God&rsquo;s vicegerent. Behind it in new carriages came the
+      cardinals, the prelates, and the Italian officers of the pope&rsquo;s palace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While the papal train was moving slowly on the quays of the Seine toward
+      the cathedral, amid the sounds of bells, and the unceasing, joyful shouts
+      of the people, all was yet in motion within the apartments of the emperor
+      and empress. On all sides hurried along the dignitaries and officers who
+      were to form a part of the imperial procession.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For this day, Napoleon had been obliged to cast off his plain uniform and
+      substitute the splendid theatrical costume of imperial magnificence. The
+      stockings were of silk, wrought with gold, embroidered round the edge with
+      imperial crowns; the shoes were of white velvet, worked and embroidered
+      with gold; short breeches of white velvet, embroidered with gold at the
+      hips, and with buttons and buckles of diamonds in the shape of garters;
+      the vest also was of white velvet, embroidered with gold and having
+      diamond buttons; the coat was of crimson velvet, with facings of white
+      velvet along all the seams above and around, and sparkling with gold; the
+      half-mantle was also crimson, lined with white satin, and hanging over the
+      left shoulder, while on the right shoulder and upon the breast it was
+      fastened with a pair of diamond clasps. Sleeves of the most costly lace
+      fell about the arms; the cravat was of Indian muslin, the collar likewise
+      of lace; the cap, of black velvet, was adorned with two plumes and
+      surrounded by a coronet of diamonds, which &ldquo;the regent&rdquo; used as a clasp.
+      Such was the costume which the emperor wore in the procession from the
+      Tuileries to Notre Dame. In the vestry of the cathedral he put on the
+      ample state-robes, that is to say, the robe and mantle of emperor.
+      [Footnote: Constant, &ldquo;Memoires,&rdquo; vol. ii., p. 212.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The toilet of the empress was no less splendid and brilliant. It consisted
+      of an elaborate robe with a long train; this robe was of silver brocade,
+      with gold bees scattered all over; in front it was embroidered into a maze
+      of gold-leaves; at the lower edge was a gold fringe; the shoulders alone
+      were bare; long armlets of wrought gold, and adorned at the upper part
+      with diamonds, enclosed the arm and covered one-half of the hand. It
+      required all the art and grace of Josephine to carry this robe, it being
+      without any waist, and, according to the fashion of the times, extremely
+      narrow, and yet in wearing it to lose naught of her elegance or
+      condescending dignity. At the upper part of the dress rose a collar a la
+      Medicis of lace worked in with gold, and which Josephine had been
+      constrained to wear, so as at least, through some historic details, to
+      make her toilet correspond to the costume of the renaissance worn by
+      Napoleon. A gold girdle, adorned with thirty-nine diamond rosettes,
+      fastened under the breast her tunic-like dress. In her fondness for the
+      antique, Josephine, instead of diamonds and pearls, had preferred for
+      bracelets, ear-rings, and necklace, some choice stones of rare
+      workmanship. Her beautiful thick hair was encircled and held together by a
+      splendid diadem, a masterpiece of modern art. This toilet was to be
+      completed, like that of Napoleon, before the solemn entrance into the
+      cathedral, by putting on the imperial mantle, which was fastened on the
+      shoulders with gold buckles and diamond clasps.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last the imperial toilets were completed; all the dignitaries, as well
+      as the imperial family, gathered together in the throne-room, ready for
+      the procession. Holding Josephine by the hand, her countenance expressing
+      deep emotion, and her eye obscured by the tears shed as a price for the
+      solemn marriage of that night, Napoleon appeared in the midst of his
+      brilliant courtiers, and received the impressive, heart-felt wishes of his
+      family, his brothers and sisters, who pressed around him and the empress,
+      and who at this moment, forgetting all envy and jealousy, had only words
+      of thankfulness and assurances of love, devotedness, and loyalty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Napoleon replied to them all in the short, comprehensive words which he
+      addressed to his brother Joseph, whilst with his naming eyes he examined
+      his brothers and sisters in the brilliant costumes of their dignity and
+      glory:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Joseph,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;could our father see us now!&rdquo; [Footnote: Meneval,
+      &ldquo;Souvenirs,&rdquo; vol. i., p. 204.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From the pomp and solemnity of this important moment the thoughts of the
+      emperor, for whom the pope was waiting in Notre Dame, wandered far away to
+      the gloomy, quiet death-bed of his father, whose last hour was embittered
+      by the tormenting thought of leaving his family unprotected and with but
+      little means.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The thundering roar of cannon and the chimes of bells proclaimed that the
+      emperor and empress, with their train, were now leaving the palace to
+      ascend into the wonderful carriage made of gold and glass, and which was
+      waiting for them at the Pavilion de l&rsquo;Horloge to proceed toward the
+      cathedral.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This carriage, prepared expressly for this day&rsquo;s celebration, was of
+      enormous size and breadth, with windows on all sides, and entirely alike
+      in its front and back seats. It therefore happened that their imperial
+      majesties, on entering the carriage, not thinking of the direction to be
+      taken, sat down on the front instead of the back seat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The empress noticed the mistake, and when she laughingly called the
+      emperor&rsquo;s attention to it, they both took the back seat without a
+      suspicion that this little error was a bad omen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Another little mishap occurred before they entered Notre Dame, which threw
+      a gloom of sad forebodings and fear over the heart of the empress.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Whilst alighting out of the carriage, the empress, whose hand was occupied
+      in the holding and carrying her robe and mantle, let slip from her fingers
+      the imperial ring which the pope had brought her for a present, and which
+      before the coronation he was to bless, according to the accustomed
+      ceremonial, and then place it on her finger as a token of remembrance of
+      the holy consecration. This made Josephine tremble, and her cheeks turned
+      pale, especially as the ring could nowhere be found. It had rolled a
+      considerable distance from the carriage, and only after some minutes did
+      Eugene Beauharnais find it and bring it to his mother, to her great
+      delight and satisfaction. [Footnote: Aubenas, &ldquo;Histoire de l&rsquo;Imperatrice
+      Josephine,&rdquo; vol. ii., p. 283.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last the procession entered Notre Dame, and the brilliant solemnity
+      began. It is not our purpose to describe here again the ceremony which has
+      been in all its details portrayed in so many works, and to repeat the
+      solemn addresses and the different events of this great and memorable day.
+      It is with Josephine we have to do, and with what concerns her individual
+      destiny&mdash;that alone claims our attentive consideration.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One event, however, is to be mentioned. At the moment the emperor took
+      from the altar the so-called crown of Charles the Great, and with firm
+      hand placed it on his head&mdash;at the moment when he assumed the place
+      of the ancient Kings of France, a small stone, which had detached itself
+      from the cupola, fell down, touched his head, leaped on his shoulder,
+      slipped down his imperial mantle, and rolled over the altar-steps near to
+      the pope&rsquo;s throne, where it remained still until an Italian priest picked
+      it up. [Footnote: Abrantes. &ldquo;Memoires,&rdquo; vol. vii., p. 258.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the moment of his loftiest grandeur the destiny of his future aimed its
+      first stone at him, and marked him as the one upon whom its anger was to
+      fall.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This was the third evil omen of the day; but fortunately Josephine had not
+      noticed it. Her whole soul was absorbed in the sacred rites; and, after
+      the emperor had crowned himself, her heart trembled with deep emotion and
+      agitation, for now the moment had come when she was to take her part in
+      the solemnity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Duchess d&rsquo;Abrantes, who was quite near Josephine, and an immediate
+      witness of the whole celebration, depicts the next scene in the following
+      words: &ldquo;The moment when the greatest number of eyes were fixed upon the
+      altar-steps where the emperor stood, was when Josephine was crowned by
+      him, and was solemnly consecrated Empress of the French. What a moment!
+      ... what a homage! What a proof of love manifested to her from him who so
+      much loved her!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;David&rsquo;s painting, and many other pictures taken during the coronation, at
+      the very spot and time, have well represented the empress at the feet of
+      Napoleon, who crowns her; then the pope, the priests, and even persons who
+      were four hundred miles away&mdash;as, for instance, the emperor&rsquo;s mother,
+      who was then in Rome, but whom David nevertheless brings into his picture.
+      But nothing, however, can give us a true description, or even an
+      approximate idea, of this alike touching and lofty scene, where a great
+      man by his own efforts ascends a throne, for on this occasion he was full
+      of gratitude and emotion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When the moment had come for Josephine to take her part in the great
+      drama, the empress rose from the throne and approached the altar, where
+      the emperor was waiting for her; she was followed by the ladies of the
+      palace and by her whole court, while the Princesses Caroline, Julie (the
+      wife of Joseph), the Princess Elise, and Louis Bonaparte, carried the
+      trail of her robe. One of the most admirable features in the beauty of the
+      Empress Josephine was not her fine, graceful figure, but the bearing of
+      her head&mdash;the gracious and noble manner in which she moved and
+      walked. I have had the honor to be introduced to many &lsquo;real princesses,&rsquo; 
+      as they are termed, in the Faubourg St. Germain, and I can in all
+      sincerity say that I have never seen one who appeared to me so imposing as
+      the Empress Josephine. In her, grace and majesty were blended. When she
+      put on the grand imperial robes there was no woman whose appearance could
+      be more royal in demeanor, and, in reality, none who understood the art of
+      occupying a throne as well as she, though she never had been instructed in
+      it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I read all that I have now said in the eyes of Napoleon. He watched with
+      delight the empress as she moved toward him; and as she knelt before him,
+      ... as the tears she could not restrain streamed down her folded hands,
+      which were lifted up to him more than to God, at that moment, when
+      Napoleon, or, much more, when Bonaparte was for her the real and visible
+      Providence, there passed over these two beings one of those fugitive
+      minutes, unique in its kind, and never to be recalled in a whole life, and
+      which fills to overflowing the void of many long years. The emperor
+      performed with an unexcelled grace the most minute details of every part
+      of the subsequent ceremony, especially when the moment came to crown the
+      empress.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This ceremony was to be performed by the emperor himself, who, after he
+      had received the small closed crown surmounted by a cross, placed it first
+      on his own head, and then afterward on the head of the empress. He
+      performed these two movements with a most exquisite slowness, which was
+      indeed admirable. But at the moment when he was to crown her who was for
+      him, according to a prophecy, &lsquo;the star of happiness,&rsquo; he made himself, if
+      I dare use the expression, coquettish. He arranged this little crown which
+      was to stand over her coronet of diamonds, and placed it on her head, then
+      lifted it up to replace it in another way, as if to promise her that this
+      crown would be light and pleasant to her.&rdquo; [Footnote: Abrantes,
+      &ldquo;Memoires.&rdquo;]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After this twofold crowning performed by Napoleon himself, the pope,
+      surrounded by cardinals and prelates, approached the throne, and arriving
+      upon the platform pronounced in a loud voice, spreading his hands over
+      their imperial majesties, the ancient Latin formula of enthronization: &ldquo;In
+      hoc solio confirme vos Deus, et in regno aeterno secum regnare faciat
+      Christus.&rdquo; (God establish you on this throne, and Christ make you reign
+      with Him in His everlasting kingdom.) He then kissed the emperor on the
+      cheeks, and turning himself to the audience, cried with a loud voice:
+      &ldquo;Vivat imperator in aeternum!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The immense cathedral resounded with one glad shout of thousands of
+      voices: &ldquo;Long live the emperor! long live the empress!&rdquo; Napoleon, calm and
+      reserved, answered this acclamation with a friendly motion of the head.
+      Josephine stood near him, pale, deeply moved, her eyes, full of tears,
+      fixed on the emperor, as if she would pray to him, and not to God, for the
+      prosperity and blessing of the future.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile the pope had descended from his throne, and while he approached
+      the altar, the bands played &ldquo;Long live the emperor,&rdquo; which the Abbe Kose
+      had composed for this solemnity. Then the pope, standing before the altar,
+      intoned the Te Deum, which was at once executed by four choirs and two
+      orchestras, and which completed the ecclesiastical part of the ceremony.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This was followed by a secular one. The emperor took, on the Bible which
+      Cardinal Fesch presented to him, the oath prescribed in the constitution,
+      and whereby he pledged himself solemnly to maintain &ldquo;the most wise results
+      of the revolution, to defend the integrity of the territory, and to rule
+      only in the interest of the happiness and glory of the French people.&rdquo;
+       After he had taken this oath, a herald approached the edge of the
+      platform, and, according to ancient custom, cried out in a loud voice:
+      &ldquo;The most mighty and glorious Emperor Napoleon, Emperor of the French, is
+      crowned and enthroned! Long live the emperor!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A tremendous, prolonged shout of joy followed this proclamation: &ldquo;Long
+      live the emperor! Long live the empress!&rdquo; and then an artillery salute
+      thundered forth from behind the cathedral, and a similar salute responded
+      from the Tuileries, and from the Invalides, and proclaimed to all Paris
+      that France had again found a ruler, that a new dynasty had been lifted up
+      above the French people.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At this moment from the Place de Carrousel ascended an enormous air
+      balloon surmounted by an ornamental, gigantic crown, and which, on the
+      wings of the wind, was to announce to France the same tidings proclaimed
+      to Paris by bell and cannon: &ldquo;The republic of France is converted into an
+      empire! The free republicans are now the subjects of the Emperor Napoleon
+      I.!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The gigantic balloon arose amid the joyous shouts of the crowd, and soon
+      disappeared from the gaze of the spectators. It flew, as a trophy of
+      victory of Napoleon I., all over France. Thousands saw it and understood
+      its silent and yet eloquent meaning, but no one could tell where it had
+      fallen, finally, after many weeks, the emperor, who had often asked after
+      the balloon&rsquo;s fate, received the wished-for answer. The balloon had fallen
+      in Rome, upon Nero&rsquo;s grave!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Napoleon remained silent a moment at this news: a shadow passed over his
+      countenance; then his brow brightened again, and he exclaimed: &ldquo;Well, I
+      would sooner see it there, than in the dust of the streets!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0041" id="link2HCH0041"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XLI. DAYS OF HAPPINESS.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The prophecy of the old woman in Martinique had now been fulfilled:
+      Josephine was more than a queen, she was an empress! She stood on life&rsquo;s
+      summit, and a world lay at her feet. Before the husband who stood at her
+      side, the princes and the people of Europe bowed in the dust, and paid him
+      homage&mdash;the hero who by new victories had won ever-increasing fame
+      and fresh laurels, who had defeated Austria, Prussia, and Russia, and who
+      had engraven on the rolls of French glory the mighty victories of
+      Austerlitz, Jena, and Eylau!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Josephine stood on the pinnacle of life; she saw the princes of foreign
+      states come to France as conquered, as captives, and as allies, to bring
+      to her husband and to herself the homage of subjects; she saw devoted
+      courtiers and flatterers; pomp and splendor surrounded her on every side.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Amid this glory she remained simple and modest&mdash;she never gave up her
+      cheerful gentleness and mildness; she never forgot the days which had
+      been; she never allowed herself to be exalted by the brilliancy of the
+      moment to an ambitious pride or to a lofty self-conceit. The friends of
+      the widow Josephine de Beauharnais always found in the empress Josephine a
+      thankful, obliging friend, ever ready to appeal to her husband, and
+      intercede with him in their behalf. To the royalists, when weary of their
+      long exile, though poor and helpless still loyal to the royal family&mdash;when
+      they returned to France with bleeding feet and wounded hearts, to implore
+      from the Emperor of the French the privilege of dying in their native
+      country&mdash;to them all Josephine was a counsellor, a helper, a
+      compassionate protectress. With deep interest she inquired from them how
+      it fared with the Count de Lille, whom her heart yet named as the King of
+      France, though her lips dared not utter it. All the assistance she gave to
+      the royalists, and the protection she afforded them, oftentimes despite
+      Napoleon&rsquo;s anger, all the loyalty, the generosity, and self-denial she
+      manifested, were the quiet sacrifice which she offered to God for her own
+      happiness, and with which she sought to propitiate the revengeful spirit
+      of the old monarchy, loitering perchance in the Tuileries, where she now,
+      in the place of the wife of the Count de Lille, was enthroned as
+      sovereign.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Josephine&rsquo;s heart was unwearied and inexhaustible in well-doing and in
+      liberality; if Napoleon was truly the emperor and the father of the army
+      and of the soldiers, Josephine was equally the empress and the mother of
+      the poor and unfortunate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But she was also, in the true sense of the word, the empress of the happy.
+      No one understood so well as she did how to be the leader at festivals, to
+      preside at a joyous company, to give new attractions by her gracious
+      womanly sweetness and amiableness, or to receive homage with such beaming
+      eyes, and to make others happy while she herself seemed to be made happy
+      by them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Amid this life full of splendor and grandeur there were sad hours, when
+      the sun was shadowed by clouds, and the eyes of the Empress of the French
+      filled with such bitter tears as only the wife and the widow of General
+      Beauharnais could shed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Three things especially contributed to draw these tears from the eyes of
+      the Empress Josephine: her jealousy, her extravagance, and, lastly, her
+      childlessness. Josephine was jealous, for she not only loved Napoleon, she
+      worshipped him as her providence, her future, her happiness. Her heart was
+      yet so full of passion, and so young, that it hoped for much happiness,
+      and could not submit to that resignation which is satisfied to give more
+      love than it receives, and instead of the warm, intoxicating cup of love,
+      to receive the cool, sober beverage of friendship. Josephine wanted not
+      merely to be the friend, but to remain Napoleon&rsquo;s beloved one; and she
+      looked upon all these beautiful women who adorned the imperial court of
+      the Tuileries as enemies who came to dispute with her the love of her
+      husband.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And, alas! she had too often to acknowledge herself defeated in this
+      struggle, to see her rivals triumph, and for weeks to retreat into the
+      background before the victorious one who may have succeeded in enchaining
+      the inconstant heart of Napoleon, and to make the proud Caesar bow to her
+      love. But afterward, when love&rsquo;s short dream had vanished, Napoleon,
+      penitent, would come back with renewed love to his Josephine, whom he
+      still called &ldquo;the star of his happiness;&rdquo; and oftentimes, touched by her
+      tears, he sacrificed to her anxiety and jealousy a love-caprice, and
+      became more affectionate, more agreeable even, than when he had forsaken
+      her; for then, to prove to her how unreserved was his confidence, he often
+      told her of his new love-adventures, and was even indiscreet enough at
+      times to betray all his gallantries to her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The second object of the constant solicitude and trials of the empress was
+      her extravagance. She did not understand how to economize; her indolent
+      creole nature found it impossible to calculate, to bring numbers into
+      columns, or to question tedious figures, to see if debt and purse agreed&mdash;if
+      her generous heart must be prevented from giving to the poor&mdash;from
+      rendering assistance to the helpless, or from spending handfuls for the
+      suffering; to see if her taste for the arts was no longer to be gratified
+      with pictures, paintings, statues, cameos, and other objects of vertu,
+      which filled her with so much joy and admiration; if her elegant manners
+      and fondness for finery and dress were to be denied all that was costly,
+      all that was fashionable, and which seemed to have been expressly invented
+      for the adorning of an empress. And when, in some of those grave,
+      melancholy hours of internal anxiety, the cruel phantoms of the future
+      reckonings arose before her and warned her to stop purchasing, Josephine
+      comforted herself with the idea that it was Napoleon himself who had
+      requested her to be to all the ladies of his court a pattern of elegance,
+      and to be distinguished above all by the most brilliant, the choicest, the
+      costliest toilet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The emperor would often come into the cabinet of the empress, and to the
+      great astonishment of her ladies-in-waiting would enter into the most
+      minute details of her dress, and designate the robes and ornaments which
+      he desired her to wear on some special festivity. It even happened in
+      Aix-la-Chapelle that Napoleon, who had come into the toilet-room of the
+      empress and found that she had put on a robe which did not please him,
+      poured ink on the costly dress of silver brocade, so as to compel her to
+      put on another. [Footnote: Avrillon, &ldquo;Memoires,&rdquo; vol. i., p. 98; and
+      Constant, &ldquo;Memoires,&rdquo; vol. iii., p. 103.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And then how was it possible to resist the temptation of purchasing all
+      those beautiful things which were constantly brought to her for
+      inspection? Josephine loved what was beautiful, tasteful, and artistic;
+      all works of art which she admired must be purchased, whatever price was
+      asked; and when the merchants came to offer to the empress their superb
+      and splendid articles of luxury, how could she have the cruel courage to
+      repel them? How often did she purchase objects of extraordinary value for
+      which she had no need, simply to please herself and the merchant! Every
+      thing that was beautiful and tasteful pleased her, and she must possess
+      it. No one had a more remarkably fine taste than Josephine, but the
+      artists, the manufacturers, the merchants, also had fine taste, and they
+      came to the empress with the best they had; it was therefore natural that
+      she should purchase from them But unfortunately the happy moment of the
+      purchase was followed by the unhappy one of the payment, and the outlay
+      was constantly beyond the income of the empress, whose treasury, besides,
+      was so often emptied in charities, pensions, and presents. Then when the
+      merchants urged payment, and the purse was empty, Josephine had recourse
+      to the emperor, and had to entreat him to meet her expenses, and then came
+      violent scenes, reproaches, and bitter words. The emperor was angry,
+      Josephine wept, and payment and reconciliation followed these scenes.
+      Josephine promised to the emperor and to herself to be more economical in
+      the future, and no longer to purchase what she could not pay for, but ever
+      came the temptation, with all its inviting treasures, and being no saintly
+      Anthony, she would fall a prey to the temptation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The third and thickest cloud which often darkened the serene sky of her
+      happiness after her marriage was, as already said, Josephine&rsquo;s
+      childlessness. This was the bitter drop which was mixed in the golden cup
+      of her joy&mdash;this was the sting which, however deeply hid under the
+      roses, still reached her heart and wounded it painfully. She had no
+      children who could call Napoleon father, no offspring to prolong the
+      future of the new dynasty. And therefore the firmer the emperor&rsquo;s power
+      became, the higher he stood above all other princes, the more distressing
+      and the more anxious were the emotions which filled the heart of
+      Josephine, the louder was the warning voice which ceased not to whisper to
+      her heart, and which she forgot only now and then under the glow of
+      Napoleon&rsquo;s assurances of love, or amid the noise of festivities. This
+      voice whispered: &ldquo;You must give place to another. Napoleon will reject
+      you, to marry a wife of princely birth, who will give an heir to his
+      empire!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      How Josephine strove to silence these agonizing whisperings of her heart!
+      With what restlessness of sorrow she rushed into the gayeties and
+      amusements of a court life! How she sought, in charitable occupations, in
+      the joys of society, in every thing which was congruous to the life of a
+      woman, of an empress, to obtain the forgetfulness of her torments! With
+      what envious attention she listened to the whispers of courtiers,
+      scrutinized their features, read their looks, to find out if they still
+      believed in the existence of an empress in the wife of Napoleon! With what
+      jealous solicitude she observed all the families on European thrones, and
+      considered what princesses among them were marriageable, and whether
+      Napoleon&rsquo;s relations with the fathers of such princesses were more
+      intimate than those with the other princes!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And then she ever sought to deafen this vigilant, warning voice, by
+      comforting herself with the thought that the emperor had adopted his
+      brother&rsquo;s son, the son of Hortense, and that he had made him his heir, and
+      consequently the throne and the dynasty were secure in a successor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But alas! Fate would not leave this last comfort to the unfortunate
+      empress. In May of the year 1807, Prince Napoleon, the crown prince of
+      Holland, Napoleon&rsquo;s adopted son and successor, died of a child&rsquo;s disease,
+      which in a few days tore him away from the arms of his despairing mother.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Josephine&rsquo;s anguish was boundless, and in the first hours of this
+      misfortune, which with such annihilating force fell upon her, the empress,
+      as if in a state of hallucination, gazed into the future, and, with
+      prophetic voice, exclaimed: &ldquo;Now I am lost! Now is divorce certain!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Yes, she was lost! She felt it, she knew it! Nothing the emperor did to
+      pacify her anguish&mdash;the numerous expressions of his love, of his
+      sympathy, of his winning affection&mdash;nothing could any longer deceive
+      Josephine. The voices which had so long whispered in her breast now cried
+      aloud: &ldquo;You must give place to another! Napoleon will reject you, so as to
+      have a son!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But the emperor seemed still to try to dispel these fears, and, to give to
+      his Josephine a new proof of his love and faithfulness, he chose Eugene de
+      Beauharnais, the son of Josephine, for his adopted heir, and named him
+      Vice-King of Italy, and gave him in marriage the daughter of the King of
+      Bavaria; he thus afforded to Europe the proof that he still considered
+      Josephine as his wife, and that he desired to be shown to her all the
+      respect due to her dignity, for he travelled to Munich in company with her
+      in order to be present at the nuptials.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This journey to attend her son&rsquo;s marriage was the last pleasure of
+      Josephine&mdash;her last days of honors and happiness. Once more she saw
+      herself surrounded by all the splendor and the pomp of her rank; once more
+      she was publicly honored and admired as the wife of the first and greatest
+      ruler of the world, the wife of the Emperor Napoleon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Perhaps Josephine, in these hours of happiness, when as empress, wife, and
+      mother, she enjoyed the purest and most sacred pleasure, forgot the sad
+      forebodings and fears of her soul. Perhaps she now believed that, since
+      Napoleon had adopted her Eugene as his son, and had given to this son a
+      wife of royal extraction, Fate would be propitious to her; that the
+      emperor would be satisfied with the son of his choice, and that the future
+      scions of the royal princess would be the heirs of his throne.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But one word of Napoleon frightened her out of this ephemeral security
+      into which happiness had lulled her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Josephine wept as she bade farewell to her son; she was comfortless when
+      with his young wife Eugene left for Italy. She complained to Napoleon, in
+      justification of her tears, that she should seldom see her son, that now
+      he was lost to his mother&rsquo;s heart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The emperor, who at first had endeavored to comfort her felt at last
+      wounded by her sorrow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You weep, Josephine,&rdquo; said he, hastily, &ldquo;but you have no reasonable
+      motives to do so; you weep simply because you are separated from your son.
+      If already the absence of your children causes you so much sorrow, think
+      then what I must endure! The tenderness which you feel for your children
+      makes me cruelly experience how unhappy it is for me to have none.&rdquo;
+       [Footnote: Avrillon, &ldquo;Memoires sur l&rsquo;Imperatrice Josephine,&rdquo; vol. i., p.
+      202.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Josephine trembled, and her tears ceased flowing in the presence of the
+      emperor, but only to fall more abundantly as soon as he had left her. Now
+      she wept no longer at her separation from her son; her tears were still
+      more bitter and painful&mdash;she grieved over the coming future; she wept
+      because those voices which happiness for a moment had deafened, now spoke
+      more loudly&mdash;more fearfully and menacingly shouted: &ldquo;Napoleon will
+      reject you! He will choose for himself a wife of royal birth, who will
+      give an heir to his throne and his empire.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0042" id="link2HCH0042"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XLII. DIVORCE.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      It was at last decided! The storm which had so long and so fearfully
+      rolled over Josephine&rsquo;s head was to burst, and with one single flash
+      destroy her earthly happiness, her love, her future!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The peace of Vienna had been ratified on the 13th of October, 1809.
+      Napoleon passed the three long months of peace negotiations in Vienna and
+      in Schonbrunn, while Josephine, solitary and full of sad misgivings, lived
+      quietly in the retreat of Malmaison.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now that peace was signed, Napoleon returned to France with fresh laurels
+      and new crowns of victory. But not, as usual after so long an absence, did
+      he greet Josephine with the tenderness and joy of a home-returning
+      husband. He approached her with clouded brow; with a proud, cold demeanor;
+      with the mien of a ruling master, before whom all must bow, even his wife,
+      even his own heart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At Fontainebleau, whither the emperor in a few, short, commanding words&mdash;in
+      a letter of three lines&mdash;had invited the empress, did the first
+      interview of Josephine and Napoleon take place. She hastened to meet her
+      husband with a cheerful face and beaming eyes. He, however, received her
+      coldly, and endeavored to hide his feelings of uneasiness and shame under
+      a repulsive, domineering manner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He returned to his home victorious; the whole world lay conquered at his
+      feet; he was triumphant. He had so deeply humiliated the pride of Austria
+      that she not only accepted his harsh terms of peace, but, as once men had
+      appeased the Minotaur by the sacrifice of the most amiable and most
+      beautiful maiden, so Austria had asked in a low voice whether the daughter
+      of the emperor, Maria Louisa might not give to the alliance of Austria and
+      France the consecration of love. Napoleon eagerly entered into the scheme;
+      and while Josephine, as his married wife before God and man, stood yet at
+      his side, he already had begun negotiations, the object of which was to
+      make the daughter of the Austrian emperor his wife, and before Napoleon
+      returned to France those negotiations had been brought to a satisfactory
+      result.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The ambitious Maria Louisa was to be the wife of the Emperor of the
+      French. Nothing more was wanted but that Napoleon should reject his
+      legitimate wife, whom the pope had anointed! He had but to disenthrone her
+      who for fifteen years, with true and tender love, had shared his
+      existence. He had only to be divorced publicly and solemnly, so as
+      immediately to possess a bride, the daughter of an emperor!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Napoleon came to Fontainebleau to accomplish this cruel task, to break at
+      once his marriage with Josephine and her heart. He knew what terrible
+      sufferings he was preparing for her; he himself quailed under the anguish
+      she was to endure; his heart was full of sorrow and woe, and yet his
+      resolution was irrevocable. Policy had controlled his heart, ambition had
+      conquered his love, and the man was determined to sacrifice his wife to
+      the emperor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Josephine felt this at the first word he addressed her, at the first look
+      he gave her, after so long a separation, and her heart shrank within
+      itself in bitter anguish, while a stream of tears started from her eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Napoleon asked not for the cause of these tears; he had not the
+      courage to wage an open war with this brave, loving heart, and to subdue
+      her love and despair with the two-edged sword of his state policy and
+      craftiness. He did not wish to utter the word; he wanted to make her feel
+      what an abyss was now open between them; all confidential and social
+      intercourse was to be avoided, so that the empress might become conscious
+      that love and fellowship of hearts had ceased also.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the evening after the first interview the empress found that the door
+      of communication between her apartments and those of the emperor had been
+      closed. Napoleon did not, as had been his wont, bid her good-night with a
+      cordial and friendly kiss, but, in the presence of her ladies, he
+      dismissed her with a cold salutation. The next day the emperor expressly
+      avoided her society; and when at rare moments he was with her, he was so
+      taciturn, so morose and cold, that the empress had not the courage to ask
+      for an explanation, or to reproach him, but, trembling and afraid, she
+      bowed under the iron pressure of his severe, angry looks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To prevent their being with each other alone, and to avoid this horrible
+      solitude, dreaded alike by Napoleon and Josephine, the emperor sent the
+      next day for all the princes and princesses of his family to come to
+      Fontainebleau. His sisters, no longer kept in control by the domineering
+      will of the emperor, made Josephine feel their malice and enmity; they
+      found pleasure in letting the empress see their own ascendency, their
+      secure position, and in treating her with coldness and disrespect. The
+      emperor, instead of guarding Josephine against these humiliations, had the
+      cruel courage to increase them; for, without reserve or modesty, and in
+      the very presence of Josephine, he offered the most familiar and positive
+      attentions to two ladies of his court&mdash;ladies whom he honored with
+      special favor. [Footnote: Thiers, &ldquo;Histoire du Consulat et de l&rsquo;Empire,&rdquo;
+       vol. xi., p. 323.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was death-like agony which Josephine suffered in those days of
+      Fontainebleau; it was a cruel martyrdom, which she, however, endured with
+      all the gentleness of her nature, with the devotedness and uncomplaining
+      anguish of true and genuine love.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Napoleon could not endure this. The sight of this yet beloved pale face,
+      with its sweet, angelic smile, lacerated his heart and tortured him with
+      reproaches. He wanted to have festivities and amusements, so as not to
+      witness this quiet, devoted anguish, so as not to read every day in the
+      sorrowful, red eyes of Josephine, the story of nights passed in tears.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The court returned to Paris, there to celebrate the new victorious peace
+      with brilliant feasts. Napoleon, so as to be delivered from the tearful
+      companionship of Josephine, made the journey on horseback, and never once
+      rode near her carriage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In Paris had begun at once a series of festivities, at which German
+      princes, the Kings of Saxony, of Bavaria, and of Wurtemberg, were present,
+      to congratulate Napoleon on his victories in Germany. The Empress
+      Josephine, by virtue of her rank, had to appear at these receptions; she
+      had, although in the deepest despondency, to wear a smile on her lip, to
+      appear as empress at the side of the man who met her with coldness and
+      estrangement, and whom she yet loved with the true love of a wife! She had
+      to see the courtiers, with the keen instinct of their race, desert her,
+      leaving around her person an insulting void and vacancy. Her heart was
+      tortured with anguish and woe, and yet she could not uproot her love from
+      it; she did not have the courage to speak the decisive word, and to desire
+      the divorce which she knew hung over her, and which at any moment might
+      agonize her heart!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Josephine did not possess the cowardice to commit suicide; she was ready
+      to receive the fatal blow, but she could not plunge the dagger into her
+      own heart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Napoleon, unable to endure these tortures, longed to bring them to an end.
+      He secretly made all the necessary arrangements, and communicated to the
+      first chancellor, Cambaceres, his irrevocable resolution to be divorced
+      from the empress. He, however, notified him that he wanted this act of
+      separation to be accomplished in the most respectful and honorable form
+      for Josephine, and he therefore, with Cambaceres, prepared and decided
+      upon all the details of this public divorce.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It only remained now to find some one who would announce to Josephine her
+      fate, who would communicate to her the emperor&rsquo;s determination. Napoleon
+      had not the courage to do it himself, and he wanted to confide this duty
+      to the Vice-King Eugene, whom for this purpose he had invited to Paris.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Eugene declined to become a messenger of evil tidings to his mother;
+      and when Napoleon turned to Hortense, she refused to give to her mother&rsquo;s
+      heart the mortal stroke. The emperor, deeply touched by the sorrow
+      manifested by the children of Josephine, was not able to repress his
+      tears. He wept with them over their blasted happiness&mdash;their betrayed
+      love. But his tears could not make him swerve from his resolution.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The nation has done so much for me,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;that I owe it the
+      sacrifice of my dearest inclinations. The peace of France demands that I
+      choose a new companion. Since, for many months, the empress has lived in
+      the torments of uncertainty, and every thing is now ready for a new
+      marriage, we must therefore come to a final explanation.&rdquo; [Footnote:
+      Lavalette, &ldquo;Memoires,&rdquo; vol. ii., p. 44.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But as none could be found to carry this fatal news to Josephine, Napoleon
+      had to take upon himself the unwelcome task.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wearied with the tears of the slighted empress, with the reproaches of his
+      own conscience and with his own sufferings, Napoleon suddenly broke the
+      sad, gloomy silence which had been so long maintained between him and his
+      wife; in answer to her tears and reproaches, he told her that it was full
+      time now to arrive at a final conclusion; that he had resolved to form new
+      ties; that the interest of the state demanded from them both an enormous
+      sacrifice; that he reckoned on her courage and devotedness to consent to a
+      divorce, to which he himself acceded only with the greatest reluctance.
+      [Footnote: Thiers, &ldquo;Histoire du Consulat,&rdquo; vol. xi., p. 340.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Josephine did not hear the last words. At the word divorce she swooned
+      with a death-like shriek; and Napoleon, alarmed at the sight of her
+      insensibility, called out to the officers in waiting to help him to carry
+      the empress into her rooms upon her bed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Such hours of despair, of bitter pain, of writhing, agonized love did
+      Josephine now endure! How courageous, yet how difficult, the struggle
+      against the wretchedness of a rejected love! How angrily and scornfully
+      she would rise up against her cruel fate! How lovingly, humbly, gently she
+      would acquiesce in it, as to a long-expected, inevitable fatality!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These were long days of pain and distress; but Josephine was not alone in
+      her sufferings, for the emperor&rsquo;s heart was also touched with her quiet
+      endurance, and her deep agony at this separation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last the empress came out victorious from these conflicts of heart and
+      soul, and she repressed her tears with the firm will of a noble, loving
+      woman! She bade her son Eugene announce to the emperor that she assented
+      to the divorce on two conditions: first, that her own offspring should not
+      be exiled or rejected, but that they should still remain Napoleon&rsquo;s
+      adopted children, and maintain their rank and position at his court;
+      secondly, that she should be allowed to remain in France, and, if
+      possible, in the vicinity of Paris, so that, as she said with a sweet
+      smile, she might be near the emperor, and still hope in the pleasure of
+      seeing him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Napoleon&rsquo;s countenance manifested violent agitation when Eugene
+      communicated to him his mother&rsquo;s conditions; for a long time he paced the
+      room to and fro, his hands behind his back, and unable to gather strength
+      enough to return an answer. Then, with a trembling voice, he said that he
+      not only granted all these conditions, but that they corresponded entirely
+      with the wishes of his heart, and that he would add to them a third
+      condition, namely, that Josephine should still be honored and treated by
+      him and by the world as empress, and that she should still be surrounded
+      with all the honors belonging to that rank.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was yet wanting, for the full offering of the sacrifice, the public
+      and solemn act of divorcement; but before that could take place it was
+      necessary to make the requisite preparations, to arrange the future
+      household of the divorced empress, and to prepare every thing for
+      Josephine&rsquo;s reception in Malmaison, whither she desired to retire from the
+      world. The mournful solemnity was put off until the 15th of December, and
+      until then Josephine, according to the rules of etiquette, was to appear
+      before the world as the ruling empress, the wife of Napoleon. Twice it was
+      necessary to perform the painful duty of appearing publicly in all the
+      pomp of her imperial dignity, and to wear the heavy burden of that crown
+      which already had fallen from her head. On the morning of the 3d of
+      December she had to be present at the chanting of the Te Deum in Notre
+      Dame, in thanksgiving for the peace of Vienna, and to appear at the ball
+      which the city of Paris that same evening gave to the emperor and empress.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This ball was the last festivity which Josephine attended as empress, but
+      even then she received not all the honors which were due to her as such.
+      Napoleon himself had given orders that the ladies of Paris, gathered in
+      the Hotel de Ville, with the wife of the governor of the capital, and the
+      Duchess d&rsquo;Abrantes at their head, should not, as usual, meet the empress
+      at the foot of the stairs, but that they should quietly await her approach
+      in the throne-room, while the marshal of ceremonies would alone accompany
+      her up the stairs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Duchess d&rsquo;Abrantes, deeply affected by this order of the emperor,
+      which at once revealed the sad secret of the approaching future, had
+      reluctantly to submit to this arrangement, which so cruelly broke the
+      established etiquette. She has herself, in her memoirs, given full
+      particulars of this evening, and her words are so touching and so full of
+      sentiment that we cannot refuse to make them known here:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We, therefore,&rdquo; says she, [Footnote: Abrantes, &ldquo;Memoires.&rdquo; vol. xii., p.
+      289.] &ldquo;ascended the throne-room, and were no sooner seated, than the drums
+      began to beat, and the empress entered. I shall never forget that figure,
+      in the costume which so marvellously suited her... never will this gentle
+      face, now wrapped in mourning crape, fade away from my memory. It was
+      evident that she was not prepared for the solitude which she had found on
+      the grand staircase; and yet Junot, in spite of the risk of being blamed
+      by the emperor, went to receive her, and he had even managed that the
+      empress should meet on the stairs a few ladies who, it is true, did not
+      very well know how they came and what they had to do there. The empress,
+      however, was not deceived; as she entered the grand hall and approached
+      the throne on which, in the presence of the public of the capital, she was
+      to sit probably for the last time....her feet trembled and her eyes filled
+      with tears. ....I tried to catch her eyes; I would willingly have sunk at
+      her feet and told her how much I suffered....She understood me, and looked
+      at me with the most agonizing gaze which perhaps was ever in her eyes
+      since that now blighted crown had been placed on her head. That look spoke
+      of agony&mdash;it revealed depths of sorrow!... What must she have
+      suffered on this awful day!....She felt wretched, dying, and yet she
+      smiled! Oh, what a torture was that crown!... Junot stood by her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;You were not afraid of Jupiter&rsquo;s wrath,&rsquo; said I to him afterward.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;No,&rsquo; said he, with a gloomy look, &lsquo;no, I fear him not, when he is
+      wrong....&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The drums beat a second time; they announced the emperor&rsquo;s approach.... A
+      few minutes after he came in, walking rapidly, and accompanied by the
+      Queen of Naples and the King of Westphalia. The heat was extraordinary,
+      though it was cold out of doors. The Queen of Naples, whose gracious,
+      charming smile seemed to demand from the Parisians the salutation,
+      &lsquo;Welcome to Paris,&rsquo; spoke to every one, and with the expression of
+      uncommon goodness. Napoleon, also, who wished to appear friendly, walked
+      up and down the room, talking and questioning, followed by Berthier, who
+      fairly skipped at his side, fulfilling more the duties of a chamberlain
+      than those of a connetable. A trifling circumstance in reference to
+      Berthier struck me. The emperor, who for some time had been seated on his
+      arm-chair near the empress, descended the steps of the throne to go once
+      more around the hall; at the moment he rose I saw him bend down toward the
+      empress, probably to tell her that she was to accompany him. He rose up
+      first; Berthier, who had stood behind him, rushed on to follow his master;
+      the empress was already standing up, when his feet caught in the train of
+      her mantle, and he nearly fell down, causing the empress almost to fall.
+      However, he disentangled himself, and, without one word of excuse to the
+      empress, he followed the emperor. Certainly Berthier had not the intention
+      to be wanting in respect to the empress; but he knew the secret&mdash;he
+      knew the whole drama soon to be performed.... and assuredly he would not
+      have so acted one year ago as he did to-day..... The empress had remained
+      standing with a marvellous dignity; she smiled as if the accident was the
+      result of mere awkward-ness.... but her eyes were full of tears, and her
+      lips trembled....&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At last the 15th of December had come; the day on which Josephine was to
+      endure the most cruel agony of her life, the day on which she was solemnly
+      to descend from the throne and bid farewell to her whole brilliant past,
+      and commence a despised, lonely, gloomy future.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the large cabinet of ceremonies were gathered on this day, at noon, the
+      emperor, the Empress Josephine, the emperor&rsquo;s mother, the King and Queen
+      of Holland, the King and Queen of Westphalia, the King and Queen of
+      Naples, the Vice-king Eugene, the Princess Pauline Borghese, the
+      high-chancellor Cambaceres, and the secretary of civil affairs, St. Jean
+      d&rsquo;Angely. Josephine was pale and trembling; her children were agitated,
+      and hiding their tears under an appearance of quietude, so as to instil
+      courage into their mother.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Napoleon, standing upright, his hand in that of the empress, read with
+      tremulous voice:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My cousin, prince state-chancellor, I have dispatched you an order to
+      summon you hither into my cabinet for the purpose of communicating to you
+      the resolution which I and the empress, my much-beloved wife, have taken.
+      I am rejoiced that the kings, queens, and princesses, my brothers and
+      sisters, my brothers-in-law and sisters-in-law, my daughter-in-law and my
+      son-in-law, who also is my adopted son, as well as my mother, are here
+      present to hear what I have to say.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The policy of my empire, the interest and wants of my people, direct all
+      my actions, and now demand that I should leave children heirs of the love
+      I have for my people, and heirs of this throne to which Providence has
+      exalted me. However, for many years past, I have lost the hope of having
+      children through the marriage of my beloved wife, the Empress Josephine;
+      and this obliges me to sacrifice the sweetest inclinations of my heart, so
+      as to consult only the welfare of the state, and for that cause to desire
+      the dissolution of my marriage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Already advanced to my fortieth year, I still may hope to live long
+      enough to bring up in my sentiments and thoughts the children whom it may
+      please Providence to give me. God knows how much this resolution has cost
+      my heart; but there is no sacrifice too great for my courage if it can be
+      shown to me that such a sacrifice is necessary to the welfare of France.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is necessary for me to add that, far from having any cause of
+      complaint, I have, contrariwise, but to praise the devotedness and
+      affection of my much-beloved wife; she has embellished fifteen years of my
+      life; the remembrance of these years will therefore ever remain engraven
+      on my heart. She has been crowned at my hands; it is my will that she
+      retain the rank and title of empress, and especially that she never doubt
+      my sentiments, and that she ever hold me as her best and dearest friend.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      When he came to the words &ldquo;she has embellished fifteen years of my life,&rdquo;
+       tears started to Napoleon&rsquo;s eyes, and, with a voice trembling through
+      emotion, he read the concluding words.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was now Josephine&rsquo;s turn. She began to read the paper which had been
+      prepared for her:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;With the permission of our mighty and dear husband, I must declare that,
+      whereas I can no longer cherish the hope of having children to meet the
+      wants of his policy and the wants of France, I am ready to give the
+      highest proof of affection and devotedness which was ever given upon
+      earth....&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Josephine could proceed no further; sobs choked her voice. She tried to
+      continue, but her trembling lips could no more utter a word. She handed to
+      Count St. Jean d&rsquo;Angely the paper, who, with tremulous voice, read as
+      follows:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have obtained every thing from his goodness; his hand has crowned me,
+      and on the exaltation of this throne I have received only proofs of the
+      sympathy and love of the French people.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I believe it is but manifesting my gratitude for these sentiments when I
+      consent to the dissolution of a marriage which is an obstacle to the
+      welfare of France, since it deprives her of the happiness of being one day
+      ruled by the posterity of a great man, whom Providence has so manifestly
+      favored, as through him to bring to an end the horrors of a terrible
+      revolution, and to re-establish the altar, the throne, and social order.
+      The dissolution of my marriage will not, however, alter the sentiments of
+      my heart; the emperor will always find in me his most devoted friend. I
+      know how much this action, made incumbent upon him by policy and by the
+      great interests in view, has troubled his heart; but we, the one and the
+      other, are proud of the sacrifice which we offer to the welfare of our
+      country.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      When he had finished, Napoleon, visibly affected, embraced Josephine, took
+      her hand, and led her back to her apartments, where he soon left her
+      insensible in the arms of her children. [Footnote: Thiers, &ldquo;Histoire du
+      Consulat,&rdquo; etc., vol. xi., p. 349.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Napoleon himself, sad and silent, returned to his cabinet, where, in a
+      state of complete exhaustion, he fell into an easy-chair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the evening of the same day he again visited Josephine, to pass a few
+      hours with her in quiet, undisturbed communion; to speak in tenderness and
+      love of the future, to weep with her, and, full of deepest emotion and
+      sincerity, to assure her of his undying gratitude for the past, and of his
+      abiding friendship for the future.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Josephine passed the night in tears, struggling with her heart, sometimes
+      breaking into bitter complaints and reproaches, which she immediately
+      repressed with that gentleness and mildness so much her own, and with that
+      love which never for a moment departed from her breast.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There remained yet to perform the last, the most painful scene of this
+      great, tearful drama. Josephine had to leave the Tuileries; she had
+      forever to retire from the place which she so long had occupied at her
+      husband&rsquo;s side; she had to descend into the open grave of her mournful
+      abandonment; as a widow, to part with the corpse of her love and of the
+      past, and to put on mourning apparel for a husband who was not yet dead,
+      but who only rejected her to give his hand and his heart to another woman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The next day at two o&rsquo;clock, the moment had come for Josephine to leave
+      the Tuileries, to make room for the yet unknown wife of the future.
+      Napoleon wanted to leave Paris at the same moment, and pass a few days of
+      quiet and solitude in Trianon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The carriages of the emperor and empress were both ready; the last
+      farewell of husband and wife, now to part forever, had yet to be said. M.
+      de Meneval, who was the sole witness of those sad moments, gives of them a
+      most affecting description, which bears upon its face the merit of truth
+      and impartiality.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When it was announced to the emperor that the carriage was ready, he
+      stood up, took his hat, and said: &lsquo;Meneval, come with me.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I followed him through the narrow winding stairs which led from his room
+      into that of the empress. She was alone, and seemed absorbed in the
+      saddest thoughts, At the noise we made in entering she rose up and eagerly
+      threw herself, sobbing, upon the neck of the emperor, who drew her to his
+      breast and embraced her several times; but Josephine, overcome by
+      excitement, had fainted. I hastened to ring for assistance. The emperor,
+      to avoid the renewal of a painful scene, which it was not in his power to
+      prevent, placed the empress in my arms as soon as he perceived her senses
+      return, and ordered me not to leave her, and then he hurried away through
+      the halls of the first story, at whose gate his carriage was waiting.
+      Josephine became immediately conscious of the emperor&rsquo;s absence; her tears
+      and sobs redoubled. Her women, who had now entered, laid her on a sofa,
+      and busied themselves with tender solicitude to bring her relief. In her
+      bewilderment she had seized my hands, and urgently entreated me to tell
+      the emperor not to forget her, and to assure him of her devotedness, which
+      would outlast every trial. I had to promise her that at my arrival in
+      Trianon I would wait upon the emperor and see that he would write to her.
+      It caused her pain to see me leave, as if my departure tore away the last
+      bond which united her to the emperor. I left her, deeply affected by so
+      true a sorrow and by so sincere a devotion. During the whole journey I was
+      deeply moved, and could not but bewail the merciless political
+      considerations which tore violently apart the bonds of so faithful an
+      affection for the sake of contracting a new union, which, after all,
+      contained but uncertain chances.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In Trianon I told the emperor all that had happened since his departure,
+      and I conveyed to him the message intrusted to me by the empress. The
+      emperor was still suffering from the emotions caused by this farewell
+      scene. He spoke warmly of Josephine&rsquo;s qualities, of the depth and
+      sincerity of the sentiments she cherished for him; he looked upon her as a
+      devoted friend, and, in fact, he has ever maintained for her a heart-felt
+      affection. The very same evening he sent her a letter to console her in
+      her solitude. When he learned that she was sad and wept much, he wrote to
+      her again, complained tenderly of her want of courage, and told her how
+      deeply this troubled him.&rdquo; [Footnote: Meneval, &ldquo;Napoleon et Marie Louise.&mdash;Souvenirs
+      Historiques,&rdquo; vol. i., pp. 230-232.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is true Josephine&rsquo;s sorrow was bitter, and the first night of solitude
+      in Malmaison was especially distressing and horrible. But even in these
+      hours of painful struggle the empress maintained her gentleness and
+      mildness of character. Mademoiselle d&rsquo;Avrillon, one of the ladies in
+      waiting, has given her testimony to that effect:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was with the empress during the greater part of the night,&rdquo; writes she;
+      &ldquo;sleep was impossible, and time passed away in conversation. The empress
+      was moved to the very depth of her heart; it is true, she complained of
+      her fate, but in expressions so gentle, in so resigned a manner, that
+      tears would come to her eyes. There was no bitterness in her words, not
+      even during this first night when the blow which destroyed her, had fallen
+      upon her; she spoke of the emperor with the same love, with the same
+      respect, as she had always done. Her grief was most acute: she suffered as
+      a wife, as a mother, and with all the wounded sensitiveness of a woman,
+      but she endured her affliction with courage, and remained unchanged in
+      gentleness, love, and goodness.&rdquo; [Footnote: Avrillon, &ldquo;Memoires,&rdquo; vol.
+      ii., p. 166.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0043" id="link2HCH0043"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XLIII. THE DIVORCED.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Josephine had accepted her fate, and, descending from the imperial throne
+      whose ornament she had long been, retired into the solitude and quietness
+      of private life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the love and admiration of the French nation followed the empress to
+      Malmaison, where she had retreated from the world, and where the regard
+      and friendship, if not the love of Napoleon himself, endeavored to
+      alleviate the sufferings of her solitude. During the first days after her
+      divorce, the road from Paris to Malmaison presented as animated a scene of
+      equipages as in days gone by, when the emperor resided there with his
+      wife. All those whose position justified it, hastened to Malmaison to pay
+      their respects to Josephine, and through the expressions of their sympathy
+      to soften the asperities of her sorrow. Doubtless many came also through
+      curiosity, to observe how the empress, once so much honored, endured the
+      humiliation of her present situation. Others, believing they would exhibit
+      their devotedness to the emperor if they should follow their master&rsquo;s
+      example, abandoned the empress, as he had done, and took no further notice
+      of her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the emperor soon undeceived the latter, manifesting his
+      dissatisfaction by his cold demeanor and repelling indifference toward
+      them, whilst he loudly praised all those who had exercised their gratitude
+      by visiting Malmaison, and in expressing their devotedness to the empress.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He himself went beyond his whole court in showing attention and respect to
+      Josephine. The very next day after their separation, the emperor went to
+      Malmaison to visit her, and to take with her a long walk through the park.
+      During the following days he came again, and once invited her and the
+      ladies of her new court to a dinner in Trianon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Josephine might have imagined that nothing had been altered in her
+      situation, and that she was still Napoleon&rsquo;s wife. But there were wanting
+      in their intercourse those little, inexpressible shades of confidence
+      which her exquisite tact and her instinctive feelings felt yet more deeply
+      than the more important and visible changes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Napoleon came or went, he no longer embraced her, but merely pressed
+      her hand in a friendly manner, and often called her &ldquo;madame&rdquo; and &ldquo;you;&rdquo; he
+      was more formal, more polite to her than he had ever been before.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And then his daily visits ceased; in their place came his letters, it is
+      true, but they were only the letters of a friend, who tried to comfort her
+      in her misfortune, but took no sympathetic interest in her distress.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Soon these letters became more rare, and when they did come they were
+      shorter. The emperor had to busy himself with other matters than with the
+      solitary, rejected woman in Malmaison; he had now to occupy his thoughts
+      with his young and beautiful bride&mdash;with Maria Louisa, the daughter
+      of the Emperor of Austria, who was soon to enter Paris as the wife of
+      Napoleon, the Emperor of France.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bitter and painful indeed were those first days of resignation for
+      Josephine; harsh and unsparing were the conflicts she had to fight with
+      her own heart, before its wounds could be closed, and its pains and its
+      humiliations cease to torment her!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Josephine had a brave heart, a strong will, and a resolute
+      determination to control herself. She conquered herself into rest and
+      resignation; she did not wish that the emperor, the happy bridegroom,
+      should ever hear of her red, weeping eyes, of her lamentations and sighs;
+      she did not wish that, in the golden cup which the husband of the
+      emperor&rsquo;s young daughter was drinking in the full joyousness of a
+      conqueror, her tears should commingle therein as drops of gall.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She controlled herself so far as to be able with smiling calmness to have
+      related to her how Paris was celebrating the new marriage festivities, how
+      the new Empress of the French was everywhere received with enthusiasm. She
+      was even able to inquire, with an expression of friendly sympathy, after
+      Maria Louisa, the young wife of sixteen, who had taken the place of the
+      woman of forty-eight, and from whom Josephine, in the sincerity of her
+      love, required but one thing, namely, to make Napoleon happy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When she was told that Napoleon loved Maria Louisa with all the passion of
+      a fiery lover, Josephine conquered herself so as to smile and thank God
+      that she had accepted her sacrifice and thus secured Napoleon&rsquo;s happiness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the emperor, however much he might be enamored of his young wife,
+      never forgot the bride of the past, the beloved one of his youth, of whom
+      he had been not only captivated, but whom he had loved from the very
+      depths of his soul. He surrounded her, though from a distance, with
+      attentions and tokens of affection; he would often write to her; and at
+      times, when his heart was burdened and full of cares, he would come to
+      Malmaison, and visit this woman who understood how to read in his face the
+      thoughts of his heart, this woman whose soft, gracious, and amiable
+      disposition&mdash;even as a tranquillizing and invigorating breeze after a
+      sultry day&mdash;could quiet his excited soul; to this woman he came for
+      refreshment, for a little repose, and sweet communion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is true those visits of the emperor to his divorced wife were made
+      secretly and privately, for his second wife was jealous of the affection
+      which Napoleon still retained for Josephine; she listened with gloomy
+      attention to the descriptions which were made to her of the amiableness,
+      of the unwithered beauty of Josephine; and one day, after hearing that the
+      emperor had visited her in Malmaison, Maria Louisa broke out into tears,
+      and complained bitterly of this mortification caused by her husband.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      By the emperor&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Napoleon, agitated and vexed at having been surprised, advanced with
+      imperious mien toward the renowned maestro, who was quietly approaching
+      him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What are you doing here, sir?&rdquo; cried Napoleon, with choleric impatience.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Spontini, however, returned the emperor&rsquo;s haughty look, and, measuring him
+      with a deep, flaming glance, asked, With a lofty assurance: &ldquo;Sire, what
+      are you doing here?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The emperor answered not&mdash;a terrible glance fell upon the bold
+      maestro, without, however, annihilating him: then Napoleon entered into
+      Josephine&rsquo;s cabinet, and Spontini walked away slowly and with uplifted
+      head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Spontini, the famous composer of the &ldquo;Vestals,&rdquo; 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&rsquo;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 &ldquo;Vestals,&rdquo; which the empress so much liked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;s
+      ingratitude. [Footnote: Memoires sur l&rsquo;Imperatrice Josephine,&rdquo; par Mlle.
+      Ducrest,&rdquo; vol. i., p. 287.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Josephine&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But when Eugene repeated the words of Napoleon&rsquo;s message which he sent
+      through him to Josephine, her countenance was illumined with joy and
+      satisfaction, and tears started from her eyes&mdash;tears of purest joy,
+      of most sacred love!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Napoleon had said: &ldquo;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&mdash;I
+      will write to Josephine.&rdquo; [Footnote: Ducrest, vol. i., p. 236.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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: &ldquo;This
+      child, in concert with our Eugene, will secure the happiness of France,
+      and mine also.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      These last words were to Josephine full of delight. &ldquo;Is it, then,
+      possible,&rdquo; exclaimed she, joyously, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+       [Footnote: Ducrest, vol. i., p. 238.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One intense, craving wish did Josephine cherish during all these years&mdash;she
+      longed to see Napoleon&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Finally Napoleon granted her desire. Privately, and in all secrecy, for
+      Maria Louisa&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have you, 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?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;Why,&rsquo; exclaimed he, in his own way, &lsquo;why, since papa and I wish it?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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: &lsquo;When once fear has been
+      instilled, one must not by arbitrariness, but through strict impartiality,
+      strive to be loved.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I had with him a conversation which establishes the deep sensitiveness of
+      his heart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He was delighted with my charivari, and then he said to me:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;Ah, how beautiful that is! but if it were given to a poor man he would
+      be rich, would he not, madame?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;Certainly he would,&rsquo; I replied. &ldquo;&lsquo;Well, then,&rsquo; said he, &lsquo;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.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;The emperor,&rsquo; I replied, &lsquo;will find a pleasure in gratifying your
+      wishes. Why does not your imperial highness ask him for his purse?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;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.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;Oh, then, madame,&rsquo; replied he, &lsquo;be not alarmed, I will say nothing, for
+      I love you; promise me, however, if I am obedient, to come soon and visit
+      me.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah! I assured him, that I desired this more than he did himself, and I
+      have never spoken more truly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;JOSEPHINE.&rdquo; [Footnote: Ducrest, &ldquo;Memoires,&rdquo; vol. iii., p. 294.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0044" id="link2HCH0044"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XLIV. DEATH.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The conflicts, battles, and endless victories of the constantly defeated
+      Austrians, Prussians, Russians, and English, belong to history&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Such were the questions which afflicted Josephine&rsquo;s heart, and to which
+      the news, finally re-echoed through Paris, gave her the fearful response.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The deputies of the senate and Napoleon&rsquo;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&mdash;name, position,
+      fortune, and rank&mdash;had now the courage to approach him with lofty
+      demeanor and to request of him to depart into exile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 he
+      would regain his glory and his emperor&rsquo;s crown.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Amid the agonies, cares, and humiliations of his present situation,
+      Napoleon thought of the woman whom he had once named the &ldquo;angel of his
+      happiness,&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Does the emperor live?&rdquo; cried she, as he approached. &ldquo;Only answer me
+      this: does the emperor live?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then, when she had received this assurance, after reading Napoleon&rsquo;s
+      letter, and learning all the sad, humiliating news, pale, and trembling in
+      all her limbs, she hastened to her daughter Hortense.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, Hortense,&rdquo; exclaimed she, overcome and falling into an arm-chair near
+      her daughter&rsquo;s bed, &ldquo;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?&rdquo; [Footnote: Mlle. Cochelet, &ldquo;Memoires,&rdquo;
+       vol. ii.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 &ldquo;to respect the rights of another.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;s blood.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But she dared not! she submitted faithfully and devotedly to Napoleon&rsquo;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!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Josephine, therefore, left the castle of Navarra for that of Malmaison,
+      thus fulfilling the wishes of the Emperor Alexander, who desired to know
+      Josephine&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But her heart was mortally wounded. &ldquo;I cannot overcome the fearful sadness
+      which has seized me,&rdquo; said she to Mlle. Cochelet, the friend of her
+      daughter Hortense; &ldquo;I do all I can to hide my cares from my children, but
+      I suffer only the more.&rdquo; [Footnote: Mlle. Cochelet. &ldquo;Memoires,&rdquo; vol. ii.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will see,&rdquo; said she to the Duchess d&rsquo;Abrantes, who had visited her at
+      Malmaison, &ldquo;you will see that Napoleon&rsquo;s misfortune will cause my death.
+      My heart is broken&mdash;it will not be healed.&rdquo; [Footnote: Abrantes,
+      &ldquo;Memoires,&rdquo; vol. xvii.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was right, her heart was broken, it would not be healed! It seemed at
+      first but merely an indisposition which seized the empress, and which
+      obliged her to decline the announced visit of the Emperor Alexander,
+      nothing but a slight inflammation of the neck, accompanied by a little
+      fever. But the disease increased hour after hour. On the 27th of May,
+      Josephine was obliged to keep her bed; on the 29th her sufferings in the
+      neck were so serious that she nearly suffocated, and her fever had become
+      so intense that she had but few moments of consciousness. In her fancy she
+      often called aloud for Napoleon, and the last word which her dying lips
+      uttered was his name.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Josephine died on the 29th of May, 1814. That love which had illumined her
+      life occasioned her death, and will sanctify her name for ever as with a
+      saintly halo.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was buried on the 2d of June in the church at Rueil. It was a solemn
+      funeral procession, to which all the kings and princes assembled in Paris
+      sent their substitutes in their carriages; but the most beautiful mourning
+      procession which followed her to the grave were the tears, the sighs of
+      the poor, the suffering of the unfortunate, for all whom Josephine had
+      been a benefactress, a good angel, and who lost in her a comforter, a
+      mother.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the church of Rueil, Eugene and Hortense erected a monument to their
+      mother; and when in 1837 Queen Hortense, the mother of the Emperor
+      Napoleon III., died at Arenenberg, her corpse was, according to her last
+      wishes, brought to Rueil and laid at her mother&rsquo;s side. Her son erected
+      there a monument to her; and this son, the grandchild of Josephine, is now
+      the Emperor of the French, Napoleon III. Josephine&rsquo;s sacrifice has been in
+      vain. Napoleon&rsquo;s dynasty, for whose sake she sacrificed happiness, love,
+      and a crown, has not been perpetuated through the woman to whom Josephine
+      was sacrificed&mdash;not through Maria Louisa, who gave to France and to
+      the emperor a son, but through the daughter of Josephine, who gave to
+      Napoleon more than a son, her love, her heart, and her life!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Providence is just! Upon the throne from which the childless empress was
+      rejected, sits now the grandchild of Josephine, and his very existence
+      demonstrates how vain are all man&rsquo;s calculations and desires, and how like
+      withered leaves they are carried away and tossed about by the breath of
+      destiny!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was not the emperor&rsquo;s daughter who perpetuated Napoleon&rsquo;s dynasty, but
+      the widow of General Beauharnais, Josephine Tascher de la Pagerie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Josephine, therefore, is avenged in history; she was also avenged in
+      Napoleon&rsquo;s heart, for he bitterly lamented that he had ever been separated
+      from her. &ldquo;I ought not to have allowed myself to be separated from
+      Josephine,&rdquo; said he, a short time before his death in St. Helena, &ldquo;no, I
+      ought not to have been divorced from her; that was my misfortune!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <h3>
+      THE END
+    </h3>
+    <div style="height: 6em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg&rsquo;s The Empress Josephine, by Louise Muhlbach
+
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+</html>
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Empress Josephine, by Louise Muhlbach
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Empress Josephine
+
+Author: Louise Muhlbach
+
+Translator: W. Binet
+
+
+Release Date: July, 2003 [Etext# 4226]
+This file was first posted on December 8, 2001
+Last updated: May 3, 2013
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE EMPRESS JOSEPHINE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE EMPRESS JOSEPHINE
+
+AN HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE DAYS OF NAPOLEON
+
+By Louise Muhlbach
+
+Author Of: Daughter Of An Empress, Marie Antoinette, Joseph II and His
+Court, Frederick The Great and His Family, Berlin And Sans-Souci, Etc.
+
+
+Translated from the German by Rev. W. Binet, A M.
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+BOOK I.
+
+THE VISCOUNTESS BEAUHARNAIS.
+
+       I.  Introduction
+      II.  The Young Maid
+     III.  The Betrothal
+      IV.  The Young Bonaparte
+       V.  The Unhappy Marriage
+      VI.  Trianon and Marie Antoinette
+     VII.  Lieutenant Napoleon Bonaparte
+    VIII.  A Page from History
+      IX.  Josephine's Return
+       X.  The Days of the Revolution
+      XI.  The 10th of August and the Letter of Napoleon Bonaparte
+     XII.  The Execution of the Queen
+    XIII.  The Arrest
+     XIV.  In Prison
+      XV.  Deliverance
+
+BOOK II.
+
+THE WIFE OF GENERAL BONAPARTE.
+
+     XVI.  Bonaparte in Corsica
+    XVII.  Napoleon Bonaparte before Toulon
+   XVIII.  Bonaparte's Imprisonment
+     XIX.  The 13th Vendemiaire
+      XX.  The Widow Josephine Beauharnais
+     XXI.  The New Paris
+    XXII.  The First Interview
+   XXIII.  Marriage
+    XXIV.  Bonaparte's Love-Letters
+     XXV.  Josephine in Italy
+    XXVI.  Bonaparte and Josephine in Milan
+   XXVII.  The Court of Montebello
+  XXVIII.  The Peace of Campo Formio
+    XXIX.  Days of Triumph
+
+BOOK III.
+
+THE EMPRESS AND THE DIVORCED.
+
+     XXX.  Plombieres and Malmaison
+    XXXI.  The First Faithlessness
+   XXXII.  The 18th Brumaire
+  XXXIII.  The Tuileries
+   XXXIV.  The Infernal Machine
+    XXXV.  The Cashmeres and the Letter
+   XXXVI.  Malmaison
+  XXXVII.  Flowers and Music
+ XXXVIII.  Prelude to the Empire
+   XXXIX.  The Pope in Paris
+      XL.  The Coronation
+     XLI.  Days of Happiness
+    XLII.  Divorce
+   XLIII.  The Divorced
+    XLIV.  Death
+
+
+
+
+BOOK I. THE VISCOUNTESS BEAUHARNAIS.
+
+
+CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION.
+
+
+"I win the battles, Josephine wins me the hearts." These words of
+Napoleon are the most beautiful epitaph of the Empress Josephine, the
+much-loved, the much-regretted, and the much-slandered one. Even while
+Napoleon won battles, while with lofty pride he placed his foot on the
+neck of the conquered, took away from princes their crowns, and from
+nations their liberty--while Europe trembling bowed before him, and
+despite her admiration cursed him--while hatred heaved up the hearts of
+all nations against him--even then none could refuse admiration to the
+tender, lovely woman who, with the gracious smile of goodness, walked
+at his side; none could refuse love to the wife of the conqueror, whose
+countenance of brass received light and lustre from the beautiful eyes
+of Josephine, as Memnon's statue from the rays of the sun.
+
+She was not beautiful according to those high and exalted rules of
+beauty which we admire in the statues of the gods of old, but her whole
+being was surrounded with such a charm, goodness, and grace, that the
+rules of beauty were forgotten. Josephine's beauty was believed in,
+and the heart was ravished by the spell of such a gracious, womanly
+apparition. Goethe's words, which the Princess Eleonore utters in
+reference to Antonio, were not applicable to Josephine:
+
+"All the gods have with one consent brought gifts to his cradle, but,
+alas! the Graces have remained absent, and where the gifts of these
+lovely ones fail, though much was given and much received, yet on such a
+bosom is no resting-place."
+
+No, the Graces were not absent from the cradle of Josephine; they, more
+than all the other gods, had brought their gifts to Josephine. They had
+encircled her with the girdle of gracefulness, they had imparted to her
+look, to her smile, to her figure, attraction and charm, and given
+her that beauty which is greater and more enduring than that of youth,
+namely loveliness, that only real beauty. Josephine possessed the beauty
+of grace, and this quality remained when youth, happiness, and grandeur,
+had deserted her. This beauty of grace struck the Emperor Alexander as
+he came to Malmaison to salute the dethroned empress. He had entered
+Paris in triumph, and laid his foot on the neck of him whom he once had
+called his friend, yet before the divorced wife of the dethroned emperor
+the czar, full of admiration and respect, bowed his head and made her
+homage as to a queen; for, though she was dethroned, on her head shone
+the crown in imperishable beauty and glory, the crown of loveliness, of
+faithfulness, and of womanhood.
+
+She was not witty in the special sense of a so-called "witty woman."
+She composed no verses, she wrote no philosophical dissertations, she
+painted not, she was no politician, she was no practising artist, but
+she possessed the deep and fine intuition of all that which is beautiful
+and noble: she was the protectress of the arts and sciences. She knew
+that disciples were not wanting to the arts, but that often a Maecenas
+is needed. She left it to her cousin, the Countess Fanny Beauharnais, to
+be called an artist; hers was a loftier destiny, and she fulfilled that
+destiny through her whole life--she was a Maecenas, the protectress of
+the arts and sciences.
+
+As Hamlet says of his father, "He was a man, take him for all in all, I
+shall not look upon his like again;" thus Josephine's fame consists not
+that she was a princess, an empress anointed by the hands of the pope
+himself, but that she was a noble and true wife, loving yet more than
+she was loved, entirely given up in unswerving loyalty to him who
+rejected her; languishing for very sorrow on account of his misfortune,
+and dying for very grief as vanished away the star of his happiness.
+Thousands in her place, rejected, forgotten, cast away, as she
+was--thousands would have rejoiced in the righteousness of the fate
+which struck and threw in the dust the man who, for earthly grandeur,
+had abandoned the beloved one and disowned her love. Josephine wept over
+him, lamented over his calamities, and had but a wish to be allowed to
+share them with him. Josephine died broken-hearted--the misfortunes of
+her beloved, who no more loved her, the misfortunes of Napoleon, broke
+her heart.
+
+She was a woman, "take her for all in all"--a noble, a beautiful woman,
+a loving woman, and such as belongs to no peculiar class, to no peculiar
+nation, to no peculiar special history; she belongs to the world, to
+humanity, to universal history. In the presence of such an apparition
+all national hatred is silent, all differences of political opinion are
+silent. Like a great, powerful drama drawn from the universal history of
+man and represented before our eyes, so her life passes before us; and
+surprised, wondering, we gaze on, indifferent whether the heroine of
+such a tragedy be Creole, French, or to what nation she may owe her
+birth. She belongs to the world, to history, and if we Germans have no
+love for the Emperor Napoleon, the tyrant of the world, the Caesar of
+brass who bowed the people down into the dust, and trod under foot
+their rights and liberties--if we Germans have no love for the conqueror
+Napoleon, because he won so many battles from us, yet this does not
+debar us from loving Josephine, who during her lifetime won hearts to
+Napoleon, and whose beautiful death for love's sake filled with tears
+the eyes of those whose lips knew but words of hatred and cursing
+against the emperor.
+
+To write the life of Josephine does not mean to write the life of a
+Frenchwoman, the life of the wife of the man who brought over Germany
+so much adversity, shame, and suffering, but it means to write a woman's
+life which, as a fated tragedy or like a mighty picture, rises before
+our vision. It is to unfold a portion of the world's history before our
+eyes--and the world's history is there for our common instruction and
+progress, for our enlightenment and encouragement.
+
+I am not afraid, therefore, of being accused of lacking patriotism,
+because I have undertaken to write the life of a woman who is not a
+German, who was the wife of Germany's greatest enemy and oppressor. It
+is, indeed, a portion of the universal drama which is unfolded in the
+life of this woman, and amid so much blood, so much dishonor, so many
+tears, so much humiliation, so much pride, arrogance, and treachery, of
+this renowned period of the world's history, shines forth the figure
+of Josephine as the bright star of womanhood, of love, of
+faithfulness--stars need no birthright, no nationality, they belong to
+all lands and nations.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II. THE YOUNG MAID.
+
+
+On the 23d of July, 1763, to the Chevalier Tascher de la Pagerie,
+ex-lieutenant of the royal troops, a resident of the insignificant
+spot of the Trois Islets, on the island of Martinique, was borne by his
+young, rich, and beautiful wife, a first child.
+
+The loving parents, the relatives and friends had longed for this child,
+but now that it was come, they bade it welcome without joy, and even
+over the brow of the young father hung the shadow of a cloud as he
+received the intelligence of the birth of his child. For it was a girl,
+and not the wished-for boy who was to be the inheritor of the valuable
+family-plantation, and the inheritor also of the ancient and respectable
+name of Tascher de la Pagerie.
+
+It was, however, useless to murmur against fate. What was irrevocable
+had to be accepted, and welcome made to the daughter, who, instead of
+the expected heir, would now lay claim to the rights of primogeniture.
+As an inheritance reserved for him who had not come, the daughter
+received the name which had been destined to the son. For two hundred
+years the name of Joseph had been given to the eldest son of the family
+of Tascher de la Pagerie, but now that there was none to whom the
+Chevalier, Ex-lieutenant Joseph de la Pagerie could leave his name as a
+legacy, the family had to be satisfied to give the name to his daughter,
+and consequently she received at baptism the name of Joseph Marie Rosa.
+
+There was, however, one being who gladly and willingly forgave the fault
+of her birth, and who consecrated to the daughter the same love she
+would have offered to the son. This being was the mother of the little
+Joseph Marie Rosa.
+
+"Contrary to all our wishes," writes she to her husband's sister, the
+beautiful Madame Renaudin, in Paris--"contrary to all our wishes, God
+has given me a daughter. My joy is not therefore diminished, for I look
+upon my child as a new bond which binds me still closer to your brother,
+my dear husband, and to you. Why should I have such a poor and meagre
+opinion of the female sex, that a daughter should not be welcomed by
+me? I am acquainted with many persons of our sex who concentrate in
+themselves as many good qualities as one would only with difficulty find
+in the other sex. Maternal love already blinds me and fosters in me the
+hope that my daughter may be like them, and if even I cannot enjoy
+this satisfaction, yet I am thankful to my child that by means of her
+existence I am gathering so much happiness."
+
+Indeed, extraordinary joy, since the birth of the child, reigned in the
+house of M. Tascher de la Pagerie; joy reigned all over Martinique,
+for the long war between France and England was ended, and a few months
+before the birth of little Joseph Marie Rosa, the peace which secured
+to France the possession of her maritime colonies had been signed.
+Martinique, so often attacked, bombarded, besieged by English
+ships--Martinique was again the unconditional property of France, and
+on the birthday of the little Marie Joseph Rosa the French fleet entered
+into the harbor of Port Royal, landed a French garrison for the island,
+and brought a new governor in the person of the Marquis de Fenelon, the
+nephew of the famous Bishop de Fenelon.
+
+Joyously and quietly passed away the first years of the life of the
+little Joseph, or little Josephine, as her kind parents called her. Only
+once, in the third year of her life, was Josephine's infancy troubled
+by a fright. A terrible hurricane, such as is known to exist only in the
+Antilles, broke over Martinique. The historians of that period know not
+how to depict the awful and calamitous events of this hurricane, which,
+at the same time, seemed to shake the whole earth with its convulsions.
+In Naples, in Sicily, in the Molucca Islands, volcanoes broke out in
+fearful eruptions; for three days the earth trembled in Constantinople.
+But it was over Martinique that the hurricane raged in the most
+appalling manner. In less than four hours the howling northwest' wind,
+accompanied by forked lightning, rolling thunder, heavy water-spouts,
+and tremendous earth-tremblings, had hurled down into fragments all the
+houses of the town, all the sugar-plantations, and all the negro cabins.
+Here and there the earth opened, flames darted out and spread round
+about a horrible vapor of sulphur, which suffocated human beings. Trees
+were uprooted, and the sugar and coffee plantations destroyed. The
+sea roared and upheaved, sprang from its bounds, and shivered as mere
+glass-work barks and even some of the larger ships lying in the harbor
+of Port Royal. Five hundred men perished, and a much larger number
+were severely wounded. Distress and poverty were the result of this
+astounding convulsion of nature.
+
+The estate of M. Tascher de la Pagerie was made desolate. His residence,
+his sugar-plantations, were but a heap of ruins and rubbish, and as
+a gift of Providence he looked upon the one refuge left him in his
+sugar-refinery, which was miraculously spared by the hurricane. There M.
+Tascher saved himself, with Josephine and her younger sister, and there
+his wife bore him a third child. But Heaven even now did not fulfil
+the long-cherished wishes of the parents, for it was to a daughter that
+Madame de la Pagerie gave birth. The parents were, however, weary with
+murmuring against fate, which accomplished not their wish; and so to
+prove to fate that this daughter was welcome, they named the child born
+amid the horrors of this terrific hurricane, Desiree, the Desired.
+
+Peaceful, happy years followed;--peaceful and happy, in the midst of the
+family, passed on the years of Josephine's infancy. She had every thing
+which could be procured. Beloved by her parents, by her two sisters,
+worshipped by her servants and slaves, she lived amid a beautiful,
+splendid, and sublime nature, in the very midst of wealth and affluence.
+Her father, casting away all ambition, was satisfied to cultivate his
+wide and immense domains, and to remain among his one hundred and fifty
+slaves as master and ruler, to whom unconditional and cheerful obedience
+was rendered. Her mother sought and wished for no other happiness than
+the peaceful quietude of the household joys. Her husband, her children,
+her home, constituted the world where she breathed, in which alone
+centred her thoughts, her wishes, and her hopes. To mould her daughters
+into good housekeepers and wives, and if possible to secure for them
+in due time, by means of a brilliant and advantageous marriage, a happy
+future--this was the only ambition of this gentle and virtuous woman.
+
+Above all things, it was necessary to procure to the daughters an
+education suited to the claims of high social position, and which would
+fit her daughters to act on the world's stage the part which their
+birth, their wealth, and beauty, reserved for them. The tender mother
+consented to part with her darling, with her eldest daughter; and
+Josephine, not yet twelve years old, was brought, for completing her
+education, to the convent of our Lady de la Providence in Port Royal.
+There she learned all which in the Antilles was considered necessary
+for the education of a lady of rank; there she obtained that light,
+superficial, rudimentary instruction, which was then thought sufficient
+for a woman; there she was taught to write her mother tongue with a
+certain fluency and without too many blunders; there she was instructed
+in the use of the needle, to execute artistic pieces of embroidery;
+there she learned something in arithmetic and in music; yea, so as to
+give to the wealthy daughter of M. Tascher de la Pagerie a full and
+complete education, the pious sisters of the convent consented that
+twice a week a dancing-master should come to the convent to give to
+Josephine lessons in dancing, the favorite amusement of the Creoles.
+[Footnote: "Histoire de l'Imperatrice Josephine," par Joseph Aubenas.
+vol. i., p. 36.]
+
+These dancing-lessons completed the education of Josephine, and,
+barely fifteen years old, she returned to her parents and sisters as an
+accomplished young lady, to perform the honors of the house alongside
+of her mother, to learn from her to preside with grace and ease over
+a large mansion, and above all things to be a good mistress, a
+benefactress, and a protectress to her slaves. Under her mother's
+guidance, Josephine visited the negro cabins to minister unto the sick,
+to bring comfort and nourishment to the old and to the weak, to pray
+with the dying, to take under her loving guardianship the new-born babes
+of the negro women, to instruct in the catechism the grown-up children,
+to excite them to industry, to encourage them through kindness and
+friendliness, to protect them, and to be a mediator when for some
+offence they were condemned to severe punishment.
+
+It was a wonderfully peaceful and beautiful life that of the young
+Josephine, amid a bountiful nature, in that soft, sunny clime which
+clothed her whole being with that tender, pleasing grace, that lovely
+quietude, that yielding complacency, and at the same time with that
+fiery, passionate nature of the Creoles. Ordinarily dressed only with
+the "gaule," a wide, loose garment of white muslin, falling loosely
+about the waist, where no belt gathered its folds, the beautiful head
+wrapped up in the many-colored madras, which around the temples was
+folded up into graceful knots holding together her chestnut-brown
+hair--in this dress Josephine would swing for hours in her hammock
+made of homespun silk and ornamented with borders of feathers from the
+variegated iridescent birds of Cayenne.
+
+Round about her were her young female slaves, watching with their
+brilliant dark eyes their young mistress, ever ready to read every
+wish upon that dreamy, smiling countenance, and by their swarthy tinge
+heightening the soft, tender whiteness of her own complexion.
+
+Then, wearied with the stillness and with her dreams, Josephine would
+spring up from the hammock, dart into the house with all the lightness
+of the gazelle to enliven the family with her own joyousness, her merry
+pleasantry, and accompanied by her guitar to sing unto them with her
+lovely youthful voice the songs of the Creoles. As the glowing sun
+was at its setting, away she hastened with her slaves into the garden,
+directed their labors, and with her own hands tended her own cherished
+flowers, which commingled together in admirable admixture from all
+climes under the genial skies of the Antilles. In the evening, the
+family was gathered together in the light of the moon, which imparted
+to the nights the brightness of day and streamed upon them her soft
+blue rays, upon the fragrant terrace, in front of the house, where the
+faithful slaves carefully watched the little group close one to another
+and guarded their masters from the approaches of poisonous serpents,
+that insidious progeny of the night.
+
+On Sundays after Josephine had religiously and faithfully listened to an
+early mass, she gladly attended in the evening the "barraboula" of the
+negroes, dancing their African dances in the glare of torches and to the
+monotonous sound of the tam-tam.
+
+On festivals, she assisted her mother to put all things in order, and
+to preside at the great banquets given to relatives and friends, who
+afterward were visited in their turn, and then the slaves carried their
+masters in hammocks, or else, what was far more acceptable, the young
+maidens mounted small Spanish horses, full of courage and daring,
+and whose firm, quick step made a ride to Porto Rico simply a rushing
+gallop.
+
+Amidst this dreamy, sunny, joyous existence of the young maiden gleamed
+one day, as a lightning-flash, a prophetic ray of Josephine's future
+greatness.
+
+This happened one afternoon as she was walking alone and thoughtful
+through the plantation. A group of negresses, in the centre of which was
+an old and unknown woman, attracted her attention. Josephine approached.
+It was an old negro woman from a neighboring plantation, and she
+was telling the fortune of the young negro women of M. Tascher de la
+Pagerie. No sooner did the old woman cast her eyes on Josephine than
+she seemed to shrink into one mass, whilst an expression of horror and
+wonder stole over her face. She vehemently seized the hand of the young
+maiden, examined it carefully, and then lifted up her large, astonished
+eyes with a searching expression to the face of Josephine.
+
+"You must see something very wonderful in my face and in my hand?"
+inquired Josephine, laughing.
+
+"Yes, something very wonderful," repeated the negro woman, still
+intently staring at her.
+
+"Is it a good or a bad fortune which awaits me?"
+
+The old prophetess slowly shook her head.
+
+"Who can tell," said she, gravely, "what is a good or a bad fortune
+for human beings? In your hand I see evil, but in your face
+happiness--great, lofty happiness."
+
+"Well," cried out Josephine, laughing, "you are cautious, and your
+oracle is not very clear."
+
+The old woman lifted up her eyes to heaven with a strange expression.
+
+"I dare not," said she, "express myself more clearly."
+
+"Speak on, whatever the result!" exclaimed Josephine, whose curiosity
+was excited by the very diffidence of the fortune-teller. "Say what you
+see in my future life. I wish it, I order you to do so."
+
+"Well, if you order it, I must obey," said she, with solemnity. "Listen,
+then. I read in your countenance that you are called to high destinies.
+You will soon be married. But your marriage will not be a happy one. You
+will soon be a young widow, and then--"
+
+"Well, and then?" asked Josephine, passionately, as the old woman
+hesitated and remained silent.
+
+"Well, and then you will be Queen of France--more than a queen!" shouted
+the prophetess, with a loud voice. "You will live glorious, brilliant
+days, but at the last misfortune will come and carry you to your grave
+in a day of rebellion."
+
+Afraid of the pictures which her prophetic vision had contemplated in
+the future, the old hag forced her way through the circle of negro women
+around, and rushed away through the field as fast as her feet could bear
+her on.
+
+Josephine, laughing, turned to her astonished women, who had followed
+with their eyes the flight of the prophetess, but who now directed their
+dark eyes with an expression of awe and bewilderment to their young
+mistress, of whom the fortune-teller had said she would one day be Queen
+of France. Josephine endeavored to overthrow the faith of her swarthy
+servants in the fortune-teller, and, by pointing to the ridiculous
+prophecy in reference to herself, and which predicted an impossible
+future, she tried to prove to them what a folly it was to rely on the
+words of those who made a profession of foretelling the future.
+
+But against her will the prophetic words of the old woman echoed in the
+heart of the young maiden. She could not return home to her family
+and talk, laugh, and dance, as she had been accustomed to do with her
+sisters. Followed by her slaves, she went into her garden and sank in
+a hammock, hung amid the gigantic leaves of a palm-tree, and, while the
+negro girls danced and sang round her, the young maid was dreaming about
+the future, and her beating heart asked if it were not possible that the
+prophecy of the negro woman might one day be realized.
+
+She, the daughter of M. Tascher de la Pagerie--she a future "Queen
+of France! More than a queen!" Oh, it was mere folly to think on such
+things, and to busy herself with the ludicrous prophecies of the old
+woman.
+
+And Josephine laughed at her own credulity, and the slaves sang and
+danced, and against her will the thoughts of the young maiden returned
+to the prophecy again and again.
+
+What the old fortune-teller had said, was it so very ridiculous, so
+impossible? Could not that prophecy become a reality? Was it, then, the
+first time that a daughter of the Island of Martinique had been exalted
+to grandeur and lofty honors?
+
+Josephine asked these questions to herself, as dreaming and thoughtful
+she swung in the hammock and gazed toward the horizon upon the sea,
+which, in its blue depths and brilliancy, hung there as if heaven had
+lowered itself down to earth. That sea was a pathway to France, and
+already once before had its waves wafted a daughter of the Island of
+Martinique to a throne.
+
+Thus ran the thoughts of Josephine. She thought of Franchise d'Aubigne,
+and of her wondrous story. A poor wanderer, fleeing from France to
+search for happiness beyond the seas in a foreign land, M. d'Aubigne
+had landed in Martinique with his young wife. There Franchise was born,
+there passed away the first years of her life. Once, when a child of
+three years old, she was bitten by a venomous serpent, and her life was
+saved only through the devotion of her black nurse, who sucked alike
+poison and death from the wound. Another time, as she was on a voyage
+with her parents, the vessel was in danger of being captured by a
+corsair; and a third time a powerful whirlwind carried into the waves of
+the sea the little Francoise, who was walking on the shore, but a large
+black dog, her companion and favorite, sprang after her, seized her
+dress with its teeth, and carried the child back to the shore, where
+sobbing for joy her mother received her.
+
+Fate had reserved great things for Francoise, and with all manner of
+horrors it submitted the child to probation to make of it a strong and
+noble woman.
+
+A severer blow came when her father, losing in gambling all the property
+which he had gathered in Martinique, died suddenly, leaving his family
+in poverty and want. Another blow more severe still came when on her
+return to France, whither her mother was going with her, she lost this
+last prop of her youth and childhood. Madame d'Aubigne died, and her
+body was committed to the waves; and, as a destitute orphan, Francoise
+d'Aubigne touched the soil of France.
+
+And what became of the poor orphan of the Creole of Martinique?
+
+She became the wife of a king, and nearly a queen! For Francoise
+d'Aubigne, the widow of Scarron, the governess of the children of Louis
+XIV, had caused the mother of these children, the beautiful Madame de
+Montespan, to be cast away, and she became the friend, the beloved,
+the secret spouse of the king: and the lofty Louis, who could say of
+himself, "L'etat c'est moi" he, with all the power of his will, with all
+his authority, was the humble vassal of Franchise d'Aubigne, Marquise de
+Maintenon!
+
+This was the first princess whom Martinique had given to the world!
+
+Was it not possible that the prophecies of the old negro woman could be
+realized? could not once more a daughter of the Island of Martinique be
+exalted into a princess?
+
+"You will be Queen of France!" the negress had said.
+
+No, it was mere folly to believe in such a ridiculous prophecy. The
+throne of France was now occupied. Alongside of her consort, the
+good, the well-beloved Louis XVI, the young and beautiful Queen Marie
+Antoinette, the daughter of the mighty Empress Maria Theresa, sat on the
+throne. She was young, she was beloved throughout France, and she had
+already, to the great delight of her husband and of his people, borne an
+heir to the throne of France.
+
+The throne of the lilies stood then on firm and sure foundations,
+and the prophecies of the old negress belonged only to the kingdom of
+fables. [Footnote: This prophecy, nearly as related above, was told by
+the Empress Josephine herself to her maids of honor in the castle of
+Navarra.--See "Memoires sur l'Imperatrice Josephine, la Ville, la Cour
+et les Salons de Paris sous l'Empire, par Madame Georgette Ducrest."]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III. THE BETROTHAL.
+
+
+Six months had barely elapsed since Josephine's return from the convent
+when the family Tascher de la Pagerie received from their relatives in
+Paris letters which were to be of the greatest importance for the whole
+family.
+
+The beautiful Madame de Renaudin, sister of M. Tascher de la Pagerie,
+had settled in Paris after having rid herself of an unhappy marriage
+with a man, coarse and addicted to gambling, and after having, through
+a legal separation, reobtained her freedom. She lived there in the
+closest, intimacy with the Marquis de Beauharnais, who, for many
+years, at an earlier period, had resided as governor on the Island of
+Martinique, and there had bound himself to the whole family of Tascher
+de la Pagerie by the ties of a cordial friendship. His wife, during her
+residence in Martinique, had been the most tender friend of Madame de
+Renaudin, and when the marchioness bore a second son to her husband,
+Madame de Renaudin had stood as godmother, and promised to love and
+protect the child of her friend as if she were his mother.
+
+Chance brought on the opportunity of accomplishing this promise and of
+fulfilling the oath made to God before the altar. The Marchioness de
+Beauharnais returned to France in the year 1763 with her husband and
+her two sons, but died there a short time after; and Madame de Renaudin,
+true to her oath, hastened to replace the natural guardian, the mother.
+
+Perhaps she had but followed the dictates of her heart, perhaps against
+her will a sentiment of joy had passed over her at the death of the
+poor marchioness, for, by this death, one at least of the two obstacles
+intervening between Madame de Renaudin and the Marquis de Beauharnais
+had been removed. Both married, both of the Catholic religion, death
+alone could make their hands free, and confer upon them the right of
+joining hands together for all their days.
+
+They loved one another, they had ceased long ago to make a secret of it;
+they avowed it to each other and to their dependants, for their brave,
+loyal, and noble hearts would not stoop to falsehood and deception, and
+they had the courage to acknowledge what their sentiments were.
+
+Death had then made free the hand of the Marquis de Beauharnais, but
+life held yet in bondage the hand of the Baroness de Renaudin.
+
+As long as her husband lived, she could not, though legally divorced
+from him, conscientiously think of a second marriage.
+
+But she possessed the courage and the loyalty of true love; she had seen
+and experienced enough of the world to despise its judgments, and with
+cheerful determination do what in her conscience she held to be good and
+right.
+
+Before God's altar she had promised to the deceased Marchioness de
+Beauharnais to be a mother to her son; she loved the child and she loved
+the father of this child, and, as she was now free, as she had no duties
+which might restrain her footsteps, she followed the voice of her heart
+and braved public opinion.
+
+She had purchased not far from Paris, at Noisy-le-Grand, a country
+residence, and there passed the summer with the Marquis de Beauharnais,
+with his two sons and their tutor.
+
+The marquis owned a superb hotel in Paris, in Thevenot Street, and
+there, during winter, he resided with his two sons and the Baroness de
+Renaudin, the mother, the guardian of his two orphan sons, the friend,
+the confidante, the companion of his quiet life, entirely devoted to
+study, to the arts, to the sciences, and to household pleasures.
+
+Thus the years passed away; the two sons of the Marquis de Beauharnais
+had grown up under the care of their maternal friend: they had
+been through their collegiate course, had been one year students at
+Heidelberg, had returned, had been through the drill of soldier and
+officer, a mere form which custom then imposed on young men of high
+birth; and the younger son Alexander, the godchild of the Baroness de
+Renaudin, had scarcely passed his sixteenth year when he received his
+commission as sub-lieutenant.
+
+A year afterward his elder brother married one of his cousins, the
+Countess Claude Beauharnais, and the sight of this youthful happy love
+excited envy in the heart of the young lieutenant of seventeen years,
+and awoke in him a longing for a similar blessedness. Freely and without
+reserve he communicated his wishes to his father, begged of him to
+choose him a wife, and promised to take readily and cheerfully as such
+her whom his father or his sponsor, his second mother, would select for
+him.
+
+A few months later reached Martinique the letters which, as already
+said, were to be of the utmost importance to the family of M. Tascher de
+la Pagerie.
+
+The first of these letters was from the Marquis de Beauharnais, and
+addressed to the parents of Josephine, but with a considerate and
+delicate tact the marquis had not written the letter with his own hand,
+but had dictated it to his son Alexander, so as to prove to the family
+of his friend De la Pagerie that the son was in perfect unison of
+sentiment with the father, and that the latter only expressed what the
+son desired and approved.
+
+"I cannot express," wrote the marquis, "how much satisfaction I have
+in being at this moment able to give you a proof of the inclination and
+friendship which I always have had for you. As you will perceive, this
+satisfaction is not merely on the surface.
+
+"My two sons," continues he, "are now enjoying an annual income of forty
+thousand livres. It is in your power to give me your daughter to enjoy
+this income with my son, the chevalier. The esteem and affection he
+feels for Madame de Renaudin makes him passionately desire to be united
+with her niece. I can assure you that I am only gratifying his wishes
+when I pray you to give me for him your second daughter, whose age
+corresponds at best with his. I sincerely wish that your eldest daughter
+were a few years younger, for then she would certainly have had the
+preference, the more so that she is described to me under the most
+advantageous colors. But I confess my son, who is but seventeen and a
+half years old, thinks that a young lady of fifteen is too near him
+in age. This is one of those cases in which reasonable and reflecting
+parents will accommodate themselves to circumstances."
+
+M. de Beauharnais adds that his son possesses all the qualities
+necessary to make a woman happy. At the same time he declares that, as
+regards his future daughter-in-law, he has no claims to a dowry, for
+his son already possesses an income of forty thousand livres from his
+mother's legacy, and that after his father's death he will inherit
+besides an annual income of twenty-five thousand livres. He then
+entreats M. de la Pagerie, as soon as practicable, to send his daughter
+to France, and, if possible, to bring her himself. The marquis then
+addresses himself directly to the wife of M. de la Pagerie, and repeats
+to her in nearly the same words his proposal, and endeavors also to
+excuse to her the choice of the second daughter.
+
+"The most flattering things have been told me," writes he, "of your
+eldest daughter, but my son finds her, with her fifteen years, too old
+for him. My son is worthy of becoming your son-in-law; Nature has gifted
+him with good and fine parts, and his income is sufficiently large to
+share it with a wife qualified to render him happy. Such a one I trust
+to find in your second daughter; may she resemble you, madame, and I can
+no longer doubt of my son's happiness! I feel extremely happy to see my
+long-cherished wishes satisfied! I can not express to you how great
+will be my joy to see riveted forever, by means of this union of our two
+families, the inclination and the friendship which have already so long
+chained us together. I trust that Mademoiselle de la Pagerie will not
+refuse her consent. Allow me to embrace her and already to greet her as
+my own beloved daughter." [Footnote: Aubenas, "Histoire de l'Imperatrice
+Josephine," vol. i., p. 78.]
+
+To this letter was addressed a note from Madame de Renaudin to her
+brother and to her sister-in-law. She openly acknowledges that she
+it was who desired this union, and who had brought the matter to its
+present stage, and she endeavors to meet the objection that it would
+appear strange for a young lady to undertake a long journey in search of
+a future husband, whilst it would be more expedient that the bridegroom
+should make the journey to his bride, to receive her at the hands of
+her parents, and bring her with him to a new home. But this bride of
+thirteen years must first be trained for her future destiny; she is
+not to be in the house of her future father-in-law, but in the house of
+Madame de Renaudin, her aunt, and she is there to receive the completion
+of her education and that higher culture which her parents, even with
+all the necessary means, could not give her in Martinique.
+
+"We are of opinion," she writes, "that the young people must see one
+another and please each other, before we bring this matter to a close,
+for they are both too dear to us to desire to coerce them against their
+inclination. Your daughter will find in me a true and kind mother, and
+I am sure that she will find the happiness of her future life in the
+contemplated union, for the chevalier is well qualified to make a wife
+happy. All that I can say of him exhausts by no means the praise he
+deserves. He has a pleasant countenance, an excellent figure, wit,
+genius, knowledge, and, what is more than this, all the noble qualities
+of heart and soul are united in him, and he must consequently be loved
+by all who know him."
+
+Meanwhile, before these letters reached Martinique, chance had already
+otherwise decided the fate of Mary, the second daughter of M. de la
+Pagerie. With one sentence it had destroyed all the family schemes.
+After three days of confinement to a bed of sickness, Mary had died of a
+violent fever, and when the letter, in which the Marquis de Beauharnais
+asked for her hand, reached her father, she had been buried three
+months.
+
+M. Tascher de la Pagerie hastened to announce her death to the Marquis
+and to Madame de Renaudin; and to prove to them how much he also had at
+heart a union of the two families, he offered to his son, the chevalier,
+the hand of his third daughter, the little twelve-year-old Desiree.
+Undoubtedly it would have been more gratifying to him if the choice of
+the marquis had fallen upon his eldest daughter, and he makes this known
+very clearly in his answer to Madame de Renaudin.
+
+"My eldest daughter," writes he, "Josephine, who is lately returned from
+the convent, and who has often desired me to take her to France, will,
+believe me, be somewhat sensitive at the preference given to her younger
+sisters. Josephine has a beautiful head, beautiful eyes and arms, and
+also a wonderful talent for music. During her stay in the convent I
+procured her a guitar-teacher; she has made the best of the instruction
+received, and she has a glorious voice. It is a pity she has not the
+opportunity of completing her education in France; and were I to have my
+wish, I would bring her to you instead of my other two daughters."
+
+Meanwhile the Marquis de Beauharnais, as well as his son, found that the
+youngest daughter of M. de la Pagerie was too young for their impatient
+desire to bring to a favorable issue these important family concerns,
+and that the eldest of the daughters ought to have the preference. The
+son of the marquis especially pronounced himself decidedly in favor of
+Josephine, and father and son, as well as Madame de Renaudin, turned
+imploringly to M. Tascher de la Pagerie, praying that he would bring
+them his eldest daughter.
+
+Now, for the first time, when the choice of the Beauharnais family
+had irrevocably fallen upon Josephine, now for the first time was this
+proposed marriage made known to her, and her consent asked.
+
+Josephine, whose young heart was like a blank sheet of paper, whereon
+love had as yet written no name, Josephine rejoiced at the prospect
+of accomplishing the secret wish of her maiden heart, to go to
+Paris--Paris, the burning desire of all Creoles--Paris, after all the
+narratives and descriptions, which had been made to Josephine, rose
+before the soul of the young maiden as a golden morning dream, a
+charming fairy world; and full of gratitude she already loved her future
+husband, to whom she owed the happiness of becoming acquainted with the
+city of wonders and pleasures.
+
+She therefore acquiesced without regret at being separated from
+her parents and from her sister, from the home of all her sweet
+reminiscences of youth, and joyously, in August of the year 1779, she
+embarked on board the vessel which was to take her with her father to
+France.
+
+In the middle of October they both, after a stormy passage, touched
+the soil of France and announced to their relatives their safe arrival.
+Alexandre de Beauharnais, full of impatient longings to see his unknown
+young bride, hastened to Brest to bid her and her father welcome, and to
+accompany them to Paris.
+
+The first meeting of the young couple decided their future. Josephine,
+smiling and blushing, avowed to her father that she was willing and
+ready to marry M. Alexandre Beanharnais; and, the very first day of
+his meeting with Josephine, Alexandre wrote to his father that he was
+enchanted with the choice made, and that he felt strongly convinced
+that, at the side of so charming, sweet, and lovely a being, he would
+lead a happy and sunny life.
+
+The love of the children had crowned all the schemes of the parents,
+and on the 13th of December, 1779, the marriage of the young couple took
+place. On the 13th of December, Mademoiselle Josephine Tascher de la
+Pagerie became the Viscountess Josephine de Beauharnais.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV. THE YOUNG BONAPARTE.
+
+
+In the same year, 1779, in which Josephine de la Pagerie for the first
+time left Martinique for Prance, a vessel which had sailed from Corsica
+brought to France a boy who, not only as regards Josephine's life,
+but also as regards all Europe, yea, the whole world, was to be of the
+highest importance, and who, with the iron step of fatality, was to
+walk through Europe to subvert thrones and raise up new ones; to tread
+nations in the dust, and to lift up others from the dust; to break
+tyranny's chains in which people languished, so as to impose upon them
+his own chains.
+
+This boy was Napoleon Bonaparte, the son of the advocate Charles de
+Bonaparte.
+
+From Ajaccio, the principal town of Corsica, came the ship which brought
+to France the boy, his father, and his two elder brothers. In Ajaccio
+the family of the Bonapartes had been settled for more than a century.
+There also Napoleon had passed the first years of his life, in the
+family circle with his parents, and in joyous amusements with his five
+brothers and sisters.
+
+His father, Charles de Bonaparte, belonged to one of the noble families
+of Corsica, and was one of the most influential men on the island. His
+mother, Letitia Ramolina, was well known throughout the island for her
+beauty, and the only woman who could have been her rival, for she was
+her equal in beauty, youth, and grace, was her dearest friend, the
+beautiful Panonia de Comnene, afterward the mother of the Duchess
+d'Abrantes.
+
+The beautiful Letitia Ramolina was married to Charles de Bonaparte the
+same year that her friend Panonia de Comnene became the wife of M.
+de Permont, a high French official in Ajaccio. Corsica was then the
+undisputed property of the kingdom of France, and, however proud the
+Corsicans were of their island, yet they were satisfied to be called
+subjects of France, and to have their beautiful island considered as a
+province of France.
+
+Napoleon Bonaparte was the fifth child of his parents, the favorite of
+his beautiful mother Letitia, who was the life of the household, the
+ruler of the family. She governed the house, she educated the children;
+she knew, with the genuine ability of a housekeeper, of a mother, how to
+spend with careful frugality the moderate income of her husband; how
+to economize, and yet how to give to each what was needed. As to the
+father, in the hours of leisure which business, political debates, and
+amusements allowed him to give to his home and family, his children were
+an agreeable recreation, an interesting pastime; and when the children,
+carried away by the sparkling fire of youth, shouted or cried too loud,
+the father endeavored to palliate their misdemeanor, and obtain their
+pardon from their mother. Then Letitia's eyes were fastened with a
+flaming glance upon her husband, and, imperatively bidding him leave the
+children, she would say: "Let them alone. Their education concerns you
+not. I am the one to keep the eyes upon them."
+
+She trained them up with the severity of a father and with the
+tenderness of a mother. Inexorable against every vice of heart and
+character, she was lenient and indulgent toward petty offences which
+sprang up from the inconsiderateness and spiritedness of youth. Every
+tendency to vulgar sentiments, to mean envy or selfishness, she strove
+to uproot by galling indignation; but every thing which was great and
+lofty, all sentiments of honor, of courage, of large-heartedness, of
+generosity, of kindness, she nursed and cherished in the hearts of her
+children. It was a glorious sight to contemplate this young mother
+when with her beautiful, rosy countenance glowing with enthusiasm and
+blessedness, she stood among her children, and in fiery, expressive
+manner spoke to the listening group of the great and brave of old, of
+the deeds of a Caesar, of a Hannibal; when she spoke of Brutus, who,
+though he loved Caesar, yet, greater than Caesar, and a more exalted
+Roman in his love for the republic, sacrificed his love to the
+fatherland; or when she, with that burning glow which all Corsicans, the
+women as well as the men, cherish for their home and for the historical
+greatness of their dear island, told them of the bravery and self-denial
+even unto death with which the Corsicans for centuries had fought for
+the freedom of their island; how, faithful to the ancient sacred law of
+blood, they never let the misdeed pass unpunished; they never feared the
+foe, however powerful he might be, but revenged on him the evil which he
+had committed against sister or brother, father or mother.
+
+And when Letitia thus spoke to her children in the beautiful and
+harmonious language of her country, the eyes of the little Napoleon
+were all aflame, his childish countenance suddenly assumed a grave
+expression, and on the little body of the child was seen a man's head,
+glowing with power, energy, and pride.
+
+These narratives of his mother, these enthusiastic stories of heroes
+of the past, which the boy, with loud-beating heart, with countenance
+blanched by mental excitement, gathered from the beautiful lips of his
+mother, were the highest pleasure of the little Napoleon, and often in
+future years has the emperor amid his glory thought of those days never
+to be forgotten, when the child's heart and soul hung on his mother's
+lips, and listened to her wondrous stories of heroes.
+
+These narratives of Letitia, this enthusiasm which her glowing language
+awoke in the heart of the child, this whole education which Letitia gave
+to her children, became the corner-stone of their future. As a sower,
+Letitia scattered the seed from which hero and warrior were to spring
+forth, and the grain which fell into the heart of her little Napoleon
+found a good soil, and grew and prospered, and became a laurel-tree,
+which adorned the whole family of the Bonapartes with the blooming crown
+of immortality.
+
+Great men are ever much more the sons of their mother than of the
+father, while seldom have great men seen their own greatness survive in
+their sons. This is a wonderful secret of Nature, which perhaps cannot
+be explained, but which cannot be denied.
+
+Goethe was the true son of his talented and noble mother, but he could
+leave as a legacy to his son only the fame of a name, and not his
+genius. Henry IV., the son of a noble, spiritual and large-hearted
+Jeanne de Navarre, could not leave to France, which worshipped and loved
+her king, could not leave to his people, a successor who resembled him,
+and who would inherit his sharp-sightedness, his prudence, his courage,
+and his greatness of soul. His son and successor was Louis XIII., a king
+whose misfortune it was ever to be overruled, ever to be humbled, ever
+to stand in the shade of two superior natures, which excited his envy,
+but which he was never competent to overcome; ever overshadowed by the
+past glories which his father's fame threw upon him, overshadowed by the
+ruler and mentor of his choice, his minister, the Cardinal de Richelieu,
+who darkened his whole sad existence.
+
+Napoleon was the son of his mother, the large-hearted and high-minded
+Letitia Ramolina. But how distant was the son of the hero, who, from a
+poor second lieutenant, had forced his way to the throne of France! how
+distant the poor little Duke de Reichstadt from his great father! Even
+over the life of this son of an eminent father weighed a shadow--the
+shadow of his father's greatness. Under this shadow which the column of
+Vendome cast from Paris to the imperial city of Vienna, which the steep
+rock of St. Helena cast even upon the castle of Schonbrunn, under this
+shadow died the Duke de Reichstadt, the unfortunate son of his eminent
+father.
+
+The little Napoleon was always a shy, reserved, quiet boy. For hours
+long he could hide in some obscure corner of the house or of the garden,
+and sit there with head bent low and eyes closed, half asleep and half
+dreaming; but when he opened his eyes, what a life in those looks! What
+animation, what exuberance in his whole being, when awaking from his
+childish dreams he mixed again with his brothers, sisters, and friends!
+
+Letitia's words and example had penetrated the soul of the child with
+the highest emotions of honor and human dignity, and the little boy of
+seven years exhibited oftentimes the sentiments of honor, pride, and
+obstinacy of a man. Every bodily correction to which he was submitted
+made him turn pale and tremble, not from pain but for shame, filled him
+with indignation, and was apt to bring on sickness. In Corsica still
+prevailed the custom of severe discipline for children, and in all the
+classes of the school the rod was applied as a means of punishment and
+reformation. To beat one's wife was considered in Corsica, as everywhere
+else, an unpardonable brutality; but parents as well as teachers whipped
+children to mould them into noble, refined, honorable men.
+
+The little Napoleon would not adapt himself to the blessings of this
+education, and the mere threats of the rod-switching deprived the child
+of his senses and threw him into convulsions. But though the little
+Napoleon was gloomy, monosyllabic, and quiet, yet was he from early
+childhood the favorite of all who knew him, and he already wielded over
+brothers, sisters, and companions, a wonderful influence.
+
+When a boy of four years old, Letitia sent him to a sort of play-school,
+where boys and girls amused themselves together and learned the ABC. The
+young Napoleon was soon the soul of the little company. The boys obeyed
+him, and submitted to his will; the girls trembled before him, and yet
+with a smile they pressed toward him merely to be near him and to have
+a place at his side. And the four-year child already practised a tender
+chivalry. One of his little school-companions had made an impression on
+his heart; he honored her with special favors, sat at her side during
+the lessons, and when they left school to return home, the little
+Napoleon never missed, with complete gravity of countenance, to offer
+his arm to his favorite of five years of age and to accompany her to her
+home. But the sight of this gallant, with his diminutive, compact,
+and broad figure, over which the large head, with its earnestness of
+expression, seemed so incongruous, and which moved on with so much
+gravity, while the socks fell from the naked calves over the heels--all
+this excited the merriment of the other children; and when, arm-in-arm
+with his little schoolmate, he thus moved on, the other urchins in
+great glee shouted after him: "Napoleone di mezza calzetta dall' amore
+a Giacominetta!" ("Napoleon in socks is the lover of the little
+Giacominetta!")
+
+The boy endured these taunts with the stoic composure of a philosopher,
+but never after did he offer his arm to the little Giacominetta, and
+never afterward did his socks hang down over his heels.
+
+When from this "mixed school" he passed into a boys' school, the little
+Napoleon distinguished himself above all the other boys by his ambition,
+his deep jealousy, his perseverance at learning and studying, and he
+soon became the favorite of the Abbe Recco, [Footnote: Napoleon, in his
+testament, written at St. Helena, willed a fixed sum of money to this
+Professor Recco, in gratitude for the instruction given him in his
+youth.] who taught at the royal college of Ajaccio as professor. A few
+times every week the worthy professor would gather his pupils in a large
+hall, to read them lectures upon ancient history, and especially upon
+the history of Rome; and, in order to give to this hall a worthy and
+significant ornament, he had it adorned on either side with two large
+and costly banners, one of which had the initials S. P. Q. E., and
+represented the standard of ancient Rome; facing it and on the opposite
+side of the hall was the standard of Carthage.
+
+Under the shadows of these standards were ranged the seats for the
+scholars, and in the vacant centre of the large hall was the professor's
+chair, from which the Abbe Recco dictated to his pupils the history of
+the heroic deeds of ancient Rome.
+
+The elder children sat under the larger standard, under the standard of
+Rome, and the junior boys immediately opposite, under the standard of
+Carthage; and as Napoleon Bonaparte was the youngest scholar of the
+institution, he sat near the Carthaginian standard, whilst his brother
+Joseph, his senior by five years, had his seat facing him on the Roman
+side. Though at the commencement of the lectures Napoleon's delight had
+been great, and though he had listened with enthusiasm to the history
+of the struggles, and to the martial achievements of the ancient Romans,
+the little Napoleon soon manifested an unmistaken repugnance to attend
+these lectures. He would turn pale, as with his brother he entered the
+hall, and with head bowed low, and dark, angry countenance, took his
+seat. A few days afterward he declared to his brother Joseph, his lips
+drawn in by anguish, that he would no more attend the lectures.
+
+"And why not?" asked Joseph, astonished. "Do you take no interest in the
+Roman history? Can you not follow the lecture?"
+
+The little Napoleon darted upon his brother a look of inexpressible
+contempt. "I would be a simpleton if the history of heroes did not
+interest me," said he, "and I understand everything the good Professor
+Recco says--I understand it so well that I often know beforehand what
+his warriors and heroes will do."
+
+"Well, then, since you have such a lively interest in the history of the
+Romans, why will you no more follow the lectures?"
+
+"No, I will not, I cannot," murmured Napoleon, sadly.
+
+"Tell me, at least, the reason, Napoleon," said his brother.
+
+The boy looked straight before him, for a long time hesitating and
+undecided; then he threw up his head in a very decided manner, and gazed
+on his brother with flaming eyes.
+
+"Yes," cried he, passionately, "I will tell you! I can no longer endure
+the shame to sit down under the standard of the conquered and humiliated
+Carthaginians. I do not deserve to be so disgraced."
+
+"But, Napoleon," said Joseph, laughing, "why trouble yourself about the
+standard of the old Carthaginians? One is just as well under it as under
+the Roman standard."
+
+"Is it, then, the same to you under which standard you sit? Do you not
+consider it as a great honor to sit under the standard of the victorious
+Romans?"
+
+"I look upon the one as being without honor, and upon the other as being
+without shame," said Joseph, smiling.
+
+"If it is so," cried out the little Napoleon, throwing himself on his
+brother's neck, "if it is for you no great sacrifice, then, I implore
+you to save me, to make me happy, for you can do it! Let us change
+seats; give me your place under the standard of Rome, and take my place
+instead."
+
+Joseph declared himself ready to do so, and when the two brothers came
+next time to the lecture, Napoleon, with uplifted head and triumphant
+countenance, took his seat under the standard of victorious Rome.
+
+But soon the expression of joy faded away from his face, and his
+features were overcast, and with a restless, sad look, he repeatedly
+turned himself toward his brother Joseph, who sat facing him under the
+standard of the conquered race.
+
+Silent and sad he went home with Joseph, and when his mother questioned
+him about the cause of his sorrow, he confessed, with tears in his
+eyes, that he was a heartless egotist, that he had been unjust and cruel
+toward Joseph, that he had cheated his brother of his place of honor and
+had seated himself in it.
+
+It required the most earnest assurances of Joseph that he placed no
+value whatever on the seat; it required all the persuasiveness and
+authority of Letitia to appease the boy, and to prevail upon him to
+resume the conquered seat. [Footnote: "Memoires du Roi Joseph," vol. i.,
+p.40.]
+
+As the course of instruction which the boys had received in Ajaccio was
+not sufficient for the times, and for the capacities of his sons, their
+father passed over to France with Joseph and Napoleon, to take advantage
+of the favorable resources for a more complete education.
+
+Napoleon saw the time of departure approach with an apparently
+indifferent mind, only his face was somewhat paler, he was still more
+monosyllabic and more reserved than before; and his eyes, full of an
+indescribable expression of tenderness and admiration, followed all the
+movements of his mother, as if to print deeply in his soul the beloved
+image, so as to take it with him beyond the seas, in all its freshness
+and beauty.
+
+He wept not as he bade her farewell; not a word of sorrow or regret
+did he speak, but he embraced his mother with impassioned fondness,
+he kissed her hands, her forehead, her large black eyes, he sank down
+before her and kissed her feet, then sprang up, and, after casting upon
+her whole figure a deep, glowing look, he rushed away to embark at once,
+without waiting for brother or father, who were yet bidding a touching
+farewell to relatives and friends.
+
+Letitia gazed after her Napoleon with glowing and wide-open eyes; she
+wept not, she complained not, but she pressed her two hands on her heart
+as if to keep it from breaking asunder, from bleeding to death; then she
+called all her children around her, and, folding them up in her arms,
+exclaimed: "Join your hands and pray with me that our little Napoleon
+may return home to us a noble and great man."
+
+As soon as they had prosperously landed in France, the father placed
+his two sons in the college of Autun, and then travelled farther on
+to Paris, there to obtain, through the influence of his patrons and
+friends, a place for his daughter Marianne (afterward Elise) in St.
+Cyr, an institution for the daughters of noblemen, and also a place for
+Napoleon in the military school of Brienne. His efforts were crowned
+with success; and whilst Joseph remained at college in Autun, Napoleon
+had to part with him and go to Brienne.
+
+When the brothers bade farewell one to another, Joseph wept bitterly,
+and his sighs and tears choked the tender words of farewell which his
+quivering lips would have uttered.
+
+Napoleon was quiet, and as his eye moistened with a tear, he endeavored
+to hide it, and turned aside ashamed of himself and nearly indignant,
+for he did not wish the Abbe Simon, one of the professors of the
+college, who was present at the parting of the brothers, to see his
+unmanly tenderness.
+
+But the Abbe Simon had seen that tear, and when Napoleon was gone he
+said to Joseph: "Napoleon has shed but one tear, but that tear proves
+his deep sorrow as much as all your tears." [Footnote: "Memoires du Roi
+Joseph," vol. i., p.26.]
+
+Taciturn and quiet as he had been in Ajaccio, the little Napoleon was
+equally so at the military school of Brienne, where he remained from
+his eleventh to his sixteenth year. His character had always something
+sombre and hidden; his eye seemed turned more inwardly than outwardly;
+and his fellowship with his books seemed to procure him a more pleasant
+recreation than the company of his schoolmates, whose childish joys
+and pleasures he despised or pretended to do so, because his limited
+pecuniary resources did not allow him to share with them pleasures of an
+expensive nature.
+
+But, though still and reserved, he always was friendly and courteous to
+his comrades, grateful for every mark of friendship and kindness, and
+always ready to protect the young and feeble against the overbearing
+and the strong, censuring with grave authority every injustice, and with
+Spartan harshness throwing his contempt into the very face of him who,
+according to his standard, had offended against honor, the lofty spirit
+and the dignity of a freeman.
+
+It could not fail that soon Napoleon should win over his schoolmates
+a marked moral influence; that they would listen to him as if he were
+their superior; that they should feel something akin to fear in presence
+of the flashing eyes of this little boy of barely fourteen years, whose
+pale, expressive countenance, when illumined with anger, almost seemed
+to them more terrible than that of the irritated face of the teacher,
+and whom they therefore more willingly and more unconditionally obeyed
+than the principal of the establishment.
+
+One day the latter had forbidden the scholars to go to the fair in a
+neighboring locality, because they had lately been guilty of excesses
+on a similar occasion; and, so as to be sure that the scholars would not
+trespass against his orders, the principal had the outside gate in the
+front yard locked.
+
+This last circumstance kindled Napoleon's anger; he considered it as an
+insult that the scholars should be treated as prisoners.
+
+"Had we been ordered in the name of the law to remain here," cried
+he, "then honor itself would have claimed from us to remain, for law
+commands obedience to our superiors. But since we are treated as slaves,
+who are by main force compelled to submission, then honor claims from us
+to prove to our oppressors that we are free beings, and that we desire
+to remain such. We are treated as prisoners of war, kept under lock and
+bolt, but no one has demanded our word of honor that we will make no
+effort to escape this subjection. Whosoever has a brave heart and a soul
+full of honor's love, let him follow me!"
+
+All the youngsters followed him without hesitation. More submissive to
+this pale, small boy of fourteen years, than to the severe, strong,
+and exalted principal, none dared oppose him as he stood in the garden,
+facing a remote place in the wall, and giving orders to undermine it,
+so as to make an outlet. All obeyed the given orders, all were animated
+with burning zeal, with cheerful alacrity; and after an hour of earnest
+labor the work was done, and the passage under the wall completed.
+
+The scholars wanted to rush with jubilant cries through the opening, and
+gain their freedom outside of the wall, but Napoleon held them back.
+
+"I will go first," said he. "I have been your leader throughout this
+expedition, now I will be the first to pass out, that upon me may fall
+the punishment when we are discovered."
+
+The young men fell back silently and respectfully, while, proud and
+stately as a field-marshal who gives the signal for the battle, Napoleon
+passed through their ranks, to be the first from the crowd to go through
+the newly-made passage.
+
+It could not fail that the daring of these "prisoners of war" should be
+discovered, that the principal should be the very same day informed that
+the young men had, notwithstanding his strict orders, notwithstanding
+the closed gate, made a way for themselves, and had visited the
+prohibited fair, while the principal believed them to be in the garden.
+
+A strict inquiry took place the next morning. With threatening tones,
+the principal ordered the young men to name him who had guided them
+to so unheard-of a deed, who had misled them into disobedience and
+insubordination. But all were still; none wished to be a traitor, not
+even when the principal promised to all full pardon, full impunity, if
+they would but name the instigator of their guilty action.
+
+But as no one spoke, as no one would name him, Napoleon gave himself up
+as the culpable one.
+
+"I alone am guilty," cried he, proudly. "I alone deserve punishment.
+These have done only what I commanded them--they have but followed my
+orders, nothing more. The guilt and the punishment are mine alone."
+
+The principal, glad to know the guilty one, kept his promise, and,
+forgiving the rest, decided to punish only the one who acknowledged
+himself to have been the leader.
+
+Napoleon was, therefore, sentenced to the severest and most degrading
+punishment known in the institution--to the so-called "monk's penalty."
+That is to say, the future young soldier, in the coarse woollen garment
+of a mendicant friar, was on his knees, to devour his meal from an
+earthen vessel in the middle of the dining-room, while all the other
+boys were seated at the table.
+
+A deathly pallor overspread the face of the boy when he heard this
+sentence. He had been for many days imprisoned in a cell with bread and
+water, and he had without a murmur submitted to this correction, endured
+already on a former occasion, but this degrading punishment broke his
+courage.
+
+Stunned, as it were, and barely conscious, he allowed the costume of the
+punishment to be put on, but when he had been led into the dining-room,
+where all the scholars were gathered for the noonday meal, when he was
+forced upon his knees, he sank down to the ground with a heavy sigh, and
+was seized with violent convulsions.
+
+The rector himself, moved with deepest sympathy for the wounded spirit
+of the boy, hastened to raise up Napoleon. At the same moment rushed
+into the hall one of the teachers of the institution, M. Patrault, who
+had just been informed of the execution which was about to be carried
+out on Napoleon. With tears in his eyes, he hastened to Napoleon, and
+with trembling hands tore from his shoulders the detestable garment, and
+broke out at the same time in loud complaints that his best scholar,
+his first mathematician, was to be dishonored and treated in an unworthy
+manner.
+
+Napoleon, however, was not always the reserved, grave boy who took
+no part in the recreations and pleasures of the rest of his young
+schoolmates. Whenever these amusements were of a more serious, of a
+higher nature, Napoleon gladly and willingly took a part in them. Now
+and then in the institution, on festivals, theatrical representations
+took place, and on these occasions the citizens of Brienne were allowed
+to be present.
+
+But to maintain respectable order, every one who desired to be present
+at the representation had to procure a card of admission signed by the
+principal. On the day of the exhibition, at the different doors of the
+institution, were posted guards who received the admission cards, and
+whose strict orders were to let no one pass in without them. These
+posts, which were filled by the scholars, were under the supervision
+of superior and inferior officers, and were confided only to the most
+distinguished and most praiseworthy students.
+
+One day, Voltaire's tragedy, "The Death of Caesar," was exhibited.
+Napoleon had the post of honor of a first lieutenant for this festivity,
+and with grave earnestness he filled the duties of his office.
+
+Suddenly at the entrance of the garden arose a loud noise and vehement
+recriminations of threatening and abusive voices.
+
+It was Margaret Haute, the porter's wife, who wanted to come in, though
+she had no card of admission. She was well known to all the students,
+for at the gate of the institution she had a little stall of fruits,
+eggs, milk, and cakes, and all the boys purchased from her every day,
+and liked to jest and joke with the pleasant and obliging woman.
+
+Margaret Haute had therefore considered it of no importance to procure a
+card of admission, which thing she considered to be superfluous for such
+an important and well-known personage as herself. The greater was her
+astonishment and anger when admission was refused, and she therefore
+began to clamor loudly, hoping by this means to attract some of the
+scholars, who would recognize her and procure her admittance. Meanwhile
+the post guardian dared not act without superior orders, and the
+inferior officer hastened to communicate the important event to the
+first lieutenant, Napoleon de Bonaparte, and receive his decision.
+
+Napoleon, who ordinarily was kind to the fruit-vender, and gladly
+jested with the humorous and coarse woman, listened to the report of
+the lieutenant with furrowed brow and dark countenance, and with severe
+dignity gave his orders: "Remove that woman, who takes upon herself
+to introduce licentiousness into the camp." [Footnote: Afterward, when
+First Consul, Napoleon sent for this woman and her husband to come to
+Paris, and he gave them the lucrative position of porter at the castle
+of Malmaison, which charge they retained unto their death.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V. THE UNHAPPY MARRIAGE.
+
+
+While the boy Napoleon de Bonaparte pursued his studies as a student in
+Brienne, she, who was one day to share his greatness and his fame, had
+already appeared on the world's stage as the wife of another. Josephine
+Tascher de la Pagerie was already received in the highest society of
+Paris as the Viscountess de Beauharnais.
+
+Every thing seemed to promise to the young couple a happy, secure
+future, free from care. They were both young, wealthy, of good family,
+and though the parents had planned this marriage and joined together
+the hands of the young couple, yet it was their good fortune that love
+should tie and strengthen the bond which mere expediency had formed.
+
+Yes, they loved one another, these young married people of sixteen and
+eighteen. How could it have been otherwise, when they both met each
+other with the candid and honest desire to make one another happy; when
+each of them had been so well adapted to the other that their brilliant,
+good, and beautiful qualities were so prominent that their eyes were
+blinded to the possibility of imperfections and vices which perchance
+remained in the obscure background of their virtue and of their
+amiableness?
+
+Josephine had entered upon her marriage with a pure maiden heart, and
+soon this heart glowed with enthusiasm for her young husband, who in
+reality was well qualified to excite enthusiasm in a young maid and
+instil into her a passionate attachment. Alexandre de Beauharnais was
+one of the most brilliant and most beloved personages at the court
+of Versailles. His face had all the beauty of regularity; his figure,
+marked by a lofty, even if somewhat heavy form, was tall, well knit,
+and of wonderful elasticity and energy; his manners were noble and
+prepossessing, fine and natural. Even in a court so distinguished as
+that of Versailles for many remarkable chevaliers, the Viscount de
+Beauharnais was considered as one of the most lovely and most gifted:
+even the young Queen Marie Antoinette honored him with special
+distinction. She had called him the most beautiful dancer of Versailles,
+and consequently it was very natural that up to the time of his marriage
+he should be invited to every court-ball, and there should each time
+enjoy the pleasure of being requested to dance with the queen.
+
+This flattering distinction of the Queen Marie Antoinette had naturally
+made the young viscount the mark of attention of all these beautiful,
+young, and coquettish ladies of Versailles. They used to say of him,
+that in the dancing-room he was a zephyr, fluttering from flower to
+flower, but at the head of his regiment he was a Bayard, dreaming only
+of war and carnage.
+
+It was, therefore, quite natural that so brilliant and so preferred
+a cavalier, a young man of so many varied accomplishments, a being
+so impassioned, so gallant, should soon become the object of the most
+tender and passionate fondness from a young wife, who in her quiet
+native land had seen none to compare with him, and who became for her
+the ideal of beauty, chivalry, elegance, and whom, in her devoted and
+admiring love, she used to call her own Achilles.
+
+Josephine loved her husband; she loved him with all the devotedness and
+fire of a creole; she loved him and breathed but for him, and to be with
+him seemed to her life's golden, blessed dream. Added to all this,
+came the joys and raptures of a Parisian life--these new, unknown,
+diversified pleasures of society, these manifold distractions and
+entertainments of the great city. Josephine abandoned herself to all
+this with the joy and wantonness of an innocent, unsuspicious being.
+With all these glorious things round about her, she felt as if
+surrounded by a sea of blessedness and pleasure, and she plunged into it
+with the quiet daring of innocency, which foresees not what breakers and
+abysses this sea encloses under the shining surface.
+
+But these breakers were there, and against them was the happiness of
+Josephine's love soon to be dashed to pieces.
+
+She loved her young husband with her whole heart, with all her soul. But
+he, the young, the flattered Viscount Alexandre de Beauharnais, he also
+loved his young wife, whom the wish and will of his superiors had placed
+at his side.
+
+He had not chosen her because he loved her, but only because he had
+thought it expedient and advisable to become married, and because the
+unknown Mademoiselle de la Pagerie had been offered to him as "a good
+settlement." Perhaps, also, he had contracted this marriage to get rid
+all at once of those manifold ties, intrigues, and attachments which his
+open, unrestrained life of youth had woven around him, for his marriage
+with the young creole had put an end to many love-intrigues which
+perchance threatened to be inconvenient and burdensome.
+
+At first charmed by her foreign, unaccustomed appearance, transported by
+her ingenuous grace, her sweet, lovely amiableness and freshness, he had
+fully decided to love his young wife, and, with all the triumphant pride
+of a lover, he had led Josephine into society, into the saloons.
+
+But his eye was not blinded by the ravishment of a real and true love,
+and in the drawing-room he saw what, in the solitude of the residence
+of Noisy, where the young couple had retired for a few weeks after their
+marriage, he might never have missed--he saw that Josephine possessed
+not the lofty elegance and the exquisite manners of the ladies of the
+Parisian saloons. She always was a charming, artless, graceful young
+woman, but she lacked the striking advantages of a real drawing-room
+lady; she lacked that perfect self-possession, that pliancy of
+refinement, that sparkling wit, and that penetration, which then
+characterized the ladies of the higher Parisian society, and which the
+young viscount had but lately so fondly and passionately admired in the
+beautiful and celebrated Baroness de B.
+
+The viscount saw all these deficiencies of his young wife's social
+education, and this darkened his brow and brought on his cheek the flush
+of shame. He was cruel enough to reproach Josephine, in somewhat harsh
+and imperious tones, of her lack of higher culture, and thus the first
+matrimonial difference clouded the skies of marriage happiness, which
+the young unsuspecting wife had believed would ever be bright with
+sunshine.
+
+Josephine, however, loved her young husband too fondly not to cheerfully
+comply with all his wishes, not to strive to replace what he reproached
+her to be lacking.
+
+On a sudden she left the brilliant, enchanting Paris, which had
+entranced her with its many joys and its many distractions, and, as her
+husband had to be for some time at Blois with his regiment, she went
+to Noisy, to her aunt's residence, so as to labor at her higher mental
+culture, at the side of the lovely and intellectual Madame de Renaudin.
+
+Josephine had hitherto, as a simple, sentimental young lady, played the
+guitar, and chirped with it, in her fresh but uncultivated voice, her
+sweet songs of love. She gave up the guitar, the favorite instrument of
+the creoles, and exchanged it for the harp, for which attainment as well
+as for the art of singing she procured the best and ablest masters. Even
+a dancing-master had to come to Noisy to give to the young viscountess
+that perfection of art which would enable her, without fear, to dance at
+a ball alongside of the Viscount de Beauharnais, "the beautiful dancer
+of Versailles." With her aunt she read the works of the writers and
+poets who were then praised and loved, and with wonderful predilection
+she also studied botany, to which science she ever clung during her
+life, and which threw on her existence gleams of joy when the sun of her
+happiness had long set.
+
+Josephine, who out of pure love for her husband learned and studied
+zealously, communicated to the viscount, in her letters, every
+advancement she made in her studies; and she was proud and happy when he
+applauded her efforts, and when in his letters he praised her assiduity
+and her progress.
+
+But evidently these letters of the viscount contained nothing of that
+love and ardor which the young fiery creole longed for from her
+husband; they were not the utterances of a young, anxious lover, of an
+enthusiastic, worshipping husband; but they were addressed to Josephine
+with the quiet, cool benignity of a considerate friend, of a mentor, of
+a tutor who knows full well how much above his pupil soars his own mind,
+and with what supreme deference this pupil must look up to him.
+
+"I am delighted," wrote he once--"delighted at your zeal to acquire
+knowledge and culture; this zeal, which we must ever cherish, is ever
+the source of purest enjoyments, and possesses the glorious advantage,
+when we follow its dictates, of never producing any grief. If you
+persevere in the resolution you have taken, if you continue to labor
+with unabated zeal at your personal improvement, be assured that the
+knowledge you will have acquired will exalt you highly above all others;
+and whereas science and modesty will be combined in you, you will
+succeed in becoming an accomplished woman. The talents which you
+cultivate have their pleasant side, and if you devote to them a portion
+of the day, you will unite the agreeable to the useful." [Footnote:
+"Histoire de l'Imperatrice Josephine," vol. i., p. 110.]
+
+This is what Alexandre de Beauharnais wanted. His wife, through her
+knowledge, was to be highly exalted above all others. She was to study
+the sciences, and become what is now called a learned woman, but what
+was then termed a philosophical woman.
+
+The ambition of the ardent viscount required that his young wife should
+be the rival of his learned, verse-writing aunt, the Baroness Fanny
+de Beauharnais; that Josephine, if not the most beautiful and most
+intellectual woman of Paris, should be the most accomplished.
+
+But these extravagant expectations did not, unfortunately, coincide
+entirely with the tastes and mental tendencies of Josephine. No one was
+less qualified than she to be a philosophical woman, and to make the
+sciences a serious study. It was far from her ambition to desire to
+shine by her knowledge; and the learned and scientific Baroness de
+Beauharnais only excited fear and antagonism on account of her stiff and
+pretentious pedantry, which seemed to Josephine to have but little in
+harmony with a woman's being.
+
+Josephine loved the sciences and the arts, but she did not wish to
+convert herself into their devoted priestess. She wished merely to adorn
+herself with their blossoms, to take delight in their fragrance, and to
+rejoice in their beauty. With instinctive sentiment she did not wish to
+have the grace and youthful freshness of her womanly appearance marred
+by knowledge; her heart longed not for the ambition of being called a
+learned woman; she only wished to be a beloved wife.
+
+But the viscount, instead of recognizing and cherishing the tender and
+sacred treasures which reposed in the heart of his young wife, ridiculed
+her for her sensitiveness; allowed himself, through displeasure at her
+uncultivated mind, to utter unreasonable reproaches, and to act harshly
+toward his wife; and her tears were not calculated to conciliate him
+or to gain his heart. He treated Josephine with a sort of contemptuous
+compassion, with a mocking superiority, and her young, deeply-wounded
+soul, intimidated and bleeding, shrank back into itself. Josephine
+became taciturn, embarrassed, and mute, in her husband's presence; she
+preferred being silent, rather than by her conversation, which might not
+appear intellectual and piquant enough for the viscount, to annoy and
+irritate him.
+
+Confidence and harmony had flown away from the household of the young
+couple. From his timid, silent wife, with tears in her eyes and a mute
+complaint on her trembling lips, the husband rushed away into the world,
+into society, to the boisterous joys of a garrison's life, or else to
+the dangerous, intoxicating amusements which the refined world of the
+drawing-rooms offered him.
+
+Scarcely after a two years' marriage, the young bridegroom was again the
+zephyr of the drawing-room; and, breaking asunder the bonds with which
+the marriage and the household had bound him, he fluttered again from
+flower to flower, was once more the gallant cavalier of the belles,
+forgot duty and wife, to pay his attentions and bring his homage to the
+ladies of the court.
+
+But this neglect which she now experienced from her husband, this
+evident preference for other women, suddenly awoke Josephine from her
+painful resignation, from her quiet melancholy. The young, patient,
+retreating wife was changed at once into an irritated lioness, and,
+amid the refinements of the French polish, with all its gilded
+accompaniments, uprose the glowing, impassioned, threatening creole.
+
+Josephine, wounded both in her vanity and in her love--Josephine wished
+not and could not bear, as a passive, silent sufferer, the neglect of
+her husband; he had insulted her as a woman, and the wrath of a woman
+rose within her. She screened not her jealousy from her husband; she
+reproached him for preferring other women to his wife, for neglecting
+her for the sake of others, and she required that to her alone he should
+do homage, that to her alone he should consecrate love and allegiance.
+She wept, she complained, when she learned that, whilst she was left
+at home unnoticed, he had been here and there in the company of other
+women; she allowed herself to be so carried away by jealousy as to make
+violent reproaches against her husband.
+
+But tears and reproaches are not in the least calculated to bring back
+to a wife the heart of a husband, and jealousy recalls not a husband's
+love, when that love has unfolded his pinions and flown away. It only
+causes the poor butterfly to feel that marriage had tied its wings
+with a thread, and that it constantly recalls him away, with the severe
+admonitions of duty, from the beautiful flowers toward which he desires
+to fly.
+
+The complaints and reproaches of Josephine, however much they proved her
+love, had precisely the contrary effect from what she expected. Through
+them she wanted to bring back her husband to her love, but she repelled
+him further still; he flew away from her complaints to the merry society
+of his friends, male and female, and left Josephine alone at Noisy to
+weep over her wretchedness.
+
+Notwithstanding all this, they were both to be again reunited one to
+another in a new bond of love and happiness. On the 3d of September,
+1781, Josephine presented to her husband a son, the heir of his name,
+and for whom the father had already so long craved. Alexandre came to
+Noisy to be present at the birth of his child, and with true, sincere
+affection he embraced son and mother, and swore everlasting love and
+fidelity to both.
+
+But circumstances were stronger than the will of this young man of
+twenty-two years. The monotonous life of Noisy, the quietude which
+prevailed in the house on account of the young mother, could not long
+retain captive the fiery young man. He endured this life of solitude, of
+watching at the bedside, of listening to the child's cries, for a whole
+week, and then was drawn away with irresistible attraction to Paris;
+the father's tenderness could no longer restrain the glowing ardor, the
+impassioned longings for distraction in the young man; and the viscount
+left Noisy to lead once more in Paris or with his garrison the free,
+unrestrained dissipations of his earlier days.
+
+Josephine was comfortless. She had hoped the son would retain the
+father, but he left her alone, alone with the child, and with all the
+torments of her jealousy.
+
+It is true, he came back now and then to see his son, his little Eugene,
+and also to make amends to the young, sick, and suffering mother, by a
+few days' presence, for the many days of absence.
+
+But Josephine, irritated, jealous, too young, too inexperienced to
+reflect, Josephine committed the fault of receiving her husband every
+time he came, with reproaches and complaints, and of meeting him
+with violent scenes of jealousy and of offended dignity. The viscount
+himself, so young, so impassioned, had not the patience to go with
+calm indifference through the purgatory of such scenes. His proud heart
+rebelled against the chains with which marriage would bind him; he was
+angry with this woman who dared reproach him; he was the more vexed
+that his conscience told him she was unjust toward him, that he was the
+innocent one. He returned her complaints with deriding scorn; he allowed
+himself to be carried away by her reproaches to the manifestation of
+violent anger; and the tempest of matrimonial discord raged through this
+house, which at first seemed to have been built for a temple of peace
+and happiness.
+
+The parents of the young couple saw with deep, heartfelt concern the gap
+deepening between them both, and which every day widened more and more,
+and as their warnings and wishes now remained fruitless, they resolved
+to try if a long absence might not heal the wounds which they both had
+inflicted upon their own hearts. At the request of his father and of
+Madame de Renaudin, the viscount undertook a long journey to Italy, from
+which he returned only after nearly nine months' absence.
+
+What the relatives had hoped from this journey seemed to be realized.
+The viscount returned home to his Josephine with a penitent, tender
+heart; and Josephine, enchanted with his tenderness, with the pliant
+loveliness of his whole being--Josephine, with a smile of blessedness
+and with happy dreams of the future, rested once more on the bosom of
+the man whom, even in her angry moods, she had never ceased to love.
+
+But after a few months passed in happiness and harmony, the viscount
+was once more obliged to separate himself from his wife, to meet his
+regiment, which was now in Verdun. Absence soon broke the slender
+threads which had bound together the hearts of husband and wife.
+Alexandre abandoned himself to his tendencies to dissipation, and
+Josephine to her jealousy. During the frequent visits which the viscount
+paid to his wife in Noisy, he was received with tears and reproaches,
+which always ended in violent scenes of anger and bitterness.
+
+Such an existence, full of ever-recurring storms and ceaseless discord,
+weighed heavily on the hearts of both husband and wife, and made them
+long for an issue from this Labyrinth of an unhappy marriage. Yet
+neither of them dreamed of a separation; not only their son, the little
+Eugene, kept them from such thoughts, but also the new hopes which
+Josephine carried in her bosom would have made such thoughts appear
+criminal. It was necessary to endeavor to bear life as well as one
+could, and not allow one's self to be too much lacerated by its thorns,
+even if there was no further hope of gathering its roses.
+
+Alexandre de Beauharnais, even if he lacked the skill of being a
+faithful, devoted husband, was a noble and goodnatured man, whose
+generous heart wanted to punish himself alone for the error of this
+marriage, which weighed so heavily on husband and wife; and, in order
+to procure peace to both, he resolved to become an exile, to tear away
+pitilessly the attractive ties which society, friends, and women, had
+woven around him. If he could not be a good husband, he might at least
+be a good soldier; and, whereas his heart could not adopt the resolution
+of devoting itself with exclusive affection to his wife, he resolved
+to devote himself entirely to that love to which he had never been
+disloyal, the love of fame. His ambitious nature longed for honors
+and distinction; his restless, youthful courage craved for action and
+battle-fields; and, as no opportunity offered itself on land, Alexandre
+de Beauharnais decided to search on the seas for what was denied him on
+land.
+
+The Marquis de Bouille, governor of Martinique, had just arrived in
+France, to propose to the government a new expedition against the
+British colonies in the Antilles. Already this fearless and enterprising
+man, since he had been in Martinique, with the forces at his disposal,
+with the help of the young creoles, and supported by the squadrons which
+lay in Port Royal, had conquered Dominique, Grenada, St. Vincent, St.
+Christophe, Mievres, and Montserrat, and now he contemplated an attack
+upon the rich and important island of Jamaica, whose conquest he trusted
+would force the English into peace.
+
+Alexandre de Beauharnais wanted nothing more attractive than to join
+this important and daring enterprise of the Marquis de Bouille. With
+recommendations from his uncle, the Duke de la Rochefoucauld, the
+viscount hastened to the Marquis de Bouille, begged of him instantly the
+privilege of serving under him, and offered his services as adjutant.
+
+The marquis received with kindness a young man so earnestly recommended,
+and gave him the hope of fulfilling his wishes. These hopes were not,
+however, realized; and the viscount, no longer able to endure the burden
+of uncertainty and of domestic discord, decided to leave France on his
+own responsibility, to sail for Martinique, and there to enlist as a
+simple volunteer, under the orders of the governor.
+
+In September, 1782, he left Noisy for Brest, there to embark for
+Martinique. At the hour of departure the love, which for so long had
+been hidden under the dark cloud of jealousy and discord, awoke in all
+its glow and energy in the hearts of the young couple. With streaming
+eyes Josephine embraced her husband, and in the most touching tones
+entreated him to remain with her, entreated him not to tear the father
+away from the son, who already recognized him and stretched his little
+hands toward him, nor from the child yet unborn in her bosom. Carried
+away by so much intensity of affection, by such a fond, all-pardoning
+love, Alexandre was deeply moved; he regretted the past, and the
+decision he had taken to leave his wife and his family. All the sweet
+emotions of peace, of home, of paternal bliss, of married life, overcame
+him in this hour of farewell with, resistless power, and in Josephine's
+arms he wept bitter tears of repentance, of love, of farewell.
+
+But these tears, no more than his wife's regrets, could make him waver
+in his determination.
+
+The word of separation had been spoken, and it had to be fulfilled. Amid
+the anguish of parting, he felt for himself the necessity of breaking,
+by means of a long absence, with the evil practices of the past, and to
+make amends for the sad errors of his youth.
+
+He left his home to win in a distant land the happiness which he had
+in vain sought at the side of his wife, of his son, and of his family.
+Before the ship upon which he was to embark for his journey weighed
+anchor, he took a last farewell of his family in a letter addressed to
+Madame de Renaudin.
+
+"I have," said he, "received the letter which tells of your good wishes
+for the future, and I have read with the deepest interest the assurances
+of your attachment. These assurances would still have been more
+flattering to me, could they have convinced me that my actual course has
+your approbation, and that you estimate rightly my determination, and
+the sacrifice I am making. However, I have on my side conscience, which
+applauds me for preferring, to the real, actual joys of a quiet
+and pleasurable existence, the prospect, even if a remote one,
+of preferment, which may secure me a distinguished position and a
+distinction which may be of advantage to my children. The greater have
+been my sacrifices, the more commendable it is to have made them; and if
+chance only favors my determination, then the laurels I will win shall
+make ample amends for all troubles and hardships, and shall change all
+my anguish into joy!--Be kind enough, I pray you, to embrace for me,
+my father, my wife, and Eugene!" [Forward: "Histoire de l'Imperatrice
+Josephine," vol. i, p. 133.]
+
+It is evident that Alexandre de Beauharnais had gone to Martinique to
+win fame and to fight for laurels. But chance favored not his resolves.
+He had no sooner landed in Martinique, than the news spread that
+negotiations had begun between England and France. M. de Bouille
+received strict orders to make no attack on Jamaica; and a few weeks
+after, on the 20th of January, 1783, the preliminaries of peace were
+signed at Versailles. A few months later, peace was concluded, and all
+the conquests made by the Marquis de Bouille were returned to England.
+
+Alexandre de Beauharnais had then come in vain to Martinique. No fame
+was to be won--no laurels could be gathered there.
+
+Unfortunately, however, the viscount found another occupation for his
+restless heart, for the vague cravings of his affections. He made the
+acquaintance there with a young creole, who had been a widow for the
+last six months, and who had returned to Martinique from France to
+pass there her year's mourning. But her heart had no mourning for her
+deceased husband; it longed for Paris, it craved for the world and its
+joys. She was yet, though a few years older than the viscount, a young
+woman; she was beautiful--of that wondrous, enticing beauty peculiar to
+the creoles; she was an accomplished mistress in the difficult art
+of pleasing, and she formed the design of gaining the heart of the
+impulsive Viscount Alexandre de Beauharnais. This design was not
+undertaken because he seemed worthy of love, but because she wanted to
+revenge herself on the family of Tascher de la Pagerie, which family had
+been for a long time at enmity with her own, and had given free and
+open expression against the too easy manners and light behavior of
+the beautiful widow. She wanted to take vengeance for these insults by
+seducing from M. de la Pagerie his own son-in-law, and by enjoying the
+triumph of having charmed away the husband from his daughter.
+
+The proverb says, "What woman will, woman can!" and what the beautiful
+Madame de Gisard wanted was not so very hard to achieve. All she wished
+was to hold complete sway over the heart of a young man who felt heavily
+burdened with the fetters of marriage; who, now that the schemes of
+ambition had failed, reproached his young wife that she was the cause of
+his misfortune; that for her sake he had exiled himself from home, and
+sentenced himself to the dulness and loneliness of a village-life in
+Martinique. The society of the beautiful Madame de Gisard brought at
+least novelty and distraction to this loneliness; she gave occupation
+to the heart weary with connubial storms; she excited his fancy and his
+desires.
+
+Madame de Gisard knew how to use all these advantages; she wanted to
+triumph over the family of De la Pagerie, she wanted to return to Paris
+in the company of a young, handsome, and distinguished lover.
+
+It was not enough to win the love of the viscount; she had to drive
+him into the resolution of separating from his wife, of accusing her of
+unfaithfulness and guilt, so as to have the right of casting her away,
+in order that she herself might openly occupy her place. Madame de
+Gisard had the requisite talent to carry out her plans, and to acquire
+full control over the otherwise rebellious and proud heart of the young
+man. She first began to lead him into open rupture with his father
+and mother-in-law. Through respect for them, the viscount had avoided
+appearing in public with Madame de Gisard, and betraying the intimacy
+which existed between them. Madame de Gisard ridiculed his bashfulness
+and submissive spirit; she considered this servility to the head of
+the family as absurd, and she drove the viscount by means of scorn and
+sarcasm to open revolt.
+
+Then, after separating him from his wife's family, she attacked the wife
+herself. With all the cunning and smoothness of a seducing demon, she
+encompassed the young man's heart, and filled it with mistrust against
+Josephine. She accused the forsaken one with levity and unfaithfulness;
+she filled his heart with jealousy and rancor; she used all the means of
+perfidy and calumny of which a woman is capable, and in which she finds
+a refuge when her object is to ruin, and she succeeded completely.
+
+Alexandre de Beauharnais was now entirely hers; he was gathering against
+Josephine anger and vengeance; and even when he received the news that,
+on the 13th of April, 1783, his young wife had given birth to a daughter
+at Noisy, his soul was not moved by soft emotions, by milder sentiments
+of reconciliation.
+
+Madame de Gisard had taught him that henceforth he need no more be on
+the defensive in reference to the reproaches of Josephine, but that he
+now must be the aggressor; that, to justify his own guiltiness, he must
+accuse his wife of guilt. She had offered herself as the price of his
+reconquered freedom; and the viscount, overcome with love, anger, and
+jealousy, was anxious to become worthy of this price.
+
+He left Martinique and returned to Noisy, not to embrace and bless his
+daughter Eugenie Hortense, but to bow down the mother's head with the
+curse of shame. He accused, without listening to any justification, and,
+with all the vehemence of misguided passion, he asked for an immediate
+separation, an immediate divorce. Vain were the expostulations, the
+prayers of his father and of Madame de Renaudin. Vain were the tears,
+the assurances of innocence from Josephine. The tears of an injured
+woman, the prayers of his sorrowing relatives, were impotent against the
+whisperings and the seducing smiles of the beautiful Madame de Gisard,
+who had secretly accompanied him to France, and who had now over him an
+unconditional sway.
+
+The viscount brought before Parliament a complaint for separation from
+his wife, and based it upon the most improbable and most shameless
+accusations.
+
+Josephine, who, for two years in loneliness and abandonment, had awaited
+the return of her husband; Josephine, who had always hoped, through the
+voice of her children, to recall her husband to herself, saw herself
+suddenly threatened with a new, unexpected tempest. Two years of
+suffering were finally to be rewarded by a scandalous process, which
+exposed her person to the idle and malicious tongues of the Parisians.
+
+She had, however, to submit to fate; she had to bow her head to the
+storm, and trust for her justification to the mercy of God and to the
+justice of the Parliament. During the time of the process she withdrew,
+according to custom, into a convent, and for nearly one year hid herself
+with her shame and her anguish in the abbey of Pantemont, in the street
+Grenelle, St. Germain. However, she was not alone; her aunt, Madame
+de Renaudin, accompanied her, and every day came the Marquis de
+Beauharnais, her husband's father, bringing her the children, who,
+during the time of the unfortunate process, were to remain at Noisy,
+under the guardianship of their grandfather and of a worthy governess.
+The members of her husband's family rivalled each other in their
+manifestations of affection to a woman so much injured and so
+incriminated, and openly before the world they declared themselves
+against the viscount, who, blinded by passion and entirely in the chains
+of this ensnaring woman, was justifying the innocency of his wife by
+his own indiscreet demeanor--by the public exhibition of his passion
+for Madame de Gisard, and thus caused the accusations launched against
+Josephine to recoil upon his own head.
+
+At last, after one year of debates, of careful considerations and
+investigations, of receiving evidence, and of hearing witnesses, the
+Parliament pronounced its decision.
+
+Josephine was declared absolutely innocent of the crimes brought against
+her, and was entirely acquitted of the accusation of unfaithfulness. The
+Parliament pronounced the solemn decree: The accusation directed against
+the Viscountess de Beauharnais was simply a malicious calumny. The
+innocency of the accused wife was evident, and consequently the Viscount
+de Beauharnais was bound to receive again his wife into his house.
+However, the viscountess was permitted and allowed not to share the same
+residence with her husband, and to separate herself from him. In this
+case the viscount was condemned to pay to his wife an annual pension of
+ten thousand francs, and to leave with her mother his daughter Eugenie
+Hortense, while he, the father, should provide for the education of the
+son.
+
+Exonerated from the disgraceful imputation of faithlessness, Josephine
+was again free to leave the convent and return to the life of the world.
+It was her husband's family which now prepared for the poor young
+woman the most beautiful and most touching triumph. The father of her,
+accuser, the Marquis de Beauharnais, as well as his elder son and wife,
+the Duke and Duchess de la Rochefoucauld, and the Baroness Fanny de
+Beauharnais, came in their state carriages to the abbey to receive
+Josephine and lead her back to Paris. They had been joined by a great
+number of the most respectable and most noble ladies of the Parisian
+aristocracy, all in their state carriages, and in the splendor of their
+armorial trappings and liveries, as if it were to accompany a queen
+returning home.
+
+Josephine shed tears of blessed joy when quitting her small, sombre
+rooms in the abbey. She entered into the reception-room to bid farewell
+to the prioress, and there met all these friends and relatives, who
+saluted her with looks of deepest tenderness and sympathy, and embraced
+her in their arms as one found again, as one long desired. This hour of
+triumph indemnified her for the sorrows and sufferings of the unhappy
+year which the poor wife of scarcely twenty years of age, and fleeing
+from calumny and hatred, liar! sighed away in the desolate and lonesome
+convent. She was free, she was justified; the disgrace was removed from
+her head; she was again authorized to be the mother of her children; she
+saw herself surrounded by loving parents, by true friends, and yet in
+her heart there was a sting. Notwithstanding his cruelty, his harshness,
+though he had abandoned and despised her, her heart could not be forced
+into hating the husband for whom she had so much wept and suffered.
+Her tears had impressed his image yet deeper in her heart. He was
+the husband of her first love, the father of her children; how could
+Josephine have hated him, how could her heart, so soft and true, cherish
+animosity against him?
+
+At the side of her husband's father, and holding her daughter in
+her arms, Josephine entered Paris. Behind them came a long train of
+brilliant equipages, of relatives and friends. The passers-by stopped to
+see the brilliant procession move before them, and to ask what it meant.
+Some had recognized the viscountess, and they told to others of the
+sufferings and of the acquittal of the poor young woman; and the people,
+easily affected and sympathizing, rejoiced in the decision of the
+Parliament, and with shouts and applause followed the carriage of the
+young wife.
+
+The marquis, her father-in-law, turned smilingly to Josephine.
+
+"Do you see, my daughter," said he, "what a triumph you enjoy, and how
+much you are beloved and recognized?"
+
+Josephine bent down toward the little Hortense and kissed her.
+
+"Ah," said she, in a low voice, "we are returning home, but the father
+of my children will not bid us welcome. For a pressure of his hand,
+for a kind word from him, I would gladly give the lofty triumph of this
+hour."
+
+No, Alexandre de Beauharnais did not bid welcome to Josephine in his
+father's house, which they had occupied together. Ashamed and irritated,
+he had sped away from Paris, and returned to his regiment at Verdun.
+
+On the arm of the Marquis de Beauharnais, Josephine traversed the
+apartments in which she had lived with her husband, and which she now
+saw again as a widow, whom not death but life had separated from her
+husband. Her father-in-law saw the tears standing in her eyes, and,
+with the refined sympathy of a sensitive mind, he understood the painful
+thoughts which agitated the soul of the young wife.
+
+He fondly folded her in his arms, and laid his blessing hand on the head
+of the little Hortense.
+
+"I have lost my son Alexandre," said he, "but I have found in his stead
+a daughter. Yes, Josephine, you are and will remain my daughter, and to
+you and to your children I will be a true father. My son has parted from
+us, but we remain together in harmony and love, and as long as I live my
+daughter Josephine will never want a protector."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI. TRIANON AND MARIE ANTOINETTE.
+
+
+Whilst the Viscountess Josephine de Beauharnais, the empress of the
+future, was living in enforced widowhood, the life of Marie Antoinette,
+the queen of the present, resembled a serene, golden, sunny dream; her
+countenance, beaming with youth, beauty, and grace, had never yet been
+darkened with a cloud; her large blue eyes had not yet been dimmed with
+tears.
+
+In Fontainebleau, whither Josephine had retired with her father-in-law,
+who through unfortunate events had lost the greatest part of his
+fortune--in Fontainebleau lived the future Empress of France in sad
+monotony; in Versailles, in Trianon, lived the present Queen of France
+in the dazzling splendor of her glory, of her youth, and of her beauty.
+In Trianon--this first gift of love from the king to his wife--the Queen
+of France dreamed life away in a pleasant idyl, in a joyous pastoral
+amusement; there, she tried to forget that she was queen, that is to
+say, that she was the slave of etiquette; there she tried to indemnify
+herself for the tediousness, the emptiness, the heartlessness of the
+great festivals in the Tuileries and in Versailles.
+
+In Trianon, Marie Antoinette desired to be the domestic wife, the
+pleasant, youthful woman, as in the Tuileries and at Versailles she was
+the proud and lofty queen. Marie Antoinette felt her days obscured by
+the splendors of royalty; the crown weighed heavily on her beautiful
+head, which seemed made for a crown of myrtle and roses; life's
+earnestness had not yet cast its breath on those rosy cheeks and robbed
+of youth's charm the smile on those crimson lips.
+
+And why should not Marie Antoinette have smiled and been joyous? Every
+thing shone round about her; every thing seemed to promise an enduring
+harvest of felicity, for the surface of France was calm and bright, and
+the queen's vision had not yet been made keen enough by experience to
+penetrate below this shining surface and see the precipices already
+hidden underneath.
+
+These precipices were yet covered with flowers, and the skies floating
+above them seemed yet cloudless. The French people appeared to retain
+yet for the royal family that enthusiastic devotedness which they had
+manifested for centuries; they fondly proclaimed to the queen, whenever
+she appeared, their affection, their admiration; they were not weary
+with the expressions of their rapture and their worship, and Marie
+Antoinette was not weary of listening to these jubilant manifestations
+with which she was received in the theatre, on the streets, in the
+gardens of the Tuileries, on the terraces of Versailles; she was not
+weary of returning thanks with a friendly nod or with a gracious smile.
+
+All the Parisians seemed still to be, as once, at the arrival of the
+Dauphin, they had been called by the Baron de Vesenval, "the queen's
+lovers," and also to rival one another in manifesting their allegiance.
+
+Even the fish-women of Paris shared the general enthusiasm; and when,
+in 1781, the queen had given to her husband a son, and to his people
+a future monarch, the ladies of "the Halls" were amongst the most
+enthusiastic friends of the queen. They even came to Versailles to
+congratulate the royal couple on the dauphin's birth, to salute the
+young dauphin as the heir to the crown of France, and to sing under the
+window of the king some songs, one of which so pleased the king that
+oftentimes afterward, in his quiet and happy hours, he used to sing
+a verse of it with a smile on his lip. This Terse, which even Marie
+Antoinette sang, ran thus:
+
+    "Ne craignez pas, cher papa,
+        D' voir augmenter vot' famille,
+     Le bon Dieu z'y pourvoira:
+        Faits-en taut qu' Versailles en fourmille;
+     Yeut-il cent Bourbons cheu nos
+        Ya du pain, du laurier pour tous."
+
+[Footnote: Madaine ile Carapan, "Histoire de Marie Antoinette," vol. i.,
+p. 218.]
+
+In Trianon, Marie Antoinette passed her happiest hours and days; there,
+the queen changed herself into a shepherdess; there, vanished from her
+the empty splendors of purple and ermine, of etiquette and ceremonial;
+there, she enjoyed life in its purity, in its innocency, in its
+naturalness; such was the ideal Marie Antoinette wished to realize in
+Trianon.
+
+A simple dress of white muslin, a light kerchief of gauze, a straw hat
+with a gayly-colored ribbon, such was the attire of the queen and of the
+princesses whom Marie Antoinette invited. For the only etiquette which
+prevailed at Trianon was this: that no one from the court, even princes
+or princesses, should come to Trianon without having received an
+invitation from the queen to that effect. Even the king submitted to
+this ceremonial, and had expressly promised his consort never to come to
+Trianon without an invitation, and, so as to please the queen, no sooner
+did she announce her intention of retiring to her country-residence,
+than he was always the first who hastened to obtain the favor of an
+invitation.
+
+In Trianon, Louis ceased to be king as well as Marie Antoinette ceased
+to be queen. There Louis XVI. was but the farmer of the lady of the
+castle; the Count d'Artois was the miller, and the learned Count de
+Provence, the schoolmaster. For each of them had been erected in
+the gardens of Trianon a separate house suited to their respective
+avocations.
+
+The farmer Louis had his farm-house built in Swiss style, with a balcony
+of finely-carved wood at the gable-end, and with stalls attached to the
+house, and where bellowed the stately red cows of Switzerland; behind
+the house was a small garden in which the variegated convolvulus and the
+daisy shed their fragrance.
+
+The Count d'Artois had, near the stream which flowed through the park,
+his miller's house, with an enormous wheel, made of wooden spokes joined
+together, and which moved lustily in the water, and adorned the clear
+brook with wavelets of foam.
+
+The Count de Provence had, under the shadow of a mulberry-tree,
+his house, with a large school-room in it; and oftentimes the whole
+court-society were converted into scholars of both sexes, who took their
+seats on the benches of the school-room, whilst the Count de Provence,
+in a long coat with lead buttons and with an immense rod in his hand,
+ascended the cathedra and delivered to his school-children a humorous
+and piquant lecture, all sparkling with wit.
+
+The princesses also had in this "grove of Paradise," as Marie Antoinette
+called the woods of Trianon, their cottages, where they milked cows,
+made butter, and searched for eggs in the hens' nests. In the midst of
+all these cottages and Swiss houses stood the cottage of the farming
+Marie Antoinette; it was the finest and the most beautiful one of all,
+adorned with vases full of fragrant blossoms and surrounded by flowering
+plants and by cozy bowers of verdure. This cottage was the highest
+delight of the queen's life, the enchanting toy of her happiness. Even
+the little castle of Trianon, however simple and modest, seemed too
+splendid for the taste of the pastoral queen. For in Trianon one
+was always reminded that the lady of this castle was a queen; there,
+servants were in livery; there, officials and names and titles were to
+be found, even when etiquette was forbidden entrance into the halls of
+the little castle of Trianon. Marie Antoinette was no more queen there,
+it is true, but she was the lady of the palace to whom the highest
+respect was shown, and who therefore had been constrained expressly and
+strictly to order that at her entrance into the drawing-rooms the ladies
+would not interrupt the piece begun on the piano, nor stand up if seated
+at their embroidery, and that the gentlemen would keep on undisturbed
+their billiard-party or their game at trictrac.
+
+But in her cottage all rank disappeared; there, was no distinction;
+there, ceased the glory of name and title, and no sooner was the castle
+abandoned for the cottages than each named the other with some Arcadic,
+pastoral appellation, and each busied himself with his rural avocations.
+How lustily the laughter, how merrily the song sounded from these
+cottages amid these bowers and groves; how the countenance of the
+farming-lady was lighted up with happiness and joy; with what delight
+rested upon her the eye of the farmer Louis, who in his blue blouse,
+with a straw hat on his head, with a rosy, fleshy, good-natured face,
+was exactly fitted for his part, and who found it no difficult task to
+hide under the farmer's garment the purple of the king!
+
+How often was Marie Antoinette seen in her simple white dress, her
+glowing countenance shaded by a straw hat, bounding through the garden
+as light as a gazelle, and going from the barn to the milk-room,
+followed by the company she had invited to drink of her milk and eat of
+her fresh eggs! How often, when the farmer Louis had secreted himself
+in a grove for the sake of reading, how often was he discovered there by
+the queen, torn away from his book and drawn to a dejeuner on the
+grass! When that was over, and Louis had gone back to his book, Marie
+Antoinette hastened to her cows to see them milked, or she went into the
+rocking-boat to fish, or else reposed on the lawn, busy as a peasant,
+with her spindle.
+
+But this quiet occupation detained not long the lively, spirited
+farming-lady; with a loud voice, she called to her maids or companions
+from the cottages, and then began those merry, unrestrained amusements
+which the queen had introduced into society, and which since then have
+been introduced not only into the drawing-rooms of the upper classes,
+but also into the more austere circles of the wealthy burghers.
+
+Then the queen with her court played at blindman's bluff, at pampam,
+or at a game invented by the Duke de Chartres, the future Duke Philippe
+d'Orleans, Egalite, and which game was called "descamper," a sort of
+hide-and-seek amusement, in which the ladies hid themselves in the shady
+bushes and groves, to be there discovered by the gentlemen, and then
+to endeavor by flight to save themselves, for if once caught and seized
+they had to purchase their liberty with a kiss.
+
+When evening came all left the cottages for the little castle, and
+the pastoral recreations gave way to the higher enjoyments of refined
+society. Marie Antoinette was not in the castle of Trianon queen again,
+but she was not either the simple lady of the farm, she was the lady of
+the castle, and--the first amateur in the theatrical company which twice
+a week exhibited their pieces in the theatre of Trianon.
+
+These theatrical performances were quite as much the queen's delight as
+her pastoral occupations in her farm cottages, and Marie Antoinette
+was unwearied in learning and studying her parts. She had chosen for
+teachers two pensioned actors, Caillot and Dazincourt, who had to come
+every day to Trianon to teach to the noble group of actors the
+small operas, vaudevilles, and dramas, which had been chosen for
+representation, and in which the queen naturally always played the
+part of first amateur, while the princesses, the wives of the Counts de
+Provence and Artois, the two Countesses de Polignac, undertook the other
+parts, even those of gentlemen, when the two brothers of the king, the
+only male members of this theatrical company, could not assume all the
+gentlemen's parts.
+
+At first the audience at these representations was very limited. Only
+the king, the princes and the princesses of the royal household, not
+engaged in the performance, constituted the audience; but afterward it
+was found that to encourage the actors a little, a larger audience
+was needed; then the boxes were filled with the governesses of the
+princesses, the queen's waiting-women, whose sisters and daughters with
+a few other select ladies had been invited.
+
+It was natural that those who had been thus preferred, and who enjoyed
+the privilege of seeing the Queen of France, the princes and princesses,
+appear as actors, should be full of admiration and applause at the
+talents displayed by the royal troupe; and as they alone formed the
+select audience, whose presence had for object to animate the artistes,
+they had also assumed the duty to excite and to vitalise the zeal
+and the fire of the players by their enthusiasm and by their liberal
+praises.
+
+This applause of a grateful public blinded the royal actors as to their
+real merits, and excited in them the ambition to exhibit their artistic
+talents before a larger audience and to be admired. Consequently, the
+queen granted to the officers of the lifeguard and to the masters of the
+king's stalls and to their brothers, admittance into the theatre; the
+gentlemen and ladies of the court had seats in the gilt boxes; a larger
+number of ladies were invited, and soon from all sides came requests for
+tickets of admission to the theatrical performances in the Trianon.
+
+The same privileges which had been allowed to a few could not be, and
+it was not desirable that they should be, granted to all; those who were
+purposely refused revenged themselves of this refusal by an unsparing
+criticism on the performers and by bitter sarcasm at the Queen of
+France, who so far forgot her dignity as to play comedies before her
+subjects, and who played her part not always in such a manner as to give
+to a sharp criticism no reason for blame.
+
+The queen possessed, it is true, the desire, but not the ability, to be
+an actress or a songstress. When she played the part of a comedian, no
+one felt tempted to laugh; but contrariwise it might often happen that,
+when her part was tragical, impressive and touching even to tears, the
+faces of her auditors brightened with involuntary laughter.
+
+Once even it happened that a person from the audience, when the queen
+had not yet left the stage, cried aloud, and perhaps with the intention
+of being heard by her: "One must confess that royal acting is bad
+acting!"
+
+Though she understood the words, yet the smile on her lips vanished not
+away; and as the Countess Diana de Polignac wished to persuade her to
+allow the impertinent one who had spoken these words, to be sought out
+and punished, the queen, shrugging her shoulders answered: "My friend, I
+say as Madame de Maintenon: 'I am upon the stage, and must therefore be
+willing to be applauded or hissed.'"
+
+Yes, she had to endure the applause or the hissing. Unfortunately, the
+number of those who hissed grew every day. The queen had provoked public
+expression since she bade it defiance. On the day she banished etiquette
+from its watchful duty at the apartments of the Queen of France, the
+public expression with its train of slanders and maliciousness entered
+in through the open portals. The queen was blamed for her theatricals as
+well as for her simple, unadorned toilet, yet she was imitated in these
+two things, as even before the costly and luxurious toilet, the high
+head-gears of the queen, and also blindman's buff and descamper, had
+been imitated. Every woman now wanted such a simple negligee, such a
+headdress, such a feather as Marie Antoinette. As once before, Madame
+Bertin, the celebrated milliner of the queen, had been circumvented to
+furnish a pattern of the queen's coiffure, so now all the ladies rushed
+upon her in flocks to procure the small caps, fichus, and mantelets,
+after the queen's model. The robes with long trains, the court-dresses
+of heavy silk, jewels and gold ornaments, were on a sudden despised;
+every thing which could add brilliancy and dignity to the toilet was
+banished, the greatest simplicity and nonchalance were now the fashion;
+every lady strove, if possible, to resemble a shepherdess of Watteau,
+and it was soon impossible to distinguish a duchess from an actress.
+
+Not only the ladies but also the gentlemen were carried away by this
+flood of novelty. They gave up the boots with red heels, the embroidered
+garments, as already before they had given up laces, bandelets, gold
+fringes, and diamond buttons on the hats; they put on simple coats of
+cloth as the burgher and the man of the people wore; they abandoned
+their equipages, with their brilliant armorial trappings and the golden
+liveries, and found satisfaction in promenading the streets, with cane
+in hand, and with boots instead of buckled shoes.
+
+It is true these street promenadings of the nobility were not oftentimes
+without inconvenience and molestation. As without the insignia of their
+rank and position they mixed with the society of the streets, entered
+into taverns and cafes, the people took them for what they seemed to be,
+for their equals, and instead of respectfully making way for them,
+the people claimed as much attention from them as they themselves were
+willing to give. Often enough disputes and scuffles took place between
+the disguised nobleman and the man of the people, the laborer, or the
+commissionnaire, and at such experiments of hand to hand the victory was
+not to the nobleman, but to the fist of the man, of the people.
+
+The novelty of such scenes excited the fastidious aristocracy; it became
+a sort of passion to mix with the people, to frequent the cabarets, to
+strike some bargain at trade, to be the hero of a fist-fight, even if
+it ended by the stout workmen throwing down the aristocrats who had
+despised them. To be thrown down was no more considered by the nobility
+as a disgrace, and they applauded these affrays as once they had
+applauded duelling.
+
+The aristocracy mixed with the people, adopted their manners and usages,
+even much of their mode of thinking, of their democratic opinions, and,
+by divesting themselves of their external dignity, of their halo, the
+nobility threw down the barrier of separation which stood between them
+and the democracy; that respect and esteem which the man of the people
+had hitherto maintained toward the nobleman vanished away.
+
+The principle of equality, which was to have such fatal consequences for
+France, arose from the folly of the aristocracy; and Marie Antoinette
+was the one who, with her taste for simplicity, with her opposition to
+etiquette and ceremony, had called this principle into life.
+
+Not only was the queen imitated in her simplicity, she was also imitated
+in her love of comedy. These theatrical amusements of the queen were
+a subject of reproach, and yet these private recreations of Marie
+Antoinette were the fashion of the day. The taste for theatrical
+representations made its way into all classes of society; soon there was
+no nobleman, no banker, not even a respectable, well-to-do merchant,
+who had not in his house a small theatre, and who, with his family and
+friends, endeavored not to emulate on his own narrow stage the manners
+of the celebrated actors.
+
+Before these days, a nobleman would have considered himself insulted and
+dishonored if he had been supposed to have become a comedian, or even
+to have assumed a comedian's garb, were it but in the home-circle. The
+queen by her example had now destroyed this prepossession, and it was
+now so much bon ton to act a comedy that even men of gravity, even the
+first magistrate of Paris, could so much forget the dignity of position
+as to commit to memory and even to act some of the parts of a buffoon.
+[Footnote: Montjoie, "Histoire de Marie Antoinette, Reine de France."]
+
+It was also soon considered to be highly fashionable to set one's self
+against the prejudice which had been hitherto fostered against
+actors; and, whereas the queen took lessons in singing from Garat, the
+opera-singer, and even sang duets with her, she threw down the wall of
+partition which had hitherto separated the artistes of the stage from
+good society.
+
+Unfortunate queen, who, with the best qualities of the heart, was
+preparing her own ruin; who understood not that the freedom and license
+which she herself granted, would soon throw on the roof of the Tuileries
+the firebrand which reduced to dust and ashes the throne of the
+Bourbons!--unfortunate queen, who in her modesty would so gladly forget
+her exaltation and her majesty, and who thereby taught her subjects to
+make light of majesty and to despise the throne!
+
+She saw not yet the abyss opening under her feet; the flowers of Trianon
+hid it from her view! She heard not the distant mutterings of the public
+mind, which, like the raging wave of the storm, swelled up nearer and
+nearer the throne to crush it one day under the howling thunders of the
+unshackled elements of the unloosed rage of the people!
+
+The skies, arching over the fragrant blossoms of the charming Trianon,
+and over the cottages of the farming queen, were yet serene and
+cloudless, and the voice of public opinion was yet drowned in the joyous
+laughter which echoed from the cottages of Trianon, or in the sweet
+harmonies which waved in the concert-hall, when the queen, with Garat,
+or with the Baron de Vaudreuil, the most welcome favorite of the ladies,
+and the most accomplished courtier of his day, sang her duets.
+
+Repose and peace prevailed yet in Trianon, and the loyal subjects of the
+King of France made their pilgrimages to Trianon, there to admire the
+idyls of the queen and to watch for the favorable opportunity of espying
+the queen, Marie Antoinette, in her rustic costume, with a basket of
+eggs on her arm, or the spindle in hand, and to be greeted by her with
+a salutation, a friendly word. For Marie Antoinette in Trianon was only
+the lady of the mansion, or the farming-lady--so much so, that she had
+allowed the very last duties of etiquette, which separated the subject
+from the queen, to be abandoned, that even when with her gay company she
+was in Trianon, the gates of the park and of the castle were not closed
+to visitors, but were opened to any one who had secured from the keeper
+a card of admission; the benefit arising from these cards was applied by
+order of the queen to the relief of the poor of Versailles. It is true,
+one condition of small importance was attached, "by order of the queen,"
+to the obtaining of such a card. It was necessary to belong to the
+nobility, or to the higher magistracy, so as to be entitled to purchase
+a card of admission into the Trianon, and this sole insignificant
+condition contained the germ of much evil and of bitter hatred. The
+merchant, the spicier, was conscious of a bitter insult in this order,
+which banished him from Trianon, which made it impossible for him to
+satisfy his curiosity, and to see the queen as a shepherdess, and the
+king as a farmer. This order only whetted more and more the hatred and
+the contempt for the preferred classes, for the aristocrats, and turned
+the most important class of the population, the burgesses, into enemies
+of the queen. For it was the queen who had given this order which kept
+away from Trianon the tradesmen; it was the queen alone who ruled in
+Trianon: and, to vent vengeance on the queen's order, she was blamed
+for assuming a right belonging only to the King of France. Only he, the
+king, was entitled to give laws to France, only he could set on the very
+front of the law this seal: "DE PAR LE ROI."
+
+And now the queen wanted to assume this privilege. In the castles of
+pleasure presented by the king to the queen, in Trianon as well as in
+St. Cloud, was seen at the entrance of the gardens a tablet, containing
+the regulations under which admission was granted to the public, and
+these two tablets began with the formula, "DE PAR LA HEINE!" This
+unfortunate expression excited the ill-will and the anger of all France;
+every one felt himself injured, every one was satisfied to see therein
+an attack on the integrity of the monarchy, on the sovereignty of the
+king.
+
+"It is no more the king alone who enacts laws," they said, "but the
+queen also assumes this right; she makes use of the formalities of the
+state, she issues laws without the approbation of the Parliament. The
+queen wants to place our king aside and despoil us of our rights, so as
+to take the king's place!"
+
+And these complaints, these reproaches became so vehement, so loud, that
+their echoes resounded in the chambers of the king, so that even one of
+the ministers could make observations to the king on that subject, and
+say: "It is certainly immoral and impolitic for a queen of France to own
+castles for her own private use" [Footnote: Campan, "Memoires," vol. i.,
+p. 274.]
+
+The good Louis therefore ventured to speak to his consort on this
+subject, and to ask of her to remove this expression which gave so much
+offence, and which had so violently excited the public sentiment.
+
+But the pure heart of Marie Antoinette rebelled against such a
+supposition; her pride was stirred up that she, a queen, the daughter of
+the Caesars, should make concession to public opinion; that she should
+submit to this imaginary and invisible power, which dared despise her as
+a queen, which she recognized not and would not recognize!
+
+This power, the public opinion, stood yet behind Marie Antoinette as an
+invisible, an unobserved phantom, which soon was to be transformed into
+a cruel monster, whose giant hand would pitilessly crush the happiness
+and the peace of the queen.
+
+The prayers and expostulations of the king were in vain. Marie
+Antoinette would not bow to the public sentiment; she would not depart
+from her regulations, she would not strike off her "De par la reine" for
+the sake of "De par le peuple"
+
+"My name is there in its right place," said she, with a countenance
+beaming with resolution and pride; "these gardens and castles are my
+property, and I can very well issue orders in them, without interfering
+with state rights."
+
+And the "De par la reine" remained on the regulation-tablets in Trianon
+as well as in St. Cloud; and the people, who, through birth or through
+official position, were not entitled to enter Trianon, came thither at
+least to read the tablets of rules at the gate of entrance, and to
+fill up their hearts with scorn and contempt, and to utter loud curses
+against this presumptuous and daring "De par la reine."
+
+And this woman, whose pride and imperiousness kept away and scorned away
+the burgesses from the gates of Trianon, came to Trianon there to rest
+from the unbending majesty of her sovereignty, and she herself used to
+say to her ladies, with her own enchanting smile, "To forget that she
+was queen."
+
+The numberless fairy-tales related about the enchanted castle of the
+queen had found their way to Fontainebleau, and had been re-echoed in
+the quiet, lonely house where lived the Marquis de Beauharnais and
+his family. The marquis, always extremely attentive to procure for his
+beloved daughter-in-law some distraction and some recreation, proposed
+to Josephine to visit this Trianon, which furnished so much material
+for admiration and slander, and to make thither with a few friends a
+pleasure excursion.
+
+Josephine gladly accepted the invitation; she longed for diversion and
+society. Her young, glowing heart had been healed and strengthened after
+the deep wound which the ever-beloved husband had inflicted; she had
+submitted to her fate; she was a divorced woman, but Parliament had by
+its judgment kept her honor free from every shadow; public opinion had
+pronounced itself in her favor; the love of her parents, of the father
+of him who had so shamefully accused her, so cruelly deserted her,
+endeavored to make compensation for what she had lost. Josephine could
+not trouble, with her sorrows, with her sad longings of soul, those who
+so much busied themselves in cheering her up. She had, therefore, so
+mastered herself as to appear content, as to dry here tears; and her
+youth, the freshness and elasticity of her mind, had come to the help
+of her efforts. She had at first smiled through effort, she soon did
+it from the force of youthful pleasure; she had at first repressed her
+tears by the power of her will, soon her tears were dried up and her
+eyes irradiated again the fire of youth and hope, of the hope once
+more to win her husband's heart, to return her two graceful and beloved
+children to their father, whom their youth needed, for whom every
+evening she raised to the God of love the prayers which their mother
+with low, trembling voice and tears in her eyes made them say after her.
+
+Josephine, then, in company with her aunt Madame de Renaudin and
+with her father-in-law the Marquis de Beauharnais, undertook this
+pleasure-excursion to Trianon. The sight of these glorious parks, these
+gardens so artistically laid out, charmed her and filled her with the
+sweet reminiscences of the loved home, of the beautiful gardens in
+Martinique, which she herself with her slaves had cultivated, in which
+she had planted those beautiful flowers whose liveliness of color and
+whose fragrance of blossom were here in hot-houses so much praised. The
+love of plants and flowers had ever remained fresh amid the storms
+and sorrows which in the last years had passed over her heart, and
+oftentimes she had sought in the study of botany forgetfulness and
+refreshment. With a vivacity and a joyfulness such as had not been seen
+in her for a long time, Josephine wandered about this beautiful park,
+these hot-houses and gardens, and, transported with joy and admiration,
+she exclaimed: "Oh, how happy must the queen be to call this paradise
+her own!"
+
+The sound of approaching voices interrupted her in her observations and
+in her admiration, which, perchance, was not entirely free from envy.
+Through the foliage of the trees was seen a large company approaching
+the queen's farm-house, before which stood Josephine with her escort. At
+the curve of the path near the grove where Josephine stood, appeared
+a woman. A white muslin dress, not expanded by the stiff, ceremonious
+hoop-petticoat, but falling down in ample folds, wrapped up her tall,
+noble figure, a small lace kerchief covered the beautiful neck, and
+in part the splendid shoulders. The deep-blond unpowdered hair hung
+in heavy, curly locks on either side of the rosy cheeks; the head was
+covered with a large, round straw hat, adorned with long, streaming silk
+ribbons; on the arm, partly covered with a black knit glove, hung an
+ornamented woven basket, which was completely filled with eggs.
+
+"The queen!" murmured Josephine, trembling within herself, and,
+frightened at this unexpected meeting, she wanted to withdraw behind the
+grove, in the hope of being unnoticed by the farmer's wife passing by.
+
+But Marie Antoinette had already seen her, and on her beautiful, smiling
+countenance was not for a moment expressed either surprise or concern at
+this unexpected meeting with uninvited strangers. She was so accustomed
+to see curiosity-seekers in her lovely Trianon, and to meet them,
+disturbed not in the least her unaffected serenity. A moment only she
+stood still, to allow her followers, the Duchesses de Polignac, the
+Princess de Lamballe, and the two Counts de Coigny, to draw near; then
+lightly and smilingly she walked toward the house near which Josephine
+bewildered and blushing stood, whilst the marquis bowed profoundly and
+reverentially.
+
+The queen, who was about to pass by and enter into the house, stood
+still. Her large dark-blue eye was for a moment fixed with questioning
+expression upon Josephine, then a smile illumined her beautiful
+countenance. She had recognized the Viscountess de Beauharnais, though
+she had seen her only twice. Although, through her husband's rank and
+station, Josephine was entitled to appear at court, yet she had always,
+with all the retreating anxiety of inexperienced youth, endeavored to
+evade the solemnity of an official presentation. The young, lively,
+unaffected Creole had cherished an invincible horror for the stiff
+court-etiquette, for the ceremonial court-dress of gold brocade, with
+the court-mantle strictly embroidered after the established pattern, and
+which terminated in a long, heavy train, for the majestic head-gear of
+feathers, flowers, laces, and veils, all towering up nearly a yard high,
+and, above all things, for those rules and laws which regulated and
+fixed every word, every step, every movement, at a solemn presentation
+at court.
+
+Marie Antoinette had had compassion on the timidity of the young
+Creole, and to spare her the solemnity of a rigid presentation had twice
+received at a private audience the young Viscountess de Beauharnais, and
+had then received also her homage. [Footnote: Le Normand, "Histoire de
+l'Imperatrice Josephine," vol. i., p. 97.]
+
+The youthful, charming appearance of Josephine, her peculiar and at
+the same time ingenuous and graceful attitude, had not been without
+impression on the queen; and with the most sympathizing interest, she
+had heard of the sad disturbances which had clouded the matrimonial
+happiness of the young Creole.
+
+No longer, as before, had Marie Antoinette requested the Viscount de
+Beauharnais, the beautiful dancer of Versailles, to dance with her;
+and when Parliament had given its sentence, and openly and solemnly had
+proclaimed the innocency of Josephine, the accused wife, the queen also
+had loudly expressed her satisfaction at this judgment, and the Viscount
+de Beauharnais was no more invited to the court festivities.
+
+About to enter into the house, the queen had recognized the young
+viscountess, and with a friendly movement of the head she beckoned her
+to approach, welcomed the marquis, whom her short-sightedness had not at
+once recognized, to her beloved Trianon, and she requested them both
+to visit her little kingdom as often as they would wish, and to examine
+every thing attentively.
+
+In the goodness and generosity of her heart, the queen gladly desired
+to make amends to the young, timid woman, who, embarrassed and blushing,
+stood before her, for the sufferings she had endured, for the disgrace
+under which she had had to bow her head; she wanted to give the accused
+innocent one a reparation of honor such as Parliament and public
+sentiment had already done.
+
+She was consequently all goodness, all condescension, all confidence;
+she spoke to Josephine, not as a queen to her favored subjects, but as
+a young woman to a young woman, as to her equal. With sympathetic
+friendliness she made inquiries concerning the welfare of the
+viscountess and her family; she invited her to come often to Trianon,
+and, with a flattering allusion to the vast knowledge of the viscountess
+in botany, she asked her if she was satisfied with the arrangements of
+garden and hot-houses.
+
+Josephine, with the sensitiveness and fine tact natural to her, felt
+that the trivial flattery of a courtier would but be a wretched and
+inappropriate return for so much goodness and loving-kindness; she
+felt that frankness and truth were the thanks due to the queen's
+large-heartedness.
+
+She therefore answered the queen's questions with impartial sincerity,
+and, encouraged by the kindness of the queen, she openly and clearly
+gave her opinion concerning the arrangement of the hot-houses, and drew
+the attention of the queen to some precious and choice plants which she
+had noticed in the hot-houses.
+
+Marie Antoinette listened to her with lively interest, and at parting
+extended to her in a friendly manner her beautiful hand.
+
+"Come soon again, viscountess," said she, with that beautiful smile
+which ever won her true hearts; "you are worthy to enjoy the beauty
+of my beloved Trianon, for you have eyes and sense for the beautiful.
+Examine everything closely, and when we see one another again, tell
+me what you have observed and what has pleased you. It will ever be a
+pleasure to see you." [Footnote: The very words of the queen.--See Le
+Normand, "Histoire," &c., vol. i., p. 135.]
+
+But Josephine was no more to see the beautiful queen, so worthy of
+compassion; and these kind words which Marie Antoinette had spoken to
+her were the last which Josephine was ever to hear from her lips.
+
+A few days after this visit to Trianon, Josephine received from her
+parents in Martinique letters which had for their object to persuade her
+with the tenderness of love, with all the reasons of wisdom, to
+return to her home, to the house of her parents, to withdraw with
+bold resolution from all the inconveniences and humiliations of her
+precarious and dangerous situation, and, instead of living in humble
+solitude as a divorced, despised woman, sooner to come to Martinique,
+and there in her parents' home be again the beloved and welcomed
+daughter.
+
+Josephine hesitated still. She could not come to the resolution of
+abandoning the hope of a reunion with Alexandre de Beauharnais; she
+dreamt yet of the happiness of seeing the beloved wanderer return to his
+wife, to his children.
+
+But her aunt and her father-in-law knew better than she that there was
+no prospect of such an event; they knew that the viscount was still the
+impassioned lover of the beautiful Madame de Gisard; that she held him
+too tightly in her web to look for a possibility of his returning to his
+legitimate affection.
+
+If any thing could rouse him from this love-spell, and bring him back to
+duty and reason, it would be that sudden, unexpected departure; it would
+be the conviction which would necessarily be impressed upon him,
+that Josephine desired to be forever separated from him; that she was
+conscious of being divorced from him forever, and that, in the pride of
+her insulted womanhood, she wished to withdraw herself and her daughter
+from his approaches, and from the scandal which his passion for Madame
+de Gisard was giving.
+
+Such were the reasons with which her relatives, even the grandfather
+of her two children, sought to persuade her to a voyage to
+Martinique--bitter though the anguish would be for them to be deprived
+of the presence of the gentle, lovely young woman, whose youthful
+freshness and grace had like sunshine cheered the lonely house in
+Fontainebleau; to see also part from them the little Hortense, whose
+joyous voice of childhood had now and then recalled the faithless son
+to the father's house, and which was still a bond which united Josephine
+with her husband and with his family.
+
+Josephine had to give way before these arguments, however much her heart
+bled. She had long felt how much of impropriety and of danger there was
+in the situation of a young woman divorced from her husband, and how
+much more dignified and expedient it would be for her to return to
+her father's home and to the bosom of her family. She therefore took a
+decided resolution; she tore herself away from her relatives, from her
+beloved son, whom she could not take with her, for he belonged to the
+father. With a stream of painful tears she bade farewell to the love of
+youth, to the joys of youth, from which naught remained but the wounds
+of a despised heart, and the children who gazed at her with the beloved
+eyes of their father.
+
+In the month of July of the year 1788, Josephine, with her little
+five-year-old daughter Hortense, left Fontainebleau, went to Havre,
+whence she embarked for Martinique.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII. LIEUTENANT NAPOLEON BONAPARTE.
+
+
+While the Viscountess Josephine de Beauharnais was, during long years of
+resignation, enduring all the anguish, humiliations, and agonies of an
+unhappy marriage, the first pain and sorrow had also clouded the days of
+the young Corsican boy who, in the same year as Josephine, had embarked
+from his native land for France.
+
+In the beginning of the year 1785, Napoleon Bonaparte had lost his
+father. In Montpellier, whither he had come for the cure of his diseased
+breast, he died, away from home, from his Letitia and his children.
+Only his eldest son Joseph stood near his dying couch, and, moreover,
+a fortunate accident had brought to pass that the poor, lonely sufferer
+should meet there a friendly home, where he was received with the most
+considerate affection. Letitia's companion of youth, the beautiful
+Panonia Comnene, now Madame de Permont, resided in Montpellier with
+her husband, who was settled there, and with all the faithfulness and
+friendship of a Corsican, she nursed the sick husband of her Letitia.
+
+But neither the skill of the renowned physicians of Montpellier, nor the
+tender care of friends, nor the tears of the son, could keep alive the
+unfortunate Charles de Bonaparte. For three days long he struggled with
+death; for three days long his youth, his manhood's powers, resisted the
+mighty foe, which already held him in its chains; then he had to submit
+to the conqueror. Exhausted with death's pallor, Charles de Bonaparte
+sank back on his couch, and as Death threw his dark shadows on his
+face bathed in cold perspiration, Charles de Bonaparte, with stammering
+tongue, in the last paroxysms of fancy, exclaimed: "It is in vain!
+Nothing can save me! Even Napoleon's sword, which one day is to triumph
+over all Europe, even that sword cannot frighten away the dragon of
+death which crouches on my breast!" [Footnote: See "Memoires du Roi
+Joseph," vol. i., p. 29.]
+
+Wonderful vision of a dying man! The dimmed eye of the dying father
+saw his son Napoleon's sword, "which one day was to triumph over all
+Europe;" as he prophesied its power, he sighed at the same time over the
+impotency which holds all mankind in its bands, and leaves even the hero
+as a powerless child in the hands of fate. The sword which was to be a
+yoke to all Europe could not terrify from the breast of his father the
+dragon of death!
+
+Napoleon received the news of his father's decease whilst at the
+military school of Paris, where he had been placed for the last six
+months, to the joy and satisfaction of his teachers as well as to that
+of his schoolmates in Brienne. For the reserved, taciturn, proud boy,
+who, rugged and blunt, stood aloof from his comrades, who even dared
+speak rude and bitter words against his teachers and against the whole
+military institution at Brienne, was oftentimes an inconvenience and a
+burden as well to teachers as to schoolmates; and all felt relieved, as
+from a depressing weight, when they no more feared the naming eyes of
+the boy who observed every thing, who criticised every thing, and passed
+judgment upon every thing.
+
+But if he was not loved, it was impossible to refuse esteem to his
+capacity, to his desire for learning; and the testimony which Monsieur
+de Heralio, the principal of the institution of Brienne, sent with the
+young Napoleon to Paris, was a tribute of respect and an acknowledgment
+of merit. He portrayed him "as having an extremely capacious head,
+especially skilled in mathematics, and of great powers and talents." As
+to his character, one of the professors of the institution had in the
+testimonial written the remark: "A Corsican by birth and character. He
+will do great things, if circumstances are favorable."
+
+But circumstances did not appear favorable, but contrariwise seemed to
+bo roused in enmity against the poor Corsican boy. He had been scarcely
+half a year in Paris when he lost his father, and this grief, of which
+not a murmur escaped, which he kept within, devouring his heart, as
+every thing else which affected him, made his existence still more
+reserved, still more retired, and isolated him more and more. Moreover,
+death had not only taken away the father, but also the support which
+Napoleon received from him. The means of the Bonaparte family were very
+meagre, and barely sufficed to the support of Signora Letitia and her
+seven children. Napoleon could not and dared not require or accept
+any help from his mother, on whom and on his brother Joseph it became
+incumbent to educate and support the young family. He had to be
+satisfied to live upon the bounty which the royal treasury furnished to
+the young men at the military school.
+
+But these limited means were to the ambitious boy a source of
+humiliation and pain. The majority of his comrades consisted of young
+aristocrats, who, provided with ample means, led a gay, luxurious,
+dissipated life, had horses, servants, equipages, kept up one with
+another expensive dinner-parties and dejeuners, and seized every
+opportunity to organize a festivity or a pleasure-party. Every
+departure, every admission of a scholar, was celebrated with brilliant
+display; every birthday furnished the opportunity of a feast, and every
+holiday became the welcomed occasion for a pleasure excursion which the
+young men on horseback, and followed by their servants in livery, made
+in the vicinity of Paris.
+
+Napoleon could take no part in all these feastings and dissipations; and
+as his proud heart could not acknowledge his poverty, he put on the mask
+of a stoic, who, with contemptuous disregard, cast away vain pleasures
+and amusements, and scorned those who with unrestrained zest abandoned
+themselves to them.
+
+He had scarcely been half a year in the military school when he gave
+loud expression to his jealousy and envy; the young Napoleon, nearly
+sixteen years old, undertook boldly to censure in the very presence of
+the teachers the regulations of the institution. In a memorial which
+he had composed, and which he presented to the second director of the
+establishment, M. Berton, he gave utterance to his own views in the most
+energetic and daring manner, imposing upon the professors the duty of
+making a complete change in the institution; of limiting the number
+of servants, so that the military pupils might learn to wait upon
+themselves; of simplifying the noonday meal, so as to accustom them to
+moderation; of forbidding banquets, dejeuners, and pleasure-excursions,
+so that they might not become inured to a frivolous, extravagant mode of
+life.
+
+This mask of a censuring stoic, which he put on in the presence of
+teachers and school-mates, he retained also with his few friends. Madame
+de Permont, a short time after the death of Napoleon's father, came with
+her family to Paris, where her husband had obtained an important and
+lucrative office; her son Albert attended the military school and was
+soon the friend of Napoleon, as much as a friendship could be formed
+between the young, lively M. de Permont, the son of wealthy and
+distinguished parents, and the reserved, proud Napoleon Bonaparte, the
+son of a poor, lonely widow.
+
+However, Napoleon this time acquiesced in the wishes of his true friend,
+and condescended to pass his holidays with Albert in the house of
+Madame de Permont, the friend of his mother; and oftentimes his whole
+countenance would brighten into a smile, when speaking with her of the
+distant home, of the mother, and of the family. But as many times also
+that countenance would darken when, gazing round, he tacitly compared
+this costly, tastefully decorated mansion with the poor and sparingly
+furnished house in which his noble and beautiful mother lived with her
+six orphans, and who in her household duties had to wait upon herself;
+when again he noticed with what solicitude and love Madame de Permont
+had her children educated by masters from the court, by governesses
+and by teachers at enormous salaries, whilst her friend Letitia had to
+content herself with the very deficient institutions of learning to
+be found in Corsica, because her means were not sufficient to bring to
+Paris, to the educational establishment of St. Cyr, her young daughters,
+like the parents of the beautiful Pauline.
+
+The young Napoleon hated luxury, because he himself had not the means
+of procuring it; he spoke contemptuously of servants, for his position
+allowed him not to maintain them; he spoke against the expensive noonday
+meal, because he had to be content with less; he scorned the amusements
+of his school-mates, because, when they arranged their picnics and
+festivities, his purse allowed him not to take a part in them.
+
+One day in the military school, as one of the teachers was to bid it
+farewell, the scholars organized a festivity, toward which each of them
+was to contribute a tolerably large sum. It was perhaps not all accident
+that precisely on that day M. de Permont, the father of Albert, came to
+the military school to visit his son, and Napoleon, his son's friend.
+
+He found all the scholars in joyous excitement and motion; his son
+Albert was, like the rest, intently busy with the preparations of the
+feast, which was to take place in the garden, and to end in a great
+display of fireworks. All faces beamed with delight, all eyes were
+illumined, and the whole park re-echoed with jubilant cries and joyous
+laughter.
+
+But Napoleon Bonaparte was not among the gay company. M. de Permont
+found him in a remote, lonesome path. He was walking up and down
+with head bent low, his hands folded behind his back; as he saw M. de
+Permont, his face became paler and gloomier, and a look nearly scornful
+met the unwelcomed disturber.
+
+"My young friend," said M. de Permont, with a friendly smile, "I come to
+bring you the small sum which you need to enable you to take a part in
+the festivity. Here it is; take it, I pray you."
+
+But Napoleon, with a vehement movement of the hand, waved back the
+offered money, a burning redness for a moment covered his face, then his
+cheeks assumed that yellowish whiteness which in the child had always
+indicated a violent emotion.
+
+"No," cried he, vehemently, "no, I have nothing to do with this
+meaningless festivity. I thank you--I receive no alms."
+
+M. de Permont gazed with emotions of sympathizing sorrow in the pale
+face of the poor young man for whom poverty was preparing so many
+griefs, and in the generosity of his heart he had recourse to a
+falsehood.
+
+"This is no alms I offer you, Napoleon," said he, gently, "but this
+money belongs to you, it comes from your father. At his dying hour he
+confided to me a small sum of money, with the express charge to keep it
+for you and to give you a portion of it in pressing circumstances, when
+your personal honor required it. I therefore bring you to-day the fourth
+part of this sum, and retain the rest for another pressing occasion."
+
+With a penetrating, searching look. Napoleon gazed into the face of
+the speaker, and the slight motions of a sarcastic smile played for an
+instant around his thin, compressed lips.
+
+"Well, then," said he, after a pause, "since this money comes from my
+father, I can use it; but had you simply wished to lend it to me,
+I could not have received it. My mother has already too much
+responsibility and care; I cannot increase them by an outlay, especially
+when such an outlay is imposed upon me by the sheer folly of my
+schoolmates." [Footnote: Napoleon's words.--See "Memoires de la Duchesse
+d'Abrantes," vol. i., p. 81.]
+
+He then took the offered sum for which, as he thought, he was indebted
+to no man, and hastened to pay his contribution to the festivity. But,
+in respect to his principles, he took no part in the festivity, but
+declaimed all the louder, and in a more biting tone, against the
+criminal propensities for pleasure in the young men who, instead of
+turning their attention to their studies, lavished away their precious
+time in dissipation and frivolities.
+
+These anxieties and humiliations of poverty Napoleon had doubly to
+endure, not only for himself, but also for his sister Marianne (who
+afterward called herself Elise). She had been, as already said, at her
+father's intercession and application, received in the royal educational
+institute of St. Cyr, and there enjoyed the solid and brilliant
+education of the pupils of the king. But the spirit of luxury and the
+desire for pleasure had also penetrated into this institution, founded
+by the pious and high-minded Madame de Maintenon, and the young ladies
+of St. Cyr had among themselves picnics and festivals, as well as the
+young men of the military school.
+
+Napoleon, whose means, as long as he was in Brienne, never allowed him
+to visit his beloved sister at St. Cyr, had now frequent opportunities
+of seeing her, for Madame de Permont, in her royal friendship to the
+Bonaparte family, took as lively an interest in the daughter as in the
+son of her friend Letitia, and often drove to St. Cyr to visit the young
+and beautiful Marianne.
+
+A few days after the festival in the military school, a short vacation
+had followed, and Napoleon passed it with his friend Albert in the house
+of the family of Permont. To please young Napoleon, it was decided to
+go to St. Cyr, and the glowing cheeks and the lively manner with which
+Napoleon, during the journey, conversed with M. and Madame de Permont,
+proved what satisfaction he anticipated in meeting his sister.
+
+But Marianne Bonaparte did not seem to share this satisfaction. With
+downcast countenance and sad mien she entered the reception-room and
+saluted M. and Madame Permont, and even her brother, with a gloomy,
+despairing look. As she was questioned about the cause of her sadness,
+she broke into tears, and threw herself with vehement emotion into the
+arms of Madame de Permont.
+
+Vain were the prayers and expostulations of her mother's friend to have
+her reveal the cause of her sadness. Marianne only shook her head in a
+negative manner, and ever a fresh flow of tears started from her eyes,
+but she remained silent.
+
+Napoleon, who at first, pale and silent, had looked on this outbreak of
+sorrow, now excitedly approached his sister, and, laying his hand upon
+her arm, said in angry tones: "Since you cry, you must also confess the
+cause of your tears, or else we are afraid that you weep over some wrong
+of which you are guilty. But woe to you if it is so! I am here in the
+name of our father, and I will be without pity!" [Footnote: "Memoires de
+la Duehesse d'Abrantes."]
+
+Marianne trembled, and cast a timid, anxious look upon her young
+brother, whose voice had assumed such a peculiar, imperious
+expression--whose eyes shone with the expression of a proud, angry
+master.
+
+"I am in no wise guilty, my brother," murmured she, "and yet I am sad
+and unhappy."
+
+And blushing, trembling, with broken words, interrupted by tears and
+sighs, Marianne related that next day, a farewell festival was to take
+place in the institution in honor of one of the pupils about to leave.
+The whole class was taking a part in it, and each of the young ladies
+had already paid her contribution.
+
+"But I only am not able," exclaimed Marianne, with a loud burst of
+anguish, "I have but six francs; if I give them, nothing is left me, and
+my pension is not paid until six weeks. But even were I to give all I
+have, my miserable six francs would not be enough."
+
+Very unwillingly indeed had Napoleon, whilst Marianne thus spoke,
+put his hand into his pocket, as if to draw out the money which his
+sorrowing sister needed, but remembering his own poverty, his hand
+dropped at his side; a deep glow of anger overspread his cheeks, and
+wildly stamping down with the foot he turned away and walked to the
+window, perhaps to allow none to notice the nervous agitation of his
+countenance and his tears of vexation and shame.
+
+But what Napoleon could not do, that did Madame de Permont. She gave to
+the weeping young girl the twelve francs she needed to take a part in
+the festivity, and Marianne, less proud and less disdainful than her
+brother, accepted gladly, without opposition and without the need of a
+falsehood, the little sum offered.
+
+Napoleon allowed this to take place without contradiction, and hindered
+not his sister to receive from Madame de Permont the alms which he
+himself had so arrogantly refused.
+
+But they had barely left the reception-room and entered the carriage,
+than his suffering heart burst into a sarcastic philippic against the
+contemptible administration of such royal establishments as St. Cyr and
+the military school.
+
+M. de Permont, who had at first patiently and with a smile listened to
+these raving invectives, felt himself at last wounded by them; and the
+supercilious and presumptuous manner in which the young man of barely
+seventeen years spoke of the highest offices of the state, and of the
+king himself, excited his anger.
+
+"Hush, Napoleon!" said he, reluctantly. "It does not beseem you, who are
+educated upon the king's bounty, to speak thus."
+
+Napoleon shrank within himself as if he had been bitten by a serpent,
+and a deadly pallor overspread his cheeks.
+
+"I am not the pupil of the king, but of the state!" exclaimed he, in a
+boisterous voice, trembling with passion.
+
+"Ah, that is indeed a fine distinction which you have made there,
+Napoleon," said M. de Permont, laughing. "It is all the same whether you
+are the pupil of the state or of the king; moreover, is not the king
+the state also? However it may be, it beseems you not to speak of your
+benefactor in such inappropriate terms."
+
+Napoleon concentrated all his efforts into self-control, and mastered
+himself into a grave, quiet countenance.
+
+"I will be silent," said he, with an appearance of composure; "I will no
+more say what might excite your displeasure. Only allow me to say,
+were I master here, had I to decide upon the regulations of these
+institutions, I would have them very different, and for the good of
+all."
+
+"Were I master here!" The pupil of the military school, for whom poverty
+was preparing so much humiliation, who had just now experienced a fresh
+humiliation through his sister in the reception-room of St. Cyr, was
+already thinking what he would do were he the ruler of France; and,
+strange enough, these words seemed natural to his lips, and no one
+thought of sneering or laughing at him when he thus spoke.
+
+Meanwhile his harsh and repulsive behavior, his constant fault-finding
+and censoriousness were by no means conducive to the friendship and
+affection of those around him; he was a burden to all, he was an
+inconvenience to all; and the teachers as well as the pupils of the
+military school were all anxious to get rid of his presence.
+
+As nothing else could be said to his reproach; as there was no denying
+his assiduity, his capacities, and progress, there was but one means
+of removing him from the institution--he had to be promoted. It was
+necessary to recognize the young pupil of the military school as
+competent to enter into the practical, active military service; it was
+necessary to make a lieutenant out of the pupil.
+
+Scarcely had one year passed since Napoleon had been received into the
+military school of Paris, when he was nominated by the authorities of
+the school for a vacancy in the rank of lieutenant, and he was promoted
+to it in the artillery regiment of La Fere, then stationed at Valence.
+
+In the year 1786 Napoleon left the military school to serve his country
+and his king as second lieutenant, and to take the oath of allegiance.
+
+Radiant with happiness and joy, proud alike of his promotion and of his
+uniform, the young lieutenant went to the house of M. de Permont to show
+himself to his friends in his new dignity and in his new splendors, and,
+at their invitation, to pass a few days in their house before leaving
+for Valence.
+
+But, alas! his appearance realized not the wished-for result. As he
+entered the saloon of Madame de Permont the whole family was gathered
+there, and at the sight of Napoleon the two daughters, girls of six and
+thirteen years, broke out into loud laughter. None are more alive than
+children to the impression of what is ridiculous, and there was indeed
+in the appearance of the young lieutenant something which well might
+excite the laughing propensities of the lively little maidens. The
+uniform appeared much too long and wide for the little meagre figure
+of Napoleon, and his slender legs vanished in boots of such height and
+breadth that he seemed more to swim than to walk with them.
+
+These boots especially had excited the laughter of the little maidens;
+and at every step which Napoleon, embarrassed as he was by the terrible
+cannon-boots, made forward, the laughter only increased, so that the
+expostulations and reproaches of Madame de Permont could not procure
+silence.
+
+Napoleon, who had entered the drawing-room with a face radiant with joy,
+felt wounded by the children's joyousness at his own cost. To be the
+subject of scorn or sarcasm was then, as it was afterward, entirely
+unbearable to him, and when he himself also tried to jest he knew not
+how to receive the jests directed at him. After having saluted M. and
+Madame de Permont, Napoleon turned to the eldest daughter Cecilia, who,
+a few days before, had come from the boarding-school to remain a
+short time at home, and who, laughing, had placed herself right before
+monsieur the lieutenant.
+
+"I find your laughter very silly and childish," said he, eagerly.
+
+The young maid, however, continued to laugh.
+
+"M. Lieutenant," said she, "since you carry such a mighty sword, you
+no doubt wish to carry it as a lady's knight, and therefore you must
+consider it an honor when ladies jest with you."
+
+Napoleon gave a contemptuous shrug of the shoulders.
+
+"It is evident," said he, scornfully, "that you are but a little
+school-girl."
+
+These sarcastic words wounded the vanity of the young maiden, and
+brought a glow of anger on her face.
+
+"Well, yes," cries she, angrily, "I am a school-girl, but you--you are
+nothing else than a puss in boots!"
+
+A general laugh followed; even Madame de Permont, ordinarily so good
+and so considerate, could not suppress laughter. The witty words of the
+little school-girl were too keen and too applicable that she should be
+subjected to reproach.
+
+Napoleon's wrath was indescribable. His visage was overspread with a
+yellow-greenish pallor, his lips were contracted nervously, and already
+opened for a word of anger. But he suppressed that word with an effort;
+for though not yet familiar with all the forms and usages of society,
+his fine tact and the instinct of what was becoming told him that when
+the conversation ran into personalities the best plan was to be silent,
+and that he must not return personal remarks, since his opponent was one
+of the fair sex. He therefore remained silent, and so controlled himself
+as to join in the general laughter and to show himself heartily amused
+at the unfortunate nickname of the little Cecilia.
+
+And that every one might be convinced how much he himself had been
+amused at this little scene, he brought, a few days afterward, to the
+youngest daughter of Madame de Permont, a charming little toy which he
+had had made purposely for her. This toy consisted of a small gilt and
+richly-ornamented carriage of papier-mache, before which leaped along a
+very lovely puss in boots.
+
+To this present for the little Lolotte (afterward Duchess d'Abrantes),
+was added for Cecilia an elegant and interesting edition of the tales
+of "Puss in Boots," and when Napoleon politely presented it to the young
+maid he begged her to receive kindly this small souvenir from him.
+
+"That is too much," said Madame de Permont, shaking her head. "The toy
+for Loulou would have been quite enough. But this present to Cecilia
+shows that you took her jest in earnest, and were hurt by it."
+
+Napoleon, however, affirmed that he had not taken the jest in earnest,
+that he had been no wise hurt by it; that he himself when he put on
+his uniform had to laugh at the nickname of "puss in boots" which dear
+Cecilia had given him.
+
+He had, however, endeavored no more to deserve this nickname, and the
+unlucky boots were replaced by much smaller and closer-fitting ones.
+
+A few days after this little incident the young second lieutenant left
+Paris and went to meet his regiment La Fere at Valence.
+
+A life of labor and study, of hopes and dreams, now began for the young
+lieutenant. He gave himself up entirely to his military service, and
+pursued earnest, scientific studies in regard to it. Mathematics, the
+science of war, geometry, and finally politics, were the objects of his
+zeal; but alongside of these he read and studied earnestly the works of
+Voltaire, Corneille, Racine, Montaigne, the Abbe Raynal, and, above all,
+the works of Jean Jacques Rousseau, whose passionate and enthusiastic
+disciple Napoleon Bonaparte was at that time. [Footnote: "Memoires du
+Roi Joseph," vol. i., p. 33.]
+
+Amid so many grave occupations of the mind it would seem that the heart
+with all its claims had to remain in the background. The smiling boy
+Cupid, with his gracious raillery and his smarting griefs, seemed
+to make no impression on that pale, grave, and taciturn artillery
+lieutenant, and not to dare shoot an arrow toward that bosom which had
+mailed itself in an impenetrable cuirass of misanthropy, stoicism, and
+learning.
+
+But yet between the links of this coat-of-mail an arrow must have
+glided, for the young lieutenant suddenly became conscious that there
+in his bosom a heart did beat, and that it was going in the midst of
+his studies to interrupt his dreams of misanthropy. Yes, it had come to
+this, that he abandoned his study to pay his court to a young lady, that
+at her side he lost his gravity of mien, his gloomy taciturnity, and
+became joyous, talkative, and merry, as beseemed a young man of his age.
+
+The young lady who exercised so powerful an influence upon the young
+Bonaparte was the daughter of the commanding officer at Valence, M. de
+Colombier. He loved her, but his lips were yet too timid to confess
+it, and of what need were words to these young people to understand one
+another and to know what the one felt for the other?
+
+In the morning they took long walks through the beautiful park; they
+spoke one to another of their childhood, of their brothers and
+sisters, and when the young maid with tears in her eyes listened to the
+descriptions which Napoleon made to her of his country, of his father's
+house, and, above all things, of his mother--when she with animation
+and enthusiasm declared that Letitia was a heroine greater than whom
+antiquity had never seen, then Napoleon would take her two hands in his
+and thank her with tremulous voice for the love which she consecrated to
+his noble mother.
+
+If in the morning they had to separate, as an indemnification an evening
+walk in the light of the moon was agreed upon, and the young maid
+promised heroically to come without uncertainty, however imperative was
+her mother's prohibition. And truly, when her mother was asleep, she
+glided down into the park, and Napoleon welcomed her with a happy smile,
+and arm in arm, happy as children, they wandered through the paths,
+laughing at their own shadows, which the light of the moon in wondrous
+distortion made to dance before them. They entered into a small bower,
+which stood in the shadow of trees, and there the young Napoleon had
+prepared for the young maid a very pleasing surprise. There on the table
+was a basket full of her favorite fruit--full of the sweetest, finest
+cherries. Louise thanked her young lover with a hand-pressure for the
+tender attention, but she declared that she would touch none of the
+cherries unless Napoleon enjoyed them with her, and to please his
+beloved he had to obey.
+
+They sat down on the seat before the bower and enjoyed the golden light
+of the moon, the night air amid the lime-trees, the joy of being thus
+secretly together, and with infinite delight they ate of the sweet juicy
+cherries. But when the last cherry was eaten, the moon became darkened,
+a rude night breeze shook the trees, and made the young maid tremble
+with cold. She must not remain from home any longer, she must not
+expose herself to the dangerous night air; thus argued the considerate
+tenderness of the young lieutenant, and, kissing her hand, he bade
+farewell to Louise, and watched until the tender ethereal figure had
+vanished behind the little door which led from the park into the house.
+[Footnote: "Memorial de St. Helene," p. 30.]
+
+The sweet idyl of his first love had, however, come to a sudden and
+unexpected end. The young Second-Lieutenant Bonaparte was ordered to
+Lyons with his regiment, and the first innocent romance of his heart was
+ended.
+
+But he never forgot the young maid, whom he then had so tenderly loved,
+and in the later days of his grandeur he remembered her, and when he
+learned that she had lost her husband, a M. de Bracieux, and lived in
+very depressing circumstances, he appointed her maid of honor to his
+sister Elise, and secured her a very handsome competency.
+
+The dream of his first love had been dreamed away; and, perhaps
+to forget it, Napoleon again in Lyons gave himself up with deepest
+earnestness to study. The Academy of Sciences in Lyons had offered
+a prize for the answer to the question: "What are the sentiments and
+emotions which are to be instilled into men, so as to make them happy?"
+
+Napoleon entered the lists for this prize, and, if his work did not
+receive the prize, it furnished the occasion for the Abbe Raynal, who
+had answered the question successfully, to become acquainted with
+the young author, and to encourage him to persevere in his literary
+pursuits, for which he had exhibited so much talent.
+
+Napoleon then, with all the fire of his soul, began a new work, the
+history of the revolutions in Corsica; and, in order to make accurate
+researches in the archives of Ajaccio, he obtained leave of absence to
+go thither. In the year 1788, Napoleon returned to his native isle to
+his mother, to his brothers and sisters, all of whom he had not seen for
+nine years, and was welcomed by them with the tenderest affection.
+
+But the joys of the family could draw away the young man but little
+from his studies and researches; and, however much he loved his mother,
+brothers and sisters, now much grown up, yet he preferred being alone
+with his elder brother Joseph, making long walks with him, and in solemn
+exchange of thoughts and sentiments, communicating to him his studies,
+his hopes, his dreams for the future.
+
+To acquire distinction, fame, reputation with the actual world, and
+immortality with the future--such was the object on which all the
+wishes, all the hopes of Napoleon were concentrated; and in long hours
+of conversation with Joseph he spoke of the lofty glory to carve out an
+immortal name, to accomplish deeds before which admiring posterity would
+bow.
+
+Did Napoleon then think of purchasing for himself an immortal name as
+writer, as historian? At least he studied very earnestly the archives of
+Ajaccio, and sent a preliminary essay of his history of the revolutions
+of Corsica to Raynal for examination. This renowned savant of his day
+warmly congratulated the young author on his work, and asked him to send
+a copy that he might show it to Mirabeau.
+
+Napoleon complied with these wishes; and when, a few weeks after, he
+received a letter from Raynal, after reading it, he, with radiant eyes
+and a bright smile, handed it to his brother Joseph.
+
+In this letter of Raynal were found these words: "Monsieur de Mirabeau
+has in this little essay found traits which announce a genius of the
+first rank. He entreats the young author to come to him in Paris."
+[Footnote: "Memoires du Roi Joseph," vol. i., p. 33.]
+
+But the young author could not at once obey the call of the Count de
+Mirabeau. A sad family bereavement delayed him at the time in Corsica.
+The brother of his grandfather, the aged Archdeacon Lucian, the faithful
+counsellor and friend of Letitia and of her young family, was seized
+with a mortal disease; the gout, which for years had tormented him, was
+now to give him the fatal blow, and the whole family of the Bonapartes
+was called to the bedside of the old man to receive his parting words.
+
+Weeping, they all stood around his couch; weeping, Letitia bent over the
+aged man, whose countenance was already signed with the hand of death.
+Around kneeled the younger children of Letitia, for their great-uncle
+had long been to them a kind father and protector; and on the other
+side of the couch, facing Letitia and her brother, the Abbe Fesch, stood
+Joseph and Napoleon, gazing with sad looks on their uncle.
+
+His large, already obscured eyes wandered with a deep, searching glance
+upon all the members of the Bonaparte family, and then at last remained
+fixed with a wondrous brilliancy of expression on the pale, grave face
+of Napoleon.
+
+At this moment, the Abbe Fesch, with a voice trembling with emotion and
+full of holy zeal, began to intone the prayers for the dead. But the old
+priest ordered him with a voice full of impatience to be silent.
+
+"I have prayed long enough in my life," said he; "I have now but a few
+moments to live, and I must give them to my family."
+
+The loud sobbings of Letitia and of her children interrupted him, and
+called forth a last genial smile upon the already stiffening features.
+
+"Letitia," said he, in a loud, friendly tone, "Letitia, cease to shed
+tears; I die happy, for I see you surrounded by all your children. My
+life is no longer necessary to the children of my dear Charles; I
+can therefore die. Joseph is at the head of the administration of
+the country, and he will know how to take care of what belongs to his
+family. You, Napoleon," continued he, with a louder voice, "you will be
+a great and exalted man." [Footnote: "Tu poi. Napoleon, serai unomone"
+such were the words of the dying man, assures us King Joseph in his
+memoirs; whilst Las Casas, in his memorial of St. Helena, makes Napoleon
+relate that his uncle had told him, "You, Napoleon, will be the head of
+the family."]
+
+His eyes turned on Napoleon, he sank back on the cushions, and his dying
+lips murmured yet once more, "Tu serai unomone!"
+
+After the body of the worthy great-uncle had been laid in the grave,
+Napoleon left Corsica to return to France and to his regiment, for the
+time of his leave of absence had expired.
+
+For the second time the lips of a dying man had prophesied him a great
+and brilliant future. His dying father had said that one day the sword
+of his son Napoleon would make all Europe bow under the yoke; his
+great-uncle had prophesied he would be a great and exalted personage.
+
+To these prophecies of the dying is to be added Mirabeau's judgment,
+which called Napoleon a genius of the first stamp.
+
+But this great and glorious future was yet screened under dark
+clouds from the eyes of the young lieutenant of artillery, and the
+blood-dripping hand of the Revolution was first needed to tear away
+these clouds and to convert the king's lieutenant of artillery into the
+Emperor of France!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII. A PAGE FROM HISTORY.
+
+
+The dark clouds which hung yet over the future of Napoleon Bonaparte,
+the lieutenant of artillery, were gathering in heavier and heavier
+masses over all France, and already were overshadowing the throne of the
+lilies.
+
+Marie Antoinette had already abandoned the paradise of innocency in
+Trianon, and when she came there now it was to weep in silence, to cast
+away the mask from her face, and under the garb of the proud, imperious,
+ambitious queen to exhibit the pallid, anxious countenance of the woman.
+
+Alas! they were passed away, those days of festivity, those innocent
+joys of Trianon; the royal farmer's wife had no more the heart to carry
+the spindle, to gather eggs from the hens' nests, and to perform with
+her friends the joyous idyls of a pastoral life.
+
+The queen had procured for herself a few years of freedom and license by
+banishing from Versailles and from the Tuileries the burdensome Madame
+Etiquette, who hitherto had watched over every step of a Queen of
+France, but in her place Madame Politique had entered into the palace,
+and Marie Antoinette could not drive her away as she had done with
+Madame Etiquette.
+
+For Madame Politique came into the queen's apartments, ushered in by a
+powerful and irresistible suite. The failure of the crops throughout
+the land, want, the cries of distress from a famishing people, the
+disordered finances of the state--such was the suite which accompanied
+Politique before the queen; pamphlets, pasquinades, sarcastic songs
+on Marie Antoinette, whom no more the people called their queen,
+but already the foreigner, L'Autrichienne--such were the gifts which
+Politique brought for the queen.
+
+The beautiful and innocent days of Trianon were gone, no longer could
+Marie Antoinette forget that she was a queen! The burden of her lofty
+position pressed upon her always; and, if now and then she sought to
+adorn her head with roses, her crown pressed their thorns with deeper
+pain into her brow.
+
+Unfortunate queen! Even the circle of friends she had gathered round her
+person only urged her on more and more into the circle which politics
+had traced around her. In her innocency and thoughtlessness of heart she
+imagined that, to a queen as to any other woman, it might be allowed
+to have about her friends and confidants, to enjoy the pleasures of
+society, and to amuse one another! But now she had to learn that a queen
+dare not have confidants, friends, or social circles!
+
+Her friends, in whose disinterestedness she had trusted, approached
+her with demands, with prayers; they claimed power, influence, and
+distinctions; they all wanted to rule through the queen; they all wanted
+through her to impose laws to king and state; they wanted to name and
+to depose ministers; they wanted their friendship to be rewarded with
+embassies, ministerial offices, decorations, and titles.
+
+And when Marie Antoinette refused compliance with their wishes, her
+beautiful friends, the Duchesses de Polignac, wept, and her friends,
+Messieurs Vesenval, Vaudreuil, Coigny, and Polignac, dared be angry and
+murmur at her.
+
+But when Marie Antoinette consented--when she used her influence with
+the king, to satisfy the wishes of her friends, and to make ministers of
+her facon--then the queen's enemies, with loud, mad-dog cry, lifted up
+the voice and complained and clamored that it was no more the king but
+the queen who reigned; that she was the one who precipitated the nation
+into wretchedness and want; that she gave millions to her friends,
+whilst the people were perishing with hunger; that she sent millions to
+her brother, the Emperor of Austria, whilst the country was only able
+to pay the interest of her enormous debt; that she, in unrestrained
+appetite and licentiousness, lived only for pleasure and festivities,
+whilst France was depressed under misery and want.
+
+And the queen's enemies were mightier, more numerous, and more loyal one
+to another than the queen's friends, who were ever ready to pass into
+the camp of her foes as soon as Marie Antoinette gratified not their
+wishes and would not satisfy their political claims.
+
+At the head of these enemies was the king's brother, the Count de
+Provence, who never forgave the queen for being an Austrian princess;
+there were also the king's aunts, who could never forgive her that the
+king loved her, that by means of this love to his wife they should lose
+the influence which these aunts, and especially Madame Adelaide, had
+before exercised over him; there was the Duke d'Orleans, who had to
+revenge himself for the disgust and dislike which Marie Antoinette
+publicly expressed against this vicious and wild prince; there was the
+Cardinal Prince de Rohan, whose criminal passion the queen had repelled
+with contemptuous disgust, and who had paid for this passion one million
+francs, with imprisonment, shame, and ridicule. For this passion for the
+queen had blinded the cardinal, and made him believe in the possibility
+of a return. In his blindness he had placed confidence in the
+whisperings and false promises of the insidious intriguer Madame de
+la Motte-Valois, who, in the queen's name, asked from him a loan of a
+million for the purchase of a jewelled ornament which highly pleased
+the queen, and which she, notwithstanding her exhausted coffers, was
+resolved to possess.
+
+Yes, love had blinded Cardinal de Rohan, and with blind eyes he had
+accepted as letters from the queen those which Madame de la Motte
+brought him; and he could not see that the person who gave him a
+rendezvous in the gardens of Versailles was not the queen, but only a
+common, vicious woman, who had been clothed in the queen's garments.
+
+The queen had been travestied into a wench, and the highest
+ecclesiastical dignitary of the land was the one who took this wench for
+his queen, was the one who, with a rendezvous, a kiss on the hand, and
+a rose, was rewarded for the million he had given to the jeweller for a
+necklace of diamonds!
+
+It is true, the deception was discovered; it is true, it was Marie
+Antoinette herself who asked for a strict investigation, who with tears
+of anger required from her consort that this horrible intrigue which had
+been woven round her person should be investigated and judged publicly
+before the Parliament; that the Cardinal de Rohan should be punished for
+the criminal insult offered by him to the queen, since he thought her
+capable of granting him a rendezvous, of exchanging with him letters of
+tender passion, and of accepting gifts from him!
+
+But the Parliament, which recognized the guilt of Madame de la Motte,
+which ordered her to be whipped, branded, and driven out of the country
+as an impostor and a thief, the Parliament declared the Cardinal de
+Rohan innocent; all punishments were removed from him, and he was
+re-established in all his dignities and rights. And the people, who in
+enormous masses had besieged the Parliament buildings, welcomed this
+decision of the judges with loud demonstrations and shouts of joy, and
+carried the cardinal in triumph through the streets, and honored and
+glorified him as a martyr and a saint.
+
+This triumph of the cardinal was an affecting defeat to the queen; it
+was the first awful testimony, spoken loudly and openly, by the popular
+sentiment.
+
+Hitherto her enemies had worked against her quietly, and in the darkness
+of night; but now, in open day, they dared launch against her their
+terrible accusations, and represent her imprudence as a crime, her
+errors as shameful and premeditated wickedness. No one believed in the
+queen's innocency in this necklace transaction; and whereas Cardinal
+de Rohan had been made a martyr, whereas Parliament had declared him
+innocent, the queen consequently must be the guilty one, to whose
+cupidity the cardinal and the unfortunate Madame de la Motte and also
+the beautiful D'Olivia, who in this horrible farce had played the part
+of the queen, had been sacrificed.
+
+The name, the character, the reputation of the queen, had been trodden
+down in the dust, and the Count de Provence, who himself composed
+sarcastic songs and pasquinades against his royal sister-in-law, and
+had copies of them circulated through the court, reflected not that in
+calumniating the queen and exposing her to the scorn and ridicule of
+the world he thereby shook the throne itself, and imperilled the awe and
+respect which the people should have had for the monarchy. And all the
+other mighty dignitaries and foes of Marie Antoinette did not calculate
+that in exciting the storm of calumny against the Queen of France, they
+also attacked the king and the aristocracy, and tore down the barrier
+which hitherto had stood between the people and the nobility.
+
+Hitherto pamphlets and sarcastic songs only had been directed against
+the queen; but now, in the year 1787, all France was to re-echo a
+pamphlet launched against the nobility and the whole aristocracy.
+
+This pamphlet was "The Wedding of Figaro," by Beaumarchais. The habits
+of the aristocracy, of the higher classes, were in this drama castigated
+and thrown to the scorn, ridicule, and laughter of all France. Every
+thing which the people hitherto had held sacred, was laughed at in this
+drama; all the laws of manners, of rank, of morality, were scorned
+at, hissed at; and, under this hissing, appeared in full view and with
+fearful veracity the rotten and poisoned condition of the so-called
+upper classes of society.
+
+It was in vain that the censor declared the publication illegal, and
+prohibited the representation of "The Wedding of Figaro." The opposition
+took advantage of this measure, and since it could not be published,
+hundreds of copies were circulated; and, if it could not be represented,
+its reading was listened to. It soon became fashionable to attend at the
+readings of "Figaro's Wedding" and to possess a copy of the drama.
+Even in the queen's social circle, in the circle of the Polignacs, this
+dangerous drama was patronized, and even the queen was requested to use
+her influence upon the king for its representation.
+
+This general clamor, this tempest of the public opinion, excited
+even the king's curiosity; and as everybody attended the readings of
+Beaumarchais' drama, the crowned heads had also to bow to the fashion.
+Madame de Campan had to read before the king and the queen this renowned
+"Wedding of Figaro," so that the king might give his decision. The
+good-natured countenance of the king darkened more and more, and during
+Figaro's monologue, in which the different institutions of the state
+are ridiculed, especially when, with words full of poison and scorn, the
+author alludes to state-prisons, the king rose angrily from his seat.
+
+"It is a contemptible thing," cried he, vehemently. "The Bastile must be
+destroyed before the representation of this piece would not appear as a
+dangerous inconsequence. This man ridicules every thing which in a state
+ought to be esteemed and respected."
+
+"This piece will not then be represented?" asked Marie Antoinette, at
+the close of the reading.
+
+"No, certainly not!" exclaimed Louis, "you can be convinced of it; this
+piece will not be represented."
+
+But the clamor, the longings for this representation were more and more
+loudly expressed, and more and more pressing. It was in vain that the
+king by his decree forbade its already-announced representation in the
+theatre of the menus plaisirs. Beaumarchais cried aloud to the murmuring
+audience, who complained very loudly against this tyranny, against
+this oppression of the king, the consoling words: "Well, sirs, the king
+desires that my drama be not represented here, but I swear that it will
+be represented, perhaps even in the chancel of Notre Dame."
+
+It was soon apparent that Beaumarchais' words and the wishes of the
+public opinion were stronger than the words and the wishes of the king
+and of his highest officers. The king himself felt it and acknowledged
+it soon; he shrugged his shoulders compassionately when the chancellor
+of the seal, adhering still to his opposition, would by no means consent
+to the performance of the drama.
+
+"You will see," said Louis, with his own soft, good-natured smile--"you
+will see that Beaumarchais' credit is better than that of the great-seal
+bearer." [Footnote: "Memoires de Madame de Campan," vol. i., p. 279.]
+
+The king's prophecy was correct--Beaumarchais had more credit than the
+chancellor! His powerful patrons in high places, and all those who
+made opposition to the king and queen, and at their head the Count de
+Provence, banded together to have this piece publicly represented. The
+king's consent was elicited from him by the assurance made public
+that Beaumarchais had stricken out of his drama all the offensive and
+captious parts, and that it was now a mere innocent and somewhat tedious
+piece.
+
+The king gave his consent, and "The Wedding of Figaro" was represented
+at the Theatre Francais.
+
+The effect of this drama on the public was a thing unheard of; so
+enthusiastic that Beaumarchais himself laughingly said: "There
+is something yet more foolhardy than my piece, and that is, its
+result"--that the renowned actress Sophie Arnold, in allusion to this,
+that the opponents of this drama had prophesied that it would fall
+through, exclaimed: "The piece will fall through to-day more than fifty
+times one after another!"
+
+But even this prophecy of the actress did not reach the full result,
+and the sixtieth representation was as crowded as the first. All Paris
+wanted to see it, so as to hiss the government, the nobility, clergy,
+morality. There was a rush from the provinces to Paris for the sake of
+attending the representation of "Figaro's Wedding;" and even those who
+hitherto had opposed the performance, pressed forward to see it.
+
+One day Beaumarchais received a letter from the Duke de Villequier,
+asking of him as a favor to give up for that evening his trellised
+box in behalf of some ladies of the court, who desired to see "Figaro"
+without being seen.
+
+Beaumarchais answered: "My lord duke, I have no respect for ladies who
+desire to see a performance which they consider improper, and who wish
+to see it under cover. I cannot stoop to such fancies. I have given my
+piece to the public to amuse and not to instruct them, not to procure to
+tamed wenches (begueules mitigees) the satisfaction of thinking well of
+the piece in a small trellised box, and then to say all manner of evil
+against it in public. The pleasure of vice and the honors of
+virtue, that is what the prudery of our age demands. My piece is not
+double-faced. It must be accepted or repelled. I salute you, my lord
+duke, and keep my box." [Footnote: "Correspondance de Diderot et Grimm
+avec un Souverain."]
+
+All Paris chuckled over this letter, which was circulated in hundreds
+of copies, as the drama itself had circulated at first. Every one was
+convinced that it was the queen who wanted to attend the representation
+of "Figaro" in the trellised box; for it, was well known that the
+queen, angry at monsieur for having been present with all his suite at
+a representation in the box reserved for the court, had openly declared:
+"Could she come to the conclusion of seeing this drama, she would only
+see it through a small trellised box, and that without any ceremony."
+
+In laughing at the letter of Beaumarchais, the ridicule was directed
+against the queen, who had been refused in so shameful a manner. But
+Marie Antoinette did not wish to be laughed at. She still hoped to
+overcome her enemies, and to win the public sentiment. She requested an
+investigation, she insisted that the Duke de Villequier should openly
+acknowledge for whom among the ladies of the court he had asked for the
+box; that Beaumarchais should publicly confess that he had not dared
+suppose his words were directed against the queen.
+
+The whole matter was brought to an end by an arbitrary decree.
+Beaumarchais was compelled publicly to acknowledge that his famous
+letter was directed neither to a duke nor to a peer, but to one of his
+friends, whose strange request he had thus answered in the first flush
+of anger. But it is evident no one believed in this explanation, and
+every one felt pleasure in referring to the queen the expression of
+"begueule mitigee."
+
+Paris, which for a whole winter had laughed at a theatrical piece, and
+was satiated with it, was now to assist at the first scene of a drama
+whose tragical power and force were to tear France asunder, and whose
+continuance was to be marked by blood and tears.
+
+This important drama, whose opening followed closely Beaumarchais'
+drama, exhibited its first scene at Versailles at the opening of the
+States-General on the 5th of May, 1789. All Paris, all France watched
+this event as the rise of a new sun, of a new era which was to break
+upon France and bring her happiness, salvation, and strength. A new, an
+unsuspected power entered with it upon the scene, the Tiers Etat;
+the third class was, at the opening of the States-General, solemnly
+recognized as a third power, alongside of the nobility and clergy.
+With the third class, the people and the yeomen entered into the king's
+palace; one-half of the people were to make the laws instead of having
+to submit to them.
+
+It was Marie Antoinette who had endeavored with all her influence on the
+king that the third class, hitherto barely recognized, barely
+tolerated, should appear in a two-fold stronger representation at the
+States-General; it was the queen also who had requested Necker's recall.
+Unfortunate woman, who bowed both pride and will to the wishes of public
+opinion, who yet hoped to succeed in winning again the people's love,
+since she endeavored to meet the wishes of the people!
+
+But this love had turned away from her forever; and whatever Marie
+Antoinette might now do to exhibit her candid wishes, her devotedness
+was not trusted in by the people, who looked upon her as an enemy, no
+longer Queen of France, but simply an Austrian.
+
+Even on this day of universal joy, on the day of the opening of the
+States-General, there was no desire to hide from the queen the hatred
+felt against her, but there was the resolve to show her that France,
+even in her hour of happiness, ceased not to make opposition to her.
+
+The opening of the States-General was to be preceded in Versailles
+by divine service. In solemn procession the deputies arrived; and the
+people who had streamed from Paris and from the whole region round
+about, and who in compact masses filled the immense square in front of
+the palace, and the whole street leading to the Church of St. Louis,
+received the deputies with loud, unbroken shouts, and met the princes
+and the king with applause. But no sooner was the queen in sight, than
+the people remained dumb; and then, after this appalling pause, which
+petrified the heart of the queen, the women with their true instinct of
+hatred began to cry out, "Long live the Duke d'Orleans! Long live the
+people's friend, the good Duke d'Orleans!"
+
+The name of the duke thus derisively thrown in the face of the
+queen--for it was well known that she hated him, that she had forbidden
+him to enter into her apartments--this name at this hour, thrown at
+her by the people, struck the queen's heart as the blow of a dagger;
+a deathly pallor overspread her cheeks, and nearly fainting she had to
+throw herself into the arms of the Princess de Lamballe, so as not to
+sink down. [Footnote: See "Count Mirabeau," by Theodore Mundt. Second
+edition, vol. iii., p. 234.]
+
+With the opening of the States-General, as already said, began the first
+act of the great drama which France was going to represent before
+the eyes of Europe terrified and horrified: with the opening of the
+States-General the revolution had begun. Every one felt it; every
+one knew it; the first man who had the courage to express it was
+Mirabeau--Mirabeau, the deputy of the Third Estate, the count who was at
+enmity with all those of his rank, who had solemnly parted with them to
+devote himself to the people's service and to liberty!
+
+On the day of the opening, as he entered the hall in which the
+States-General were convened, he gazed with scrutinizing and flaming
+eyes on the representatives of the nobility, on those brilliant and
+proud lords who, though his equals in rank, were now his inveterate
+enemies. A proud, disdainful smile fluttered athwart his lips, which
+ordinarily were pressed together with a sarcastic and contemptuous
+expression. He then crossed the hall with the bearing of a conqueror,
+and took his seat upon those benches from which was launched the
+thunderbolt which was to dash to pieces the throne of the lilies.
+
+A long-tried friend, who was also a friend of the government and of the
+nobility, had seen this look of hatred and anger which Mirabeau had
+cast upon the gallery of the aristocrats; he now approached Mirabeau
+to salute him, and perhaps to pave a way of reconciliation between the
+prodigal Count de Mirabeau and his associates in rank.
+
+"Think," said he, "my friend, that society is not to be won by threats,
+but by flatteries; that, when once injured, it is difficult to effect a
+reconciliation. You have been unjust toward society, and if you look
+for forgiveness you must not be obstinate, but you must stoop to ask for
+pardon."
+
+Mirabeau had listened with impatience, but at the word "pardon," his
+anger broke with terrible force. He sprang up, stamped violently on the
+floor with his feet; his hair which, like a lion's mane, mantled his
+head, seemed to bristle up, his little eyes darted flashes, and his lips
+were blanched and trembling, and with a thundering voice he exclaimed:
+"I am not here to implore pardon for myself, but that others should sue
+for mercy."
+
+Was Mirabeau himself willing to grant pardon? Had he come with a
+reconciling heart into this assembly, where people and king were to
+measure their rights one against the other?
+
+As the good King Louis this day entered the hall, in all the pomp of
+his royal dignity, to welcome the States-General with a solemn address,
+Mirabeau's eyes were fixed on him: "Behold the victim," said he.
+[Footnote: Theodore Mundt: "Graf Mirabeau," vol. iv., p. 15.]
+
+From this day the struggle began--the struggle of the monarchy against
+the revolution, of the liberal party against the reaction, the struggle
+of the people against the aristocracy, against every thing which
+hitherto had been legitimate, welcomed, and sacred!
+
+A new day had broken in, and the prophetic mind of the queen understood
+that with it came the storm which was to scatter into fragments her
+happiness and her peace.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX. JOSEPHINE'S RETURN.
+
+
+To rest!--to forget! This was what Josephine sought for in Martinique,
+and what she found in the circle of her friends. She wanted to rest from
+the pains and struggles which had agitated the last years of her life.
+She wanted to forget that she still loved the Viscount de Beauharnais,
+though rejected and accused, though he had treacherously abandoned her
+for the sake of another woman.
+
+But he was the father of her children, and there was Hortense with her
+large blue eyes and her noble, lovely countenance to remind Josephine
+of the father to whom Hortense bore so close a resemblance. Josephine's
+tender-heartedness would not suffer the innocent, childish heart of
+Hortense to become alienated from her father, or to forget the esteem
+and respect which as a daughter she owed to him. Josephine therefore
+never allowed any one to utter a word of blame against her husband in
+the presence of her daughter; she even imposed silence on her mother
+when, in the just resentment of a parent who sees her child suffer, she
+accused the man who had brought wretchedness on her Josephine, who at so
+early an age had taught her life's sorrows.
+
+How joyous, beautiful, happy had her Josephine nearly ten years ago
+left her home, her country, her family, to go to a foreign land which
+attracted her with every thing which can charm a young girl--with the
+love of a young and beautiful husband--with the luxury, the pleasures
+and festivities of Paris!
+
+And now after ten years Josephine returned to her father's home, lonely,
+abandoned, unhappy, blighted with the mildew which ever deteriorates the
+character of a divorced woman; yet so young, with so many ruined hopes,
+with so many wounds in the heart!
+
+Josephine's mother could not pardon him all this, and her countenance
+became clouded whenever the little Hortense spoke of her father. And
+the child spoke of him so often--for each evening and morning she had to
+pray God in his behalf--and when she asked her mother where her brother
+Eugene was, why he had not come with them to Martinique; Josephine
+answered her, he had remained with his father, who loved him so much,
+and who must have at least one of his children with him.
+
+"Why then can he not, with Eugene, be with us?" asked the little
+Hortense, thoughtfully. "Why does he remain in that hateful, stony
+Paris, whilst he could live with us in the beautiful garden where so
+many charming flowers and so many large trees are to be found? Why is
+papa not with us, mamma?"
+
+"Because he has occupations--because he cannot leave his regiment, my
+child," answered Josephine, carefully hiding her tears.
+
+"If he cannot come to us, mamma, then let us go to him," cried the
+loving child. "Come, mamma, let us go on board a ship, and let us go to
+our dear papa, and to my dear brother Eugene."
+
+"We must wait until your father sends for us, until he writes that we
+must come," said Josephine, with a sad smile. "Pray to God, my child,
+that he may soon do it!"
+
+And from this time the child prayed God every evening that her father
+would soon send for her mother and for herself; and whenever she saw her
+mother receive a letter she said: "Is it a letter from my papa? Does he
+write for us to travel and to come to him?"
+
+One day Josephine was enabled to answer this question to her daughter
+with a proud and joyous yes.
+
+Yes, the Viscount de Beauharnais had begged his wife to forget the past,
+and to come back to him. He had, with all the contrition of penitence,
+with the glow of an awakening love, prayed for pardon; he requested from
+her large-heartedness to be once more reunited to him who had despised,
+calumniated, and rejected her; he swore with sacred oaths to love her
+alone, and to keep to her in unbroken faithfulness.
+
+At first Josephine received these vows with a suspicious, sorrowful
+smile; the wounds of her heart were not yet healed, the bitter
+experiences of the past were yet too fresh in her mind; and Madame de la
+Pagerie, Josephine's mother, repelled with earnestness every thought
+of reconciliation and reunion. She did not wish to lose her daughter a
+second time, and see her go to meet a dubious and dangerous happiness;
+she did not wish that Josephine, barely returned to the haven of rest
+and peace, should once more risk herself on the open, tempestuous ocean
+of life.
+
+But the letters of the viscount were more and more pressing, more and
+more tender. He had completely and forever broken with Madame de Gisard;
+he did not wish to see her again, and henceforth he desired to be the
+true, devoted husband of his Josephine.
+
+Josephine read these assurances, these vows of love, with a joyous
+smile, with a beating heart: all the crushed flowers of her youth raised
+up their blossoms again in her heart; she began again to hope, to trust,
+to believe once more in the possibility of happiness; she was ready to
+listen to her husband's call, and to hasten to him.
+
+But her mother held her back. She believed not, she trusted not. Her
+insulted maternal heart could not forget the humiliations and the
+sufferings which this man who now called for Josephine had inflicted
+upon her daughter. She could not pardon the viscount for having deserted
+his young wife, and that for the sake of a coquette! She therefore
+sought to inspire Josephine with mistrust; she told her that these vows
+of the viscount were not to be relied upon; that he had not given up his
+paramour to come back to Josephine, but that he was forsaken by her and
+abandoned by her. Madame de Gisard had regretted to be only the paramour
+of the Viscount de Beauharnais, and, as she could never hope to be his
+legitimate wife, she had abandoned him, to marry a wealthy Englishman,
+with whom she had left France to go with him to Italy.
+
+At this news Josephine's head would sink down, and, with tears in her
+eyes and sorrow in her heart, she promised her mother no more to listen
+to the voice of a faithless husband; no more to value the assurances of
+a love which only returned to her because it was rejected elsewhere.
+
+Meanwhile, not only the Viscount de Beauharnais prayed Josephine to
+return, but also his father the marquis claimed this from his beloved
+daughter-in-law; even Madame de Renaudin confirmed the entire conversion
+of Alexandre, and conjured Josephine to hesitate no longer once more to
+take possession of a heart which beat with so burning a sorrow and so
+longing a love toward her. She pictured to her, besides, how necessary
+she was to him; how much in these troublous and stormy days which had
+just begun, he was in need of a quiet haven of domestic life, there to
+rest after the labors and the conflicts of politics and of public life;
+how many dangers surrounded him, and how soon it might happen that he
+would need not only a household refuge but also a nurse who would bind
+his wounds and keep watch near the bed of sickness.
+
+For the times of quietness were gone; the brand which the States-General
+had flung over France had lit a fire everywhere, in every city, in every
+house, in every head; and the flaming speeches of the deputies of the
+Third Estate only fanned the fire into higher flames.
+
+The revolution was there, and nothing could keep back the torrent
+of blood, fire, enthusiasm, and hatred. Already the Third Estate had
+solemnly proclaimed its separation from Old France, from the ancient
+monarchy of the lilies, since that monarchy had abandoned the large
+assembly-hall where the States-General held their sessions, and in which
+the nobility and the clergy still imagined they were able to maintain
+the balance of power against the despised Third Estate. The Tiers Etat
+had, in the ballroom, converted itself into the National Assembly, and
+with enthusiasm had all these deputies of the third class sworn on the
+17th of June, 1789, "never to part one from the other until they had
+given a constitution to France."
+
+Alexandre de Beauharnais, deputy from Blois, had passed with his
+colleagues into the ballroom, had with them taken the fatal oath; in
+the decisive night of the 4th of August he, with burning enthusiasm,
+had renounced all the privileges of the nobility, all his feudal rights;
+and, breaking with the past, with all its family traditions and customs,
+had passed, with all the passion and zest of his nine-and-twenty years,
+into the hostile camp of the people and of liberty.
+
+The revolution, which moved onward with such rash and destructive
+strides, had drawn Alexandre de Beauharnais more and more into its
+flood. It had converted the king's major into an enthusiastic speaker
+of the Jacobins, then into the secretary of the National Assembly, and
+finally into its president.
+
+The monarchy was not yet powerless; it fought still with all the
+bitterness of despair, of the pains of death, against its foes; it still
+found defenders in the National Assembly, in the faithful regiments of
+the Swiss and of the guards, and in the hearts of a large portion of the
+people. The passions of parties were let loose one against another; and
+Alexandre de Beauharnais, the president of the National Assembly, stood
+naturally in the first rank of those who were threatened by the attacks
+of the royalists.
+
+Yes, Alexandre de Beauharnais was in danger! Since Josephine knew this,
+there was for her but one place which belonged to her, to which she
+could lay claim--the place at her husband's side.
+
+How could she then have withstood his appeals, his prayers? How could
+she then have remained in the solitude and stillness of Martinique, when
+her husband was now in the fight, in the very struggle? She had, now
+that fate claimed it, either to share her husband's triumphs, or to
+bring him comfort if he fell.
+
+The intercessions of her family, even the tears of her mother, could no
+longer retain Josephine; at the side of her husband, the father of her
+two children, there was her place! No one could deprive her of it, if
+she herself wished to occupy it.
+
+She was entitled to it, she was still the wife of the Viscount de
+Beauharnais. The Parliament, which had pronounced its verdict against
+the demands of a divorce from the viscount, had, in declaring Josephine
+innocent, condemned her husband to receive into his house his wife, if
+she desired it; or else, in case she waived this right, to pay her a
+fixed annual income.
+
+Josephine had parted voluntarily from her husband, since she had not
+returned to him, but had exiled herself with her father-in-law and her
+aunt in Fontainebleau; but she had never laid claims to nor received the
+income which Parliament had appointed. She had never assumed the rights
+of a divorced wife, but she retained still all the privileges of a
+married woman, who at God's altar had bound herself to her husband for a
+whole life, in a wedlock which, being performed according to the laws of
+the Catholic Church, was indissoluble.
+
+Now the viscount claimed his wife, and who dared keep her back if she
+wished to follow this call? Who could stand between husband and wife,
+when their hearts claimed and longed for this reunion?
+
+The tears of Madame de la Pagerie had attempted it, but had not
+succeeded! The soft, patient, pliant Josephine had suddenly become a
+strong-minded, joyous, courageous woman; the inconveniences of a long
+sea-voyage, the perils of the revolution, into whose open crater she
+was to enter, affrighted her not. All the energies of her being began to
+develop themselves under the first sunbeams of a renewed love! The years
+of sorrow had passed away. Life, love called Josephine again, and she
+listened to the call, jubilant and full of friendly trust of undimmed
+hope!
+
+In the first days of September, 1790, Josephine, with the little
+Hortense, embarked from Martinique, and after a short, favorable
+passage, landed in France, in the middle of October. [Footnote: If,
+in the work "Queen Hortense, an Historical Sketch from the Days of
+Napoleon," I have given a few different details of Josephine's return to
+France and to her husband, I have followed the error common to all the
+historians of that time, who represent Josephine returning despite her
+husband's will, who receives her into his house, and recognizes her as
+his wife, only at the instant supplication of his family, and
+especially of his children. It is only of late that all this has been
+satisfactorily refuted, and that it has been proved that Josephine
+returned only at the instance of her husband's pressing demands. See
+Aubenas, "Histoire de l'Imperatrice Josephine," vol. i., p. 164.--L. M.]
+
+Again a prophecy accompanied Josephine to France, and perhaps this
+prophecy is to be blamed for her sudden departure and her unwavering
+resolution to leave Martinique. The old negro woman who, once before
+Josephine's departure, had prophesied that she would wear a crown and be
+more than a Queen of France--the old Euphemia was still living, and
+was still considered as an infallible oracle. A few days before her
+departure, Josephine, with all the superstitious faith of a Creole, went
+to ask the old prophetess if her journey would be propitious.
+
+The old Euphemia stared long and fixedly into Josephine's smiling
+countenance; then, as if overcome by a sudden thought, she exclaimed:
+"Go! go as fast as possible, for death and danger threaten you! Already
+are on the watch wicked and bloodthirsty fiends, who every moment are
+ready to rush among us with fire and sword, and to destroy the colony in
+their cruel wrath!"
+
+"And shall I safely arrive in France?" asked Josephine. "Shall I again
+see my husband?"
+
+"You will see him again," exclaimed the prophetess, "but hasten to go to
+him."
+
+"Is he threatened with any danger?" demanded Josephine.
+
+"Not yet!--not at once!" said the old negress. "They now applaud your
+husband and recognize his services. But he has powerful enemies, and one
+day they will threaten his life, and will lead him to the scaffold and
+murder him!"
+
+Before Josephine left Martinique, a portion of these prophecies of
+the old negro woman were to be fulfilled. The wicked and bloodthirsty
+fiends, of whom she said they were ready with fire and sword to rush
+upon the colony--those fiends did light the firebrand and destroy the
+peace of Martinique.
+
+The resounding cries for freedom uttered in the National Assembly, and
+which shook the whole continent, had rushed along across the ocean to
+Martinique. The storm-wind of the revolution had on its wings borne the
+wondrous story to Martinique--the wondrous story of man's sacred rights,
+which Lafayette had proclaimed in the National Assembly, the wondrous
+story that man was born free, that he ought to remain free, that there
+were to be no more slaves in the land of liberty, in France, and in her
+colonies.
+
+The storm-wind which brought this great news across the ocean to
+Martinique scattered it into the negro-cabins, and at first they
+listened to it with wondrous delight. Then the delirium of joy came over
+them; jubilant they broke their chains, and in wild madness anticipated
+their human rights, their personal freedom.
+
+The revolution, with its terrible consequences of blood and horrors,
+broke loose in Martinique, and, exulting in freedom, the slaves threw
+the firebrand on the roof of their former masters, rushed with war's
+wild cry into their dwellings, and, in freedom's name, punished those
+who so long had punished them in tyranny's name.
+
+Amid the barbaric shouts of those dark free men, Josephine embarked on
+board the ship which was to carry her and her little Hortense to France;
+and the flames which rose from the roofs of the houses as so many
+way-marks of fire for the new era, were Josephine's last, sad farewell
+from the home which she was never to see again. [Footnote: Le Normand,
+"Memoires de l'Imperatrice Josephine," vol. i., p. 147]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X. THE DAYS OF THE REVOLUTION.
+
+
+Happiness had once more penetrated into the heart of Josephine. Love
+again threw her sun-gleams upon her existence, and filled her whole
+being with animation and joy. She was once more united to her husband,
+who, with tears of joy and repentance, had again taken her to his heart.
+She was once more with her relatives, who, in the day of distress, had
+shown her so much love and faithfulness, and finally she had also her
+son, her own dear Eugene, from whom she had been separated during the
+sad years of their matrimonial disagreements.
+
+How different was the husband she now found from him she had quitted! He
+was now a man, an earnest, thoughtful man, with a fiery determination,
+with decidedness of purpose, and yet thoughtful, following only what
+reason approved, even if the heart had been the mover. The passions
+of youth had died away. The excitable, thoughtless, pleasure-seeking
+officer of the king had become a grave, industrious, indefatigable,
+moral, austere servant of the people and of liberty. The songs of joy,
+of equivocal jesting, of political satire, had died away on those lips
+which only opened now in the clubs, in the National Assembly, to utter
+inspired words in regard to liberty, fraternity, and equality.
+
+The most beautiful dancer of Versailles had become the president of the
+National Assembly, which made so many tears run, and awoke so much anger
+and hatred in the king's palace of Versailles. He at least belonged to
+the constitutional fraction of the National Assembly; he was the
+friend and guest of Mirabeau and of Lafayette; he was the opponent of
+Robespierre, Marat, and Danton, and of all the fanatics of the Mountain
+party, who already announced their bloody views, and claimed a republic
+as the object of their conflicts.
+
+Alexandre de Beauharnais was no republican, however enthusiastic he
+might have been in favor of America's struggle for freedom, however
+deeply he had longed to go like Lafayette to America, for the sake of
+assisting the Americans to break the chains which yoked them to England,
+so as to build a republic for themselves. The enthusiasm of that
+day, the enthusiasm for France had driven him upon the path of the
+opposition; but while desiring freedom for the people, he still hoped
+that the people's freedom was compatible with the power and dignity of
+the crown; that at the head of constitutional France the throne of a
+constitutional king would be maintained. To bring to pass this reunion,
+this balance of right between the monarchy and the people, such was the
+object of the wishes of Alexandre de Beauharnais; this was the ultimate
+aim of his struggles and longings.
+
+Josephine looked upon these tumultuous conflicts of parties, upon this
+wild storm of politics, with wondering, sad looks. With all the tact of
+tender womanhood she held herself aloof from every personal interference
+in these political party strifes. At the bottom of her heart a true and
+zealous royalist, she guarded herself carefully from endeavoring to keep
+her husband back from his chosen path, and to bring into her house and
+family the party strifes of the political arena. She wanted and longed
+for peace, unity, and rest, and in his home at least her husband would
+have no debates to go through, no sentiments to fight against.
+
+In silence and devotedness Josephine submitted to her husband's will,
+and left him to perform his political part, while she assumed the part
+of wife, mother, of the representative of the household; and every
+evening opened her drawing-room to her friends, and to her husband's
+associates in the same conflict.
+
+What a mixed and extraordinary assemblage was seen in the
+drawing-room of the president of the National Assembly! There were
+the representatives of old France, the brilliant members of the old
+nobility: the Duke de la Rochefoucauld, the Count de Montmorency, the
+Marquis de Caulaincourt, the Prince de Salm-Cherbourg, the Princess von
+Hohenzollern, Madame de Montesson, the wife of the old Duke d'Orleans;
+and alongside of these names of the ancient regime, new names rose up.
+There were the deputies of the National Assembly--Barnave, Mounier,
+Thouvet, Lafayette, and the favorite of the people, the great Mirabeau.
+Old France and Young France met here in this drawing-room of Josephine
+on neutral grounds, and the beautiful viscountess, full of grace and
+prudence, offered to them both the honors of her house. She listened
+with modest bashfulness to the words of the great tribunes of the
+people, and oftentimes with a smile or a soft word she reconciled the
+royalists, those old friends who sought in this drawing-room for
+the Viscountess de Beauharnais, and found there only the wife of the
+president of the National Assembly.
+
+The saloon of Josephine was soon spoken of, and seemed as a haven in
+which the refined, elegant manners, the grace, the wit, the esprit, had
+been saved from the stormy flood of political strife. Every one sought
+the privilege of being admitted into this drawing-room, whose charming
+mistress in her own gentleness and grace received the homage of all
+parties, pleased every one by her loveliness, her charms, the fine,
+exquisite tact with which she managed at all times the sentiments of the
+company, and with which she knew how to guide the conversation so
+that it would never dwindle into political debates or into impassioned
+speeches.
+
+However violent was the tempest of faction outside, Josephine endeavored
+that in the interior of her home the serene peace of happiness should
+prevail. For she was now happy again, and all the liveliness, all the
+joys of youth, had again found entrance into her mind. The anguish
+endured, the tears shed, had also brought their blessing; they had
+strengthened and invigorated her heart; with their grave, solemn
+memories they preserved Josephine, that child of the South, of the sun,
+and of joy, from that light frivolity which otherwise is so often the
+common heritage of the Creoles.
+
+The viscount had now the satisfaction which ten years ago, at the
+beginning of his married life, he had so intently longed for, the
+satisfaction of seeing his wife occupied with grave studies, with the
+culture of her own mind and talents. It was to him a ravishment to see
+Josephine in her drawing-room in earnest conversation with Buffon, and
+with all the aptitude of a naturalist speak of the organization and
+formation of the different families of plants; he exulted in the open
+praise paid to her when, with her fine, far-reaching voice, she sang
+the songs of her home, which she herself accompanied on the harp; he was
+proud when, in her saloon, with all the tact and assurance of a lady of
+the world, she took the lead in the conversation, and could speak
+with poets and authors, with artists and savants, and that, with
+understanding and feeling, upon their latest works and creations; he
+was made happy when, passing from serious gravity to the most innocent
+gayety, she jested, laughed, and danced, as if she were yet the
+sixteen-year-old child whom ten years ago he had made his wife, and from
+whom he had then so cruelly exacted that she should demean herself as a
+fine, experienced, and highly-refined lady.
+
+Life had since undertaken to mould the young Creole into an elegant,
+highly-accomplished woman, but fortunately life had been impotent to
+change her heart, and that heart was ever beating in all the freshness
+of youth, in all the joyous warmth and faithfulness of the young girl of
+sixteen years who had come to France with so many ideal visions, so many
+illusions, so many dreams and hopes. It is true this ideal had vanished
+away, these illusions had burst into pieces like meteors in the skies;
+the dreams and hopes of the young maiden heart had fallen into dust, but
+the love, the confiding, faithful, hoping love, the love assured of the
+future, had remained alive; it had overcome the storms and conflicts; it
+had been Josephine's consolation in the days of sorrow; it was now her
+delight in these days of happiness.
+
+Her whole heart, her undivided love, belonged to her husband, to her
+children, and often from the society gathered in her reception-rooms,
+she would slip away and hasten to the bed of her little Hortense to
+bid good-night to the child, who never would sleep without bidding
+good-night to its mother, who would kneel at the side of the crib with
+little Hortense, and utter the evening prayer, asking of God to grant to
+them all prosperity and peace!
+
+But this peace which Josephine so earnestly longed for was soon to be
+imperilled more and more, was to be banished from the interior of home
+and family, from its most sacred asylum, by the revolution and its
+stormy factions.
+
+An important event, pregnant with results, suddenly moved all Paris, and
+filled the minds of all with the most fearful anticipations.
+
+The king, with his wife and children, had fled! Openly and irretrievably
+he had separated himself from country and people; he had, by this
+flight, solemnly expressed before all Europe the discord which existed
+between him and his people, between the king and the constitution to
+which he had sworn allegiance.
+
+Alexandre de Beauharnais, the president of the National Assembly, was
+the first to be informed of this extraordinary event. On the morning of
+the 21st of June, 1791, M. de Bailly, mayor of Paris, came to announce
+to him that the king with all his family had fled from Paris the
+previous evening.
+
+It was the hour at which the sessions of the National assembly began
+every morning, and Beauharnais, accompanied by Bailly, hastened to the
+Assembly. The deputies were already seated when the president took
+the chair with a grave, solemn countenance. This countenance told the
+deputies of the people that the president had an important and very
+unusual message to communicate, and a deep stillness, an oppressive
+silence, overspread the whole assemblage as the president rose from his
+seat to address them.
+
+"Gentlemen," said he, with a voice which, amid the general silence,
+sounded solemn and powerful--"gentlemen, I have a sad message to bring
+before you. The mayor of Paris has just now informed me that the king
+and his family have this night been seduced into flight by the
+enemies of the people." [Footnote: Aubenas, "Histoire de l'Imperatrice
+Josephine," vol i., p. 171.]
+
+This news had a stupendous effect on the deputies. At first they sat
+there dumb, as if petrified with fear; then they all rose up to make
+their remarks and motions in a whirl of confusion, and it required all
+the energy and determination of the president to re-establish peace, and
+to control their minds.
+
+The Assembly then, in quiet debate, resolved to declare itself in
+permanent session until the termination of this crisis, and gave to the
+president full power during this time to provide for the tranquillity
+and security of the Assembly. Bailly and Lafayette were by the president
+summoned before the deputies, to state what the sentiments of Paris
+were, what was the attitude of the National Guards, what were the
+precautions they had taken to preserve aright the peace of Paris.
+
+But this peace was not in danger, and the only one whom the Parisian
+people at this moment dreaded, was he who had fled from Paris--the king.
+And yet, not for a moment did the people rise in anger against the
+king; actuated by a new and overpowering thought, the people in their
+enthusiasm for this idea forgot their anger against him who by his deed
+had kindled this thought. The thought which was uppermost in all minds
+at the flight of the king was this: that the state could subsist even
+if there were no king at its head; that law and order still remained in
+Paris, even when the king had fled.
+
+This law and order was the National Assembly, the living representation
+and embodiment of the law; the government was there; the king alone had
+disappeared. Such was the sentiment which animated all classes, which
+brought the people in streaming masses to the palace where the National
+Assembly held its sittings. A few hours after the news of the king's
+flight had spread through Paris, thousands were besieging the National
+Assembly, and shouting enthusiastically: "Our king is here; he is in the
+hall of session. Louis XVI. can go; he can do what he wills; our king
+is still in Paris!" [Footnote: Prudhomme, "Histoire Parlementaire de la
+Revolution," vol. x. p. 241.]
+
+The Assembly, "the King of Paris," remained in permanent session,
+waiting for the developments of events, and working out in committees
+the decrees passed in common deliberation, whilst the president and
+the secretary remained the whole night in the council-room, so as to
+be ready at any moment to rectify fresh news and to issue the necessary
+orders.
+
+Early next morning the most important news had reached the president,
+and the deputies hastened from their respective committees into the hall
+of session, there to take their seats.
+
+Amid the breathless silence of the Assembly, President Beauharnais
+announced that the king, the queen, the dauphin, Madame, and divers
+persons of their suite, had been arrested in Varennes.
+
+The Assembly received this communication with dignified quietude, for
+they were conscious that the king's return would in no wise impair their
+own sovereignty, that the power was in their hands, even if the king
+were there. In this full assurance of their dignity the National
+Assembly passed a decree ordering the proper authorities "to protect
+the king's return, to seize and imprison all those who might forget, the
+respect they owed to the royal dignity."
+
+At the same time the National Assembly sent from their number
+two deputies, Barnave and Petion, to bring back from Varennes the
+unfortunate royal family and to accompany them to Paris.
+
+Meanwhile the news of the king's capture only increased the people's
+enthusiasm for the National Assembly, the truly acknowledged sovereign
+of France. Every one was anxious to give expression to this enthusiasm;
+the National Guards of Paris begged for the privilege of taking the oath
+of allegiance to the National Assembly, and when at the motion of the
+president this was granted by the Assembly, a whole detachment was
+marched into the hall so as to take the oath of allegiance to the
+National Assembly with one voice, amid the applause of the Assembly and
+the tribunes. This detachment was followed by fresh companies, and the
+people filled the streets to see the National Guards come and go, and
+like them to swear allegiance to the National Assembly with enthusiastic
+shouts.
+
+The provinces would not be a whit behind the enthusiasm of Paris; and
+whilst the guards swore their oath, from all cities and provinces came
+to the president of the National Assembly, addresses congratulating
+the Assembly on its triumphs, and promising the most unconditional
+devotedness.
+
+Finally after two days of restless activity, after two days, during
+which Alexandre de Beauharnais had hardly found time to quiet his wife
+by a note, explaining his absence from home, finally a courier brought
+the news that the captive royal family were entering Paris. A second
+courier followed the first. He announced that the royal family had
+reached the Tuileries surrounded by an immense crowd, whose excitement
+caused serious apprehensions. Petion had, therefore, thought it
+expedient not to allow the royal family to alight, but had confined them
+to the two carriages, and he now sent the keys of these two carriages to
+the president of the National Assembly, as it was now his duty to adopt
+still further measures.
+
+Beauharnais proposed that at once twenty deputies be chosen to speed on
+to the Tuileries to deliver the royal family from their prison, and to
+lead them into the palace.
+
+The motion was carried, and the deputies reached the court of the
+Tuileries yet in time to save the affrighted family from the people,
+who, in their wild madness, were about to destroy the carriages, and to
+take possession of the king and queen.
+
+The presence of the deputies imposed silence on the shouts and howlings
+of the people. The king had come into the Tuileries, and before him
+bowed the people in dumb respect. They quietly allowed that this their
+king should open the carriage wherein the other king, the king by God's
+grace, Louis XVI., sat a prisoner; they allowed that the king by the
+grace of the people, the National Assembly, through its twenty deputies,
+should render liberty to Louis and to his family, and lead them quietly
+under their protection into the Tuileries.
+
+But from this day the Tuileries, which for centuries had been the palace
+of the kings of France, now became a prison for the King of France!
+
+Louis XVI. was returned, not as the head, but as the prisoner of the
+state; from the moment he left Paris, the ermine mantle of his royalty
+had fallen from his shoulders upon the shoulders of the National
+Assembly; King Louis XVI. had dethroned himself.
+
+Amid these fatal storms, amid these ever-swelling revolutionary floods,
+there was yet an hour of happiness for Josephine. Out of the wild waves
+of rebellion was to rise, for a short time, an island of bliss. The
+National Assembly, whose president, Alexandre de Beauharnais, had
+once more, in the course of the sessions, been re-elected by general
+acclamation, declared itself on the 3d of September, 1791, dissolved,
+and its members vanished to make room for the Legislative Assembly,
+which organized the very next day.
+
+Alexandre de Beauharnais, after having so long and so zealously
+discharged his duties as a citizen, returned to his Josephine, to his
+children; and, weary with the storms and debates of the last months,
+longed for a quiet little place, away from the turmoil of the capital
+and from the attrition of parties. Josephine acquiesced gladly in the
+wishes of her husband, for she felt her innermost being shattered by
+these last exciting times, and perhaps she cherished the secret hope
+that her husband, once removed from Paris, would be drawn away from the
+dangerous arena of politics, into which his enthusiasm had driven
+him. She was, and remained at heart, a good and true royalist; and
+as Mirabeau, dying in the midst of revolution's storms, had said
+of himself, that "he took to his grave the mourning-badge for the
+monarchy," [Footnote: Mirabeau died on the 6th of May, 1791.--See,
+on his death, "Count Mirabeau," by Theodore Mundt, vol. iv.] so also
+Josephine's heart, since the flight to Varennes, wore the mourning-badge
+for the unfortunate royal family, who since that day had to endure so
+much humiliation, so much insult, and to whom Josephine in her loyal
+sense of duty consecrated the homage of a devout subject.
+
+Josephine, therefore, gladly consented to the viscount's proposal to
+leave Paris. Accompanied by their children and by the governess of
+Hortense, Madame Lanoy, the viscount and his wife went to a property
+belonging to one of the Beauharnais family near Solange.
+
+Three months were granted to Josephine in the quietude, in the sweet
+repose of country-life, at her husband's side, and with her children, to
+gather strength from the anxieties and griefs which she had suffered in
+Paris. She enjoyed these days as one enjoys an unexpected blessing, a
+last sunshine before winter's near approach, with thankful heart to God.
+Full of cheerful devotedness to her husband, to her children, her lovely
+countenance was radiant with joy and love; she was ever busy, with the
+sunshine of her smile, to dissipate the shadows from her husband's brow,
+and to replace the impassioned excitements, the honors and distinctions
+of his Parisian life, by the pleasantness and joys of home.
+
+But Alexandra de Beauharnais could no longer find satisfaction in the
+quiet, harmless joys of home; he even reproached himself that he could
+be cheerful and satisfied whilst France resounded with cries of distress
+and complaints, whilst France was torn in her innermost life by the
+disputes and conflicts of factions which, no more satisfied with the
+speeches of the tribune, filled the streets with blood and wounds. The
+revolution had entered into a new phase, the Legislative Assembly had
+become the Constituent Assembly, which despoiled the monarchy of the
+last appearance of power and degraded it to a mere insignificancy. The
+Girondists, those ideal fanatics, who wanted to regenerate France after
+the model of the states of antiquity, had seized the power and the
+ministerial portefeuilles. The beautiful, witty, and noble Madame Roland
+ruled, by means of her husband, the Minister Roland, and was striving to
+realize in France the ideal of a republic after the pattern of Greece;
+she was the very soul of the new cabinet, the soul of the Girondists,
+the rulers of France; in her drawing-room, during the evening, the new
+laws to be proposed next day in the Constituent Assembly, were spoken
+of, and the government measures discussed.
+
+For a moment it had seemed as if the king, through his cabinet
+of Girondists, would once more be reconciled with his people, and
+especially with the Constituent Assembly, as if the nation and the
+monarchy would once more endeavor to stand one by the other in harmony
+and peace. Perhaps the Girondists had believed in this possibility,
+and had regarded the king's assurances that he would adhere to the
+constitution, and that he would go hand in hand with his ministers, and
+accept the constitution as the faithful expression of his will. But when
+they discovered that Louis was not honorable in his assurances; that
+he was in secret correspondence with the enemies of France; that in a
+letter to his brother-in-law, the Emperor Leopold, he had made bitter
+complaints about the constraint to which he was subjected, then
+the Girondists were inflamed with animosity, and had recourse to
+counter-measures. They decreed the exile of the priests, and the
+formation, in the vicinity of Paris, of a camp of twenty thousand
+militia from all the departments of France.
+
+Foreign nations looked upon this decree as a sign of dawning
+hostilities, and threatened France with countermeasures. France
+responded to the challenge thus thrown at her, and, in a stormy session
+of the Assembly, the fatherland was declared to be in danger, the
+organization of an army to occupy the frontiers was decreed, and all the
+children of the fatherland were solemnly called to her defence.
+
+This call awoke Alexandre de Beauharnais from the dreamy repose to which
+he had abandoned himself during the last months. His country called
+him, and he dared not remain deaf to this call; it was his duty to tear
+himself from the quiet peace of the household, from the arms of his
+wife and family, and place himself in the ranks of the defenders of his
+country.
+
+Josephine heard this resolution with tears in her eyes, but she
+could not keep back her husband, whose countenance was beaming with
+enthusiasm, and who dreamed of fame and victory. She accompanied
+Alexandre to Paris, and after he had been gladly received by the
+minister of war, and appointed to the Northern army, she then took from
+him a last, fond farewell, entreated him with all the eloquence of love
+to spare himself, and not wantonly to face danger, but to preserve his
+life for his wife and children.
+
+Deeply moved by this tender solicitude of his wife, Alexandre promised
+to hold her requests as sacred. Once more they embraced each other
+before they both quitted Paris on diverging roads.
+
+Alexandre de Beauharnais went to Valenciennes, where commanded Marshal
+Rochambeau, to whom he had been commissioned adjutant.
+
+Josephine hastened with her children toward Fontainebleau, so at least
+to be there united with her husband's father, and to live under his
+protection until the return of her husband.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI. THE TENTH OF AUGUST, AND THE LETTER OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE.
+
+
+Since the death of Mirabeau, the last defender of the monarchy, since
+the failure of the contemplated flight, royalty in France had no chance
+of existence left; the throne had lost every prop upon which it could
+find support, and it sank more and more into the abyss which the
+revolution had dug under its feet.
+
+Marie Antoinette was conscious of it; her foreboding spirit foresaw
+the coming evil; her proud soul nearly broke under the humiliations and
+griefs which every day brought on. She had hitherto courageously and
+heroically struggled against adversity; she had concealed tears and
+anguish, to smile at that people which hated her and cursed her, which
+insulted and reviled her constantly. But a day was to come in which the
+smile would forever depart from her lip--in which Marie Antoinette, the
+daughter of the Caesars, so deeply humbled and trodden down in the dust,
+would no more lift up her head, would no more rise from the terrible
+blow.
+
+This day was the 10th of August, in the year 1792. The terrible storm,
+which so long had filled the air with its mutterings, and had shaken the
+throne with its thunderings, was on this day with terrific power to be
+let loose and to dash in pieces the monarchy. The king furnished the
+occasion for this eruption by dismissing his Girondist ministry, by not
+signing the decree for the organization of a national militia, and for
+the exile of the priests.
+
+This refusal was the flash which broke open the heavy clouds that so
+long had hung over his head--the flash which caused the tempest to burst
+forth.
+
+Since that day Paris was in a state of rebellion; fresh disturbances
+took place every day; and finally, on the morning of the 10th of August,
+bands of people rushed to the palace of the Tuileries and surrounded
+it with wild howlings and shouts. A portion of the National Guards
+endeavored to force the people into a retreat; the other portion united
+with the people in fierce assaults upon the Tuileries, and on its
+defenders the Swiss. These were massacred by the people armed with
+pikes; with jubilant howlings the armed masses rushed over the corpses
+of the fallen into the king's palace.
+
+The Procurator-General Roderer implored the king to save himself with
+his family by taking refuge in the National Assembly, for there alone
+was safety for him and the queen.
+
+Louis hesitated; but Marie Antoinette felt once more the pride of a
+queen awake within her; she felt it was nobler and worthier to die as
+the loyal Swiss had done, to die sword in hand, than to meet pardon and
+disgrace, than to bow her head under the yoke. She entreated the king to
+remain with the loyal National Guards and to fight with his soldiers and
+die in the palace of his fathers. She spoke to the successor of Henry
+IV., to the father of the dauphin, for whom he should maintain the
+inheritance received; she appealed to the heart, to the honor of Louis;
+she spoke with flaming eyes, and with the eloquence of despair.
+
+But Louis listened not to her, but to the solicitations of Roderer, who
+told him that he had but five minutes to save himself, the queen, and
+his children; that in five minutes more all would be lost.
+
+"It cannot be helped," muttered the king; and then with louder voice
+he continued: "It is my will that we be conducted into the Legislative
+Assembly; I command it!"
+
+A shriek of terror broke forth from the breast of the queen; her proud
+heart resisted once more her husband's weakness, who, for his own and
+for her misfortune, was not made of the stuff which moulds kings.
+
+"Sire," cried she, angrily and excited--"sire, you must first command
+that I be nailed to the walls of this palace! I remain here. I stir not
+from this spot!" [Footnote: The very words of the queen.--See "Memoires
+Secretes et Universelles," par Lafont d'Aussone.]
+
+But Madame Elizabeth, the Princesses de Lamballe and de Tarent, begged
+her with tears to consent; the good king fixed on her sad, weeping
+eyes, and Roderer entreated her not to abandon, by her delays, to the
+approaching executioners, her husband, her children, and herself.
+
+Marie Antoinette offered to her husband her last and her greatest
+sacrifice; she bowed her proud head to his will; she consented to
+accompany the king with her children into the Assembly.
+
+She took the dauphin in her arms, Madame Therese by the hand, and, at
+the side of the king, followed by the Princesses Lamballe and Tarent,
+walked out of the palace of the Tuileries to go to the Convent des
+Peuillants, where the Legislative Assembly held its sessions.
+
+What a martyrdom in this short distance from the Tuileries to the
+Feuillants--what dishonor and fears were gathered on this path! Between
+the deep ranks of Swiss grenadiers and National Guards was this path;
+the queen stares fixedly on the ground, and she does not see that her
+thin silk shoes will be torn by the hard, fallen leaves of the trees
+under which they are moving.
+
+But the king sees every thing, notices every thing. "How many leaves,"
+said he, gazing forward--"they fall early this year!"
+
+Now at the foot of the terrace the advance of the royal family is
+stopped by a multitude of people, who, with wild howlings, swing their
+pikes and clubs, and in their madness shout: "No, they must not enter
+the Assembly!--they are the cause of all our misery! Let us put an end
+to all this! Down with them!--down!"
+
+The queen pays no attention to these shouts; she sees not that the
+National Guards are clearing a way by force; she walks forward with
+uplifted head, with a countenance petrified like that of Medusa at the
+sight of evil.
+
+But as a man approaches her, seizes the dauphin and takes him in his
+arms, the transfixed queen is aroused, and, with all the anguish of a
+mother's despair, grapples the arm of the man who wants to rob her of
+all she now possesses, her child!
+
+"Be not afraid," whispered the man, "I will do him no harm, I am but
+going to carry him;" and Marie Antoinette, her eyes fixed on the child,
+moves forward. At their entrance into the hall of the Assembly the man
+gives her back the dauphin, and she makes him sit down near her on the
+seats of the ministers.
+
+A rough voice issues from the midst of the Assembly: "The dauphin
+belongs to the nation; place him at the side of the president. The
+Austrian is not worthy of our confidence!"
+
+They tear away from the queen the weeping child, who clings to her, and
+who is carried to the president, at whose left hand the king has seated
+himself.
+
+Again a voice is heard reminding the Assembly of the law which forbids
+them to deliberate in the presence of the king.
+
+The royal family must leave the lower portion of the hall, and are led
+into a small room, with iron trellis-work, behind the president's chair.
+
+The royal family, with their attendants, pressed into the small space of
+this room, can here at least, away from the gaze of their enemies, hide
+their dishonored heads; at least no one sees the nervousness of despair
+which now and then agitates the tall figure of the queen, the tears
+trembling on her eyelids when she looks to the poor little dauphin,
+whose blond curly head lies in her bosom, asleep from exhaustion,
+hunger, and sorrow.
+
+No one sees the king and the queen, but they see and hear every thing.
+They hear from without the howlings of the mob, the cannon's roar, the
+reports of the rifles, telling them that a bloody fratricidal strife, a
+terrible civil war, is raging. They hear there in the hall, a few steps
+from them, the fanatical harangues of the deputies, whose words, full
+of blood, are like the hands of the murdering Marsellais there without.
+Marie Antoinette hears Vergniaud's motion, "to divest the king at once
+of his power and rank," and she hears the acclamations of the Assembly
+in favor of the motion. She hears the Assembly by their own power
+reinvesting the Girondist ministers, dismissed by the king, with their
+dignity and power! She hears the Assembly decide "to invite the French
+people to form a national compact."
+
+She hears all this, and the cold perspiration of anguish and horror
+covers her brow while she has yet strength enough to force hack her
+tears into her heart. She asks for a handkerchief to wipe her forehead.
+Not one of the attendants around can furnish a kerchief which is not
+stained with the blood of the victims fallen at their side in protecting
+the royal family with their lives. [Footnote: "Memoires inedites du
+Comte de la Rochefoucauld."]
+
+At last, at two o'clock in the morning, is this painful martyrdom ended,
+and the royal family are led into the upper rooms of the convent, where
+hastily and penuriously enough a few chambers had been furnished.
+
+The howlings of the crowd ascend to their windows. Under those of the
+queen's room groups of infuriated women sing the song whose horrible
+burden is, "Madame Veto avait promis de faire egorger tout Paris."
+Between the sentences other voices shout and howl: "The queen is the
+cause of our misery! Kill her! kill the queen, the murderess of France!
+Kill Madame Veto! Throw us her head!"
+
+Three days after, the royal family are led to the Temple. The rulers of
+the state are now state prisoners. But the queen had already found the
+peace which misfortune generally brings to strong souls; and as she
+walked to the Temple, and saw her foot protruding from the extremity
+of her shoe, she said with an affecting smile, "Who could have believed
+that one day the Queen of France should be in want of shoes!"
+
+With the 10th of August began the last act of the great tragedy of the
+revolution. Its second scene had its representation in the first days of
+September, in those days of blood and tears, in which infuriated
+bands of the people stormed the prisons to murder the captive priests,
+aristocrats, and royalists.
+
+Under the guillotine fell during this month the head of the queen's
+friend, the Princess de Lamballe, who was followed in crowds by the
+king's faithful adherents, sealing their loyalty and their love with
+their death.
+
+This loyalty and love for the royal family was during this month branded
+as an unpardonable crime, for the National Convention, which on the 21st
+of September had taken the place of the Constituent Assembly, on the
+25th declared France to be a republic, and the royalists became thereby
+criminals, who had sinned in the respect and love which they owed to the
+"republic one and indivisible."
+
+The new republic of France celebrated her saturnalia in the following
+months, and unfurled her blood-stained standard over the nation. She
+was not satisfied with having brought to the guillotine more than ten
+thousand aristocrats and royalists, to terrify the faithful adherents
+and servants of the throne. She required, moreover, the death of those
+for whose sake so many thousands had perished--the death of the king and
+of the queen.
+
+On the 5th of December began the trial of Louis Capet, ex-King of
+France, now accused by the Convention. The pages of history have
+illustrated this stupendous and tragical event in all its shapes and
+colors. Each party has preyed upon it, the poets have sung it, and made
+it the central point of tragedy and romance: but none have painted it
+in so telling, in so terse, masterly traits, none have so fully
+comprehended and expressed the already stupendous event, as Lieutenant
+Napoleon Bonaparte, the future Emperor of France.
+
+He happened to be in Paris during these days of terror. He had, with all
+the energies of his soul, given himself up to the new state of
+things, and he belonged to the most upright and zealous faction of
+the republicans. He acknowledged himself won over to their ideas, he
+participated in their celebrations, he was the friend of many of the
+most influential and conspicuous members of the Convention, and he was
+rarely absent from their meetings; but in the presence of the awful
+catastrophe of the king's accusation and execution his proud and daring
+soul shrank back, and, full of misgivings, shuddered within itself. The
+young, enthusiastic republican, to his own great horror, found in
+the depths of his soul a holy respect and awe in the presence of this
+royalty which he so often in words had despised, and the fall of the
+king, this enemy of the republic, moved his heart as a calamity which
+had fallen upon him and upon all France. He himself gave to one of
+his friends in Ajaccio a very correct description of these days. After
+narrating the events of the first days of the trial of the king, he
+continues:
+
+"The day after I heard that the advocate Target had refused to undertake
+the king's defence, to which he was privileged by virtue of his office.
+This is what may be called, in the strictest sense of the word, to erase
+one's name from history. What grounds had he for such a low cunning?
+'His life I will not save, and mine I dare not risk!' Malherbes,
+Tronchet, Deseze, loyal and devoted subjects, to imitate them in their
+zeal would be impossible for me; but were I a prince I would have them
+sit at my right hand--united together in the most strenuous efforts to
+defend the successor of St. Louis. If they survive this deed of sublime
+faithfulness, never can I pass by them without uncovering my head.
+
+"Business detained me unavoidably in Versailles. Only on the 16th of
+January did I return to Paris, and consequently I had lost three or four
+scenes of this tragedy of ambition. But on the 18th of January I went
+to the National Convention. Ah, my friend, it is true, and the most
+infuriated republicans avow it also, a prince is but an ordinary man!
+His head will as surely fall as that of another man, but whosoever
+decrees his death trembles at his own madness, and were he not urged
+by secret motives, his vote would die on his lips ere it was uttered.
+I gazed with much curiosity at the fearless mortals who were about
+deciding the fate of their king. I watched their looks. I searched into
+their hearts. The exceeding weightiness of the occasion had exalted
+them, intoxicated them, but within themselves they were full of fear in
+the presence of the grandeur of their victim.
+
+"Had they dared retreat, the prince had been saved. To his misfortune,
+they had argued within themselves, 'If his head falls not to-day, then
+we must soon give ours to the executioner's stroke.'
+
+"This was the prominent thought which controlled their vote. No pen
+can adequately portray the feelings of the spectators in the galleries.
+Silent, horrified, breathless, they gazed now on the accused, now on the
+defenders, now on the judges.
+
+"The vote of Orleans sounded forth--'Death!' An electric shock could
+not have produced deeper impression. The whole assembly, seized with
+an involuntary terror, rose. The hall was filled with the murmurs of
+conflicting emotions.
+
+"Only one man remained seated, immovable as a rock, and that one was
+myself.
+
+"I ventured to reflect on the cause of such indifference (as that of
+Orleans) and I found that cause grounded on ambition, but this cannot
+justify the conduct of Orleans. It is only thus that I could account
+for his action: he seeks a throne, though without any right to it, and
+a throne cannot be won if the pretender renounces all claims to public
+respect and virtue.
+
+"I will be brief, for to unfold a mournful story is not my business.
+The king was sentenced to death; and if the 21st day of January does
+not inspire hatred for the name of France, a glorious name at least will
+have been added to the roll-call of her martyrs.
+
+"What a city was Paris on that day! The population seemed to be in a
+state of bewilderment; all seemed to exchange but gloomy looks, and one
+man hurried on to meet another without uttering a word. The streets were
+deserted; houses and palaces were like graves. The very air seemed to
+mirror the executioner. In a word, the successor of St. Louis was led to
+the scaffold through the ranks of mourning automatons, that a short time
+before were his subjects.
+
+"If any one is at your side, my friend, when you read this, conceal the
+following lines from him, even were he your father. It is a stain on the
+stuff of which my character is made--that Napoleon Bonaparte, for the
+sake of a human being's destruction, should have been deeply moved and
+compelled to retire to his bed, is a thing barely credible, though it is
+true, and I cannot confess it without being ashamed of myself.
+
+"On the night before the 21st of January I could not close my eyes, and
+yet I could not explain to myself the cause of this unusual excitement.
+I rose up early and ran everywhere to and fro where crowds had gathered.
+I wondered at, or much more I despised, the weakness of those forty
+thousand National Guards, of which the nineteenth part were practically
+the assistants of the executioner. At the gate of St. Denis I met
+Santerre; a numerous staff followed him. I could have cut off his ears.
+I spat down before him--it was all I could do. In my opinion, the Duke
+d'Orleans would have filled his place better. He had set his eyes on a
+crown, and, as every one knows, such a motive overcomes much hesitancy.
+
+"Following the Boulevards, I came to the Place de la Revolution. The
+guillotine, a new invention, I had not yet seen. A cold perspiration
+ran over me. Near me stood a stranger, who attributed my uneasiness and
+pallor to some special interest on my part for the king's fate. 'Do not
+be alarmed,' said he, 'he is not going to die; the Convention is only
+glad to exhibit its power, and at the foot of the scaffold the king will
+find his letters of pardon.' 'In this case,' said I, 'the members of the
+Convention are not far from their own ruin, and could a guilty man have
+more deserved his fate than they? Whoever attacks a lion, and desires
+not to be destroyed by it, must not wound but kill on the spot.'
+
+"A hollow, confused noise was heard. It was the royal victim. I pushed
+forward, making way with my elbows, and being pushed myself. All my
+efforts to come closer were fruitless. Suddenly the noise of drums
+broke upon the gloomy silence of the crowd. 'This is the signal for
+his freedom,' said the stranger. 'It will fall back on the head of
+his murderers,' answered I; 'half a crime in a case like this is but
+weakness.'
+
+"A moment's stillness followed. Something heavy fell on the scaffold.
+This sound went through my heart.
+
+"I inquired of a gendarme the cause of this sound. 'The axe has fallen,'
+said he. 'The king is not saved then?' 'He is dead.' 'He is dead!'
+
+"For ten times at least I repeated the words 'He is dead.'
+
+"For a few moments I remained unconscious. Without knowing by whom,
+I was carried along by a crowd, and found myself on the Quai des
+Theatines, but could say nothing, except 'He is dead.'
+
+"Entirely bewildered, I went home, but a good hour elapsed before I
+fully recovered my senses." [Footnote: See "Edinburgh Quarterly Review,"
+1830.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII. THE EXECUTION OF THE QUEEN.
+
+
+The king's execution was the signal-fire which announced to the
+horrified world the beginning of the reign of terror, and told Europe
+that in France the throne had been torn down, and in its stead the
+guillotine erected. Yes, the guillotine alone now ruled over France; the
+days of moderation, of the Girondists, had passed away; the terrorists,
+named also men of the Mountain, on account of the high seats they
+occupied in the Convention, had seized the reins of power, and now
+controlled the course of events.
+
+Everywhere, in every province, in every city, the blood-red standard of
+the revolution was lifted up; might had become law; death was the rule,
+and in lieu of the boasted liberty of conscience was tyranny. Who dared
+think otherwise than the terrorists, who presumed to doubt the measures
+of the Convention, was a criminal who, in the name of the one and
+indivisible republic, was to be punished with death; whose head must
+fall, for he had cherished thoughts which agreed not with the schemes of
+the revolutionists.
+
+How in these days of agitation and anguish Josephine rejoiced at her
+good fortune, that she had not to tremble for her husband's life; that
+she was away from the crater of the revolution which raged in Paris, and
+daily claimed so many victims!
+
+Alexandre de Beauharnais was still with the army. He had risen from rank
+to rank; and when, in May, General Custine was deposed by the Committee
+of Public Safety from the command of the Northern army, Alexandre de
+Beauharnais, who was then chief of the general's staff of this army, was
+appointed in his place as commanding general of the Army of the Rhine;
+and the important work now to be achieved was to debar the besieging
+Prussians and Austrians from recapturing Mayence. The Committee of
+Public Safety had dismissed General Custine from his post, because
+he had not pressed on with sufficient speed to the rescue of Mayence,
+according to the judgment of these new rulers of France, who wanted from
+Paris to decide all military matters, and who demanded victories whilst
+too often refusing the means necessary for victory.
+
+General de Beauharnais was to turn to good what General Custine,
+according to the opinion of these gentlemen of the Convention, had
+failed to do. This was an important and highly significant order, and to
+leave it unfulfilled was to excite the anger of the Committee of Safety;
+it was simply to deserve death.
+
+General de Beauharnais knew this well, but he shrank not back from the
+weighty and dangerous situation in which he was placed. To his country
+belonged his life, all his energies; and it was to him of equal
+importance whether his head fell on the battle-field or on the scaffold;
+in either case it would fall for his country; he would do his duty, and
+his country might be satisfied with him.
+
+In this enthusiastic love for country, De Beauharnais accepted
+cheerfully the offered command of the Army of the Rhine as
+general-in-chief, and he prepared himself to march to the rescue of
+besieged Mayence.
+
+Whilst General de Beauharnais was on the French frontier, Josephine
+trembled with anxious misgivings. The new dignity of her husband filled
+her with fear, for she multiplied the dangers which surrounded him and
+his family, for now the eyes of the terrorists were fixed on him. An
+unfortunate move, an unsuccessful war operation, could excite the wrath
+of these men of power, and send Beauharnais to the guillotine. It
+was well known that he belonged not to the Mountain party, but to the
+moderate republicans, to the Girondists; and as the Girondists were now
+incarcerated, as the Committee of Safety had brought accusations against
+them, and declared them guilty of treason toward France, it was also
+easy, if it pleased the terrorists, to find a flaw in the character of
+General Beauharnais, and to bring accusations against him as had been
+done against the Girondists.
+
+Such were Josephine's fears, which made her tremble for her husband,
+for her children. She wished at least to secure these from the impending
+danger, and to save and shield them from the guillotine. Her friend, the
+Princess von Hohenzollern, was on the eve of leaving for England with
+her brother the Prince von Salm, and Josephine was anxious to seize this
+opportunity to save her children. She brought Eugene and Hortense to the
+princess, who was now waiting in St. Martin, in the vicinity of St. Pol,
+in the county of Artois, expecting a favorable moment for departure; for
+already was the emigration watched, already it was considered a crime
+to leave France. With bitter tears of grief, and yet glad to know her
+children safe, Josephine bade farewell to her little ones, and then
+returned to Paris, so as to excite no suspicion through her absence. But
+no sooner had General Beauharnais heard of Josephine's plan to send her
+children from the country, than in utmost speed he dispatched to his
+wife a courier bearing a letter in which he decidedly opposed the
+departure of the children, for by this emigration his own position would
+be imperilled and his character made suspicious.
+
+Josephine sighed, and, with tears in her eyes, submitted to her
+husband's will; she sent a faithful messenger to St. Martin to bring
+back Eugene and Hortense. But the Princess von Hohenzollern would not
+trust the children to any one; she had sworn to her friend Josephine to
+watch over them, never to let them go out of her sight, and she wished
+to keep her oath until such time as she could restore the children to
+their mother. She therefore returned herself to Paris, to bring back
+Eugene and Hortense to Josephine; and this journey, so short and so
+insignificant in itself, was nevertheless the occasion that the Princess
+von Hohenzollern remained in France; that her brother, the Prince von
+Salm, should mount the scaffold! The favorable moment for emigration was
+lost through this delay; the journey to Paris had attracted the eyes of
+the authorities to the doings of the princess and of her brother, the
+contemplated journey to England was discovered, and the incarceration of
+the Prince von Salm and of his sister was the natural consequence. A few
+months after, the prince paid with his life the contemplated attempt to
+migrate; his sister, the Princess von Hohenzollern, was saved from the
+guillotine through accident.
+
+Meanwhile, Josephine had at least her children safely returned, and,
+in the quietude and solitude of Fontainebleau, she awaited with beating
+heart the future developments of events; she saw increase every day the
+dangers which threatened her, her family, and, above all things, her
+husband.
+
+Mayence was still besieged by the Austrian and Prussian forces. General
+Beauharnais had not completed the organization of his army so as to
+press onward to the rescue of the besieged, whose perils increased every
+day. But whilst, in unwearied activity, he urged on the preliminary
+operations, a courier arrived, who brought to the general his
+appointment to the office of minister of war, and required his immediate
+presence in Paris, there to assume his new dignity.
+
+Alexandre de Beauharnais had the courage to answer with a declination
+the office. He entreated the Convention to make another choice, for
+he considered himself more competent to serve his country against the
+coalition of tyrants, among his companions-in-arms, than to be minister
+of war amid revolution's storms.
+
+The Convention pardoned his refusal for the sake of the patriotic
+sentiments which he had expressed. But this refusal was to have, not
+only for the general, but also for all the aristocracy of France, the
+most fatal results. Some of the most fanatical members of the Mountain
+party ever considered as an audacious resistance to the commands of
+the Convention this refusal of Alexandre de Beauharnais, to accept the
+office which the highest powers of the land offered him.
+
+It was a nobleman, an aristocrat, who had dared oppose the democratic
+Convention, and hence the welcome pretext was found to begin the
+long-wished-for conflict against the aristocrats. One of the deputies of
+the Mountain made the motion to remove from all public offices, from
+the army, from the cabinet, all noblemen. Another accused General de
+Beauharnais, as well as all officers from amongst the nobility, of
+moderate tendencies, and requested at the same time that a list of all
+officers from the nobility, and now in the army, should be laid before
+the Convention.
+
+But on this very day a letter from the general reached the Convention.
+In this letter he expressed the hope of a speedy rescue of Mayence; he
+announced that he had completed the organization of his forces and
+all his preparations, and that soon from the camps of Vicembourg and
+Lauterburg he would advance against Mayence.
+
+This letter was received by the Convention with loud acclamations, and
+so took possession of all minds that they passed over the motion of
+hostility against the nobility, to the order of the day.
+
+Had General de Beauharnais accomplished his purpose--had he succeeded in
+relieving the garrison besieged in Mayence, now sorely pressed, and
+in delivering them, this horrible decree which caused so much blood to
+flow, this decree against the nobility, would never have appeared, and
+France would have been spared many scenes of cruelty and horror.
+
+Beauharnais hoped still to effect the rescue. Trusty messengers from
+Mayence had brought him the news that the garrison held on courageously
+and bravely, and that they could hold their ground a few days longer.
+Dispatch was therefore necessary; and if in a few days they could be
+re-enforced, then they would be saved, provided the other generals
+should advance with their troops in time to attack the Austrian and
+Prussian forces lying round about Mayence. The French had already
+succeeded in obtaining some advantages over the enemy; and General de
+Beauharnais could triumphantly announce to the Convention that, on the
+22d of July, a warm encounter with the Prussians had taken place at St.
+Anna's chapel, and that he had forced the Prussians to a retreat with
+considerable loss.
+
+The Convention received this news with jubilant shouts, and already
+trusted in the sure triumph of the French armies against the united
+forces of Prussia and Austria. If in these days of joyous excitement
+some one had dared renew the motion to dismiss Beauharnais from his
+command because he was a nobleman, the mover would undoubtedly have been
+considered an enemy of his country.
+
+How much attention in these happy days was paid to the general's
+wife--how busy were even the most fanatical republicans, the dreaded
+ones of the Mountain, to flatter her, to give expression to their
+enthusiastic praises of the general who was preparing for the arms of
+the republic so glorious a triumph!
+
+Josephine now came every day to be present in the gallery at the
+sessions of the Convention, and her gracious countenance radiated a
+cheerful smile when the minister of war communicated to the Assembly
+the newly-arrived dispatches which announced fresh advantages or closer
+approaches of General Beauharnais. By degrees a new confidence filled
+the heart of Josephine, and the gloomy forebodings, which so long had
+tormented her, began to fade away.
+
+In the session of the 28th of July, Barrere, with a grave, solemn
+countenance, mounted the tribune and with a loud, sad voice announced to
+the Convention, in the name of the Committee of Safety, that a courier
+had just arrived bringing the news that, on the 23d of July, Mayence, in
+virtue of an unjust capitulation, had fallen.
+
+A loud, piercing shriek, which issued from the gallery, broke the
+silence with which the Assembly had received this news. It was Josephine
+who had uttered this cry--Josephine who was carried away fainting from
+the hall. She awoke from her long swoon only to shed a torrent of tears,
+to press her children to her heart, as if desirous to screen them from
+the perils of death, which now, said her own forebodings, were pressing
+on from all sides.
+
+Josephine was not deceived: this calamitous news, all at once, changed
+the whole aspect of affairs, gave to the Convention and to the republic
+another attitude, and threw its dark shadows over the unfortunate
+general who had undertaken to save Mayence, and had not been able to
+fulfil his word.
+
+Surely this was not his fault, for General Dubayet had capitulated
+before it had been possible for Beauharnais to accomplish the rescue. No
+one therefore ventured to accuse him, but undeserved misfortune always
+remains a misfortune in the eyes of those who had counted upon success;
+and the Convention could never forgive the generals from whom they had
+expected so much, and who had not met these expectations.
+
+These generals had all been men of the aristocracy. As there was
+no reason to accuse them on account of their unsuccessful military
+operations, it was necessary to attack them with other weapons, and
+seek a spot where they could be wounded. This spot was their name, their
+ancestors, who in the eyes of the republican Convention rose up like
+embodied crimes behind their progeny, to accuse the guilty.
+
+The Jacobin Club, a short time after the capture of Mayence, began again
+in an infuriated session the conflict against the nobility, and the
+fanatical Hebert moved:
+
+"All the noblemen who serve in the army, in the magistracy, in any
+public office, must be driven away and dismissed. The people must
+require this, the people themselves! They must go in masses to the
+Convention, and after exposing the crimes and the treachery of the
+aristocrats, must insist on their expulsion. The people must not leave
+the Convention, it must remain in permanent session, there until it is
+assured that its will is carried out."
+
+The multitude with loud, jubilant tones cried, "Yes. yes, that is what
+we want, let us go to the Convention! No more nobility! the nobles are
+our murderers!"
+
+The next day, the Jacobins, accompanied by thousands of shouting women
+and infuriated men, went to the Convention to make known its will in the
+name of the people. The Convention received their petition and decreed
+the exile and the dissolution of the nobility, and delivered to the
+punishment of the law the guilty subject who would dare use the name of
+noble.
+
+General de Beauharnais saw full well the blow aimed at him, and at all
+the officers from the nobility in the army; he foresaw that they would
+not stop at these measures; that soon he and his companions of fate
+would be accused and charged with treason, as had been already done to
+General Custine, and to so many others who had paid with their lives
+their tried loyalty to the republic. He wanted to anticipate the
+storm, and sent in his resignation. As the Convention left his petition
+unanswered, he renewed it, and as it remained still ineffective, he
+gladly, forced to this measure by sickness, transferred his command
+to General Landremont. The Convention had then to grant him leave of
+absence, and, as it maintained him in his rank, they ordered him back to
+Paris.
+
+At last Josephine saw her husband again, for whom during the last
+few months she had suffered so much anxiety and pain. At last she was
+enabled to bring to her children the father for whom every evening they
+had prayed God to guard him from foes abroad and from foes at home. As a
+gift sent again by Heaven, she received her husband and entreated him to
+save himself with his family from revolution's yawning abyss, which was
+ready to swallow them all, and to go away with his own into a foreign
+land, as his brother had done, who for some months past had been in
+Coblentz with the Prince d'Artois.
+
+But Alexandre de Beanharnais rejected with something like anger these
+tearful supplications of his wife. He was not blinded to the dangers
+which threatened him, but he wanted to meet them bravely; true to the
+oath he had taken to the republic and to his country, he wished as a
+dutiful son to remain near her, even if his allegiance had to be paid
+with his death.
+
+Josephine, on the bosom of her husband, wept hot, burning tears as he
+communicated to her his irrevocable decision not to leave France, but in
+the depths of her heart she experienced a noble satisfaction to find her
+husband so heroic and so brave, and, offering him her hand, said with
+tears in her eyes:
+
+"It is well--we remain; and if we must go to the scaffold, we will at
+least die together."
+
+The general, with his wife and children, retired to his small property,
+Ferte-Beauharnais, where he longed to obtain rest during a few happy
+months of quietude.
+
+But the fearful storms which had agitated France in her innermost life,
+now raged so violently that each household, each family, trembled; there
+was neither peace nor rest in the home nor in the hearts of men.
+
+The Convention, threatened from outside by failures and defeats--for the
+capture of Mayence by the Prussians and Austrians had been followed by
+the capture of Toulon in September by the English--the Convention wanted
+to consolidate at least its internal authority, and to terrify by severe
+measures those who, on account of the misfortunes on the frontiers,
+might hope for a fresh change of affairs in the interior, and who might
+help it to pass.
+
+Consequently the Convention issued a decree ordering all dismissed
+or destitute soldiers to return in four-and-twenty hours to their
+respective municipalities, under pain of ten years in chains, and at the
+same time forbade them to enter Paris or to approach the capital nearer
+than ten leagues.
+
+A second decree ordered the formation of a revolutionary army in Paris,
+to which was assigned the duty of carrying out the decrees of the
+Convention.
+
+Finally a third decree, which appeared on the 17th of September, ordered
+the arrest and punishment of all suspected persons.
+
+This decree thus characterized the suspected ones: "All those who, by
+their conduct, their relations, their discourses, their writings, had
+shown themselves the adherents of tyranny, of federalism, the enemies
+of liberty, much more all the ex-nobles, men, women, fathers, brothers,
+sons or daughters, sisters or brothers, or agents of the migrated ones,
+all who had not invariably exhibited and proved their adherence to the
+revolution."
+
+With this decree the days of terror had reached their deepest gloom;
+with this decree began the wild, bloody hunting down of aristocrats and
+ci-devants; then began suspicions, accusations which needed no
+evidence to bring the accused to the guillotine; then were renewed
+the dragonnades of the days of Louis XIV., only that now, instead of
+Protestants, the nobles were hunted down, and hunted down to death. The
+night of the St. Bartholomew, the night of the murderess Catharine de
+Medicis and of her mad son Charles IX., found now in France its cruel
+and bloody repetition; only this night of horror was prolonged during
+the day, and shrank not back from the light.
+
+The sun beamed upon the pools of blood which flowed through the streets
+of Paris, and packs of ferocious dogs in large numbers lay in the
+streets, and fed upon this blood, which imparted to these once tamed
+creatures their natural wildness. The sun beamed on the scaffold,
+which, like a threatening monster, lifted itself upon the Place de la
+Revolution, and the sun beamed upon the horrible axe, which every day
+out off so many noble heads, and ever glittering, ever menacing, rose up
+from the midst of blood and death.
+
+The sun also shone upon the day in which Marie Antoinette, like her
+husband, ascended the scaffold, to rest at last in the grave from all
+her dishonor and from the agonies of the last years.
+
+This day was the 16th of October, 1793. For the last four months, Marie
+Antoinette had longed for this day as for a long-expected bliss; four
+months ago she had been led from the prison of the Temple into the
+Conciergerie, and she knew that the prisoners of the Conciergerie only
+left it to obtain the freedom which men do not give, but which God gives
+to the suffering ones, the freedom of death.
+
+Marie Antoinette longed for this liberty, and for this deliverance of
+death. How distant behind were the days of happiness, of joyous youth,
+far behind in infinite legendary distance! How long since this tall,
+grave figure, with its proud and yet affable countenance, had lost
+all similarity to the charming Queen Marie Antoinette, around whom had
+fluttered the genii of beauty, of youth, of love, of happiness; who once
+in Trianon had represented the idyl of a pastoral queen; who, in the
+exuberance of joy, had visited in disguise the public opera-ball; who
+imagined herself so secure amid the French people as to believe she
+could dispense with the protection of "Madame Etiquette;" who then was
+applauded by all France with jubilant acclamations, and who now was
+persecuted with mad anger!
+
+No, the queen of that day, Marie Antoinette, who, in the golden halls of
+Versailles and of the Tuileries, received the homage of all France, and
+who, with smiling grace and face radiant with happiness, responded to
+all this homage; she had no resemblance with Louis Capet's widow, who
+now stands before the tribunal of the revolution, and gravely, firmly
+gives her answers to the proposed questions.
+
+She has also made her toilet for this day; but how different is this
+toilet of the Widow Capet from that which once Marie Antoinette had worn
+to be admired!
+
+Then could Marie Antoinette, the frivolous, fortunate daughter of bliss,
+shut herself up in her boudoir for long hours with her confidante the
+milliner, Madame Bertier, to devise some new ball-dress, some new fichu,
+some new ornament for her robes; then could Leonard, for this queen with
+her wondrous blond hair, tax all the wealth of his science and of his
+imagination; to invent continually new coiffures and new head-dresses
+wherewith to adorn the beautiful head of the Queen Marie Antoinette, on
+whose towering curls clustered tufts of white plumes; or else diminutive
+men-of-war unfurled the net-work of their sails; or else, for variety's
+sake, on that royal head was arranged a garden, a parterre adorned with
+flowers and fruits, with butterflies and birds of paradise.
+
+The Widow Capet needs no milliner now; she needs no friseur now for
+her toilette. Her tall, slim figure is draped in a black woollen dress,
+which the republic at her request has granted her to mourn her beheaded
+husband; her neck and shoulders, once the admiration of France, are now
+covered with a white muslin kerchief, which in pity Bault, her attendant
+at the jail, has given her. Her hair is uncovered, and falls in long
+natural curls on either side of her transparent, blanched cheeks. This
+hair needs no powder now; the long sleepless nights, the anxious days,
+have covered it with their powder forever, and the thirty-eight-year-old
+widow of Louis Capet wears on her head the gray hairs of a
+seventy-year-old woman.
+
+In this toilet, Marie Antoinette stands before the tribunal of the
+revolution from the 6th to the 13th day of October. There is nothing
+royal about her, nothing but her look and the proud attitude of her
+figure.
+
+And the people who fill the galleries in closely-packed masses, and
+who weary not to gaze on the queen in her humiliation, in her toilet
+of anguish, the people claim constantly that Marie Antoinette will rise
+from her rush-woven seat; that she will allow herself to be stared at by
+these masses of people, whom curiosity and not compassion have brought
+there.
+
+Once, as at the call from the public in the galleries, she rose up, the
+queen sighed: "Ah, will not the people soon be tired of my sufferings?"
+[Footnote: Marie Antoinette's own words.--See Goncourt, "Histoire de
+Marie Antoinette," p. 404.]
+
+Another time her dry, blanched lips murmured, "I thirst." But no one
+near her dares have compassion on this sigh of agony from the queen;
+each looks embarrassed at his neighbor; not one dares give a glass of
+water to the thirsty woman.
+
+One of the gendarmes has at last the courage to do so, and Marie
+Antoinette thanks him with a look which brings tears in the eyes of the
+gendarme, and which may perchance cause his death to-morrow under the
+guillotine as a traitor!
+
+The gendarmes who guard the queen have alone the courage to show pity!
+
+One night, as she is led from the hall of trial to her prison, Marie
+Antoinette becomes so exhausted, so overpowered, that staggering, she
+murmurs, "I can see no longer! I can go no farther! I cannot move!"
+
+One of the gendarmes walking alongside of her offers his arm, and
+supported by it Marie Antoinette totters up the three stone steps which
+lead into the prison.
+
+At last, at four o'clock in the morning, on the 15th of August, the
+jury have given their verdict. It runs: "Death!--execution by the
+guillotine!"
+
+Marie Antoinette has heard the verdict with unmoved composure, whilst
+the noise from the excited crowd in the galleries is suddenly hushed as
+by a magic spell, and even the faces of the infuriated fish women turn
+pale!
+
+Marie Antoinette alone has remained calm; grave and cool she rises from
+her seat and herself opens the balustrade to leave the hall and return
+to her prison.
+
+And then at last, on the morning of the 16th of October, her sorrows
+will end, and Marie Antoinette can find refuge in the grave! Her soul is
+almost joyous and serene; she has suffered so much, and for her to sink
+into death is truly blessedness!
+
+She has passed the undisturbed hours of the night in writing to her
+sister-in-law, Madame Elizabeth, and this letter is also the queen's
+testament. But the widow of Louis Capet has no riches, no treasures, no
+property to will; she has nothing left which belongs to her--nothing but
+her love, her tears, her farewell salutations. These she leaves behind
+to all those who have loved her. She takes leave of her relatives, her
+brothers and sisters, and cries out to them a farewell.
+
+"I had friends," she continues; "the thought of being forever separated
+from them, and your grief for my death, are my deepest sorrow; you will
+at least know that to the last moment I have remembered you."
+
+Then, when Marie Antoinette has finished this letter, some of whose
+characters here and there are disfigured by her tears, she thinks of
+leaving to her children a last token of remembrance--one which the
+executioner's hand has not desecrated.
+
+The only ornament which remains is her long hair, whose silver-gray
+locks are the tearful history of her sufferings.
+
+Marie Antoinette with her own hands despoils herself of this last
+ornament; she cuts off her long hair behind the head, so as to leave
+it as a last token to her children, to her relatives and friends. Then,
+after having taken her spiritual farewell of life, she prepares herself
+for the last great ceremony of her existence, for death.
+
+She feels exhausted, weary unto death, and she strengthens herself for
+this last toilsome journey, that she may worthily pass through it.
+
+Marie Antoinette needs food, and with courageous mind she eats a
+chicken's wing which has been brought to her. After having eaten, she
+makes her last toilet, the toilet of death.
+
+The wife of the jailer, at the queen's request, gives her one of her own
+chemises, and Marie Antoinette puts it on. Then she clothes herself
+with the garments which she has worn during her days of trial before the
+tribunal of the revolution, only over the black woollen dress, which she
+has often mended and patched with her own hand, she puts on a mantle
+of white needlework. Around her neck she ties a small plain kerchief of
+white muslin, and, as it is not allowed her to mount the scaffold
+with uncovered head, she puts on it the round linen hood which the
+peasant-women used to wear. Black stockings cover her feet, and over
+them she draws shoes of black woollen stuff.
+
+Her toilet is now ended--earthly things have passed away! Ready to meet
+death, the queen lays herself down on her bed and sleeps.
+
+She still sleeps when she is notified that a priest is there, ready to
+come in, if she will confess.
+
+But Marie Antoinette has already unveiled her heart to God; she will
+have none of these priests of reason, whom the republic has ordained,
+after having exiled or murdered with the guillotine the priests of the
+Church.
+
+"As I cannot do as I please," she has written to Madame Elizabeth, in
+her farewell letter, "so must I endure it if a priest is sent to me; but
+I now declare that I will tell him not a word, that I will consider him
+entirely as a stranger to me."
+
+And Marie Antoinette held her word. She forbids not the priest Girard
+to come in, but she answers in the negative when he asks her if she will
+receive from him the consolations of religion.
+
+She paces her small cell to and fro, to warm herself, for her feet are
+stiff with cold. As seven o'clock strikes, the door opens.
+
+It is the executioner of Paris, Samson, who enters.
+
+A slight tremor runs through the queen's frame. "You come very early,
+sir," murmurs she, "could you not delay somewhat?"
+
+As Samson replies in the negative, Marie Antoinette assumes again
+a calm, cold attitude. She drinks without any reluctance the cup
+of chocolate which has been brought to her from a neighboring cafe.
+Proudly, calmly, she allows her hands to be bound with strong ropes
+behind her back.
+
+At eleven o'clock she finally leaves her room to descend the corridor,
+and to mount into the wagon which waits for her before the gate of the
+Conciergerie.
+
+No one guides her on the way; no one bids her a last farewell; no one
+shows a sympathizing or sad countenance to the departing one.
+
+Alone, between two rows of gendarmes posted on both sides of the
+corridor, the queen walks forward; behind her is Samson, holding in
+his hand the end of the rope; the priest and the two assistants of the
+executioner follow him.
+
+On the path of Death--such is the suite of the queen, the daughter of an
+emperor!
+
+Perchance at this hour thousands were on their knees to offer to God
+their heart-felt prayers for Marie Antoinette, whom in the silence
+of the soul they still call "the queen;" perchance many thousand
+compassionate hearts pour out warm tears of sympathy for her who now
+ascends into the miserable wagon, and sits on a plank which ropes have
+made firm to both sides of the vehicle. But those who pray and weep have
+retired into the solitude of their rooms, for God alone must receive
+their sighs and see their tears. The eyes which follow the queen on
+her last journey must not weep; the words which are shouted at her must
+betray no compassion.
+
+Paris knows that this is the hour of the queen's execution, and the
+Parisian crowd is ready, it is waiting. In the streets, in the windows
+of the houses, on the roofs, the people have stationed themselves in
+enormous masses; they fill the whole Place de la Revolution with their
+dark, destructive forms.
+
+Now resound the drums of the National Guard posted before the
+Conciergerie. The large white horse, which draws the chariot in which
+Marie Antoinette sits backward, at the side of the priest, is driven
+onward by the man who swings on its back. Behind her in the wagon is
+Samson and his assistants.
+
+The queen's face is white; all blood has left her cheeks and lips, but
+her eyes are red; they have wept so much, unfortunate queen! She weeps
+not now. Not one tear dims her eye, which pensively and calmly soars
+above the crowd, then is lifted up to the very roofs of the houses, then
+again is slowly lowered, and seems to stare over the human heads away
+into infinite distance.
+
+Calm and pensive as the eye is the queen's countenance, her lips
+are nearly closed, no nervous movement on her face tells whether she
+suffers, whether she feels, whether she notices those tens of thousands
+of eyes which are fixed on her, cold, curious, sarcastic! And yet Marie
+Antoinette sees every thing! She sees yonder woman who lifts up her
+child; she sees how this child with his tiny hands sends a kiss to the
+queen! Suddenly a nervous agitation passes over the queen's features,
+her lips tremble, and her eyes are obscured with a tear! This first,
+this single token of human sympathy has revived the heart of the queen
+and awakened her from her torpor.
+
+But the people are bent upon this, that Marie Antoinette shall not reach
+the end of her journey with this last comfort of pity. They press on,
+howling and shouting, scorning and jubilant, nearer and nearer to the
+wagon; they sing sarcastic songs on Madame Veto, they clap hands, and
+point at her with the finger of scorn.
+
+She, however, is calm; her look, cold and indifferent, runs over the
+crowd; only once it flames up with a last angry flash as she passes
+by the Palais Royal, where Philippe Egalite, the ex-Duke d'Orleans,
+resides, as she reads the inscription which he had placed at the gate of
+his palace.
+
+At noon the chariot reaches at last its destination. It stops at the
+foot of the scaffold, and Marie Antoinette alights from the wagon, and
+then calm and erect ascends the steps of the scaffold.
+
+Her lips have not opened once on this awful journey; they now have no
+word of complaint, of farewell! The only farewell which she has yet to
+say on earth is told by her look--by a look which is slowly directed
+yonder to the Tuileries--it is the farewell to past memories--it deepens
+the pallor on the cheeks, it opens her lips to a painful sigh. She then
+bows her head--a momentary, breathless silence follows. Samson lifts up
+the white head, which once had been the head of the Queen of France, and
+the people cry and shout, "Long live the republic!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII. THE ARREST.
+
+
+Uninterruptedly had the guillotine for the last three months of the
+year 1793 continued its destructive work of murder, and the noblest
+and worthiest heads had fallen under this reaper of Death. No personal
+merit, no nobility of character, no age, no youth, could hope to escape
+the death-instrument of the revolution when a noble name stood up as
+accuser. Before this accuser every service was considered as nothing;
+it was enough to be an aristocrat, a ci-devant, to be suspected, to be
+dragged as a criminal before the tribunal of the revolution, and to be
+condemned.
+
+The execution of the queen was followed by that of the Girondists; and
+this brilliant array of noble and great men was followed in the next
+month by names no less noble, no less great. It was an infuriated chase
+of the aristocrats as well as of the officers, of all the military
+persons who, in the unfortunate days of Toulon and of Mayence, had been
+in the army, and who had been dismissed, or whose resignation had been
+accepted.
+
+The aristocrats were tracked in their most secret recesses, and not
+only were they punished, but also those who dared screen them from the
+avenging hand of the republic. The officers were recognized under
+every disguise, and the very fact that they had disguised themselves or
+remained silent as to their true character was a crime great enough to
+be punished with the guillotine.
+
+More than twenty generals were imprisoned during the last months of the
+year 1793, and many more paid with their lives for crimes which they had
+never committed, and which had existence only in the heated imagination
+of their accusers. Thus had General Houchard fallen; he was followed
+in the first days of the new year of 1794 by the Generals Luckner and
+Biron.
+
+Alexandre de Beauharnais had served under Luckner, he had been Biron's
+adjutant, he had been united with General Houchard in the unfortunate
+attempt to relieve Mayence. It was therefore natural that he should be
+noticed and espied. Besides which, he was an aristocrat, a relative of
+many of the emigres, the brother of the Count de Beauharnais, who was
+now residing in Coblentz with the Count d'Artois, and it had not been
+forgotten what an important part Alexandre de Beauharnais had played
+in the National Assembly; it was well known that he belonged to the
+moderate party, that he had been the friend of the Girondists.
+
+Had the Convention wished to forget it, the informers were there to
+remind them of it. Alexandre de Beauharnais was denounced as suspected,
+and this denunciation was followed, in the first days of January, by an
+arrest. He was taken to Paris, and at first shut up in the Luxemburg,
+where already many of his companions-in-arms were incarcerated.
+
+Josephine was not in Ferte-Beauharnais when the emissaries of the
+republic came to arrest her husband. She was just then in Paris, whither
+she had gone to seek protection and assistance for Alexandre at the
+hands of influential acquaintances; in Paris she learned the arrest of
+her husband.
+
+The misfortune, which she had so long expected and foreseen, was now
+upon her and ready to crush her and the future of her children. Her
+husband was arrested--that is to say, he was condemned to die.
+
+At this thought Josephine rose up like a lioness; the indolence, the
+dreamy quietude of the creole, had suddenly vanished, and Josephine was
+now a resolute, energetic woman, anxious to risk every thing, to try
+every thing, so as to save her husband, the father of her children. She
+now knew no timidity, no trembling, no fear, no horror; every thing
+in her was decision of purpose; keen, daring action. Letters, visits,
+petitions, and even personal supplications, every thing was tried; there
+was no humiliation before which she shrank. For long hours she sat in
+the anterooms of the tribunal of the revolution, of the ministers who,
+however much they despised the aristocrats, imitated their manners,
+and made the people wait in the vestibule, even as the ministers of
+the tyrant had done; with tears, with all the eloquence of love, she
+entreated those men of blood and terror to give her back her husband, or
+at least not to condemn him before he had been accused, and to furnish
+him with the means of defence.
+
+But those new lords and rulers of France had no heart for compassion;
+Robespierre, Marat, Danton, could not be moved by the tears which a wife
+could shed for an accused husband. They had already witnessed so much
+weeping, listened to so many complaints, to so many cries of distress,
+their eyes were not open for such things, their ears heard not.
+
+France was diseased, and only by drawing away the bad blood could she
+be restored to health, could she be made sound, could she rise up again
+with the strength of youth! And Marat, Danton, Robespierre, were the
+physicians who were healing France, who were restoring her to health
+by thus horribly opening her veins. Marat and Danton murdered from
+bloodthirsty hatred, from misanthropy and vengeance; Robespierre
+murdered through principle, from the settled fanatical conviction, that
+France was lost if all the old corrupt blood was not cleansed away from
+her veins, so as to replenish them with youthful, vitalizing blood.
+
+Robespierre was therefore inexorable, and Robespierre now ruled over
+France! He was the dictator to whom every thing had to bow; he was at
+the head of the tribunal of revolution; he daily signed hundreds of
+death-warrants; and this selfsame man, who once in Arras had resigned
+his office of judge because his hand could not be induced to sign
+the death-warrant of a convicted criminal [Footnote: See "Maximilian
+Robespierre," by Theodore Mundt, vol. i.]--this man, who shed tears over
+a tame dove which the shot of a hunter had killed, could, with heart
+unmoved, with composed look, sit for long hours near the guillotine on
+the tribune of the revolution, and gaze with undimmed eyes on the heads
+of his victims falling under the axe.
+
+He was now at the summit of his power; France lay bleeding, trembling
+at his feet; fear had silenced even his enemies; no one dared touch
+the dreaded man whose mere contact was death; whose look, when coldly,
+calmly fixed on the face of any man, benumbed his heart as if he had
+read his sentence of death in the blue eyes of Robespierre.
+
+At the side of Robespierre sat the terrorists Fouquier-Tinville and
+Marat, to whom murder was a delight, blood-shedding a joy, who with
+sarcastic pleasure listened unmoved to the cries, to the tearful prayers
+of mothers, wives, children, of those sentenced to death, and who fed on
+their tears and on their despair.
+
+With such men at the head of affairs it was natural that the reign of
+terror should still be increasing in power, and that with it the number
+of the captives in the prisons should increase.
+
+In the month of January, 1794, the list of the incarcerated within the
+prisons of Paris ran up to the number of 4,659; in the month of February
+the number rose up to 5,892; in the beginning of April to 7,541; and at
+the end of the same month it was reckoned that there were in Paris
+eight thousand prisoners. [Footnote: Thiers, "Histoire de la Revolution
+Francaise," vol. vi., p. 41]
+
+The greater the number of prisoners, the more zealous was the tribunal
+of the revolution to get rid of them; and with satisfaction these judges
+of blood saw the new improvements made in the guillotine, and which not
+only caused the machine to work faster, but also prevented the axe from
+losing its edge too soon by the sundering of so many necks.
+
+"It works well," exclaimed Fouquier-Tinville, triumphantly; "to-day we
+have fifty sentenced. The heads fall like poppy-heads!"
+
+And these fifty heads falling like poppy-heads, were not enough for his
+bloodthirstiness.
+
+"It must work better still," cried he; "in the next decade, I must have
+at least four hundred and fifty poppy-heads!"
+
+And then, as if inspired by a joyous and happy thought, his gloomy
+countenance became radiant with a grinning laughter, and, rubbing his
+hands with delight, he continued: "Yes, I must have four hundred and
+fifty! Then, if we work on so perseveringly, we will soon write over
+our prison-gates, 'House to let!'" [Footnote: "Histoire de l'Imperatrice
+Josephine."]
+
+They worked on perseveringly, and the vehicles which carried the
+condemned to execution rolled every morning with a fresh freight through
+the streets of Paris, where the guillotine, with its glaring axe,
+awaited them.
+
+The month of April, as already said, had brought the number of prisoners
+in Paris to eight thousand; the month of April had therefore more
+executions to engrave with its bloody pen into the annals of history.
+On the 20th of April fell on the Place de la Revolution the heads of
+fourteen members of the ex-Parliament of Paris; the next day followed
+the Duke de Villeroy, the Admiral d'Estaing, the former Minister of War
+Latour du Pin, the Count de Bethune, the President de Nicolai. One day
+after, the well-laden wagon drove from the Conciergerie to the Place de
+la Revolution; in it were three members of the Constituent Assembly,
+and to have belonged to it was the only crime they were accused of. Near
+these three sat the aged Malesherbes, with his sister; the Marquis de
+Chateaubriand, with his wife; the Duchess de Grammont, and Du Chatelet.
+It will be seen that the turn for women had now come; for those women
+who were now led to the execution had committed no other crime than to
+be the wives or the relatives of emigrants or of accused persons, than
+to bear names which had shone for centuries in the history of France.
+
+Josephine also had an ancient aristocratic name; she also was related
+to the migrated ones, the wife of an accused, of a prisoner! And she
+wearied the tribunal of the revolution constantly with petitions, with
+visits, with complaints. They were tired of these molestations, and it
+was so easy, so convenient to shield one's self against them! There was
+nothing else to do but to arrest Josephine; for once a prisoner, she
+could no longer--in anterooms, where she would wait for hours; in the
+street before the house-door, where she would stand, despite rains and
+winds--she could no longer trouble the rulers of France, and beseech
+them with tears and prayers for her husband's freedom. The prisoner
+could no more write petitions, or move heaven and earth for her
+husband's sake.
+
+The Viscountess de Beauharnais was arrested. On the 20th of April, as
+she happened to be at the proper authority's office to obtain a pass
+according to the new law, which ordered all ci-devants to leave Paris
+in ten days, Josephine was arrested and led into the Convent of the
+Carmelites, which for two years had served as a prison for the bloody
+republic, and from which so many of its victims had issued to mount the
+wagon which led them to the guillotine.
+
+Amid this wretchedness there was one sweet joy. Alexandre de Beauharnais
+had no sooner heard of the arrest of his wife, than he asked as a favor
+from the tribunal of the revolution to be removed into the same prison
+where his wife was. In an incomprehensible fit of merciful humor his
+prayer was granted; he was transferred to the Convent of the Carmelites,
+and if the husband and wife could not share the same cell, yet they were
+within the same walls, and could daily (through the turnkeys, who had to
+be bribed by all manner of means, by promises, by gold, as much as could
+be gathered together among the prisoners) hear the news.
+
+Josephine was united to her husband. She received daily from him news
+and messages; she could often, in the hours when the prisoners in
+separate detachments made their promenades in the yard and in the
+garden, meet Alexandre, reach him her hand, whisper low words of trust,
+of hope, and speak with him of Eugene and Hortense, of these dear
+children who, now deserted by their parents, could hope for protection
+and safety only from the faithfulness and love of their governess,
+Madame Lanoy. The thought of these darling ones of her heart excited
+and troubled Josephine, and all the pride and courage with which she had
+armed her heart melted into tears of anxiety and into longings for her
+deserted children.
+
+But Madame Lanoy with the most faithful solicitude watched over the
+abandoned ones; she had once sworn to Josephine that if the calamity,
+which Josephine had constantly anticipated, should fall upon her and
+upon her husband, she would be to Hortense and Eugene a second mother;
+she would care for them and protect them as if they were her own
+children. And Madame Lanoy kept her promise.
+
+To place them beyond the dangers which their very name made imminent,
+and also perhaps to give by means of the children evidence of the
+patriotic sentiments of the parents, Madame Lanoy left with the children
+the viscount's house, where they had hitherto resided, and occupied
+with both of them a small shabby house, where she established herself
+as seamstress. The little eleven-year-old Hortense, the daughter of the
+Citizeness Beauharnais, was now the assistant of the Citizeness Lanoy,
+at the trade of seamstress. Eugene was apprenticed to a cabinet-maker;
+a leather apron was put on, and then with a plank under his arm,
+and carrying a plane in his hand, he went through the streets to the
+workshop of the cabinet-maker, and every one lauded the patriotic
+sentiments of the Citizeness Lanoy, who tried to educate the brood of
+the ex-aristocrats into orderly and moral beings.
+
+Eugene and Hortense fell rapidly and understandingly into the plan of
+their faithful governess; they transformed themselves in their language,
+in their dress, in their whole being and appearance, into little
+republicans, full of genuine patriotism. Like their cousin, Emile de
+Beauharnais, whose mother (the wife of the elder brother of the Viscount
+de Beauharnais) had already for a long time languished in prison, they
+attended the festivals which had for its object the glorification of the
+republic, and, alongside of the Citizeness Lanoy, the little milliner
+Hortense followed the procession of her quarter of the city, perhaps
+to awaken thereby the good-will of the authorities in favor of her
+imprisoned parents.
+
+Then, when Madame Lanoy thought this good-will had been gained, she
+made a step further, and undertook to have the children present to the
+Convention a petition for their parents. This petition ran thus:
+
+"Two innocent children appeal to you, fellow-citizens, for the freedom
+of their dear mother--their mother against whom no reproach can be
+made but the misfortune of being born in a class from which, as she has
+proven, she ever felt completely estranged, for she has ever surrounded
+herself with the best patriots, the most distinguished men of the
+Mountain. After she had on the 26th of Germinal requested a pass in
+order to obey the law, she was arrested on the evening of that day
+without knowing the cause. Citizen representatives, you cannot be
+guilty of oppressing innocence, patriotism, and virtue. Give back to
+us unfortunate children our life. Our youth is not made for suffering."
+Signed: EUGENE BEAUHARNAIS, aged twelve years, and HORTENSE BEAUHARNAIS,
+aged eleven years. [Footnote: "Histoire de l'Imperatrice Josephine," par
+Aubenas.]
+
+To this complaint of two deserted children no more attention was paid
+than to the cries of the dove which the hawk carries away in its claws,
+but perhaps the innocent touching words of the petition had awakened
+compassion in the heart of some father.
+
+It is true no answer was given to the petition of the children, but the
+Citizeness Lanoy was allowed to take the children of the accused twice
+a week into the reception-room of the Carmelite Convent, that there they
+might see and speak to their mother.
+
+This was a sweet comfort, an unhoped-for joy, as well to Josephine as to
+her husband; for if he was not permitted to come into the lower room and
+see the children, yet he now saw them through the eyes of his wife, and
+through her he received the wishes of their tender affection.
+
+What happiness for Josephine, who loved her children with all the
+unrestrained fondness of a Creole! what happiness to see her Eugene, her
+Hortense, and to be permitted to speak to them! How much they had to say
+one to another, how much to communicate one to the other!
+
+It is true much had to be passed in silence if they would not excite
+the anger of the turnkey, who was always present at the meeting of the
+children with their mother. Strict orders had been given that Josephine
+should never whisper one word to the children, or speak to them of the
+events of the day, of what was going on beyond the prison walls. The
+least infringement of this rule was to be punished by debarring the
+children from having any further conversation with their mother.
+
+And yet they had so much to say; they needed her advice so much, so as
+to know what future steps they might take to accomplish their mother's
+freedom! They had so much to tell to Josephine about relatives and
+friends, and above all so much to say about what was going on outside
+of the prison! But how bring her news? how speak to their mother? how
+receive her message in such a way that the jailer's ears could not know
+what was said?
+
+Love is full of invention. It turns every thing into subserviency to
+its end. Love once turned the dove into a carrier; love made Josephine's
+children find out a new mail-carrier--it made them invent the lapdog
+mail.
+
+Josephine, like all Creoles, had, besides her love for flowers, botany,
+and birds, a great fondness for dogs. Never since the earliest days of
+her childhood had Josephine been seen in her room, at the promenade, or
+in her carriage, without one of these faithful friends and companions of
+man, which share with the lords of creation all their good qualities
+and virtues, without being burdened with their failings. The love,
+the faithfulness, the cunningness of dogs are virtues, wherewith they
+successfully rival man, and the dogs boast only of one quality which
+amongst men is considered a despicable vice, namely, the canine
+humbleness which these animals practise, without egotism, without
+calculation, whilst man practises it only when his interest and his
+selfishness make it seem advantageous.
+
+Two years before, a friend of Josephine had given her a small, young
+model of the then fashionable breed of dogs, a small lapdog, and at
+once Josephine had made a pet of the little animal, which had been
+recommended to her as the progeny of a rare and genuine race of lapdogs.
+It is true the little Fortune had not fulfilled what had been promised;
+he had not grown up exactly into a model of beauty and loveliness.
+With small feet, a long body of a pale yellow rather than red, a thick,
+double, flat nose, this lapdog had nothing of its race but the black
+face, and the tail in the shape of a corkscrew. Besides all this, he was
+undoubtedly of a surly, quarrelsome disposition, and he preferred the
+indolent and ease of his cushion to either a promenade with Josephine or
+to a game with her children.
+
+But since Josephine was no more there, since her beautiful hands no more
+presented him his food, a change had come over Fortune's character;
+he had awakened from the effeminacy of happiness to full activity. The
+children had but to say, "We are going to mamma," and at once Fortune
+would spring up from his cushion with a cheerful bark, and run out into
+the streets, describing circles and performing joyous leaps. Fortune,
+as soon as the reception-room of the prison was opened, was always the
+first to rush in, barking loudly at the jailer; then, when his spite
+was over, to run with all the signs of passionate tenderness toward his
+mistress; then he would surround her with caresses, and leap, bark, and
+whine, until she noticed him, until she should have kissed and embraced
+the children, and then taken him up in her arms.
+
+But one day, as the door of the reception-room opened, and Eugene and
+Hortense entered with Madame Lanoy, Fortune's loud barking trumpet
+sounded not, and he sprang not forward toward Josephine. He walked on
+gravely with measured steps at the side of Madame Lanoy, who led him
+with a string which she had fastened to his collar. With important,
+thoughtful mien, he gazed resignedly and gravely at his mistress, and
+even for his hated foe the jailer he had but a dull growl, which he soon
+repressed.
+
+Josephine was somewhat alarmed at this change in Fortune's demeanor,
+and after she had welcomed, taken to her bosom and kissed her darling
+children, after she had saluted the good Madame Lanoy, she inquired why
+Fortune was so sad and why he was led as a captive.
+
+"Because he is so wild and unruly, mamma," said Eugene, with a peculiar
+smile, "because he wants always to be the first to salute you, and
+because he barks so loud that we cannot possibly for some time hear what
+our dear mamma has to say."
+
+"And then, in the street, he is so wicked and troublesome," cried
+Hortense, with eagerness, "and he always begins quarrelling and fighting
+with every dog which passes by, and we must stand there and wait for him
+when we are so anxious to see our dear mamma."
+
+"For all these reasons," resumed Madame Lanoy, with slow, solemn
+intonation, "for all these reasons we have thought it necessary to chain
+Fortune and to tighten up his collar."
+
+"And you have done quite well, citizeness," growled the turnkey, "for
+I had already thought of silencing forever the abominable lapdog if he
+again barked at me so."
+
+Josephine said nothing, but the peculiar smile she had noticed on
+her children's face had passed, at the words of Madame Lanoy, over
+Josephine's radiant countenance, and she now with her pet names called
+Fortune to her, to press him to her heart, to pat him, and by all these
+caresses to make amends for his having his collar somewhat tightened.
+
+But whilst thus petting him, and tenderly smoothing down his sleek fur,
+her slim fingers quickly and cautiously passed under the wide collar of
+Fortune. Then her eyes were rapidly directed toward the jailer. He was
+engaged in animated conversation with Madame Lanoy, who knew how to make
+him talk, by inquiring after the health of his little sick daughter.
+
+A second time Josephine's fingers were passed under Fortune's
+collar--for she had well understood the words of Madame Lanoy--with a
+woman's keen instinct she understood why Fortune's collar had been drawn
+closer about him. She had felt the thin, closely-folded paper, which
+was tied up with the string in the dog's collar, and she drew it out
+rapidly, adroitly to hide it in her hand. She then called Hortense and
+Eugene, and whilst she talked with them, she slowly and carefully, under
+pretext of adjusting more closely the kerchief round her neck, secreted
+the paper in her bosom.
+
+The jailer had seen nothing; he was telling Madame Lanoy, with all the
+pride of a kind father, that all the prisoners were anxious about his
+little Eugenie; that all, more than once a day, inquired how it fared
+with the little one; that she was the pet of the prisoners, who were so
+delighted to have the child with them, and for long hours to jest and
+play with her. Unfortunate captives, who nattered the child, and feigned
+love for it, so as to move the father's heart, and instil into it a
+little compassion for their misfortune!
+
+When Eugene and Hortense came the next time with their faithful Lanoy,
+Fortune was again led by the string as a prisoner, and this time
+Josephine was still more affectionate than before. She not only welcomed
+him at his entrance, and lifted him up in her arms, but she was yet,
+if possible, more affectionate toward him at the time of departure,
+and embraced him, and tried if the collar had not been buckled on too
+tightly, if the string which was tied round it did not hurt him too
+much. And whilst she examined this, Eugene was telling the jailer that
+he was now a worthy apprentice of a cabinet-maker, and that he hoped one
+day to be a useful citizen of the republic. The jailer was listening to
+him with a complacent smile, and had no suspicion that at this moment
+Josephine's cunning fingers were making sure with the string under the
+collar the note in which she gave an answer to the other note that she
+had before found under the collar of Fortune. [Footnote: "Souvenirs d'un
+Sexagenaire," par M.L. Arnould, vol. iii., p. 3.]
+
+From this day, Josephine knew every thing of importance in Paris; from
+this time she could point out to her children the means to pursue so as
+to win to their parents influential and powerful friends, so that they
+might one day be delivered from their captivity. Fortune was love's
+messenger between Josephine and her children; a beam of happiness
+had penetrated both cells, where lived Alexandre de Beauharnais and
+Josephine, and they owed this gleam only to the lapdog mail.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV. IN PRISON.
+
+
+Since France had become a democratic republic, since the differences
+in rank were abolished, and liberty, equality, and fraternity alone
+prevailed, the aristocracy was either beyond the frontiers of France
+or else in the prisons. Outside of the prison were but citoyens and
+citoyennes; inside of the prison were yet dukes and duchesses, counts
+and countesses, viscounts and viscountesses; there, behind locks
+and bars, the aristocracy was represented in its most glorious and
+high-sounding names.
+
+And there also, within these walls, was the proud, strict dame, whom
+Marie Antoinette had once, to her misfortune, driven away from the
+Tuileries, and who had not been permitted to possess a single foot of
+ground in all France--there, within the prison with the aristocrats,
+lived also Madame Etiquette. She had to leave the Tuileries with the
+nobility, and with the nobility she had entered into the prisons of the
+Conciergerie and of the Carmelite Convent. There she ruled with the same
+authority and with the same gravity as once in happier days she had done
+in the king's palace.
+
+The republic had mixed together the prisoners without any distinction,
+and in the hall, where every morning they gathered together to attend to
+the roll-call of the condemned who were to report for the guillotine; in
+the narrow rooms and cells, where they passed the rest of the day,
+the republic had made no distinction between all these inmates of the
+prison, dukes and simple knights, duchesses and baronesses, princesses
+of the blood and country nobility of inferior degree. But etiquette
+was there to remedy this unseemliness of fate and to re-establish the
+natural order of things--etiquette, which had enacted rules and laws for
+the halls of kings, enforced them also in the halls of prisons. Only for
+the ladies of the most ancient nobility, the duchesses and princesses of
+the blood, in the prison-rooms, as once in the king's halls, the small
+stool (tabouret) was reserved, and they were privileged to occupy the
+rush-bottomed seats which were in the prisons, and which now replaced
+the tabouret. No lady of inferior rank would consent to sit down in
+their presence unless these ladies of superior rank had expressly
+requested and entitled their inferior companions of misfortune to do so.
+When, at the appointed hour, the halls were abandoned for the general
+promenade in the yards of the Conciergerie, or in the small cloistered
+gardens of the Carmelites, this recreation was preceded by a ceremony
+which shortened its already short hour by at least ten minutes: the
+ladies and the gentlemen, according to their order, rank, and nobility,
+placed themselves in two rows on either side of the outer door, and
+between them passed on first in ceremonial order of rank, as at a
+court-festival, the ladies and gentlemen who at court were entitled
+to the high and small levees, as well as to the tabouret, and to the
+kissing of the queen's hand. As they passed, each bowed low, and then,
+with the same due observance of rank, as was customary at court, the
+ladies and gentlemen of inferior titles followed two by two, when the
+higher nobility had passed. [Footnote: "Souvenirs de la Marquise de
+Crequi," vol. v].
+
+It was yet the court-society which was assembled here in the rooms and
+cells of the prison; only this court-society, this aristocracy, had no
+more King Louis to do homage unto, but they served another king, they
+bowed low before another queen! This king to whom the nobility of France
+belonged was Death; this queen to which proud heads bowed low was the
+Guillotine!
+
+It was King Death who now summoned the aristocrats to his court; the
+scaffold was the hall of festivity where solemn homage was made to this
+king. It would therefore have been against all etiquette to crowd into
+this hall of festivity with beclouded countenance; this would have
+diminished the respect due to King Death, if he had not been approached
+with full-court ceremonial, and with the serene, easy smile of a
+courtier. To die, to meet death was now a distinction, an honor for
+which each almost envied the other. When at ten o'clock in the morning
+the gathering took place in the large room, the conversation was of the
+most cheerful and unaffected easiness; they joked, they laughed, they
+speculated on politics, though it was well known that in a few minutes
+yonder door was to open, and that on its threshold the jailer would
+appear, list in hand; that from this list he would call out with his
+loud, croaking voice, as Death's harbinger, the names of those whose
+death-warrants had been yesterday signed by Robespierre, and who would
+have immediately to leave the hall, to mount the wagons which were
+already waiting at the prison's gate to drive them to the guillotine.
+
+While the jailer read his list, suspense and excitement were visible on
+all faces, but no one would have so deeply lowered himself as to betray
+fear or anguish when his name fell from the lips of the jailer. The
+smile remained on the lip, friends and acquaintances were bidden
+farewell with a cheerful salutation, and with easy, unaffected demeanor
+they quitted the hall to mount the fatal vehicle.
+
+To die gracefully was now considered as much bon ton as it had been once
+fashionable gracefully to enter the ballroom and do obeisance to
+the king; contempt and scorn would have followed him who might have
+exhibited a sorrowful mien, hesitation, or fear.
+
+One morning the jailer had read his list, and sixteen gentlemen and
+ladies of the aristocracy had consequently to leave the hall of the
+Conciergerie to enter both wagons now ready at the gate. As they were
+starting for the fatal journey a second turnkey appeared, to say
+that through some accident only one of the wagons was ready, and that
+consequently only eight of the sentenced ones could be driven to the
+guillotine. This meant that the accident nullified eight death-warrants
+and saved the lives of eight sentenced persons. For it was not
+probable that these eight persons would next morning be honored with
+an execution. Their warrants were signed, their names had been called;
+neither the tribunal of the revolution nor the jailer could pay special
+attention whether their heads had fallen or not. The next day would
+bring on new condemnations, new lists, new distinctions for the wagons,
+new heads for the guillotine. Whoever, on the day appointed for the
+execution, missed the guillotine, could safely reckon that his life
+was saved; that henceforth he was amongst the forgotten ones, of whom a
+great number filled the prisons, and who expected their freedom through
+some favorable accident.
+
+To-day, therefore, only eight of the sixteen condemned were to mount the
+wagon. But who were to be the favored ones? The two turnkeys, with cold
+indifference, left the choice to the condemned. Only eight could be
+accommodated in the wagon, they said, and it was the same who went or
+who remained. "Make your choice!"
+
+A strife arose among the sixteen condemned ones--not as to who might
+remain behind, but as to those who might mount into the wagon.
+
+The ladies declared that, according to the rules of common politeness,
+which allowed ladies to go first, the choice belonged to them; the
+gentlemen objected to this motion of the ladies on the plea that to
+reach the guillotine steps had to be ascended, and as etiquette required
+that in going up-stairs the gentlemen should always precede the ladies,
+they were also now entitled to go first and to mount the steps of the
+scaffold before the ladies. At last all had to give way to the claims of
+the Duchess de Grammont, who declared that at this festival as at every
+other the order of rank was to be observed, and that she, as well as all
+the gentlemen and ladies of superior rank, had the undisputed privilege
+now, as at all other celebrations, to take the precedency.
+
+No one ventured to oppose this decision, and the Duchess de Grammont,
+proud of the victory won, was the first to leave the room and mount the
+wagon.
+
+Another time the turnkey began to read the list: every one listened
+with grave attention, and at every call a clear, cheerful "Here I am!"
+followed.
+
+But after the jailer, with wearied voice, had many times repeated a name
+from his list, the accustomed answer failed. No one came forward, no one
+seemed to be there to lay claim to that name and to the execution.
+The jailer stopped a few minutes, and as all were dumb, he continued,
+indifferent and unmoved, to call out the names.
+
+"We will then have only fifteen heads to deliver to-day," said he, after
+reading the list, "for there must have been a mistake. One of the
+names is false, or else the person to whom it belongs has already been
+delivered."
+
+"It is probably but a blunder of the pen!" exclaimed a handsome young
+man who, smiling, stepped out of the crowd of listeners and passed on to
+the side where the victims stood. "You read Chapetolle. There is no
+such name here. The hand of the writer was probably tired of writing the
+numerous lists of those who are sentenced to death, and he has therefore
+written the letters wrong. My name is Chapelotte, and I am the one meant
+by Chapetolle."
+
+"I do not know," said the jailer, "but it is certain that sixteen
+sentenced ones ought to go into the wagons, and that only fifteen have
+reported themselves in a legal way."
+
+"Well, then, add me in an illegal manner to your fifteen," said the
+young man, smiling. "Without doubt it is my name they intended to write.
+I do not wish to save my life through a blunder in writing, and who
+knows if another time I may find such good company as to-day in your
+chariot? Allow me then to journey on with my friends."
+
+The jailer had no reason to refuse him this journey, and he had the
+satisfaction besides of being thus able to deliver sixteen sentenced
+prisoners to the guillotine.
+
+Such was the society of the aristocrats, among whom Josephine lived the
+long, dreary days of her imprisonment. The cell she occupied was
+shared by two companions of misfortune, the Duchess de Aguillon and the
+beautiful Madame de Fontenay, who afterward became Madame Tallien, so
+distinguished and renowned for her beauty and wit. Therese de Fontenay
+knew, and every one knew, that she was already sentenced, even if her
+sentence was not yet written down and countersigned. It was recorded in
+the heart of Robespierre. He had sentenced her, without any concealment.
+She had but a few weeks more to endure the martyrdom, the anguish of
+hope and of expectation. She was his secure victim; Robespierre needed
+not hasten the fall of this beautiful head, which was the admiration of
+all who saw it. This beauty was the very crime which Robespierre wanted
+to punish, for with this beauty, Therese de Fontenay, who then resided
+in Bordeaux with her husband, had captivated the old friend and
+associate in sentiments of Robespierre, the fanatical Tallien; with
+this beauty she had converted the man of blood and terror into a
+soft, compassionate being, inclined to pardon and to mercy toward his
+fellow-beings.
+
+Tallien had been sent as commissionnaire from the Convention to
+Bordeaux, and there with inexorable severity he had raged against the
+unfortunate merchants, from whom he exacted enormous assessments, and
+whom he sentenced to the guillotine if they refused, or were unable to
+pay. But suddenly love changed the bloodthirsty tiger into a sensitive
+being, and the beautiful Madame de Fontenay, who had become acquainted
+with Tallien in the prison of Bordeaux, had worked a complete change in
+his whole being. For the first time this man, who unmoved had condemned
+to death King Louis and the Girondists, found on his lips the word
+"pardon;" for the first time the hand which had signed so many
+death-warrants wrote the order to let a prisoner go free.
+
+This prisoner was Therese de Fontenay, the daughter of the Spanish
+banker Cabarrus, and she rewarded him for the gift of her life with
+a smile which forever made him her captive. From this time the
+death-warrants were converted into pardons from his lips, and for every
+pardon Therese thanked him with a sweet smile, with a glowing look of
+love.
+
+But this leniency was looked upon as criminal by the tribunal of
+terror in Paris. They recalled the culprit who dared pardon instead of
+punishing; and if Robespierre did not think himself powerful enough
+to send Tallien as a traitor and as an apostate to the scaffold,
+he punished him for his leniency by separating from him Therese de
+Fontenay, who had abandoned the husband forced upon her, and who had
+followed Tallien to Paris, and Robespierre had sent her to prison.
+
+There, at the Carmelites', was Therese de Fontenay; she occupied the
+same cell as Josephine; the same misfortune had made them companions and
+friends. They communicated one to the other their hopes and fears;
+and when Josephine, with tears in her eyes, spoke to her friend of her
+children, of her deep anguish, for they were alone and abandoned in the
+world outside of the prison walls, whilst their unfortunate pitiable
+mother languished in prison, Therese comforted and encouraged her.
+
+"So long as one lives there is hope," said Therese, with her enchanting
+smile. "Myself, who in the eyes of you all am sentenced to death,
+hope--no, I hope not--I am convinced that I will soon obtain my freedom.
+And I swear that, as soon as I am free, I will stir heaven and earth to
+procure the liberty of my dear friend Josephine and of her husband the
+Viscount de Beauharnais, and to give back to the poor orphaned children
+their parents."
+
+Josephine answered with an incredulous smile, and a shrugging of the
+shoulders; and then Therese's very expressive countenance glowed, and
+her large, black eyes flashed deeper gleams.
+
+"You have no faith in me, Josephine," she said, vehemently; "but I
+repeat to you, I will soon obtain my freedom, and then I will procure
+your liberty and that of your husband."
+
+"But how will you obtain that?" asked Josephine, shaking her head.
+
+"I will ruin Robespierre," said Therese, gravely.
+
+"In what do your means of ruining him consist?"
+
+"In this letter here," said Therese, as she drew out of her bosom a
+small paper folded up. "See, this sheet of paper; it consists but of a
+few lines which, since they would not furnish me with writing-materials,
+I have written with my blood on this sheet of paper, which I found
+yesterday in the garden during the promenade. The turnkey will give this
+letter to-day to Tallien. He has given me his word, and I have promised
+him that Tallien will recompense him magnificently for it. This letter
+will ruin Robespierre and make me free, and then I will procure the
+freedom of the Viscount and of the Viscountess de Beauharnais."
+
+"What then, in that letter is the magic word which is to work out such
+wonders?"
+
+Therese handed the paper to her friend.
+
+"Read," said she, smiling.
+
+Josephine read: "Therese of Fontenay to the citizen Tallien. Either in
+eight days I am free and the wife of my deliverer, the noble and brave
+Tallien, who will have freed the world from the monster Robespierre, or
+else, in eight days, I mount the scaffold; and my last thought will be
+a curse for the cowardly, heartless man who has not had the courage to
+risk his life for her he loved, and who suffers for his sake, for his
+sake meets death--who had not the mind to consider that with daring deed
+he must destroy the bloodthirsty fiend or be ruined by him. Therese de
+Fontenay will ever love her Tallien if he delivers her; she will
+hate him, even in death, if he sacrifices her to Robespierre's
+blood-greediness!"
+
+"If, through mishap, Robespierre should receive this letter, then you
+and Tallien are lost," sighed Josephine.
+
+"But Tallien, and not Robespierre, will receive it, and I am saved,"
+exclaimed Therese. "Therefore, my friend, take courage and be bold. Wait
+but eight days patiently. Let us wait and hope."
+
+"Yes, let us wait and hope," sighed Josephine. "Hope and patience are
+the only companions of the captive."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV. DELIVERANCE.
+
+
+Meanwhile the patience of the unfortunate prisoners of the Carmelite
+convent were to be subjected to a severe trial; and the very next day
+after this conversation with Therese de Fontenay, Josephine believed
+that there was no more hope for her, that she was irrevocably lost, as
+her husband was lost. For three days she had not seen the viscount, nor
+received any news from him. Only a vague report had reached her that the
+viscount was no longer in the Carmelite convent, but that he had been
+transferred to the Conciergerie.
+
+This report told the truth. Alexandre de Beauharnais had once more been
+denounced, and this second accusation was his sentence of death. For
+some time past the fanatical Jacobins had invented a new means to find
+guilty ones for the guillotine, and to keep the veins bleeding, so as
+to restore France to health. They sent emissaries into the prisons to
+instigate conspiracies among the prisoners, and to find out men wretched
+enough to purchase their life by accusing their prison companions, and
+by delivering them over to the executioner's axe. Such a spy had been
+sent into that portion of the prison where Beauharnais was, and he had
+begun his horrible work, for he had kindled discord and strife among the
+prisoners, and had won a few to his sinister projects. But Beauharnais's
+keen eye had discovered the traitor, and he had loudly and openly
+denounced him to his fellow-prisoners. The next day, the spy disappeared
+from the prison, but as he went he swore bloody vengeance on General de
+Beauharnais. [Footnote: "Memoires du Comte de Lavalette," vol. i., p.
+175.]
+
+And he kept his word; the next morning De Beauharnais was summoned
+for trial, and the gloomy, hateful faces of his judges, their hostile
+questions and reproaches, the capital crimes they accused him of, led
+him to conclude that his death was decided upon, and that he was doomed
+to the guillotine.
+
+In the night which followed his trial, Alexandre de Beauharnais wrote to
+his wife a letter, in which he communicated to her his sad forebodings,
+and bade her farewell for this life. The next day he was transferred to
+the Conciergerie--that is to say, into the vestibule of the scaffold.
+
+This letter of her husband, received by Josephine the next day after her
+conversation with Therese de Fontenay, ran thus:
+
+"The fourth Thermidor, in the second year of the republic. All the signs
+of a kind of trial, to which I and other prisoners have been subjected
+this day, tell me that I am the victim of the treacherous calumny of a
+few aristocrats, patriots so called, of this house. The mere conjecture
+that this hellish machination will follow me to the tribunal of the
+revolution gives me no hope to see you again, my friend, no more
+to embrace you or our children. I speak not of my sorrow: my tender
+solicitude for you, the heartfelt affection which unites me to you,
+cannot leave you in doubt of the sentiments with which I leave this
+life.
+
+"I am also sorry to have to part with my country, which I love, for
+which I would a thousand times have laid down my life, and which I
+no more can serve, but which beholds me now quit her bosom, since she
+considers me to be a bad citizen. This heart-rending thought does not
+allow me to commend my memory to you; labor, then, to make it pure
+in proving that a life which has been devoted to the service of the
+country, and to the triumph of liberty and equality, must punish that
+abominable slanderer, especially when he comes from a suspicious
+class of men. But this labor must be postponed; for in the storms of
+revolution, a great people, struggling to reduce its chains to dust,
+must of necessity surround itself with suspicion, and be more afraid to
+forget a guilty man than to put an innocent one to death.
+
+"I will die with that calmness which allows man to feel emotion at the
+thought of his dearest inclinations--I will die with that courage which
+is the distinctive feature of a free man, of a clear conscience, of an
+exalted soul, whose highest wishes are the prosperity and growth of the
+republic.
+
+"Farewell, my friend; gather consolation from my children; derive
+comfort in educating them, in teaching them that, by their virtues
+and their devotion to their country, they obliterate the memory of my
+execution, and recall to national gratitude my services and my claims.
+Farewell to those I love: you know them! Be their consolation, and
+through your solicitude for them prolong my life in their hearts!
+Farewell! for the last time in this life I press you and my children to
+my heart!--ALEXANDRE BEAUHARNAIS."
+
+Josephine had read this letter with a thousand tears, but she hoped
+still; she believed still in the possibility that the gloomy forebodings
+of her husband would not be realized; that some fortunate circumstance
+would save him or at least retard his death.
+
+But this hope was not to be fulfilled. A few hours after receiving
+this letter the turnkey brought to the prisoners the bulletin of the
+executions of the preceding day. It was that day Josephine's turn to
+read this bulletin to her companions. She therefore began her sad task;
+and, as slowly and thoughtfully she let fall name after name from her
+lips, here and there the faces of her hearers were blanched, and their
+eyes filled with tears.
+
+Suddenly Josephine uttered a piercing cry, and sprang up with the
+movement of madness toward the door, shook it in her deathly sorrow, as
+if her life hung upon the opening of that door, and then she sank down
+fainting.
+
+Unfortunate Josephine! she had seen in the list of those who had been
+executed the name of General Beauharnais, and in the first excitement
+of horror she wanted to rush out to see him, or at least to give to his
+body the parting kiss.
+
+On the sixth Thermidor, in the year II., that is, on the 24th of
+July, 1794, fell on the scaffold the head of the General Viscount de
+Beauharnais. With quiet, composed coolness he had ascended the scaffold,
+and his last cry, as he laid his head on the block, was, "Long live the
+republic!"
+
+In the wagon which drove him to the scaffold, he had found again a
+friend, the Prince de Salm-Kirbourg, who was now on his way to the
+guillotine, and who had risked his life in bringing back to Paris the
+children of Josephine.
+
+His bloodthirsty enemies had not enough of the head of General
+Beauharnais; his wife's head also should fall, and the name of the
+traitor of his country was to be extinguished forever.
+
+Two days after the execution of her husband, the turnkey brought to
+Josephine the writ of her accusation, and the summons to appear before
+the tribunal of the revolution--a summons which then had all the
+significancy of a death-warrant.
+
+Josephine heard the summons of the jailer with a quiet, easy smile; she
+had not even a look for the fatal paper which lay on her bed. Near this
+bed stood the physician, whom the compassionate republic, which would
+not leave its prisoners to die on a sick-bed, but only on the scaffold,
+had sent to Josephine to inquire into her illness and afford her relief.
+
+With indignation he eagerly snatched the paper from the bed, and,
+returning it back to the jailer, exclaimed: "Tell the tribunal of the
+revolution that it has nothing more to do with this woman! Disease will
+bring on justice here, and leave nothing to do for the guillotine. In
+eight days Citoyenne Beauharnais is dead!" [Footnote: Aubenas, "Histoire
+de l'Imperatrice Josephine," vol. i., p. 235.]
+
+This decision of the physician was transmitted to the tribunal, which
+resolved that the trial of Madame Beauharnais would be postponed for
+eight days, and that the tribunal would wait and see if truly death
+would save her from the guillotine.
+
+Meanwhile, during these eight days, events were to pass which were to
+give a very different form to the state of things, and impart to the
+young republic a new, unexpected attitude.
+
+Robespierre ruled yet, he was the feared dictator of France! But Tallien
+had received the note of his beautiful, fondly-loved Therese, and he
+swore to himself that she should not ascend the scaffold, that she
+should not curse him, that he would possess her, that he would win her
+love, and destroy the fiend who stood in the way of his happiness, whose
+blood-streaming hands were every day ready to sign her death-warrant.
+
+On the very same day in which he received the letter of Therese,
+he conversed with a few trusty friends, men whom he knew detested
+Robespierre as much as himself, and who all longed for an occasion to
+destroy him. They planned a scheme of attack against the dictator who
+imperilled the life of all, and from whom it was consequently necessary
+to take away life and power, so as to be sure of one's life. It was
+decided to launch an accusation against him before the whole Convention,
+to incriminate him as striving after dominion, as desirous of breaking
+the republic with his bloody hands, and ambitious to exalt himself into
+dictator and sovereign. Tallien undertook to fulminate this accusation
+against him, and they all agreed to wait yet a few days so as to gain
+amongst the deputies in the Convention some members who would support
+the accusation and give countenance to the conspirators. On the ninth
+Thermidor this scheme was to be carried out; on the ninth Thermidor,
+Tallien was to thunder forth the accusation against Robespierre and move
+his punishment!
+
+This enterprise, however, seemed a folly, an impossibility, for at this
+time Robespierre was at the height of his power, and fear weighed
+upon the whole republic as a universal agony. No one dared oppose
+Robespierre, for a look from his eye, a sign from his hand sufficed to
+bring death, to lead to the scaffold.
+
+The calm, peaceful, and united republic for which Robespierre had
+toiled, which had been the ultimate end of his bloodthirstiness, was at
+last there, but this republic was built upon corpses, was baptized with
+streams of blood and tears. And now that the republic had given up
+all opposition, now that she bowed, trembling under the hand of her
+conqueror, now, Robespierre wanted to make her happy, he wanted to give
+her what the storms of past years had ravished from her--he wanted
+to give the republic a God! On the tribune of the Convention, on this
+tribune which was his throne, rose Robespierre, to tell with grave
+dignity to the republic that there was a Supreme Being, that the soul of
+man was immortal. Then, accompanied by the Convention, he proceeded to
+the Champ de Mars, to inaugurate the celebration of the worship of a
+Supreme Being as his high-priest. But amid this triumph, on his way
+to the Champ de Mars, Robespierre the conqueror had for the first time
+noticed the murmurs of the Tarpeian rock; he had noticed the dark,
+threatening glances which were directed at him from all sides. He felt
+the danger which menaced him, and he was determined to remove it from
+his person by annihilating those who threatened.
+
+But already terror had lost its power, no one trembled before the
+guillotine, no one took pleasure in the fall of the axe, in the streams
+of blood, which empurpled the Place de la Revolution. The fearful
+stillness of death hung round the guillotine, the people were tired
+of applauding it, and now and then from the silent ranks of the people
+thundered forth in threatening accents the word "tyrant!" which, as the
+first weapon of attack, was directed against Robespierre, who, on the
+heights of the tribune, was throned with his unmoved, calm countenance.
+
+Robespierre felt that he must strike a heavy, decisive blow against his
+foes and annihilate them. On the eighth Thermidor, he denounced a plot
+organized by his enemies for breaking up the Convention. Through St.
+Just he implicated as leaders of this conspiracy some eminent members
+of the committees, and requested their dismissal. But the time was
+past when his motions were received with jubilant acclamations, and
+unconditionally obeyed. The Convention decided to submit the motion
+of Robespierre to a vote, and the matter was postponed to the next
+morning's session.
+
+In the night which preceded the contemplated action of the Convention,
+Robespierre went to the Jacobin Club and requested assistance against
+his enemies in the Convention. He was received with enthusiasm, and
+a general uprising of the revolutionary element was decided upon, and
+organized for the following morning.
+
+The same night, Tallien, his friends and adherents, met together, and
+the mode of attack for the following day, the ninth Thermidor, was
+discussed, and the parts assigned to each.
+
+The prisoners in the Carmelite convent did not of course suspect any
+thing of the events which were preparing beyond the walls of their
+prison. Even Therese de Fontenay was low-spirited and sad; for this day,
+the ninth Thermidor, was the last day of respite fixed by her to Tallien
+for her liberty.
+
+This was also the last day of respite which had saved Josephine from the
+tribunal of the revolution, through the decision of her physician.
+Death had spared her head, but now it belonged to the executioner. The
+captives feared the event, and they were confirmed in this fear by the
+jailer, who, on the morning of the ninth Thermidor, entered the room
+which Josephine, the Duchess d'Aiguillon, and Therese de Fontenay
+occupied, and who removed the camp-bed which Josephine had hitherto used
+as a sofa, to give it to another prisoner.
+
+"How," exclaimed the Duchess d'Aiguillon, "do you want to give this bed
+to another prisoner? Is Madame de Beauharnais to have a better one?"
+
+The turnkey burst into a coarse laugh. "Alas! no," said he, with a
+significant gesture, "Citoyenne Beauharnais will soon need a bed no
+more."
+
+Her friends broke into tears; but Josephine remained composed and quite.
+At this decisive moment a fearful self-possession and calmness came over
+her; all sufferings and sorrow appeared to have sunk away, all anxiety
+and care seemed overcome, and a radiant smile illumined Josephine's
+features, for, through a wondrous association of ideas, she suddenly
+remembered the prophecy of the negro-woman in Martinique.
+
+"Be calm, my friends," said she, smiling; "weep not, do not consider me
+as destined to the scaffold, for I assure you I am going to live: I
+must not die, for I am destined to be one day the sovereign of France.
+Therefore, no more tears! I am the future Queen of France!"
+
+"Ah!" exclaimed the Duchess d'Aiguillon, half angry and half sad, "why
+not at once appoint your state dignitaries?"
+
+"You are right," said Josephine, eagerly; "this is the best time to
+do so. Well, then, my dear duchess, I now appoint you to be my maid of
+honor, and I swear it will be so."
+
+"My God! she is mad!" exclaimed the duchess, and, nearly fainting, she
+sank upon her chair.
+
+Josephine laughed, and opened the window to admit some fresh air. She
+perceived there below in the street a woman making to her all manner of
+signs and gestures. She lifted up her arms, she then took hold of her
+dress, and with her hand pointed to her robe.
+
+It was evident that she wished through these signs and motions to convey
+some word to the prisoners, whom perhaps she knew, for she repeatedly
+took hold of her robe with one hand, and pointed at it with the other.
+
+"Robe?" cried out Josephine interrogatively.
+
+The woman nodded in the affirmative, then took up a stone, which she
+held up to the prisoner's view.
+
+"Pierre?" ask Josephine.
+
+The woman again nodded in the affirmative, and then placed the stone
+(pierre) in her robe, made several times the motion of falling, then of
+cutting off the neck, and then danced and clapped her hands.
+
+"My friends," cried Josephine, struck with a sudden thought, "this woman
+brings us good news, she tells us Robespierre est tombe." (Robespierre
+has fallen.)
+
+"Yes, it is so," exclaimed Therese, triumphantly; "Tallien has kept his
+word; he conquers, and Robespierre is thrust down!"
+
+And, overpowered with joy and emotion, the three women, weeping, sank
+into each other's arms.
+
+They now heard from without loud cries and shouts. It was the jailer,
+quarrelling with his refractory dog. The dog howled, and wanted to go
+out with his master, but the jailer kicked him back, saying: "Away, go
+to the accursed Robespierre!"
+
+Soon joyous voices resounded through the corridor; the door of their
+cell was violently opened, and a few municipal officers entered to
+announce to the Citizeness Madame Fontenay that she was free, and bade
+her accompany them into the carriage waiting below to drive her to the
+house of Citizen Tallien. Behind them pressed the prisoners who, from
+the reception-room, had followed the authorities, to entreat them to
+give them the news of the events in Paris.
+
+There was now no reason for the municipal authorities to make a secret
+of the events which at this hour occupied all Paris, and which would
+soon be welcomed throughout France as the morning dawn of a new day.
+
+Robespierre had indeed fallen! Tallien and his friends had in the
+Convention brought against the despot the accusation that he was
+striving for the sovereign power, and that he had enthroned a Supreme
+Being merely to proclaim himself afterward His visible representative,
+and to take all power in his own hands. When Robespierre had endeavored
+to justify himself, he had been dragged away from the speaker's tribune;
+and, as he defended himself, Tallien had drawn a dagger on Robespierre,
+and was prevented from killing the tyrant by a few friends, who by
+main force turned the dagger away. Immediately after this scene, the
+Convention decided to arrest Robespierre and his friends Couthon and St.
+Just; and the prisoners, among whom Robespierre's younger brother had
+willingly placed himself, were led away to the Luxemburg. [Footnote:
+The next day, on the tenth Thermidor, Robespierre, who in the night had
+attempted to put an end to his life with a pistol, was executed
+with twenty-one companions. His brother was among the number of the
+executed.]
+
+The prisoners welcomed this news with delight; for with the fall of
+Robespierre, had probably sounded for them the hour of deliverance, and
+they could hope that their prison's door would soon be opened, not to be
+led to the scaffold, but to obtain their freedom.
+
+Therese de Fontenay, with the messengers sent by Tallien, left the
+Carmelite cloisters to fulfil the promise made by her to Tallien in
+her letter, to become his wife, and to pass at his side new days of
+happiness and love.
+
+She embraced Josephine tenderly as she bade her farewell, and renewed to
+her the assurance that she would consider it her dearest and most sacred
+duty to obtain her friend's liberty.
+
+In the evening of the same day, Josephine's camp-bed was restored to
+her; and, stretching herself upon it with intense delight, she said
+smilingly to her friends: "You see, I am not yet guillotined; I will be
+Queen of France." [Footnote: "Memoires sur l'Imperatrice Josephine," ch.
+xxxiii.]
+
+Therese de Fontenay, now Citoyenne Tallien, kept her word. Three days
+after obtaining her liberty, she came herself to fetch Josephine out
+of prison. Her soft, mild disposition had resumed its old spell over
+Tallien, whom the Convention had appointed president of the Committee of
+Safety. The death-warrants signed by Robespierre were annulled, and the
+prisons were opened, to restore to hundreds of accused life and liberty.
+The bloody and tearful episode of the revolution had closed with the
+fall of Robespierre, and on the ninth Thermidor the republic assumed a
+new phase.
+
+Josephine was free once more! With tears of bliss she embraced her two
+children, her dear darlings, found again! In pressing her offspring to
+her heart with deep, holy emotion, she thought of their father, who had
+loved them both so much, who had committed to her the sacred trust of
+keeping alive in the hearts of his children love for their father.
+
+Encircling still her children in her arms, she bowed them on their
+knees; and, lifting up to heaven her eyes, moist with tears, she
+whispered to them: "Let us pray, children; let us lift up our thoughts
+to heaven, where your father is, and whence he looks down upon us to
+bless his children."
+
+Josephine delayed not much longer in Paris, where the air was yet damp
+with the blood of so many murdered ones; where the guillotine, on which
+her husband had died, lifted yet its threatening head. She hastened with
+her children to Fontainebleau, there to rest from her sorrows on the
+heart of her father-in-law, to weep with him on the loss they both had
+suffered.
+
+The dream of her first youth and of her first love had passed away, and
+to the father of her beheaded husband Josephine returned a widow; rich
+in gloomy, painful experiences, poor in hopes, but with a stout heart,
+and a determination to live, and to be at once a father and a mother to
+her children.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK II. THE WIFE OF GENERAL BONAPARTE.
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI. BONAPARTE IN CORSICA.
+
+
+The civil war which for four years had devastated France had also with
+its destruction and its terrors overspread the French colonies, and in
+Martinique as well as in Corsica two parties stood opposed to each other
+in infuriated bitterness--one fighting for the rights of the native
+land, the other for the rights of the French people, for the "liberty,
+equality, and fraternity" which the Convention in Paris had adopted
+for its motto, since it delivered to the guillotine, on the Place de
+la Revolution, the heads of those who dared lay claim for themselves to
+this liberty of thought so solemnly proclaimed.
+
+In Corsica both parties fought with the same eagerness as in France, and
+the execution of Louis XVI. had only made the contest more violent and
+more bitter.
+
+One of these parties looked with horror on this guillotine which had
+drunk the blood of the king, and this party desired to have nothing in
+common with this French republic, with this blood-streaming Convention
+which had made of terror a law, and which had destroyed so many lives in
+the name of liberty.
+
+At the head of this party stood the General Pascal Paoli, whom the
+revolution had recalled to his native isle from his exile of twenty
+years, and who objected that Corsica should bend obediently under the
+blood-stained hand of the French Convention, and whose wish it was that
+the isle should be an independent province of the great French republic.
+
+To exalt Corsica into a free, independent republic had been the idea of
+his whole life. For the sake of this idea he had passed twenty years in
+exile; for, after having made Corsica independent of Genoa, he had not
+been able to obtain for his native isle that independence for which
+he had fought with his brave Genoese troops. During eight years he had
+perseveringly maintained the conflict--during eight years he had been
+the ruler of Corsica, but immovable in his republican principles; he had
+rejected the title of king, which the Corsican people, grateful for
+the services rendered to their fatherland, had offered him. He had been
+satisfied to be the first and most zealous servant of the island, which,
+through his efforts, had been liberated from the tyrannical dominion of
+Genoa. But Genoa's appeal for assistance had brought French troops to
+Corsica; the Genoese, harassed and defeated everywhere by Paoli's brave
+troops, had finally transferred the island to France. This was not what
+Paoli wanted--this was not for what he had fought!
+
+Corsica was to be a free and independent republic; she was to bow no
+more to France than to Genoa; Corsica was to be free.
+
+In vain did the French government make to General Paoli the most
+brilliant offers; he rejected them; he called the Corsicans to the most
+energetic resistance to the French occupation; and when he saw that
+opposition was in vain, that Corsica had to submit, he at least would
+not yield, and he went to England.
+
+The cry for liberty which, in the year 1790, resounded from France, and
+which made the whole world tremble, brought him back from England to
+Corsica, and he took the oath of allegiance to free, democratic France.
+But the blood of the king had annulled this oath, the Convention's
+reign of terror had filled his soul with horror; and, after solemnly
+separating himself from France, he had, in the year 1793, convoked a
+Consulta, to decide whether Corsica was to submit to the despotism of
+the French republic, or if it was to be a free and independent state.
+The Consulta chose the latter position, and named Paoli for president as
+well as for general-in-chief of the Corsicans.
+
+The National Convention at once called the culprit to its bar,
+and ordered him to Paris to justify his conduct, or to receive the
+punishment due. But General Paoli paid no attention to the imperious
+orders of the Convention, which, as the chief appeared not at its bar,
+declared him, on the 15th of May, 1793, a traitor to his country, and
+sent commissioners to Corsica to arrest the criminal.
+
+This traitor to the state, the General Pascal Paoli, was then at the
+head of the Moderate party in Corsica, and he loudly and solemnly
+declared that, in case of absolute necessity, it would be preferable to
+call England to their assistance than to accept the yoke of the French
+republic, which had desecrated her liberty, since she had soiled it with
+the blood of so many innocent victims.
+
+But in opposition to General Paoli rose up with wild clamor the other
+party, the party of young, enthusiastic heads, who were intoxicated with
+the democratic ideas which had obtained the sway in France, and which
+they imagined, so great was their impassioned devotedness to them,
+possessed the power and the ability to conquer the whole world.
+
+At the head of this second party, which claimed unconditional adherence
+to France, to the members of the Convention--at the head of this
+fanatical, Corsican, republican, and Jacobin party, stood the Bonaparte
+family, and above them all the two brothers Joseph and Napoleon.
+
+Joseph was now, in the year 1793, chief justice of the tribunal of
+Ajaccio; Napoleon, who was captain of artillery in the French army of
+Italy, had then obtained leave of absence to visit his family. Both
+brothers had been hitherto the most affectionate and intimate admirers
+of Paoli, and especially Napoleon, who, from his earliest childhood, had
+cherished the most unbounded admiration for the patriot who preferred
+exile to a dependent grandeur in Corsica. Even now, since Paoli's return
+to Corsica, and Napoleon had had many opportunities to see him, his
+admiration for the great chief had lost nothing of its force or
+vitality. Paoli seemed sincerely to return this inclination of Napoleon
+and of his brother, and in the long evening walks, which both
+brothers made with him, Napoleon's mind opened itself, before his old,
+experienced companion, the great general, the noble republican, with
+a freedom and a candor such as he had never manifested to others. With
+subdued admiration Paoli listened to his short, energetic explanations,
+to his descriptions, to his war-schemes, to his warm enthusiasm for the
+republic; and one day, carried away by the warmth of the young captain
+of artillery, the general, fixing his glowing eyes upon him, exclaimed:
+"Young man, you are modelled after the antique; you belong to Plutarch!"
+
+"And to General Paoli!" replied Napoleon, eagerly, as he pressed his
+friend's hand affectionately in his own.
+
+But now this harmonious concord between General Paoli and the young men
+was destroyed by the passion of party views. Joseph as well as Napoleon
+belonged to the French party; they soon became its leaders; they were
+at the head of the club which they had organized according to the maxims
+and principles of the Jacobin Club in Paris, and to which they gave the
+same name.
+
+In this Jacobin Club at Ajaccio Napoleon made speeches full of glowing
+enthusiasm for the French republic, for the ideas of freedom; in this
+club he enjoined on the people of Corsica to adhere loyally to France,
+to keep fast and to defend with life and blood the acquired liberty of
+republican France, to regard and drive away as traitors to their country
+all those who dared guide the Corsican people on another track.
+
+But the Corsican people were not there to hear the enthusiastic speeches
+about liberty and to follow them. Only a few hundred ardent republicans
+of the same sentiment applauded the republican Napoleon, and cried aloud
+that the republic must be defended with blood and life. The majority of
+the Corsican people flocked to Paoli, and the commissioners sent by
+the Convention from Paris to Corsica, to depose and arrest Paoli, found
+co-operation and assistance only among the inhabitants of the cities
+and among the French troops. Paoli, the president of the Consulta, was
+located at Corte; the messengers of the Convention gathered in Bastia
+the adherents of France, and excited them to strenuous efforts against
+the rebellious Consulta and the insurgent Paoli. Civil war with all its horrors was there; the raging conflicts of the
+parties tore apart the holy bonds of family, friendship, and love.
+Brother fought and argued against brother, friend rose up against
+friend, and whole families were destroyed, rent asunder by the
+impassioned rivalries of sentiment and partisanship. Denunciations and
+accusations, suspicions and enmities, followed. Every one trembled at
+his own shadow; and, to turn aside the peril of death, it was necessary
+to strike. [Footnote: "Memoires du Roi Joseph," vol. i., p. 51.]
+
+The Bonaparte brothers opposed General Paoli with violent bitterness;
+bloody conflicts took place, in which the national Corsican party
+remained victorious. Irritated and embittered by the opposition which
+some of the natives themselves were making to his patriotic efforts,
+Paoli persecuted with zealous activity the conquered, whom he resolved
+to destroy, that they might not imperil the young Corsican independence.
+Joseph and Napoleon Bonaparte were the leaders of this party, and Paoli
+knew too well the energy and the intellectual superiority of Napoleon
+not to dread his influence. Him, above all things, him and his family,
+must he render harmless, so as to weaken and to intimidate the French
+party. He sent agents to Ajaccio, to arrest the whole Bonaparte family,
+and at the same time his troops approached the town to occupy it and
+make the French commissioners prisoners. But these latter, informed in
+time of the danger, had gained time and saved themselves on board the
+French frigate lying in the harbor, and with them the whole Bonaparte
+family had embarked. Napoleon, on whom the attention of Paoli's agents
+had been specially directed, was more than once in danger of being
+seized by them, and it was due to the advice of a friend that, disguised
+as a sailor, he saved himself in time on board the French frigate and
+joined his family. [Footnote: "Memoires de la Duchess d'Abrantes," vol.
+i.] The commissioners of the Convention at once ordered the anchor to be
+weighed, and to steer toward France.
+
+This frigate, on board of which the Bonaparte family in its flight had
+embarked, carried to France the future emperor and his fortune.
+
+The house, the possessions of the Bonaparte family, fell a prey to
+the conquerors, and on them they gave vent to their vengeance for
+the successful escape of the fugitives. A witness of these facts is
+a certificate which Joseph Bonaparte a few months later procured from
+Corsica, and which ran as follows:
+
+"I, the undersigned, Louis Conti, procurator-syndic of the district of
+Ajaccio, department of Corsica, declare and certify: in the month of
+May of this year, when General Paoli and the administration of the
+department had sent into the city of Ajaccio armed troops, in concert
+with other traitors in the city, took possession of the fortress, drove
+away the administration of the district, incarcerated a large portion of
+the patriots, disarmed the republican forces, and, when these refused
+to give up the commissioners of the National Convention, Paoli's troops
+fired upon the vessel which carried these commissioners:
+
+"That these rebels endeavored to seize the Bonaparte family, which had
+the good fortune to elude their pursuit:
+
+"That they destroyed, plundered, and burnt everything which belonged to
+this family, whose sole crime consisted in their unswerving fidelity to
+the republicans, and in their refusal to take any part in the scheme
+of isolation, rebellion, and disloyalty, of which Paoli and the
+administration of the department had become guilty.
+
+"I moreover declare and certify that this family, consisting of ten
+individuals, and who stood high in the esteem of the people of the
+island, possessed the largest property in the whole department, and that
+now they are on the continent of the republic.
+
+"(Signed) CONTI, Proc.-Synd. Delivered on the 5th of September, 1793,
+Year II. of the republic." [Footnote: "Memoires du Roi Joseph," vol. i.,
+p. 52.]
+
+Paoli, the conqueror of the French republic, the patriotic enemy of the
+Bonaparte family, drove Napoleon Bonaparte from his native soil! The
+cannon of the Corsican patriots fired upon the ship on which the future
+emperor of the French was steering toward his future empire!
+
+But this future lay still in an invisible, cloudy distance--of one
+thing, however, was the young captain of artillery fully conscious:
+from this hour he had broken with the past, and, by his dangers and
+conflicts, by the sacrifice of his family's property, by his flight from
+Corsica, given to the world a solemn testimony that he recognized
+no other country, that he owed allegiance to no other nation than to
+France. He had proved that his feelings were not Corsican, but French.
+
+The days of his childhood and youth sank away behind him, with the
+deepening shadows of the island of Corsica, and the shores which rose
+before him on the horizon were the shores of France. There lay his
+future--his empire!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII. NAPOLEON BONAPARTE BEFORE TOULON.
+
+
+Whilst Paris, yet trembling, bowed under the bloody rule of the
+Convention, a spirit of opposition and horror began to stir in the
+provinces; fear of the terrorists, of the Convention, began to kindle
+the courage, to make defiance to these men of horror, and to put an end
+to terrorism. The province of Vendee, in her faithfulness and loyalty to
+the royal family, arose in deadly conflict against the republicans;
+the large cities of the south, with Toulon at their head, had shielded
+themselves from the horrors which the home government would have brought
+them, by uniting with the enemies who now from all sides pressed upon
+France.
+
+Toulon gave itself up to the combined fleet of England and Spain.
+Marseilles, Lyons, and Nismes, contracted an alliance together, and
+declared their independence of the Convention and of the terrorists.
+Everywhere in all the cities and communities of the south the people
+rose up, and seditions and rebellions took place. Everywhere the
+Convention had to send its troops to re-establish peace by force, and
+to compel the people to submit to its rule. Whole army corps had to be
+raised to win back to the republic the rebellious cities, and only after
+hard fighting did General Carteaux subdue Marseilles.
+
+But Toulon held out still, and within its protecting walls had the
+majority of the inhabitants of Marseilles taken refuge before the wrath
+of the Convention, which had already sent to the latter some of
+its representatives, to establish there the destructive work of the
+guillotine. Toulon offered them safety; it seemed impregnable, as much
+by its situation as by the number and strength of its defenders. It
+could also defy any siege, since the sea was open, and it could by this
+channel be provisioned through the English and Spanish fleet.
+
+No one trembled before the little army of seventeen thousand men which,
+under General Carteaux, had invested Toulon.
+
+But in this little army of the republicans was a young soldier whom yet
+none knew, none feared, but whose fame was soon to resound throughout
+the world, and before whom all Europe was soon tremblingly to bow.
+
+This young man was Napoleon Bonaparte, the captain of artillery. He had
+come from Italy (where his regiment was) to France, to make there, by
+order of his general, some purchases for the park of artillery of
+the Italian army. But some of the people's representatives had had an
+opportunity of recognizing the sharp eye and the military acquirements
+of the young captain of artillery; they interceded in his favor, and he
+was promoted to the army corps which was before Toulon, and at once sent
+in the capacity of assistant to General Carteaux, with whom also was
+Napoleon's brother Joseph, as chief of the general's staff.
+
+From this moment the siege, which until now had not progressed
+favorably, was pushed on with renewed energy, and it was due to the
+cautious activity, the daring spirit of the captain of artillery, that
+marked advantages were gained over the English, and that from them many
+redoubts were taken, and the lines of the French drawn closer and closer
+to the besieged city.
+
+But yet, after many months of siege, Toulon held out still. From the
+sea came provisions and ammunition, and on the land-side Toulon was
+protected against capture by a fort occupied by English troops, and
+which, on account of its impregnable position, was called "Little
+Gibraltar." From this position hot-balls and howitzers had free range
+all over the seaboard, for this fort stood between the two harbors
+of the city and immediately opposite Toulon. The English, fully
+appreciating the importance of the position, had occupied it with six
+thousand men, and surrounded it with intrenchments.
+
+It came to this, as Napoleon in a council of war declared to the
+general, that the English must be driven out of their position; then,
+when this fort was taken, in two days Toulon must yield.
+
+The plan was decided upon, and from this moment the besiegers directed
+all their strength no more against Toulon, but against the important
+fort, "Little Gibraltar," "for there," as Napoleon said, "there was the
+key to Toulon."
+
+All Europe now watched with intense anxiety the events near Toulon; all
+France, which hitherto with divided sentiments had wished the victory
+to side now with the besieged, now with the besiegers, forgot its
+differences of opinion, and was united in the one wish to expel the
+hated enemy and rival, the English, from the French city, and to crown
+the efforts of the French army with victory.
+
+The Convention, irritated that its orders should not have been
+immediately carried out, had in its despotic power recalled from his
+command General Carteaux, who could not succeed in capturing Toulon,
+and had appointed as chief of battalion the young captain of artillery,
+Napoleon Bonaparte, on account of his bravery in capturing some
+dangerous redoubts. The successor of Carteaux, the old General
+Dugommier, recognizing the superior mind of the young chief of
+battalion, willingly followed his plans, and was readily guided and led
+by the surer insight of the young man.
+
+The position of new Gibraltar had to be conquered so as to secure the
+fall of Toulon; such was, such remained Napoleon's unswerving judgment.
+No effort, no cost, no blood, was to be spared to attain this result. He
+placed new batteries against the fort; stormed the forts Malbosquet and
+Ronge; a terrible struggle ensued, in which the English General O'Hara
+was taken prisoner by the French, and the English had to leave the fort
+and retreat into the city.
+
+The first great advantage was won, but Little Gibraltar remained still
+in the hands of the English, and Napoleon desired, and felt it as an
+obligation, to subdue it at any price.
+
+But already the Convention began to be discouraged, and to lose energy,
+and the deputies of the people, Barras and Freron, who until now had
+remained with the besieging army, hastened to Paris to implore the
+Convention to give up the siege, and to recall the army from Toulon.
+
+But before they reached Paris the matter was to be decided before
+Toulon. The fate of the Little Gibraltar was to be fulfilled; it was to
+be taken, or in the storming of it the French army was to perish.
+
+Thousands of shells were thrown into the fort, thirty cannon thundered
+against it. Napoleon Bonaparte mixed with the artillerymen, encouraged
+by his bold words their activity, their energy, and their bravery, and
+pointed to them the spots where to direct their balls. Whilst he was
+in conversation with one of the cannoneers near whom he stood, a
+cannon-ball from the English tore away the head of the artilleryman who
+had just lifted up the match to fire his cannon.
+
+Napoleon quietly took up the burning match out of the hand of the dead
+man, and discharged the gun. Then, with all the zeal and tact of an
+experienced cannoneer, he began to load the piece, to send forth its
+balls against the enemy and for many hours he remained at this post,
+until another artilleryman was found to relieve the chief of division.
+[Footnote: This brave action of Napoleon was to have for him evil
+results. The cannoneer, from whose hand he took the match, was suffering
+from the most distressing skin-disease, generally breaking out with the
+greatest violence in the hand. The match which the cannoneer had for
+hours held in his hand was yet warm with its pressure, and imparted to
+Napoleon's hand the poison of the contagious disease. For years he had
+to endure the eruption, which he could not conquer, as he had conquered
+nations and princes, but to its destructive and painful power he had
+to subdue his body. The nervous agitations to which he was subject, the
+shrugging of his right shoulder, the white-greenish complexion of his
+face, the leanness of his body, were all consequences of this disease.
+It was only when Napoleon had become emperor, that Corvisart succeeded,
+by his eloquence, in persuading him to follow a regular course of
+treatment. This treatment cured him; his white-greenish complexion and
+his leanness disappeared. The nervous movement of the shoulder remained,
+and became a habit.--See "Memoires de Constant," vol. i.]
+
+But whilst Napoleon made himself a cannoneer in the service of his
+country, he remained at the same time the chief of division, whose
+attention was everywhere, whose eagle glance nothing escaped, and who
+knew how to improve every advantage.
+
+A body of troops was at a distant point, and Bonaparte wanted to send
+them an important order. Whilst loading his cannon, he called aloud
+to an under-officer to whom he might dictate the dispatch. A young man
+hastened to the call, and said he was ready to write. Upon a mound of
+sand he unfolded his pocket-book, drew out of it a piece of paper, and
+began to write what Napoleon, with a voice above the cannon's roar,
+was dictating to him. At this very moment, as the order was written,
+a cannon-ball fell quite near the officer, burrowing the ground, and
+scattering some of the light sand over the written paper. The young man
+raised his hat and made a bow to the cannon-ball, that buried itself in
+the sand.
+
+"I thank you," said he, "you have saved me sand for my paper."
+
+Napoleon smiled, and looked with a joyous, sympathizing glance at the
+young officer, whose handsome pleasing countenance was radiant with bold
+daring and harmless merriment.
+
+"Now, I need a brave messenger to carry this order to that exposed
+detachment," said Napoleon.
+
+"I will be the messenger," cried out the officer, eagerly.
+
+"Well, I accept you, but you must remove your uniform, and put on a
+blouse, so as not to be too much exposed."
+
+"That I will not do," exclaimed the young man. "I am no spy."
+
+"What! you refuse to obey?" asked Napoleon, threateningly.
+
+"No, I refuse to assume a disguise," answered the officer "I am ready to
+obey, and even to carry the order into the very hands of the devil.
+But with my uniform I go, otherwise those cursed Englishmen might well
+imagine that I am afraid of them."
+
+"But you imperil your life if you go in your glittering uniform."
+
+"My life does not belong to me," cried out gayly the young soldier. "Who
+cares if I risk it? You will not be sorry about it, for you know me
+not, citizen-officer, and it is all the same to me. Shall I not go in
+my uniform? I should be delighted to encounter those English gentlemen,
+for, with my sword and the sprightly grains in my patron's pocket,
+the conversation will not sleep, I vow. Now, then, shall I go,
+citizen-officer?"
+
+"Go," said Napoleon, smiling. "But you are wrong if you think I will
+not be sorry in case you pay this duty with your life. You are a brave
+fellow, and I love the brave. Go; but first tell me your name, that when
+you return I may tell General Dugommier what name he has to inscribe in
+his papers of recommendation for officers; that will be the reward for
+your message."
+
+"My name is Junot, citizen-officer," exclaimed the young man as,
+swinging the paper in his hand, he darted away eagerly.
+
+The roar of the cannon was still heard, when Napoleon's messenger
+returned, after a few hours, and reported to him. The chief of division
+received him with a friendly motion of his head.
+
+"Welcome, Junot," said he. "I am glad to see you back, and that you
+have successfully accomplished your task. I must now make a change of
+position in yonder battallion. To-morrow I will give you your commission
+of lieutenant, citizen-soldier."
+
+"And to-day grant me a nobler reward, citizen-officer," said the young
+man, tenderly; "give me your hand, and allow me to press it in mine."
+
+Napoleon, smiling, gave him his hand. The eyes of both young men met in
+radiant looks, and with these looks was sealed the covenant which united
+them both in a friendship enduring to the tomb. For not one of his
+companions-in-arms remained attached to Napoleon with so warm, true,
+nearly impassioned tenderness as Junot, and none of them was by the
+general, the consul, the emperor, more implicitly trusted, more heartily
+beloved than his Junot, whom he exalted to the ranks of general,
+governor of Lisbon, Duke d'Abrantes, who was one of the few to whom
+in his days of glory he allowed to speak to him in all truth, in all
+freedom, and without reserve.
+
+But whilst the two young men were sealing this covenant of friendship
+with this look of spiritual recognition, the cannon was thundering forth
+on all sides. The earth trembled from the reports of the pieces; all the
+elements seemed unloosed; the storm howled as if to mingle the noise
+of human strife with the uproar of Nature; the sea dashed its frothy,
+mound-like waves with terrible noise on the shore; the rain poured down
+from the skies in immense torrents, and everything around was veiled in
+mists of dampness and smoke. And amid all this, crackled, thundered,
+and hissed the shells which were directed against Little Gibraltar, or
+whizzed from Toulon, to bring death and destruction among the besiegers.
+
+Night sank down, and yet Little Gibraltar was not taken. "I am lost,"
+sighed General Dugommier. "I shall have to pay with my head, if we are
+forced to retreat."
+
+"Then we must go forward," cried Bonaparte; "we must have Little
+Gibraltar."
+
+An hour after, a loud cry of victory announced to General Dugommier that
+the chief of division had reached his aim, that Little Gibraltar was
+captured by the French.
+
+As the day began to dawn, the French had already captured two other
+forts; and Bonaparte roused all his energies to fire from Little
+Gibraltar upon the enemy's fleet. But the English admiral, Lord Hood,
+knew very well the terrible danger to which he was exposed if he did not
+at once weigh anchor.
+
+The chief of division had prophesied correctly: in Little Gibraltar was
+the key of Toulon; and since the French had now seized the keys, the
+English ships could no longer close the city against them. Toulon was
+lost--it had to surrender to the conquerors. [Footnote: Toulon fell on
+the 18th of December, 1793.]
+
+It is true, defensive operations were still carried on, but Napoleon's
+balls scattered death and ruin into the city; the bursting of shells
+brought destruction and suffering everywhere, and in the city as well as
+in the harbor columns of flames arose from houses and ships.
+
+Toulon was subdued; and the chief of division, Napoleon Bonaparte, had
+achieved his first brilliant pass of arms before jubilant France and
+astonished Europe; he had made his name shine out from the obscurity of
+the past, and placed it on the pages of history.
+
+The Convention showed itself thankful to the daring soldier, who had
+won such a brilliant victory alike over the foreign as well as over the
+internal enemies of the republic; and Napoleon Bonaparte, the chief of
+division, was now promoted to the generalship of division.
+
+He accepted the nomination with a quiet smile. The wondrous brilliancy
+of his eyes betrayed only to a few friends and confidants the important
+resolves and thoughts which moved the soul of the young general.
+
+In virtue of the order of the Convention, the newly-appointed General
+Bonaparte was to go to the army of the republic which was now stationed
+in Italy; and he received secret instructions from the Directory
+concerning Genoa. Bonaparte left Paris, to gather, as he hoped, fresh
+laurels and new victories.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII. BONAPARTE'S IMPRISONMENT.
+
+
+On the 25th day of March, 1794. General Bonaparte entered the
+headquarters of the French army in Nice. He was welcomed with joy and
+marks of distinction, for the fame of his heroic deeds before Toulon
+had preceded him; and on Bonaparte's pale, proud face, with its dark,
+brilliant eyes, was written that he was now come into Italy to add fresh
+laurels to the victor's crown won before Toulon.
+
+The old commander-in-chief of the French army, General Dumerbion,
+confined oftentimes to his bed through sickness, was very willing to be
+represented by General Bonaparte, and to place every thing in his hands;
+and the two representatives of the people, Ricord and Robespierre (the
+younger brother of the all-powerful dictator)--these two representatives
+in the army corps of Italy bound themselves in intimate friendship with
+the young general, who seemed to share their glowing enthusiasm for the
+republic, and their hatred against the monarchy and the aristocrats.
+They cherished, moreover, an unreserved confidence in the military
+capacities of young Bonaparte, and always gave to his plans their
+unconditional assent and approbation. Upon Napoleon's suggestion
+batteries were erected on the coast of Provence for the security of the
+fleet and of trading-vessels; and when this had been accomplished,
+the general began to carry out the plan which he had laid before the
+representatives of the republic, and according to which the republican
+army, with its right and left wings advancing simultaneously on the
+sea-coast, was to march through the neutral territory of Genoa into
+Italy.
+
+This plan of Bonaparte was crowned with the most unexpected success.
+Without observing the neutrality of Genoa, Generals Massena and Arena
+marched through the territory of the proud Italian republic, and thus
+began the bloody war which was to desolate the Italian soil for so many
+years.
+
+Ever faithful to Bonaparte's war-schemes, which the general-in-chief,
+Dumerbion, and the two representatives of the people, Ricord and
+Robespierre, had sanctioned, the French columns moved from the valleys,
+within whose depths they had so long and so uselessly shed their
+blood, up to the heights and conquered the fortresses which the King of
+Sardinia had built on the mountains for the protection of his frontiers.
+Thus Fort Mirabocco, on the pass of the Cross, fell into the hands of
+General Dumas, who then conquered the intrenched Mount Cenis; thus the
+pass of Tenda, with the fortress Saorgio, was captured by the French;
+and there, in the general depot of the Piedmontese army, they found
+sixty cannon and war materials of all kinds.
+
+The French had celebrated their first victories in Italy, and both
+commanding officers of the fortresses of Mirabocco and Saorgio had to
+pay for these triumphs in Turin with the loss of their lives; whilst
+General Bonaparte, "as the one to whose well-matured plans and
+arrangements these brilliant results were due," received from the
+Convention brilliant encomiums.
+
+But suddenly the state of affairs assumed another shape, and at one blow
+all the hopes and plans of the young, victorious general were destroyed.
+
+Maximilian Robespierre had fallen; with him fell the whole party; then
+fell his brother, who a short time before had returned to Paris, and had
+there endeavored to obtain from Maximilian new and more ample powers
+for Bonaparte, and even the appointment to the chief command of the
+army--there fell also Ricord, who had given to General Bonaparte the
+letter of secret instructions for energetic negotiations with the
+government of Genoa, and to carry out which instructions Bonaparte had
+at this time gone to that city.
+
+As he was returning to his headquarters in Saona, from Paris had arrived
+the new representatives, who came to the army of Italy as delegates of
+the Convention, and were armed with full powers.
+
+These representatives were Salicetti, Albitte, and Laporte. The first of
+these, a countryman of Bonaparte, had been thus far his friend and his
+party associate. He was in Corsica at the same time as Napoleon, in the
+year 1793; he had been, like his young friend, a member of the Jacobin
+Club of Ajaccio, and Salicetti's speeches had not been inferior to those
+of Napoleon, either in wildness or in exalted republicanism.
+
+But now Salicetti had become the representative of the moderate party;
+and it was highly important for him to establish himself securely in his
+new position, and to give to the Convention a proof of the firmness
+of his sentiments by manifesting the hatred which he had sworn to the
+terrorists, and to all those who, under the fallen regime, had obtained
+recognition and distinction.
+
+General Bonaparte had been a friend of the young Robespierre; loudly and
+openly he had expressed his republican and democratic sentiments; he
+had been advanced under the administration of Robespierre, from
+simple lieutenant to general; he had been sent to Genoa, with secret
+instructions by the representatives of the Committee of Safety, made up
+of terrorists--all this was sufficient to make him appear suspicious
+to the moderate party, and to furnish Salicetti an opportunity to show
+himself a faithful partisan of the new system of moderation.
+
+General Bonaparte was, by order of the representatives of the people,
+Salicetti and Albitte, arrested at his headquarters in Saona, because,
+as the warrant for arrest, signed by both representatives, asserted:
+"General Bonaparte had completely lost their confidence through his
+suspicious demeanor, and especially through the journey which he had
+lately made to Genoa." The warrant of arrest furthermore ordered
+that General Bonaparte, whose effects should be sealed and his papers
+examined, was to be sent to Paris, under sure escort, and be brought for
+examination before the Committee of Safety.
+
+If this order were carried into execution, then Bonaparte was lost; for,
+though Robespierre had fallen, yet with his fall the system of blood and
+terror had not been overthrown in Paris; it had only changed its name.
+
+The terrorists, who now called themselves the moderates, exercised the
+same system of intimidation as their predecessors; and to be brought
+before the Committee of Safety, signified the same thing as to receive a
+death-warrant.
+
+Bonaparte was lost, if it truly came to this, that he must be led to
+Paris.
+
+This was what Junot, the present adjutant of Napoleon, and his faithful
+friend and companion, feared. It was therefore necessary to anticipate
+this order, and to procure freedom to Bonaparte.
+
+A thousand schemes for the rescue of his beloved chief, crossed the soul
+of the young man. But how make them known to the general? how induce
+him to flee, since all approaches to him were forbidden? His zeal, his
+inventive friendship, succeeded at last in finding a means. One of the
+soldiers, who was placed as sentry at the door of the arrested general,
+was bribed by Junot; through him a letter from Junot reached Bonaparte's
+hands, which laid before him a scheme of flight that the next night
+could be accomplished with Junot's help.
+
+Not far from Bonaparte's dwelling Junot awaited the answer, and soon a
+soldier passed by and brought it to him.
+
+This answer ran thus: "In the propositions you make, I acknowledge your
+deep friendship, my dear Junot; you are also conscious of the friendship
+I have consecrated to you for a long time, and I trust you have
+confidence in it.
+
+"Man may do wrong toward me, my dear Junot; it is enough for me to be
+innocent; my conscience is the tribunal which I recognize as sole judge
+of my conduct.
+
+"This conscience is quiet when I question it; do, therefore, nothing,
+if you do not wish to compromise me. Adieu, dear Junot. Farewell, and
+friendship." [Footnote: Abrantes, "Memoires," vol. i., p. 241.]
+
+Meanwhile, notwithstanding his quiet conscience, Bonaparte was not
+willing to meet his fate passively and silently, and, perchance, it
+seemed to him that it was "not enough to be innocent," so as to be
+saved from the guillotine. He therefore addressed a protest to both
+representatives of the people who had ordered his arrest, and this
+protest, which he dictated to his friend Junot, who had finally
+succeeded in coming to Bonaparte, is so extraordinary and so peculiar
+in its terseness of style, in its expressions of political sentiment; it
+furnishes so important a testimony of the republican democratic opinions
+of the young twenty-six-year-old general, that we cannot but give here
+this document.
+
+Bonaparte then dictated to his friend Junot as follows:
+
+"To the representatives Salicetti and Albitte:
+
+"You have deprived me of my functions, you have arrested me and declared
+me suspected.
+
+"I am, then, ruined without being condemned; or else, which is much more
+correct, I am condemned without being heard.
+
+"In a revolutionary state exist two classes: the suspected and the
+patriots.
+
+"When those of the first class are accused, they are treated as the
+common law of safety provides.
+
+"The oppression of those of the second class is the ruin of public
+liberty. The judge must condemn only after mature deliberation, and when
+a series of unimpeachable facts reaches the guilty.
+
+"To denounce a patriot as guilty is a condemnation which deprives him of
+what is most dear--confidence and esteem.
+
+"In which class am I to be ranked?
+
+"Have I not been, since the beginning of the revolution, faithful to its
+principles?
+
+"Have I not always been seen at war with enemies at home, or as a
+soldier against the foreign foe?
+
+"I have sacrificed my residence in my country and my property to the
+republic; I have lost all for her.
+
+"By serving my country with some distinction at Toulon and in the
+Italian army, I have had my share in the laurels which that army has won
+at Saorgio, Queille, and Tanaro.
+
+"At the time of the discovery of Robespierre's conspiracy, my conduct
+was that of a man who is accustomed to recognize principles only.
+
+"It is therefore impossible to refuse me the title of patriot.
+
+"Why, then, am I declared suspect without being heard? Why am I arrested
+eight days after the news of the death of the tyrant?
+
+"I am declared suspect, and my papers are sealed!
+
+"The reverse ought to have taken place: my papers ought to have been
+unsealed; I ought to have been tried; explanations ought to have been
+sought for, and then I might have been declared suspect if there were
+sufficient motives for it.
+
+"It is decided that I must go to Paris under a warrant of arrest
+which declares me suspect. In Paris they will conclude that the
+representatives have acted thus only after sufficient examination, and I
+shall be condemned with the sympathy which a man of that class deserves.
+
+"Innocent, patriotic, slandered, whatever may be the measures which the
+committee take, I cannot complain.
+
+"If three men were to declare that I have committed a crime, I could not
+complain if the jury should declare me guilty.
+
+"Salicetti, you know me. Have you, during the five years of our
+acquaintance, found in my conduct any thing which could be suspected as
+against the revolution?
+
+"Albitte, you know me not. No one can have given you convincing
+evidence against me. You have not heard me; you know, however, with what
+smoothness calumny oftentimes whispers.
+
+"Must I then be taken for an enemy of my country? Must the patriots
+ruin, without any regard, a general who has not been entirely useless
+to the republic? Must the representatives place the government under the
+necessity of acting unjustly and impolitically?
+
+"Mark my words; destroy the oppression which binds me down, and
+re-establish me in the esteem of the patriots.
+
+"If, then, at some future hour, the wicked shall still long for my
+life, well, then I consider it of so little importance--I have so often
+despised it--yes, the mere thought that it can be useful to the country,
+enables me to bear its burden with courage." [Footnote: Bourienne,
+"Memoires sur Napoleon," etc., vol. i., p. 63.]
+
+Whether these energetic protestations of Bonaparte, or whether some
+other motives, conduced to the result, Salicetti thought that with
+Napoleon's arrest he had furnished sufficient proof of his patriotic
+sentiments; it seemed to him enough to have obscured the growing fame
+of the young general, and to have plunged back into obscurity and
+forgetfulness him whose first steps in life's career promised such a
+radiant and glorious course!
+
+It matters not, however, what circumstances may have wrought out; the
+representatives Salicetti and Albitte issued a decree in virtue of
+which General Bonaparte was, after mature consideration and thorough
+examination of his papers, declared innocent and free from all
+suspicion. Consequently, Bonaparte was temporarily set at liberty; but
+he was suspended from his command in the Italian army, and was recalled
+to Paris, there to be made acquainted with his future destination.
+
+This destination was pointed out to him in a commission as
+brigadier-general of infantry in the province of Vendee, there to lead
+on the fratricidal strife against the fanatical Chouans, the faithful
+adherents of the king.
+
+Bonaparte refused this offer--first, because it seemed to him an
+insulting request to ask him to fight against his own countrymen; and
+secondly, because he did not wish to enter the infantry service, but to
+remain in the artillery.
+
+The Committee of Safety responded to this refusal of Bonaparte by
+striking his name from the list of generals appointed for promotion,
+because he had declined to go to the post assigned him.
+
+This decision fell upon the ambitious, heroic young man like a
+thunderbolt. He had dreamed of brilliant war deeds, of laurels, of fame,
+of a glorious future, won for him by his own sword; and now, all at
+once, he saw himself dragged away from this luminous track of fame upon
+which he had so brilliantly entered--he saw himself thrust back into
+obscurity, forgetfulness, and inactivity.
+
+A gloomy, misanthropic sentiment took possession of him; and, though a
+prophetic voice within said that the future still belonged to him, with
+its fame, its laurels, its victories, yet inactivity, care, and the
+wants of the present, hung with oppressive weight upon his mind.
+
+He withdrew from all social joys and recreations, he avoided his
+acquaintances, and only to a few friends did he open his foreboding
+heart; only with these did he associate, and to them alone he made his
+complaints of broken hopes, of life's career destroyed.
+
+To these few friends, whom Bonaparte in his misfortune found faithful
+and unchanged, belonged the Ferment family, and above all belonged
+Junot, who had come to Paris at the same time as Bonaparte, and who,
+though the latter was dismissed from the service, continued to call
+himself the adjutant of General Bonaparte.
+
+In the Permont family Napoleon was received with the same friendship and
+attention as in former days; Madame de Permont retained ever for the son
+of the friend of her youth, Letitia, a kindly smile, a genial sympathy,
+an intelligent appreciation of his plans and wishes; her husband
+manifested toward him all the interest of a parental regard; her son
+Albert was full of tenderness and admiration for him; and her younger
+daughter Laura jested and conversed with him as with a beloved brother.
+
+In this house every thing seemed pleasant and friendly to Bonaparte;
+thither he came every day, and mixed with the social circles, which
+gathered in the evening in the drawing-rooms of the beautiful, witty
+Madame de Permont; and where men even of diverging political sentiments,
+aristocrats and ci-devants of the first water, were to be found. But
+Madame de Permont had forbidden all political discussion in her saloon;
+and General Bonaparte, now compelled to inactivity, dared no more show
+his anger against the Committee of Safety, or against the Convention,
+than the Count de Montmorency or any of the proud ladies of the former
+quarter of St. Germain.
+
+Not only the inactivity to which he was condemned, not only the
+destruction of all his ambitious hopes, burdened the mind of Bonaparte,
+but also the material pressure under which he now and then found
+himself, and which seemed to him a shame and a humiliation. With gloomy
+grudge he gazed at those young elegants whom he met on the Boulevards
+in splendid toilet, on superb horses--at these incroyables who, in the
+first rays of the sun of peace, from the soil of the republic, yet moist
+with blood, had sprung up as so many mushrooms of divers colors and
+varied hues.
+
+"And such men enjoy their happiness!" exclaimed Bonaparte,
+contemptuously, as once in the Champs Elysees he sat before a
+coffee-house, near one of those incroyables, and with violent emotion
+starting up, he pushed his seat back and nearly broke the feet of his
+exquisitely dressed neighbor.
+
+To be forgotten, to be set in the background, to be limited in means,
+was always to him a source of anger, which manifested itself now in
+impassioned vehemence, now in vague, gloomy dreaminess, from which
+he would rise up again with some violent sarcasm or some epigrammatic
+remark.
+
+But whilst he thus suffered, was in want, and had so much to endure, his
+mind and heart were always busy. His mind was framing new plans to
+bring to an end these days of inactivity, to open a new path of fame and
+glory; his heart dreamed of a sweet bliss, of another new love!
+
+The object of this love was the sister of his brother's wife, the
+young Desiree Clary. Joseph Bonaparte, who was now in Marseilles as
+war-commissioner, had married there one of the daughters of the rich
+merchant Clary; and her younger sister Desiree was the one to whom
+Napoleon had devoted his heart. The whole Bonaparte family was now in
+Marseilles, and had decided to make their permanent residence in France,
+as their return to Corsica was still impossible; for General Paoli, no
+longer able to hold the island, had called the English to his help, and
+the assembled Consulta, over which Paoli presided, had invited the King
+of England to become sovereign of the island. The French party, at whose
+head had been the Bonaparte family, was overcome, and could no longer
+lift up head or voice.
+
+Bonaparte came often to Marseilles to visit his family, which consisted
+of his mother Letitia, her three daughters, her two younger sons, and
+her brother, the Abbe Fesch. There, he had seen every day, in the house
+of his brother, Desiree Clary, and the beautiful, charming maid had not
+failed to leave in the heart of the young general a deep impression.
+Desiree seemed to return this inclination, and a union of the two young
+lovers might soon have taken place, if fate, in the shape of accident,
+had not prevented it.
+
+Joseph was sent by the Committee of Safety to Genoa, with instructions;
+his young wife and her sister Desiree accompanied him. Perhaps the
+new, variable impressions of the journey, perhaps her separation from
+Bonaparte, and her association with other officers less gloomy than the
+saturnine Napoleon, all this seemed to cool the love of Desiree Clary;
+she no more answered Napoleon's letters, and, in writing to his brother
+Joseph, he made bitter complaints: "It seems that to reach Genoa the
+River Lethe must first be crossed, and therefore Desiree writes no
+more." [Footnote: See "Memoires du Roi Joseph," vol. i.]
+
+The only confidant to whom Bonaparte imparted these heart-complaints,
+was Junot. He had for him no secrecy of his innermost and deepest
+inclinations; to him he complained with grave and impassioned words
+of Desiree's changeableness; and Junot, whose worshipful love for his
+friend could not understand that any maiden, were she the most beautiful
+and glorious on earth, could ever slight the inclination of General
+Bonaparte, Junot shared his wrath against Desiree, who had begun the
+rupture between them by leaving unanswered two of Napoleon's letters.
+
+After having been angry and having complained in concert with Bonaparte,
+Junot's turn to be confidential had come. Bewildered, and blushing like
+a young maid, he avowed to his dear general that he also loved, and that
+he could hope for happiness and joy only if Napoleon's younger sister,
+the beautiful little Pauline, would be his wife.
+
+Bonaparte listened to him with a frowning countenance, and when Junot
+ended by asking his mediation with Pauline's mother, Napoleon asked in
+a grave tone, "But, what have you to live upon? Can you support Pauline?
+Can you, with her, establish a household which will be safe against
+want?"
+
+Junot, radiant with joy, told him how, anticipating this question of
+Napoleon, he had written to his father, and had asked for information
+in regard to his means; and that his father had just now answered his
+questions, and had replied that for the present he could not give him
+anything, but that after his death the inheritance of his son would
+amount to twenty thousand francs.
+
+"I shall be one day rich," exclaimed Junot, gayly, as he handed to
+Napoleon the letter of his father, "for with my pay I will have an
+income of twelve hundred livres. My general, I beseech you, write to
+the Citoyenne Bonaparte; tell her that you have read the letter of my
+father, and say a good word in my favor."
+
+Bonaparte did not at once reply. He attentively read the letter of
+Junot, senior, then returned it to his friend, and with head sunk down
+upon his breast he stared gloomily, with contracted eyebrows.
+
+"You answer not, general," exclaimed Junot, in extreme anguish. "You do
+not wish to be my mediator?"
+
+Bonaparte raised his head; his cheeks were paler than before, and a
+gloomy expression was in his eyes.
+
+"I cannot write to my mother to make her this proposition," said he, in
+a rough, severe tone. "That is impossible, my friend. You say that one
+day you will have an income of twelve hundred livres. That is, indeed,
+very fair, but you have them not now. Besides, your father's health is
+remarkably good, and he will make you wait a long time. For the present
+you have nothing; for your lieutenant's epaulets can be reckoned as
+nothing. As regards Pauline, she has not even that much. Let us then
+sum up: you have nothing; she has nothing! What is the total amount?
+Nothing. You cannot, therefore, be married now: let us wait. We shall,
+perhaps, friend, outlive these evil days. Yes, we shall outlive them,
+even if I have to become an exile, to seek for them in another portion
+of the world! Let us, then, wait!" [Footnote: Bonaparte's words.--See
+Abrantes, "Memoires," vol. i., p. 284.]
+
+And a wondrous, mysterious brilliancy and flash filled the eyes of
+General Bonaparte, as with a commanding voice he repeated, "Let us
+wait!"
+
+Was this one of those few and pregnant moments in which the mind with
+prophetic power gazes into the future? Had a corner of the veil which
+hid the future been lifted up before the glowing eagle-eye of Napoleon,
+and did he see the splendor and the glory of that future which were to
+be his? However great his imagination, however ambitious his dreams,
+however wide his hopes, yet they all were to be one day surpassed by
+the reality. For would he not have considered a madman him, who, at this
+hour, would have told him: "Smooth the furrows on your brow, Bonaparte;
+be not downcast about the present. You are now in want, you are thrust
+aside; forgetfulness and obscurity are now your lot; but be of good
+cheer, you will be emperor, and all Europe will lie trembling at your
+feet. You love the young Desiree Clary, and her indifference troubles
+you; but be of good cheer, you will one day marry the daughter of
+a Caesar, and the little Desiree, the daughter of a merchant from
+Marseilles, will one day be Sweden's queen! You refuse to Junot, your
+friend, the gratification of his wishes, because he possesses nothing
+but his officer's epaulets: but be of good cheer, for you will one day
+convert the little Lieutenant Junot into a duke, and give him a kingdom
+for a dowry! You feel downhearted and ashamed, because your sister
+Pauline is not rich, because she possesses nothing but her beauty and
+her name: but be of good cheer, she will one day be the wife of the
+wealthiest prince of Italy; all the treasures of art will be gathered
+in her palace, and yet she will be the most precious ornament of that
+palace!"
+
+Surely the General Bonaparte would have laughed at the madman, who, in
+the year 1795, should have thus spoken to him--and yet a mere decade of
+years was to suffice for the realization of all these prophecies, and to
+turn the incredible into a reality.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX. THE THIRTEENTH VENDEMIAIRE.
+
+
+The days of terror, and of blood, under which France has sighed so long,
+were not to end with the fall of Robespierre. Another enemy of the rest
+and peace of France had now made its entrance into Paris--hunger began
+to exercise its dreary rale of horror, and to fill the hearts of men
+with rage and despair.
+
+Everywhere throughout France the crops had failed, and the republic had
+too much to do with the guillotine, with the political struggles in the
+interior, with the enemies on the frontier, she had been so busy with
+the heads of her children, that she could have no care for the welfare
+of their stomachs.
+
+The corn-magazines were empty, and in the treasury of the republican
+government there was no money to buy grain in foreign markets. Very soon
+the want of bread, the cry for food, made itself felt everywhere; soon
+hunger goaded into new struggles of despair the poor Parisian people,
+already so weary with political storms, longing for rest, and exhausted
+by conflicts. Hunger drove them again into politics, hunger converted
+the women into demons, and their husbands into fanatical Jacobins. Every
+day, tumults and seditious gatherings took place in Paris; the murmuring
+and howling crowd threatened to rise up. Every day appeared at the bar
+of the Convention the sections of Paris, entreating with wild cries for
+a remedy for their distress. At every step in the streets one was met by
+intoxicated women, who tried to find oblivion of their hunger in wine,
+and to whom, notwithstanding their drunkenness, the consciousness of
+their calamity remained. These drunken women, with the gestures of
+madness, shouted: "Bread! give us bread! We had bread at least in the
+year '93! Bread! Down with the republic! Down with the Convention, which
+leaves us to starve!"
+
+To these shouts responded other masses of the people: "Down with the
+constitutionalists! Long live the Mountain! Long live the Convention!"
+
+Civil war, which in its exhaustion had remained subdued for a moment,
+threatened to break out with renewed rage, for the parties stood
+face to face in determined hostility, and "Down with the
+constitutionalists!--down with the republicans!" was the watchword of
+these parties.
+
+For a moment it seemed as if the Mountain, as if the revolution, would
+regain the ascendency, as if the terrorists would once more seize
+the rudder which had slipped from their blood-stained hands. But the
+Convention, which for a time had remained undecided, trembling and
+vacillating, rose at length from its lethargy to firm, energetic
+measures, and came to the determination to restore peace at any price.
+
+The people, stirred up by the terrorists, the furious men of the
+Mountain, had to be reduced to silence, and the cry, "Long live the
+constitution of '93!--down with the Convention!"--this cry, which every
+day rolled on through the streets of Paris like the vague thunderings
+of the war-drum,--had to be put down by armed force. Barrere,
+Collot d'Herbois, Billaud Varennes, the remnant of the sanguinary
+administration of Robespierre, the terrorists who excited the people
+against the Convention, who pressed on the Thermidorists, and wanted
+to occupy their place, these were the ones who with their adherents
+and friends threatened the Convention and imperilled its existence. The
+Convention rose up in its might and punished these leaders of sedition,
+so as through fear and horror to disperse the masses of the people.
+
+Barrere, Collot d'Herbois, and Billaud Varennes, were arrested and sent
+to Cayenne; six of their friends, six republicans and terrorists, were
+also seized, and as they were convicted of forging plots against the
+Convention and the actual administration, they were sentenced to death.
+A seventh had also been at the head of this conspiracy; and this seventh
+one, who with the others had been sentenced to death, and whom the
+Committee of Safety had watched for everywhere, to bring down upon him
+the chastisement due, this seventh one was Salicetti--the same Salicetti
+who after the fall of Robespierre had arrested General Bonaparte as
+suspect. Bonaparte had never forgiven him, and though he often met him
+in the house of Madame de Permont, and appeared to be reconciled with
+him, yet he could not forget that he was the one who had stopped him
+in the midst of his course of fame, that it was he who had debarred him
+from his whole career.
+
+"Salicetti has done me much harm," said Bonaparte to Madame de Permont,
+and a strange look from his eyes met her face--"Salicetti has destroyed
+my future in its dawn. He has blighted my plans of fame in their bud.
+I repeat, he has done me much harm. He has been my evil spirit. I
+can never forget it," but added he, thoughtfully, "I will now try to
+forgive." [Footnote: Abrantes, vol. i, p. 300.]
+
+And again a peculiar, searching look of his eyes met the face of Madame
+de Permont.
+
+She, however, turned aside, she avoided his look, for she dared not tell
+him that Salicetti, for whom the Convention searched throughout Paris so
+as to bring upon him the execution of his death-warrant--that Salicetti,
+whom Bonaparte so fiercely hated, was hid a few steps from him in the
+little cabinet near the drawing-room.
+
+Like Bonaparte, Salicetti was the countryman of Madame de Permont; in
+the days of his power, he had saved the husband and the son of Panonia
+from the persecution of the terrorists, and lie had now come to ask
+safety from those whom he had once saved.
+
+Madame de Permont had not had the courage to refuse an asylum to
+Salicetti; she kept him secreted in her house for weeks; and during all
+these weeks, Bonaparte came daily to visit Madame de Permont and her
+children, and every day he turned the conversation upon Salicetti, and
+asked if they knew not yet where he was secreted. And every time, when
+Madame de Permont answered him in the negative, he gazed at her with a
+piercing look, and with his light, sarcastic smile.
+
+Meanwhile Salicetti's danger for himself, and those who secreted him,
+increased every day, and Madame de Permont resolved to quit Paris.
+The sickness of her husband, who was in Toulon, furnished her with the
+welcomed opportunity of a journey. She made known to the friends and
+acquaintances who visited her house, and especially to Bonaparte, that
+she had received a letter from the physician in Toulon, requesting her
+presence at her husband's bed of sickness. Bonaparte read the letter,
+and again the same strange look met the face of Madame de Permont.
+
+"It is, indeed, important," said he, "that you should travel, and I
+advise you to do so as soon as possible. Fatal consequences might ensue
+to M. de Permont, were you to delay any longer in going to Toulon."
+
+Madame de Permont made, therefore, all her arrangements for this
+journey. Salicetti, disguised as a servant, was to accompany her.
+Bonaparte still came as usual every day, and took great interest in
+the preparations for her journey, and conversed with her in the most
+friendly and pleasant manner. On the day of departure, he saluted her
+most cordially, assured her of his true, unswerving attachment, and,
+with a final, significant look, expressed a wish that her journey might
+be accomplished without danger.
+
+When Madame de Permont had overcome all difficulties, and she and her
+daughter had left Paris and passed the barriere, as the carriage rolled
+on without interruption (Salicetti, disguised as a servant, sitting
+near the postilion on the driver's seat), the housemaid handed to her
+a letter which General Bonaparte had given her, with positive orders to
+hand it to her mistress only when they should be beyond the outer gates
+of Paris.
+
+The letter ran thus: "I have never been deceived: I would seem to be in
+your estimation, if I did not tell you that, for the last twenty days, I
+knew that Salicetti was secreted in your house. Remember what I told
+you on the first day, Prairial, Madame de Permont--I had then the mental
+conviction of this secrecy. Now it is a matter of fact.--Salicetti, you
+see I could have returned to you the wrong which you perpetrated against
+me, and by so doing I should have revenged myself, whilst you wronged
+me without any offence on my part. Who plays at this moment the nobler
+part, you or I? Yes, I could have revenged myself, and I have not done
+it. You will, perhaps, say that your benefactress acted as a protecting
+shield. That is true, and it also is taken into consideration. Yet,
+even without this consideration, such as you were--alone, disarmed,
+sentenced--your head would even then have been sacred to me. Go, seek in
+peace a refuge where you can rise to nobler sentiments for your country.
+My mouth remains closed in reference to your name, and will no more
+utter it. Repent, and, above all things, do justice to my intentions. I
+deserve it, for they are noble and generous.
+
+"Madame de Permont, my best wishes accompany you and your daughter. You
+are two frail beings, without protection. Providence and prayers will
+accompany you. Be prudent, and during your journey never stop in large
+towns. Farewell, and receive the assurance of my friendship." [Footnote:
+Abrantes, "Memoires," vol. i., p. 351.]
+
+The nobility of mind which Bonaparte displayed toward his enemy was
+soon to receive its reward; for, whilst Salicetti, a fugitive, sick,
+and sentenced to death, was compelled to remain hidden, Bonaparte was
+emerging from the oblivion to which the ambitious zeal of Salicetti
+would have consigned him.
+
+When Napoleon, dismissed from his position, arrived in Paris, and
+appealed to Aubry, the chief of the war department, to be re-established
+in his command, he was told: "Bonaparte is too young to command an army
+as general-in-chief;" and Bonaparte answered: "One soon becomes old on
+the battle-field, and I come from it." [Footnote: Norvins, "Histoire de
+Napoleon," vol. i., p. 60.]
+
+But Aubry, in his functions of chief of the war department, was soon
+superseded by the representative Douclet de Ponte-Coulant, and this
+event gave to the position of the young general a different aspect.
+Ponte-Coulant had for some time followed with attention the course of
+the young general, whose military talents and warlike reputation had
+filled him with astonishment. He had especially been surprised at
+the plan for the conduct of the war and the conquest of Italy which
+Bonaparte had laid before the war committee. Now that Ponte-Coulant had
+been promoted to be chief of the war department, he sent for General
+Bonaparte, and attached him to the topographic committee, where the
+plans of campaigns were decided and the movements of each separate corps
+delineated.
+
+The forgotten one, doomed to inactivity, General Napoleon Bonaparte, now
+arose from his obscurity, and before him again opened life, the world,
+and fame's pathway, which was to lead him up to a throne. But the envy
+and jealousy of the party-men of the Convention ever threw obstacles
+before him on his glorious course, and the war-scheme which he
+now unfolded to the committee for the campaign did not receive the
+approbation of the successor of Ponte-Coulant in the war department, and
+it was thrust aside. A new political crisis was needed to place in the
+hands of Napoleon the command of the army, the ruling authority over
+France, and this crisis was at hand.
+
+Paris, diseased, still bleeding in its innermost life with a thousand
+wounds, was devoured by hunger. The unfortunate people, wretched from
+want and pain, during many past years, were now driven to despair. The
+political party leaders understood but too well how to take advantage of
+this, and to prey upon it. The royalists were busy instilling into the
+people's minds the idea that the return of the Bourbons would restore
+to miserable France peace and happiness. The terrorists told the people
+that the Convention was the sole obstacle to their rest and to their
+peace, that it was necessary to scatter it to the winds, and to
+re-establish the Constitution of 1793. The whole population of Paris was
+divided and broken into factions, struggling one against the other with
+infuriated passions. The royalists, strengthened by daily accessions
+of emigrants, who, under fictitious names and with false passports,
+returned to Paris to claim the benefit of the milder laws passed in
+their favor, constituted a formidable power in that city. Whole sections
+were devoted to them, and were secretly supplied by them with arms and
+provisions, so as finally to be prepared to act against the Convention.
+An occasion soon presented itself.
+
+The Convention had, through eleven of its committee members, prepared
+a new constitution, and had laid it before the people for adoption or
+rejection, according to the majority of votes. The whole country, with
+the exception of Paris, was in favor of this new constitution--she
+alone in her popular assemblies rejected it, declared the Convention
+dissolved, and the armed sections arose to make new elections. The
+Convection declared these assemblies to be illegal, and ordered their
+dissolution. The armed sections made resistance, congregated together,
+and by force opposed the troops of the Convention--the National
+Guards--commanded by General Menou. On the 12th Vendemiaire all Paris
+was under arms again; barricades were thrown up by the people, who
+swore to die in their defence sooner than to submit to the will of the
+Convention; the noise of drums and trumpets was heard in every street;
+all the horrors and cruelties of a civil war once more filled the
+capital of the revolution, and the city was drunk with blood!
+
+The people fought with the courage of despair, pressed on victoriously,
+and won from General Menou a few streets; whole battalions of the
+National Guards abandoned the troops of the Convention and went over to
+the sections. General Menou found himself in so dangerous a position
+as to be forced to conclude an armistice until the next day with the
+Section Lepelletier, which was opposed to him, up to which time the
+troops on either side were to suspend operations.
+
+The Section Lepelletier declared itself at once en permanence, sent
+her delegates to all the other sections, and called upon "the sovereign
+people, whose rights the Convention wished to usurp," to make a last and
+decisive struggle.
+
+The Convention found itself in the most alarming position; it trembled
+for its very existence, and already in fancy saw again the days of
+terror, the guillotine rising and claiming for its first victims the
+heads of the members of the Convention. A pallid fear overspread all
+faces as constantly fresh news of the advance of the sections reached
+them, when General Menou sent news of the concluded armistice.
+
+At this moment a pale young man rushed into the hall of session, and
+with glowing eloquence and persuasive manner entreated the Convention
+not to accept the armistice, not to give time to the sections to
+increase their strength, nor to recognize them as a hostile power to war
+against the government.
+
+This pale young man--whose impassioned language filled the minds of all
+his hearers with animosity against General Menou, and with fresh courage
+and desire to fight--was Napoleon Bonaparte.
+
+After he had spoken, other representatives rushed to the tribune, to
+make propositions to the Assembly, all their motions converging to the
+same end--all desired to have General Menou placed under arrest, and
+Bonaparte appointed in his place, and intrusted with the defence of the
+Convention and of the legislative power against the people.
+
+The Assembly accepted this motion, and appointed Bonaparte commanding
+officer of the troops of the Convention, and, for form's sake, named
+Barras, president of the Convention, commander-in-chief.
+
+Bonaparte accepted the commission; and now, at last, after so much
+waiting, so many painful months of inactivity, he found himself called
+to action; he stood again at the head of an army, however small it might
+be, and could again lift up the sword as the signal for the march to the
+fight.
+
+It is true this fight had a sad, horrible purpose; it was directed
+against the people, against the sections which declared themselves to be
+the committee of the sovereign people, and that they were fighting the
+holy fight of freedom against those who usurped their rights.
+
+General Bonaparte had refused to go to Vendee, because he wished not
+to fight against his own countrymen, and could not take part in a
+civil war; but now, at this hour of extreme peril, he placed himself
+in opposition to the people's sovereignty, and assumed command over the
+troops of the Convention, whose mission it was to subdue the people.
+
+Every thing now assumed a more earnest attitude; during the night the
+newly-appointed commanding officer sent three hundred chasseurs, under
+Murat, to bring to Paris forty cannon from the park of artillery in
+Sablons, and, when the morning of the 13th Vendemiaire began to dawn,
+the pieces were already in position in the court of the Tuileries and
+pointed against the people. Besides which, General Bonaparte had taken
+advantage of the night to occupy all the important points and places,
+and to arm them; even into the hall of session of the Convention he
+ordered arms and ammunition to be brought, that the representatives
+might defend themselves, in case they were pressed upon by the people.
+
+As the sun of the 13th Vendemiaire rose over Paris, a terrible
+street-fight began--the fight of the sovereign people against the
+Convention. It was carried on by both sides with the utmost bitterness
+and fierceness, the sections rushing with fanatic courage, with all the
+energy of hatred, against these soldiers who dared slay their brothers
+and bind their liberty in chains; the soldiers of the Convention fought
+with all the bitterness which the consciousness of their hated position
+instilled into them.
+
+The cannon thundered in every street and mingled their sounds with the
+cries of rage from the sectionnaires--the howlings of the women, the
+whiz of the howitzers, the loud clangs of the bells, which incessantly
+called the people to arms. Streams of blood flowed again through the
+streets; everywhere, near the scattered barricades, near the houses
+captured by storm, lay bloody corpses; everywhere resounded the cries of
+the dying, the shrieks and groans of the wounded, the wild shouts of the
+combatants. In the Church of St. Roche, and in the Theatre Francaise,
+the sectionnaires, driven from the neighboring streets by the troops of
+General Bonaparte, had gathered together and endeavored to defend these
+places with the courage of despair. But the howitzers of Bonaparte soon
+scattered them, and the contest was decided.
+
+The sections were defeated; the people, conquered by the Convention, had
+to recognize its authority; they were no more the sovereigns of France;
+they had found a ruler before whom they must bow.
+
+This ruler was yet called the Convention, but behind the Convention
+stood another ruler--General Bonaparte!
+
+It was he who had defeated the people, who had secured the authority to
+the Convention, and it was therefore natural that it should be thankful
+and exhibit its gratitude. General Bonaparte, in acknowledgment for
+the great services done to his country, was by the Convention appointed
+commander-in-chief of the army of the interior, and thus suddenly he
+saw himself raised from degrading obscurity to pomp and influence,
+surrounded by a brilliant staff, installed in a handsome palace by
+virtue of his office as chief officer, entitled to and justified in
+maintaining an establishment wherein to represent worthily the dignity
+of his new position.
+
+The 13th Vendemiaire, which dethroned the sovereign people, brought
+General Bonaparte a step nearer to the throne.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX. THE WIDOW JOSEPHINE BEAUHARNAIS.
+
+
+Meanwhile Josephine had passed the first months of her newly-obtained
+freedom in quiet contentment with her children in Fontainebleau, at the
+house of her father-in-law. Her soul, bowed down by so much misery
+and pain, needed quietness and solitude to allow her wounds to cease
+bleeding and to heal; her heart, which had experienced so much anguish
+and so many deceptions, needed to rest on the bosom of her children and
+her relatives, so as to be quickened into new life. Only in the solitude
+and stillness of Fontainebleau did she feel well and satisfied; every
+other distraction, every interruption of this quiet, orderly existence
+brought on a nervous trembling, which mastered her whole body, as if
+some other adversity was about to break upon her. The days of terror
+which she had passed in Paris, and especially the days she had outlived
+in prison, were ever fresh before her mind, and tormented her with their
+reminiscences alike in her vigils and in her dreams.
+
+She wanted to hear nothing of the world's events, nothing from Paris,
+the mention of which place filled her with fear and horror; and with
+tears in her eyes she entreated her father-in-law to omit all mention of
+the political changes and revolutions which took place there.
+
+But, alas! the politics from which Josephine fled, to which she closed
+her ears, rushed upon her against her will--they came to her in the
+shape of want and privation.
+
+Josephine, who wished to have nothing more to do with the affairs of
+this world, learned, through the deprivations which she had to endure,
+the want to which she and her family were exposed, that the world
+had not yet been pushed back into the old grooves, out of which
+the revolution had so violently lifted it up; that the republic yet
+exercised a despotic authority, and was not prepared to return to the
+heirs the property of the victims of the guillotine! The income
+and property of General Beauharnais had all been confiscated by
+the republic, for he had been executed as a state criminal, and
+the procedure had this in common with the ordinary actions of the
+government, that it never returned what it had once usurped. Even
+Josephine's father-in-law, as well as her aunt--Madame de Renaudin,
+who, after her husband's death, had been married to the Marquis de
+Beauharnais--had both in the revolutionary storms lost all their
+property, and saw themselves reduced to the last extremity. They lived
+from day to day with the greatest economy, upon the smallest means, and
+flattered themselves with the hope that justice would be done to the
+innocent victims of the revolution; that at last to the widow and
+children of the murdered General Beauharnais his income and property
+would be returned.
+
+Another hope remained to Josephine: reliance upon her relatives,
+especially upon her mother in Martinique. She had written to her as soon
+as she had obtained her liberty; she had entreated her mother, who had
+been a widow for two years, to rent all her property in Martinique, and
+to come to France, and at her daughter's side to enjoy a few quiet years
+of domestic happiness.
+
+But this hope also was to be destroyed, for the revolution in Martinique
+had committed the same devastations as in France, and the burning houses
+of their masters had been the bonfires whose flames were sent up to
+heaven by the newly-freed slaves in the name of the republic and of the
+rights of man. Madame Tascher de la Pagerie had experienced the same
+fate as all the planters in Martinique; her house and outbuildings had
+been burnt, her plantations destroyed, and a long time would be required
+before the fields could again be made to produce a harvest. Until then,
+Madame Tascher would be sorely limited in her means, and, if she did
+not succeed in selling some of her property and raising funds, would be
+without the money necessary to bring under cultivation the remnant of
+her large plantation. She was, therefore, not immediately prepared to
+supply her daughter with any considerable assistance, and Josephine
+endured the anguish of seeing not only herself and children, but also
+her dear mother, suffer through want and privation.
+
+To the need of gold to procure bare necessaries, was soon added the very
+lack of them. Famine, with all its horrors, was at hand; the people
+were clamoring for food, and the land-owners as well as the rich were
+suffering from the want of that prime necessary of life-bread! The
+Convention had adopted no measures to satisfy the demands of the howling
+populace, and it had to remain contented with making accessible to all
+such provisions as were in the land. One law, therefore, ordered all
+land-owners to deliver to the state their stores of meal; a second law
+prohibited any person from buying more than one pound of bread on the
+same day. The greatest delicacy in those days of common wretchedness
+was white bread, and there were many families that for a long time were
+unable to procure this luxury.
+
+Josephine herself had with many others to endure this privation: the
+costly white loaf was beyond her reach. In her depressed and sad lot the
+unfortunate widowed viscountess remained in possession of a treasure
+for which many of the wealthy and high-born longed in vain, and which
+neither gold nor wealth could procure--Josephine possessed friends,
+true, devoted friends, who forsook her not in the day of need, but stood
+the more closely at her side, helping and loving.
+
+Among these friends were, above all, Madame Dumoulin and M. Emery.
+Madame Dumoulin, the wife of a wealthy purveyor of the republican army,
+was at heart a true royalist, and had made it her mission, as much as
+was within her power, to assist with her means the most destitute from
+whom the revolution had taken their family joys and property. She aided
+with money and clothing the unfortunate emigrants, who, as prominent and
+influential friends of the king and of Old France, had abandoned their
+country, and who now, as nameless, wretched beggars, returned home to
+beg of New France the privilege at least to hunger and starve, and at
+last to die in their motherland. Madame Dumoulin had always an open
+house for those aristocrats and ci-devants who had the courage not to
+emigrate and to bow their despised heads to all the fluctuations of the
+republic, and had remained in France, though deprived by the republic of
+their ancestral names, property, and rank. Those aristocrats who had
+not migrated found a friendly reception in the house of the witty and
+amiable Madame Dumoulin, and twice a week she gathered those friends of
+the ancient regime to a dinner, which was prepared with all the luxury
+of former days, and which offered to her friends, besides material
+enjoyment, the pleasures of an agreeable and attractive company.
+
+Among Madame Dumoulin's friends who never failed to be present at these
+dinners was Josephine de Beauharnais, of whom Madame Dumoulin said she
+was the sunbeam of her drawing-room, for she warmed and vitalized all
+hearts. But this sunbeam had not the power to bring forth out of the
+unfruitful soil of the fatherland a few ears of wheat to turn its flour
+into white bread. As every one was allowed to buy bread only according
+to the numbers in the household, Madame Dumoulin could not give to her
+guests at dinner any white bread, and on her cards of invitation was the
+then usual form, "You are invited to bring a loaf of white bread."
+
+But it was beyond the means of the poor Viscountess de Beauharnais to
+fulfil this invitation; her purse was not sufficient to afford her twice
+a week the luxury of white bread. Madame Dumoulin, who knew this, came
+kindly to the rescue of Josephine's distress, and entreated her not to
+trouble herself with bringing bread, but to allow her to procure it for
+her friend.
+
+Josephine accepted this offer with tears of emotion, and she never
+forgot the goodness and kindness of Madame Dumoulin. In the days of her
+highest glory she remembered her, and once, when empress, radiant with
+jewels and ornaments of gold, as she stood in the midst of her court,
+related with a bewitching smile, to the ladies around her, that there
+was a time when she would have given a year of her life to possess but
+one of those jewels, not to adorn herself therewith, but to sell it, so
+as to buy bread for her children, and that in those days the excellent
+Madame Dumoulin had been a benefactress to her, and that she had
+received at her hands the bread of charity. [Footnote: "Memoires sur
+l'Imperatrice Josephine," par Mad. Ducrest, chap XXXVI.]
+
+The same abiding friendship was shown to Josephine by M. Emery, a banker
+who had a considerable business in Dunkirk, and who for many years had
+been in mercantile relations with the family of Tascher de la Pagerie in
+Martinique. Madame de la Pagerie had every year sent him the produce of
+her sugar plantations, and he had attended to the sale to the largest
+houses in Germany. He knew better than any one else the pecuniary
+circumstances of the Pagerie family; he knew that, if at present Madame
+de la Pagerie could not repay his advanced sums, her plantations would
+soon produce a rich harvest, and even now be a sufficient security. M.
+Emery was therefore willing to assist the daughter of Madame Tascher de
+la Pagerie, and several times he advanced to Josephine considerable sums
+which she had drawn upon her mother.
+
+The cares of every-day life, its physical necessities, lifted Josephine
+out of the sad melancholy in which she had lulled her sick, wounded
+heart, within the solitude of Fontainebleau. She must not settle down in
+this inactive twilight, nor wrap herself up in the gloomy gray veil of
+widowhood! Life had still claims upon her; it called to her through
+her children's voices, for whom she had a future to provide, as well
+as through the voice of her own youth, which she must not intrust
+hopelessly to the gloomy Fontainebleau.
+
+And the young mother dared not and wanted not to close her ears to these
+calls; she arose from her supineness, and courageously resolved to
+begin anew life's battle, and to claim her share from the enjoyments and
+pleasures of this world.
+
+She first, by the advice of M. Emery, undertook a journey to Hamburg,
+to make some arrangements with the rich and highly respectable
+banking-house of Mathiesen and Sissen. Mathiesen, the banker, who had
+married a niece of Madame de Genlis, had always shown the greatest
+hospitality to all Frenchmen who had applied to him, and he had assisted
+them with advice and deeds. To him Josephine appealed, at the request
+of M. Emery, so as to procure a safe opportunity to send letters to her
+mother in Martinique, and also to obtain from him funds on bills drawn
+upon her mother.
+
+M. Mathiesen met her wishes with a generous pleasure, and through him
+Josephine received sufficient sums of money to protect her from further
+embarrassments and anxieties, at least until her mother, who was on the
+eve of selling a portion of her plantation, could send her some money.
+
+On her return from her business-journey to Hamburg, as she was no longer
+a poor widow without means, she adopted the courageous resolution of
+leaving her asylum and returning to dangerous and deserted Paris, there
+to prepare for her son an honorable future, and endeavor to procure for
+her daughter an education suited to her rank and capacities.
+
+At the end of the year 1795, Josephine returned with her two children
+to Paris, which one year before she had left so sorrowfully and so
+dispirited.
+
+What changes had been wrought during this one year! How the face
+of things had been altered! The revolution had bled to death. The
+thirteenth Vendemiaire had scattered to the winds the seditious elements
+of revolution, and the republic was beginning quietly and peacefully to
+grow into stature. The Convention, with its Mountain, its terrorists,
+its Committee of Safety, its persecutions and executions, had outlived
+its power, which it had consigned to the pages of history with so many
+tears and so much blood. In a strange contradiction with its own bloody
+deeds, it celebrated the last day of its existence by a law which, as a
+farewell to the thousand corpses it had sacrificed to the revolution,
+it had printed on its gory brow. On the day of its dissolution the
+Convention gave to France this last law: "Capital punishment is forever
+abolished." [Footnote: Norvins, "Histoire de Napoleon," vol. i., p. 82.]
+
+With this farewell kiss, this love-salutation to the France of the
+future, to the new self-informing France, the Convention dissolved
+itself, and in its stead came the Council of Elders, the Council of Five
+Hundred, and lastly the Directory, composed of five members, among whom
+had been elected the more eminent members of the Convention, namely,
+Barras and Carnot.
+
+Josephine's first movement in Paris was to find the lovely friend whom
+she made in the Carmelite prison, and to whom she in some measure owed
+her life, to visit Therese de Fontenay and see if the heart of the
+beautiful, celebrated woman had in its days of happiness and power
+retained its remembrances of those of wretchedness and mortal fears.
+
+Therese de Fontenay was now the wife of Tallien, who, elected to the
+Council of the Five Hundred, continued to play an influential
+and important part, and therefore had his court of flatterers and
+time-serving friends as well as any ruling prince. His house was one
+of the most splendid in Paris; the feasts and banquets which took place
+there reminded one, by their extravagant magnificence, of the days of
+ancient Rome, and that this remembrance might still be more striking,
+ladies in the rich, costly costumes of patrician matrons of ancient
+Rome appeared at those festivities not unworthy of a Lucullus. Madame
+Tallien--in the ample robe of wrought gold of a Roman empress, shod with
+light sandals, from which issued the beautiful naked feet, and the toes
+adorned with costly rings, her exquisitely moulded arms ornamented with
+massive gold bracelets; her short curly hair fastened together by a
+gold bandelet, which rose over the forehead in the shape of a diadem,
+bejewelled with precious diamonds; the mantle of purple, fringed
+with gold and placed on the shoulders--was in this costume of such a
+wonderful beauty, that men gazed at her with astonishment and women with
+envy.
+
+And this beautiful woman, often worshipped and adored, though sometimes
+slandered, had amid her triumphs kept a faithful remembrance of the
+past. She received Josephine with the affection of a true friend. In
+her generosity she allowed her no time to proffer any request, but came
+forward herself with offers to intercede for her friend, and to use all
+the means at her disposal, omitting nothing that would help Josephine to
+recover her fortune, her lost property. With all the eagerness of true
+love she took the arm of her friend and led her to Tallien, and with the
+enchanting smile and attitude of a commanding princess she told him that
+he must help Josephine to become happy again, that every thing he could
+do for her would be rewarded by an increasing love; that if he did not
+do justice to Josephine, she would punish him by her anger and coldness.
+
+Tallien listened with complacency to the praiseworthy commands of
+his worshipped Therese, and promised to use all his influence to have
+justice done to the will of the sacrificed General de Beauharnais. He
+himself accompanied Josephine to Barras, that she might present her
+application to him personally and request at his hands restitution of
+her property. She was received by Barras, as well as by the other four
+directors, with the greatest politeness; each promised to attend to
+her case and to return to the widow and to the children of Alexandre de
+Beauharnais the property which had been so unjustly taken from them.
+
+It is true, weeks and months of waiting and uncertainty passed away,
+but Josephine had hope for a comforter; she had, besides, her beautiful
+friend Therese Tallien, who with affectionate eloquence endeavored to
+instil courage into Josephine, and by her constant petitions and
+prayers did not allow the Directory, amid its many important affairs
+of government, to forget the case of the poor young widow. Therese took
+care also that Josephine should appear in society at the receptions and
+balls given by the members of the new government; and when made timid
+through misfortune, and depressed at heart by the uncertainty of her
+narrow lot, she desired to keep aloof from these rejoicings, Therese
+knew how to convince her that she must sacrifice her love of retirement
+to her children; that it was her duty to accept the invitations of the
+Directory, so as to keep alive their interest and favor in her behalf;
+and that, were she to retreat into solitude and obscurity, she would
+thereby imperil her future and that of her children.
+
+Josephine submitted to this law of necessity, and appeared in society.
+She screened her cares and her heartsores under the covert of smiles,
+she forced herself into cheerfulness, and when now and then the smile
+vanished from her lip and tears filled her eyes, she thought of her
+children, and, mastering her sorrows, she was again the beautiful,
+lovely woman, whose elegant manners and lively and witty conversation
+charmed and astonished every one.
+
+At last, after long months of uncertainty, Therese Tallien, her face
+beaming with joy, came one morning to visit her friend Josephine, and
+presented to her a paper with a large seal, which Tallien had given her
+that very morning.
+
+It was an order, signed by the five directors, instructing the
+administrator of the domains to relieve the capital and the property of
+General Beauharnais from the sequestration laid upon them, and also to
+remove the seals from his furniture and his movables, and to reinstate
+the Widow Beauharnais in possession of all the property left by her
+husband.
+
+Josephine received this paper with tears of joy, and, full of religious,
+devout gratitude, she fell on her knees and cried:
+
+"I thank Thee, my God! I thank Thee! My children will no more suffer
+from want, and now I can give them a suitable education."
+
+She then fell upon her friend's neck, thanking her for her faithfulness,
+and swore her everlasting friendship and affection.
+
+The dark clouds which had so long overshadowed Josephine's life were now
+gone, and in its place dawned day, bright and clear.
+
+But the sun which was to illumine this day with wondrous glory had
+not yet appeared. Therese at this hour reminded her friend of a day in
+prison when Josephine had assured her friends trembling for her life
+that she was not going to die, that she would one day be Queen of
+France.
+
+"Yes," said Josephine, smiling and thoughtful, "who knows if this
+prophecy will not be fulfilled? To-day begins for me a new life. I have
+done with the past, and it will sink behind me in the abyss of oblivion.
+I trust in the future! It must repay me for all the tears and anxieties
+of my past life, and who knows if it will not erect me a throne?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI. THE NEW PARIS.
+
+
+Yes, they were now ended, the days of sufferings and privations! The
+wife of General Beauharnais was no more the poor widow who appeared as
+a petitioner in the drawing-rooms of the members of the Directory, and
+often obliged, even in the worst kind of weather, to go on foot to the
+festivals of Madame Tallien, because she lacked the means to pay for
+a cab; she was no longer the poor mother who had to be satisfied to
+procure inferior teachers for her children, because she could not
+possibly pay superior ones.
+
+Now, as by a spell, all was changed, and gold was the magic wand which
+had produced it. Thanks to this talisman, the Viscountess de Beauharnais
+could now quit the small, remote, gloomy dwelling in which she had
+hitherto resided, and could again procure a house, gather society round
+about her, and, above all things, provide for the education of her
+children.
+
+This was her dearest duty, her most important obligation, with which
+she busied herself even before she rented a modestly-furnished room.
+Her Eugene, the darling of her heart, desired like his father to devote
+himself to a military life, and his mother took him to a boarding-school
+in St. Germain, where young men of distinguished families received their
+education. Her twelve-year-old daughter Hortense, of whom Josephine had
+said, "She is my angel with the gold locks, who alone can smile away
+the tears from my eyes and sorrow from my heart"--Hortense entered
+the newly-opened educational establishment of Madame Campan, once the
+lady-in-waiting of Marie Antoinette. Josephine wept hot tears as she
+accompanied her Hortense into the boarding-school, and, embracing her
+blond curly-haired angel, she closely pressed her to her heart, and
+said:
+
+"Judge how much I love you, my daughter, since I have the courage to
+leave you and to deprive myself of the greatest of my life's enjoyments!
+Ah, I shall be very lonesome, Hortense, but my thoughts will be with you
+continually--with you and your brother Eugene. Live to be an honor to
+your father, grow and prosper to be your mother's happiness!"
+
+Then with a kiss she took leave of her daughter, and comfortless and
+alone she returned to her solitary apartments in Paris.
+
+During the next eight days her doors were shut; she opened them to none,
+not even to her friend Therese, and not once did Josephine leave her
+dwelling during this time, nor did she accept any of the invitations
+which came to her from all sides.
+
+Her heart was yet wrapped in mourning for her separation from her
+children, and, with all the intensity of an affectionate mother's love,
+she preferred leaving her anguish to die out of itself than to suppress
+it with amusements and pleasures.
+
+But after this last sorrow had been overcome, Josephine, with serenity
+and a smile of cheerfulness, came again from her solitude into the
+world which called her forth with all its voices of joy, pleasure,
+and flattery. And Josephine no longer closed her ears to these sweet
+attractive voices. She had long enough suffered, wept, fasted; now
+she ought to reap enjoyments, and gather her portion of this life's
+pleasures; now she must live! The past had set behind her, and, as one
+new-born or risen from the dead, Josephine walked into the world with a
+young maiden heart, and a mind opened to all that is beautiful, great,
+and good; her soul filled with visions, hopes, desires, and dreams.
+Out of the widow's veil came forth the young, charming Creole, and her
+radiant eyes saluted the world with intelligent looks and an expression
+of the most attractive goodness.
+
+Her next care was to procure a pleasant, convenient home suited to her
+rank. She purchased from the actor Talma a house which he possessed
+in the Street Chautereine, and where he had, during the storms of the
+revolution, received his friends as well as all the literary, artistic,
+and political notables of the day with the kindest hospitality. It
+was not a brilliant, distinguished hotel, no splendid building, but a
+small, tastefully and conveniently arranged house, with pretty rooms, a
+cheerful drawing-room, lovely garden, exactly suited to have therein a
+quiet, agreeable, informal pastime. Josephine possessed in the highest
+degree the art of her sex to furnish rooms with elegance and taste,
+so as to make every one in them comfortable, satisfied, at ease, and
+cheerful.
+
+The drawing-room of the widow of General Beauharnais became soon the
+central point where all her friends of former days found themselves
+together again, and all the remnants of the good old society found
+reception; where the learned, the artist, the poet, met with a refuge,
+there to rest for a few hours from political strife, to put aside the
+serpent's skin of assumed republican manners, and again assume the
+tone and forms of the higher society. Such drawing-rooms in these
+revolutionary days were extremely few; no one dared to become
+conspicuous; every one was reserved and quiet; every one shrank from
+making himself suspected of being a ci-devant, even if under the
+republican toga he left visible his dress-coat of the upper society with
+its embroidery of gold. Men had entirely broken with the past, wishing
+to deny it, and not be under the yoke of its forms and rules; it was
+therefore necessary, out of the chaos of the republic, to create a
+new world, a new society, new forms of etiquette, and new fashions.
+Meanwhile, until these new fashions for republican France should be
+found, men had recourse (so as not to go back to the days of the late
+monarchy of France) to the republics of olden times; the ladies dressed
+according to the patterns of the old statues of the deities of Greece
+and Rome, giving receptions in the style of ancient Greece, and banquets
+laid out in all the extravagant splendors of a Lucullus.
+
+The members of the republican Directory, whose residence was in the
+palace of the Luxemburg, took the lead in all these neo-Grecian and
+neo-Roman festivities; and, whereas they loudly proclaimed that it was
+necessary to furnish opportunities to the working-classes and laborers
+to gain money, and that it was incumbent on all to promote industry,
+they rivalled each other in their efforts to exhibit an extravagant
+pomp and a brilliant display. On reception-days of the members of the
+Directory the public streamed in masses toward the Luxemburg, there to
+admire the splendors of the five monarchs, and to rejoice that the days
+of the carmagnoles, the sans-culottes, the dirty blouse, and the bonnet
+rouge were at least gone by. The five directors, to the delight of the
+Parisian people, wore costly silk and velvet garments embroidered
+with gold, and on their hats, trimmed also with gold lace, waved large
+ostrich-plumes.
+
+Luxury celebrated its return to Paris, after having had to secrete
+itself, so long from the blood-stained hands of the sans-culottes,
+in the most obscure corners of the deserted palaces of St. Germain.
+Pleasure, which had fled away horrified from the guillotine and from the
+terrorists, dared once more to show its rose-wreathed brow and smiling
+countenance, and here and there make its cheerful festivities resound.
+
+Men became glad, and dared to laugh again; they came out from the
+stillness of their homes, which anxiety had kept closed, to search for
+amusement, pleasure, and recreation; but no citizen dared to be select,
+none dared to assume aristocratic exclusiveness. One had to be pleased
+with a dinner at a tavern; with a glass of ice-water in a cafe, or to
+take part in a public ball which was opened to every one who could pay
+his fee of admission; and especially in the evening the public rushed to
+the theatre with the same eagerness that was exhibited in the morning
+to reach the shops of the bakers and butchers, where each received
+his portion of meat or bread by producing a card signed by the circuit
+commissioners. In front of these shops, as well as in front of the
+theatres, the pressure was so great that for hours it was necessary to
+fall into line, and sometimes go away dissatisfied; for the republic
+had yet retained the system of equality, so that the rich and the
+influential were not served any sooner than the poor and the unknown;
+there was only one exception: only one condition received distinction
+before the baker's shop and the theatre: it was that of the mothers of
+the future, those women whose external appearance revealed that they
+would soon bring forth a future citizen, a new soldier for the republic,
+which had lost so many of its sons upon the scaffold and on the
+battle-field.
+
+It was so long that one had been deprived of laughter and merriment, and
+had walked with sad countenance and grave solemnity through the days
+of blood and terror, that now every occasion for hilarity was received
+eagerly and thankfully, and every opportunity for mirth and amusement
+sought out. The theatres were therefore filled every evening with an
+attentive, thankful audience; every jest of the actor, every part well
+performed, elicited enthusiastic approbation. It is true no one yet
+dared act any other pieces than those which had reference to the
+revolution, and in some shape or other celebrated the republic, accusing
+and vilifying the royalists. The pieces represented were--"The Perfect
+Equality," or else "Thee and Thou," "The Last Trial of the Queen,"
+"Tarquin, or the Fall of the Monarchy," "Marat's Apotheosis," and
+similar dramas, all infused with republicanism; still, men faint at
+heart and satiated with the republic, hastened notwithstanding to the
+theatre, to enjoy an hour of recreation and merriment.
+
+To be cheerful, happy, and joyous, seemed now to the Parisians the
+highest duty of life, and every thing was made subservient to it.
+The people had wept and mourned so long, that now, to shake off this
+oppressive heaviness of mind, they rushed with fanatical precipitancy
+into pleasure; they gave themselves up to the wildest orgies and
+bacchanals, and without disgust or shame abandoned themselves to the
+most immoral conduct. All tears were dried up as if by magic; honest
+poverty began to be ashamed of itself; and the wealth so carefully hid
+until now, was again brought to light; even those who in the days
+of revolutionary terror had become rich through the property of the
+sacrificed victims, exposed themselves to public gaze with impunity
+and without shame. They plundered and adorned themselves with a wealth
+acquired only through cunning, treachery, and murder. Everywhere feasts,
+banquets, and balls, were organized; and it was an ordinary event to
+find in the same company the accuser and the accused, the executioner
+and his victim, the murderer near the daughter of the man whose head he
+had given over to the guillotine!
+
+This was especially the case at the so-called victim balls (bals a la
+victime) which were given by the heirs, the sons and fathers of
+those who had perished by the guillotine. People gathered together
+in brilliant entertainments and balls to the honor and memory of the
+executed ones. Every one who could pay the large fee of admission to
+these bals a la victime were permitted to enter. Those who came there,
+not for pleasure, but to honor their dead, showed this intention by
+their clothing, and especially by the arrangement of their hair. To
+remind them that those who had been led to the guillotine had had their
+hair cut close, gentlemen now had theirs cut short, and the dressing
+of the hair a la victime was for gentlemen as much a fashion as the
+dressing of the hair a la Titus (the Roman emperor) was for the ladies.
+Besides this, the heirs of the victims wore some token of the departed
+ones, and ladies and gentlemen were seen in the blood-stained garments
+which their relatives had worn on their way to the scaffold, and which
+they had purchased with large sums of money from the executioner, that
+lord of Paris. It often happened that a lady in the blood-stained dress
+of her mother danced with the son of the man who had delivered her
+mother to the guillotine; that a son of a member of the Convention of
+1793 led, in the minuet, the graceful "pas de chale," with the daughter
+of an emigrant marquis. The most fanatical men of the days of terror,
+now exalted into wealthy land-owners, led on in the gay waltz the
+daughters of their former landlords; and these women pressed the hand
+soiled with the blood of their relatives because now, as amends for
+their traffic in blood, they could offer future wealth and distinction.
+
+It seemed that all Paris and all France had gone mad--that the whole
+nation was drunk with blood as with intoxicating wine, and wanted
+to stifle the voice of conscience in the horrible revelry of the
+saturnalia.
+
+Josephine never took part in these public balls and festivities;
+never did the widow of General Beauharnais, one of the victims of the
+revolution, attend these bals a la victime, where man prided himself on
+his misfortune and gloried in his sorrows. The Moniteur--which then gave
+daily notices of the balls and amusements that were to take place in
+Paris, so as to let the world know how cheerful and happy every one
+felt there, and which made it its business to publish the names of the
+ci-devants and ex-nobles who had partaken in these festivities--never
+in its long and correct list mentions the name of the widow of General
+Beauharnais.
+
+Josephine kept aloof from all these wild dissipations--these balls and
+banquets. She would neither dance, nor adorn herself in the memory of
+her husband; she would not take a part in the splendid festivities of
+a republic which had murdered him, and had pierced her loyal heart with
+the deepest wounds.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII. THE FIRST INTERVIEW.
+
+
+In the midst of these joys and amusements of the new-growing Paris,
+the storm of the thirteenth Vendemiaire launched forth its destructive
+thunderbolts, and another rent was made in the lofty structure of the
+republic. The royalists, who had cunningly frequented these bals a
+la victime, to weave intrigues and conspiracies, found their webs
+scattered, and the republic assumed a new form.
+
+Napoleon with his sword had cut to pieces the webs and snares of the
+royalists as well as of the revolutionists, and France had to bow to the
+constitution. In the Tuileries now sat the Council of the Elders; in
+the Salle du Manege sat the Five Hundred; and in the palace of Luxemburg
+resided the five directors of the republic.
+
+On the thirteenth Vendemiaire Paris had passed through a crisis of its
+revolutionary disease; and, to prevent its falling immediately into
+another, it permitted the newly-appointed commander-in-chief of the army
+of the interior of France, General Napoleon Bonaparte, to have every
+house strictly searched, and to confiscate all weapons found.
+
+Even into the house of the Viscountess de Beauharnais, in the rue
+Chantereine, came the soldiers of the republic to search for secreted
+weapons. They found there the sword of Alexandre de Beauharnais, which
+certainly Josephine had not hidden, for it was the chief ornament of her
+son's room. When Eugene, on the next Saturday, came to Paris from St.
+Germain, as he did every week, to pass the Sunday in his mother's house,
+to his great distress he saw vacant on the wall the place where the
+sword of his father had been hanging. With trembling voice and tears
+in her eyes his mother told him that General Bonaparte, the new
+commander-in-chief, had ordered the sword to be carried away by his
+soldiers.
+
+A cry of anger and of malediction was Eugene's answer; then with
+flaming eyes and cheeks burning with rage he rushed out, despite the
+supplications of his affrighted and anxious mother. Without pausing,
+without thinking--conscious only of this, that he must have again his
+father's sword, he rushed on. It was impossible, thought he, that the
+republic which had deprived his father of the honors due to him, his
+property, his money--that now, after his death, she should also take
+away his sword.
+
+He must have this sword again! This was Eugene's firm determination,
+and this made him bold and resolute. He rushed into the palace where the
+general-in-chief, Bonaparte, resided, and with daring vehemence demanded
+an interview with the general; and, as the door-keeper hesitated, and
+even tried to push away the bold boy from the door of the drawing-room,
+Eugene turned about with so much energy, spoke, scolded, and raged so
+loudly and so freely, that the noise reached even the cabinet where
+General Bonaparte was. He opened the door, and in his short, imperious
+manner asked the cause of this uproar; and when the servant had told
+him, with a sign of the hand he beckoned the young man to come in.
+
+Eugene de Beauharnais entered the drawing-room with a triumphant
+smile, and the eye of General Bonaparte was fixed with pleasure on the
+beautiful, intelligent countenance, on the tall, powerful figure of the
+fifteen-year-old boy. In that strange, soft accent which won hearts to
+Napoleon, he asked Eugene his business. The young man's cheeks became
+pallid, and with tremulous lips and angry looks, the vehement eloquence
+of youth and suffering, Eugene spoke of the loss he had sustained, and
+of the pain which had been added to it by despoiling him of the sword of
+his father, murdered by the republic.
+
+At these last words of Eugene, Bonaparte's brow was overshadowed, and an
+appalling look met the face of the brave boy.
+
+"You dare say that the republic has murdered your father?" asked he, in
+a loud, angry voice.
+
+"I say it, and I say the truth!" exclaimed Eugene, who did not turn away
+his eyes from the flaming looks of the general. "Yes, the republic has
+murdered my father, for it has executed him as a criminal, as a traitor
+to his country, and he was innocent; he ever was a faithful servant of
+his country and of the republic."
+
+"Who told you that it was so?" asked Bonaparte, abruptly.
+
+"My heart and the republic itself tell me that my father was no
+traitor," exclaimed Eugene, warmly. "My mother loved him much, and she
+regrets him still. She would not do so had he been a traitor, and then
+the republic would not have done what it has done--it would not have
+returned to my mother the confiscated property of my father, but would,
+had he been considered guilty, have gladly kept it back."
+
+The grave countenance of Bonaparte was overspread by a genial smile, and
+his eyes rested with the expression of innermost sympathy on the son of
+Josephine.
+
+"You think, then, that the republic gladly keeps what it has?" asked he.
+
+"I see that it gladly takes what belongs not to it," exclaimed Eugene,
+eagerly. "It has taken away my father's sword, which belonged to me, his
+son, and my mother has made me swear on that sword to hold my father's
+memory sacred, and to strive to be like him."
+
+"Your mother is, it seems, a very virtuous old lady," said Bonaparte, in
+a friendly tone.
+
+"My mother is a virtuous, young, and beautiful lady," said Eugene,
+sturdily; "and I am certain, general, that if you knew her, you would
+not in your heart have caused her so much pain."
+
+"She has, then, suffered much on account of this sword being taken
+away?" asked Bonaparte, interested.
+
+"Yes, general, she has wept bitterly over this our loss, as I have.
+I cannot bear to see my mother weep; it breaks my heart. I therefore
+implore you to give me back my father's sword; and I swear to you that
+when I am a man, I will carry that sword only for the defence of my
+country, as my father had done."
+
+General Bonaparte nodded kindly to the boy. "You are a brave defender of
+your cause," said he, "and I cannot refuse you--I must do as you wish."
+
+He gave orders to an ordnance officer present in the room to bring
+General de Beauharnais's sword; and when the officer had gone to fetch
+it, Bonaparte, in a friendly and sympathizing manner, conversed with the
+boy. At last the ordnance officer returned, and handed the sword to the
+general.
+
+With solemn gravity Bonaparte gave it to Eugene. "Take it, young man,"
+said he, "but never forget that you have sworn to carry it only for the
+honor and defence of your country."
+
+Eugene could not answer: tears started from his eyes, and with deep
+affection he pressed to his lips the recovered sword of his father.
+
+This manifestation of true childish emotion moved Bonaparte to tender
+sympathy, and an expression of affectionate interest passed over his
+features as he offered his hand to Eugene.
+
+"By Heaven, you are a good son," exclaimed he from his heart, "and you
+will be one day a good son to your country! Go, my boy, take to your
+mother your father's sword. Tell her that I salute her, though unknown
+to her--that I congratulate her in being the mother of so good and brave
+a son."
+
+Such was the beginning of an acquaintance to which Josephine was
+indebted for an imperial crown, and, for what is still greater, an
+undying fame and an undying love.
+
+Beaming with joy, Eugene returned to Josephine with his father's sword,
+and with all the glowing sentiments of thankfulness he related to her
+how kindly and obligingly General Bonaparte had received him, what
+friendly and affectionate words he had spoken to him, and how much
+forbearance and patience he had manifested to his impassioned request.
+
+Josephine's maternal heart was sensitive and grateful for every
+expression of sympathy toward her son, and the goodness and forbearance
+of the general affected her the more, that she knew how bold and wild
+the boy, smarting under pain, must have been. She therefore hastened
+to perform a duty of politeness by calling the next day on General
+Bonaparte, to thank him for the kindness he had shown Eugene.
+
+For the first time General Bonaparte stood in the presence of the woman
+who one day was to share his fame and greatness, and this first moment
+was decisive as to his and her future. Josephine's grace and elegance,
+her sweetness of disposition, her genial cheerfulness, the expression of
+lofty womanhood which permeated her whole being, and which protected
+her securely from any rough intrusion or familiarity; her fine, truly
+aristocratic bearing, which revealed at once a lady of the court and of
+the great world; her whole graceful and beautiful appearance captivated
+the heart of Napoleon at the first interview, and the very next day
+after receiving her short call he hastened to return it.
+
+Josephine was not alone when General Bonaparte was announced; and when
+the servant named him she could not suppress an inward fear, without
+knowing why she was afraid. Her friends, who noticed her tremor and
+blush, laughed jestingly at the timidity which made her tremble at the
+name of the conqueror of Paris, and this was, perhaps, the reason why
+Josephine received General Bonaparte with less complacency than she
+generally showed to her visitors.
+
+Amid the general silence of all those present the young general
+(twenty-six years old) entered the drawing-room of the Viscountess de
+Beauharnais; and this silence, however flattering it might be to his
+pride, caused him a slight embarrassment. He therefore approached the
+beautiful widow with a certain abrupt and perplexed manner, and spoke
+to her in that hasty, imperious tone which might become a general, but
+which did not seem appropriate in a lady's saloon. General Pichegru,
+who stood near Josephine, smiled, and even her amiable countenance was
+overspread with a slight expression of scorn, as she fixed her beautiful
+eyes on this pale, thin little man, whose long, smooth hair fell in
+tangled disorder on either side of his temples over his sallow,
+hollow cheeks; whose whole sickly and gloomy appearance bore so little
+resemblance to the majestic figure of the lion to which he had been so
+often compared after his success of the thirteenth Vendemiaire.
+
+"I perceive, general," suddenly exclaimed Josephine, "that you are sorry
+it was your duty to fill Paris once more with blood and horror. You
+would undoubtedly have preferred not to be obliged to carry out the
+bloody orders of the affrighted Convention?"
+
+Bonaparte shrugged his shoulders somewhat. "That is very possible," said
+he, perfectly quiet. "But what can you expect, madame? We military men
+are but the automatons which the government sets in motion according
+to its good pleasure; we know only how to obey; the sections, however,
+cannot but congratulate themselves that I have spared them so much.
+Nearly all my cannon were loaded only with powder. I wanted to give a
+little lesson to the Parisians. The whole affair was nothing but the
+impress of my seal on France. Such skirmishes are only the vespers of my
+fame." [Footnote: Napoleon's words.--See Le Normand, vol. i., p. 214.]
+
+Josephine felt irritated, excited by the coldness with which Napoleon
+spoke of the slaughter of that day; and her eyes, otherwise so full of
+gentleness, were now animated with flashes of anger.
+
+"Oh," cried she, "if you must purchase fame at such a price, I would
+sooner you were one of the victims!"
+
+Bonaparte looked at her with astonishment, but as he perceived her
+flushed cheeks and flashing eyes, the sight of her grace and beauty
+ravished him, and a soft, pleasant smile suddenly illumined his
+countenance. He answered her violent attack by a light pleasantry, and
+with gladsome unaffectedness he gave to the conversation another turn.
+The small, pale, gloomy general was at once changed into a young,
+impassioned, amiable cavalier, whose countenance grew beautiful under
+the sparkling intelligence which animated it, and whose enchanting
+eloquence made his conversation attractive and lively, carrying with it
+the conviction of a superior mind.
+
+After the visitors who had met that morning in Josephine's drawing-room
+had departed the general still remained, notwithstanding the astonished
+and questioning looks of the viscountess, paying no attention to her
+remarks about the fine weather, or her intention to enjoy a promenade.
+With rapid steps, and hands folded behind his back, he paced a few times
+to and fro the room, then standing before Josephine he fixed on her face
+a searching look.
+
+"Madame," said he, suddenly, with a kind of rough tone, "I have a
+proposition to make: give me your hand. Be my wife!"
+
+Josephine looked at him, half-astonished, half-irritated. "Is it a joke
+you are indulging in?" said she.
+
+"I speak in all earnestness," said Bonaparte, warmly. "Will you do me
+the honor of giving me your hand?"
+
+The gravity with which Bonaparte spoke, the deep earnestness imprinted
+on his features, convinced Josephine that the general would not
+condescend to indulge in a joke of so unseemly a character, and a lovely
+blush overspread the face of the viscountess.
+
+"Sir," said she, "who knows if I might not be inclined to accept your
+distinguished offer, if, unfortunately, fate stood not in the way of
+your wishes?"
+
+"Fate?" asked Bonaparte, with animation.
+
+"Yes, fate! my general," repeated Josephine, smiling. "But let us speak
+no more of this. It is enough that fate forbids me to be the wife of
+General Bonaparte. I can say no more, for you would laugh at me."
+
+"But you would laugh at me if you could turn me away with so vague
+an answer," cried Bonaparte, with vivacity. "I pray you, explain the
+meaning of your words."
+
+"Well, then, general, I cannot be your wife, for I am destined to be
+Queen of France--yes, perhaps more than queen!"
+
+It was now Bonaparte's turn to appear astonished and irritated, and
+using her own words he said, shrugging his shoulders, "Madame, is it a
+joke you are indulging in?"
+
+"I speak in all earnestness," said Josephine, shaking her head. "Listen,
+then: a negro-woman in Martinique foretold my fortune, and as her
+oracular words have thus far been all fulfilled, I must conclude that
+the rest of her prophecies concerning me will be realized."
+
+"And what has she prophesied to you?" asked Bonaparte, eagerly.
+
+"She has told me: 'You will one day be Queen of France! you will be
+still more than queen!'"
+
+The general was silent. He had remained standing; but now slowly paced
+the room a few times, his hands folded on his back and his head inclined
+on his breast. Then again he stood before the viscountess, and his eyes
+rested upon her with a wondrous bright and genial expression.
+
+"I bid defiance to fate," said he, somewhat solemnly. "This prophecy
+does not frighten me away, and in defiance of your prophetic
+negro-woman, I, the republican general, address my prayer to the future
+Queen of France: be my wife!--give me your hand."
+
+Josephine felt almost affrighted at this pertinacity of the general, and
+a sentiment of apprehension overcame her as she looked into the pale,
+decided countenance of this man, a stranger to her, and who claimed her
+for his wife.
+
+"Oh, sir," exclaimed she, with some anguish, "you offer me your hand
+with as much carelessness as if the whole matter were merely for a
+contra-dance. But I can assure you that marriage is a very grave matter,
+which has no resemblance whatever to a gay dance. I know it is so. I
+have had my sad experience, and I cannot so easily decide upon marrying
+a second time."
+
+"You refuse my hand, then?" said Bonaparte, with a threatening tone.
+
+Josephine smiled. "On the contrary, general," said she, "give me your
+hand and accompany me to my carriage, which has been waiting for me this
+long time."
+
+"That means you dismiss me! You close upon me the door of your
+drawing-room?" exclaimed Bonaparte, with warmth.
+
+She shook her head, and, bowing before him with her own irresistible
+grace, she said in a friendly manner: "I am too good a patriot not to be
+proud of seeing the conqueror of Toulon in my drawing-room. To-morrow I
+have an evening reception, and I invite you to be present, general."
+
+From this day Bonaparte visited Josephine daily; she was certain to meet
+him everywhere. At first she sought to avoid him, but he always knew
+with cunning foresight how to baffle her efforts, and to overcome
+all difficulties which she threw in his way. Was she at her friend
+Therese's, she could safely reckon that General Bonaparte would soon
+make his appearance and come near her with eyes beaming with joy, and in
+his own energetic language speak to her of his love and hopes. Was she
+to be present at the receptions of the five monarchs of Paris, it was
+General Bonaparte who waited for her at the door of the hall to offer
+his arm, and lead her amid the respectful, retreating, and gently
+applauding crowd to her seat, where he stood by her, drawing upon her
+the attention of all. Did she take a drive, at the accustomed hour, in
+the Champs Elysees, she was confident soon to see General Bonaparte
+on his gray horse gallop at her side, followed by his brilliant staff,
+himself the object of public admiration and universal respect; and
+finally, if she went to the theatre, General Bonaparte never failed to
+appear in her loge, to remain near her during the performance; and when
+she left, to offer his arm to accompany her to her carriage.
+
+It could not fail that this persevering homage of the renowned and
+universally admired young general should make a deep and flattering
+impression on Josephine's heart, and fill her with pride and joy. But
+Josephine made resistance to this feeling; she endeavored to shield
+herself from it by maternal love.
+
+She sent for her two children from their respective schools, and with
+her nearly grown-up son on one side and her daughter budding into
+maidenhood on the other, she thus presented herself to the general,
+and with an enchanting smile said: "See, general, how old I am, with a
+grown-up son and daughter who soon can make of me a grandmother."
+
+But Bonaparte with heart-felt emotion reached his hand to Eugene and
+said, "A man who can call so worthy a youth as this his son, is to be
+envied."
+
+A cunning, smiling expression of the eye revealed to Josephine that he
+had understood her war-stratagem--that neither the grown-up son nor the
+marriageable daughter could deter him from his object.
+
+Josephine at last was won by so much love and tenderness, but she could
+not yet acknowledge that the wounds of her heart were closed; that once
+more she could trust in happiness, and devote her life to a new love,
+to a new future. She shrank timidly away from such a shaping of her
+destiny; and even the persuasions of her friends and relatives, even of
+the father of her deceased husband, could not bring her to a decision.
+
+The state of her mind is depicted in a letter which Josephine wrote
+to her friend Madame de Chateau Renaud, and which describes in a great
+measure the strange uncertainty of her heart:
+
+"You have seen General Bonaparte at my house! Well, then, he is the one
+who wishes to be the father of the orphans of Alexandre de Beauharnais
+and the husband of his widow. 'Do you love him?' you will ask. Well,
+no!--'Do you feel any repugnance toward him?' No, but I feel in a state
+of vacillation and doubt, a state very disagreeable to me, and which
+the devout in religious matters consider to be the most scandalizing. As
+love is a kind of worship, one ought in its presence to feel animated
+by other feelings than those I now experience, and therefore I long for
+your advice, which might bring the constant indecision of my mind to
+a fixed conclusion. To adopt a firm course has always appeared to my
+Creole nonchalance something beyond reach, and I find it infinitely more
+convenient to be led by the will of another.
+
+"I admire the courage of the general; I am surprised at his ample
+knowledge, which enables him to speak fluently on every subject; at the
+vivacity of his genius, which enables him to guess at the thoughts of
+others before they are expressed; but I avow, I am frightened at the
+power he seems to exercise over every one who comes near him. His
+searching look has something strange, which I cannot explain, but which
+has a controlling influence even upon our directors; judge, therefore,
+of his influence over a woman. Finally, the very thing which might
+please--the violence of his passion--of which he speaks with so much
+energy, and which admits of no doubt, that passion is exactly what
+creates in me the unwillingness I have so often been ready to express.
+
+"The first bloom of youth lies behind me. Can I therefore hope that this
+passion, which in General Bonaparte resembles an attack of madness, will
+last long? If after our union he should cease to love me, would he not
+reproach me for what he had done? Would he not regret that he had not
+made another and more brilliant union? What could I then answer? What
+could I do? I could weep. 'A splendid remedy!' I hear you say. I know
+well that weeping is useless, but to weep has been the only resource
+which I could find when my poor heart, so easily wounded, has been hurt.
+Write to me a long letter, and do not fear to scold me if you think
+that I am wrong. You know well that everything which comes from you is
+agreeable to me." [Footnote: "Memoires sur l'Imperatrice Josephine," par
+Madame Ducrest p. 362.]
+
+While Josephine was writing this letter to her friend, General Bonaparte
+received one which produced upon him the deepest impression, though it
+consisted only of a few words. But these words expressed the innermost
+thought of his soul, and revealed to him perhaps for the first time its
+secret wishes.
+
+One evening as the general, returning home from a visit to the
+Viscountess Josephine, entered into his drawing-room, followed by some
+of his officers and adjutants, he observed on a large timepiece, which
+stood on the mantel-piece, a letter, the deep-red paper and black seal
+of which attracted his attention.
+
+"Whence this letter?" asked he, with animation, of the servant-man
+walking before him with a silver candlestick, as he pointed to the red
+envelope.
+
+But the waiter declared that he had not seen the letter, and that he
+knew not where it came from.
+
+"Ask the other servants, or the porter, who brought this red letter with
+the black seal," ordered Bonaparte.
+
+The servant hurried from the room, but soon returned, with the news that
+no one knew any thing about the letter; no one had seen it, no one knew
+who had placed it there.
+
+"Well, then, let us see what it contains," said Bonaparte, and he was
+going to break the seal, when Junot suddenly seized his hand and tore
+the letter away from him.
+
+"Do not read it, general," implored Junot; "I beseech you do not open
+this letter. Who knows if some of your enemies have not sent you a
+letter a la Catharine de Medicis? Who knows if it is not poisoned--that
+the mere touch of it may not produce death?"
+
+Bonaparte smiled at this solicitude of his tender friend, yet he
+listened to his pressing alarms, and, instead of opening and reading the
+letter, he passed it to Junot.
+
+"Read it yourself, if you have the courage to do so," said be,
+familiarly shaking his head.
+
+Junot rapidly broke the black seal and tore the red paper. Then, fixing
+his eyes on it, he threw it aside, and broke into loud, merry laughter.
+
+"Well," asked Bonaparte, "what does the letter contain?"
+
+"A mystery, my general--nothing more than a mystery," cried Junot,
+presenting the letter to Bonaparte.
+
+The letter contained but these words:
+
+"Macbeth, you will be king.
+
+"THE RED MAN."
+
+Junot laughed over this mysterious note, but Bonaparte shared not in
+his merriment. With compressed lips and frowning brow he looked at
+these strange, prophetic words, as if in their characters he wanted to
+discover the features of him who had dared to look into the most hidden
+recesses of his soul; then he threw the paper into the chimney-fire,
+and slowly and thoughtfully paced the room, while in a low voice he
+murmured, "Macbeth, you will be king."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII. MARRIAGE.
+
+
+At last the conqueror of Toulon conquered also the heart of the young
+widow who had so anxiously struggled against him; at last Josephine
+overcame all her fears, all her terror, and, with joyous trust in the
+future, was betrothed to General Bonaparte. But even then, after having
+taken this decisive step, after love had cast away fear, even then she
+had not the courage to reveal to her children that she had contracted
+a new marriage-tie, that she was going to give to the orphans of the
+Viscount de Beauharnais a new father. Ashamed and timid as a young maid,
+she could not force herself into acknowledging to the children of
+her deceased husband that a new love had grown in her heart--that the
+mourning widow was to become again a happy woman.
+
+Josephine, therefore, commissioned Madame de Campan to communicate this
+news to her Eugene and Hortense; to tell them that she desired not only
+to have a husband, but also to give to her children a faithful, loving
+father, who had promised to their mother with sacred oaths to regard,
+love, and protect them as his own children.
+
+The children of General Beauharnais received this news with tears in
+their eyes; they complained loudly and sorrowfully that their mother was
+giving up the name of their father and changing it for another; that the
+memory of their father would be forever lost in their mother's heart.
+But, through pure love for their mother, they soon dried up these tears;
+and when next day Josephine, accompanied by General Bonaparte, came to
+St. Germain, to visit Madame de Campan's institution, she met there her
+daughter and son, who both embraced her with the most tender affection,
+and, smiling under their tears, offered their hands to General
+Bonaparte, who, with all the sincerity and honesty of a deep, heart-felt
+emotion, embraced them in his arms, and solemnly promised to treat them
+as a father and a friend.
+
+All Josephine's friends did not gladly give their approbation to her
+marriage with this small, insignificant general, as yet so little known,
+whose success before Toulon was already forgotten, and whose victory of
+the thirteenth Vendemiaire had brought him but little fame and made him
+many enemies.
+
+Among the friends who in this union with Bonaparte saw very little
+happiness for Josephine was her lawyer, the advocate Ragideau, who for
+many years had been her family's agent, whose distinguished talent for
+pleading and whose small figure had made him known through all Paris,
+and of whom it was said that as a man he was but a dwarf; but as a
+lawyer, he was a giant.
+
+One day, in virtue of an invitation from the Viscountess de Beauharnais,
+Ragideau came to the small hotel of the rue Chautereine, and sent his
+name to the viscountess. She received his visit, and at his entrance
+into her cabinet all those present retreated into the drawing-room
+contiguous thereto, as they well knew that Josephine had some business
+transactions with her lawyer.
+
+Only one small, pale man, in modest gray clothing, whom Ragideau did
+not condescend to notice, remained in the cabinet, who retired quietly
+within the recess of a window.
+
+Josephine received her business agent with a friendly smile, and spoke
+long and in detail with him concerning a few important transactions
+which had reference to her approaching marriage. Then suddenly passing
+from the coldness of a business conversation to the tone of a friendly
+one, she asked M. Ragideau what the world said of her second marriage.
+
+Ragideau shrugged his shoulders and assumed a thoughtful attitude. "Your
+friends, madame," said he, "see with sorrow that you are going to marry
+a soldier, who is younger than yourself, who possesses nothing but his
+salary, and therefore cannot leave the service; or, if he is killed in
+battle, leaves you perhaps with children, and without an inheritance."
+
+"Do you share the opinion of my friends, my dear M. Ragidean?" asked
+Josephine, smiling.
+
+"Yes," said the lawyer, earnestly, "yes, I share them--yes. I am not
+satisfied that you should contract such a marriage. You are rich,
+madame; you possess a capital which secures you a yearly income of
+twenty-five thousand francs; with such an income you had claims to a
+brilliant marriage; and I feel conscientiously obliged, as your friend
+and business agent, in whom you have trusted, and who has for you the
+deepest interest, to earnestly remonstrate with you while there is
+yet time. Consider it well, viscountess; it is a reckless step you are
+taking, and I entreat you not to do it. I speak to your own advantage.
+General Bonaparte may be a very good man, possibly quite a distinguished
+soldier, but certain it is he has only his hat and his sword to offer
+you."
+
+Josephine now broke into a joyous laugh, and her beaming eyes turned to
+the young man there who, with his back turned to the party, stood at the
+window beating the panes with his fingers, apparently heedless of their
+conversation.
+
+"General," cried out Josephine, cheerfully, "have you heard what M.
+Ragideau says?"
+
+Bonaparte turned slowly round, and his large eyes fell with a flaming
+look upon the little advocate.
+
+"Yes," said he, gravely, "I have heard all. M. Ragideau has spoken as an
+honest man, and every thing he has said fills me with esteem for him. I
+trust he will continue to be our agent, for I feel inclined to give him
+full confidence."
+
+He bowed kindly to the little lawyer, who stood there bewildered and
+ashamed, and, offering his arm to Josephine, Bonaparte led her into the
+drawing-room. [Footnote: The little advocate Ragideau remained after
+this Josephine's agent. When Bonaparte had become emperor, he appointed
+Ragideau notary of the civil list, and always manifested the greatest
+interest in his behalf, and never by a word or a look did he remind him
+of the strange circumstance which brought about their acquaintance.--See
+Meneval. "Napoleon et Marie Louise," vol. i., p. 202.]
+
+The decisive word had been spoken: Josephine de Beauharnais was now the
+bride of General Bonaparte. His hitherto pale, gloomy countenance was
+all radiant with the bright light of love and happiness. The days of
+solitude and privations were forgotten; the young, beautiful Desiree
+Clary, whom Bonaparte so much loved a few months ago, and the amiable
+Madame Permont, were also forgotten (and yet to the latter, in her loge
+at the theatre, as a farce between acts, he had offered his hand); all
+the little love-intrigues of former days were forgotten; to Josephine
+alone belonged his heart, her alone he loved with all the impassioned
+glow and depth of a first exclusive love.
+
+But yet, now and then, clouds darkened his large pensive brow; even her
+smile could not always illumine the gloomy expression on his features;
+it would happen that, plunged in deep, sad cogitations, he heard not the
+question which she addressed him in her remarkably soft and clear voice
+which Bonaparte so much loved.
+
+His lofty pride felt humiliated and disgraced by the part he was now
+performing.
+
+He was the general of the army of the interior, but beyond the frontiers
+of France there stood another French army, whose soldiers had not the
+sad mission to maintain peace and quietness at home, to fight against
+brothers; but an army seeking for the foe, whose blood and victories
+were to secure them laurels.
+
+General Bonaparte longed to be with this army, and to obliterate the
+remembrance of the 13th Vendemiaire and its sad victory by brilliant
+exploits beyond the Alps. It was also to him a humiliating and
+depressing feeling to become the husband of a wealthy woman, and not
+bring her as a glorious gift or a wedding-present the fame and laurels
+of a husband.
+
+It has often been said that Josephine obtained for her husband, as
+a wedding-gift, his appointment of commanding general of the army in
+Italy; that she procured this appointment from Barras, with whom, before
+her acquaintance with Bonaparte, she had been in closer relationship
+than that of mere friendship. Even such historians as Schlosser have
+accepted this calumny as truth, without taking pains to investigate
+whether the facts justified this supposition. In the great historical
+events which have shaken nations, it is really of little importance if,
+under the light which illumines and brings out such events, a shadow
+should fall and darken an individual. Even the hatred and scorn with
+which a nation, trodden down in the dust, curses a tyrant, and endeavors
+to take vengeance on his fame, ask not if the stone flung at the hated
+one falls upon other heads than the one aimed at.
+
+Not Josephine, but Bonaparte, did they wish to injure when stating she
+had been the beloved of Barras. It was Bonaparte whom they wished to
+humble and mortify, when historians published that, not to his merits,
+but to the petitions of his wife, he was indebted for his commission as
+general of the army in Italy.
+
+But truth justifies not this calumny; and when with the light of truth
+the path of the widow of General Beauharnais is lighted, it will be
+found that this path led to solitude and quietness; that at none of the
+great and brilliant banquets which Barras then gave, and which in the
+Moniteur are described with so much pomp, not once is, the name of
+Viscountess de Beauharnais mentioned; that in the numerous pasquinades
+and lampoons which then appeared in Paris and in all France, and in
+which all private life was fathomed, not once is the name of Josephine
+brought out, neither is there any indirect allusion to her.
+
+Calumny has placed this stain on Josephine's brow, but truth takes it
+away. And that truth is, that not Josephine, but Bonaparte, was the
+friend of Barras; that it was not Barras, but Carnot, who promoted
+Bonaparte to the rank of commanding general of the army in Italy.
+
+Carnot, the minister of war of the republic, the noble, incorruptible
+republican, whose character, pure, bright, and true as steel, turned
+aside all the darts of wickedness and calumny, which could not inflict
+even a wound, or leave a stain on the brilliancy of his spotless
+character, has given upon this point his testimony in a refutation. At
+a later period, when the hatred of parties, and the events of the 18th
+Fructidor, had forced him to flee from France, he defended himself
+against the accusation launched at him in the Council of the Five
+Hundred, which pointed him out as a traitor to the republic; and this
+defence gave a detailed account of the whole time of his administration,
+and especially what he achieved for the republic, claiming as one of his
+services the appointment of Bonaparte.
+
+"It is not true," says he, "that Barras proposed Bonaparte for the chief
+command of the army in Italy. I myself did it. But time was allowed to
+intervene, so as to ascertain whether Bonaparte would succeed before
+Barras congratulated himself, and then only to his confidants, that it
+was he who had made this proposition to the Directory. Had Bonaparte
+not answered the expectations, then I should have been the one to
+blame: then it would have been I who had chosen a young, inexperienced,
+intriguing man; and I who had betrayed the nation, for the other members
+did not interfere in war-matters; upon me all responsibility would
+have fallen. But as Bonaparte is victorious, then it must be Barras
+who appointed him! To Barras alone are the people indebted for this
+nomination! He is Bonaparte's protector, his defender against my
+attacks! I am jealous of Bonaparte; I cross him in all his plans; I
+lower his character; I persecute him; I refuse him all assistance; I, in
+all probability, am to plunge him into ruin!"--such were the calumnies
+which at that time filled the journals bribed by Barras. [Footnote:
+"Response de L. N. M. Carnot, citoyen francais, l'un des fondateurs
+de la republique, et membre constitutionnel du Directoire executif an
+rapport fait sur la conjuration du 18 Fructidor an conseil des Cinq
+Cents."]
+
+To Carnot, the secretary of war of the republic, did Bonaparte go, to
+ask of him the command of the army in Italy. But Carnot answered him, as
+he had already before Aubry, the minister of war, "You are too young."
+
+"Let us put appearances and age aside," said Bonaparte, impatiently.
+"Alexander, Scipio, Conde, and many others, though still younger than
+I, marched armies to brilliant conquests, and decided the fate of whole
+kingdoms. I believe I have given a few proofs of what I can achieve, if
+I am set at the right place; and I burn with great longing to serve my
+country, to obtain victories over despots who hate France because they
+fear, calumniate, and envy her!"
+
+"I know you are a good patriot," said Carnot, slowly turning his head;
+"I know and appreciate your services, and you may rest assured that
+the obstacles which I place in your path are not directed against you
+personally. But do you know the situation of our army? It is devoured
+by the quartermaster; betrayed and sold, I fear, by its general, and
+demoralized, notwithstanding its successes! That army needs every thing,
+even discipline, whilst the enemy's army has all that we need. We want
+nearly a miracle to be victorious. Whoever is to lead to success our
+disordered, famished, disorganized army must, above all things, possess
+its full confidence. Besides which, without further events, I cannot
+dismiss the commanding general, Scherer, but I must wait until some
+new disgrace furnishes me the right to do so. You know all. Judge for
+yourself."
+
+"I have already made all these objections within my own mind," replied
+Bonaparte, quietly; "yet I do not despair that if you will give me your
+advice and assistance, I will overcome all these difficulties. Listen to
+me, and I will let you know my plan for the arrangement of the war, and
+I am convinced you will give it your sanction."
+
+With glowing eloquence, complete clearness and assurance, and the
+convincing quietude of a persuaded, all-embracing, all-weighing mind,
+Bonaparte unfolded the daring and astounding plan of his campaign. As he
+spoke, his face brightened more and more, his eyes glowed with the
+fire of inspiration, his countenance beamed with that exalted, wondrous
+beauty which is granted to genius alone in the highest moments of its
+ecstasy; the small, insignificant, pale young man became the bold,
+daring hero, who was fully prepared gladly to tread a world under his
+feet.
+
+Carnot, who had looked on in astonishment, was finally carried away,
+inspired by the persuasive eloquence of the young general, who in a
+few words understood how to map out battle-fields, to measure whole
+engagements, and to give to every one the needful and appropriate place.
+
+"You are right," cried Carnot, delighted, and offering his hand to
+Bonaparte. "This plan must be carried out, and then we shall conquer our
+enemies. I no longer doubt of the result, and from this moment you can
+rely upon me. You shall be commander-in-chief of the army in Italy. I
+will myself propose you to the Directory, and I will so warmly speak
+in your favor, that my request will be granted." [Footnote: "Memoires
+historiques et militaires, sur Carnot," vol. ii.]
+
+On this day the face of General Bonaparte was irradiated with a still
+deeper lustre than when Josephine avowed that his love was returned, and
+when she consented to be his.
+
+Josephine's affianced, in the depths of his heart, retained a deep,
+unfulfilled desire, an unreached aim of his existence. The commanding
+general of the army in Italy had nothing more to wish, or to long
+for; he now stood at hope's summit, and saw before him the brilliant,
+glorious goal of ambition toward which the path lay open before him.
+
+Love alone could not satisfy the heart of Napoleon; the larger portion
+of it belonged to ambition--to the lust for a warrior's fame.
+
+"I am going to live only for the future," said Bonaparte, that day, to
+Junot, as he related to him the successful result of his interview with
+Carnot. "None of you know me yet, but you will soon. You will see what
+I can do: I feel within me something which urges me onward. Too long has
+the war been limited to a single district; I will take it into the heart
+of the continent, I will bring it on fresh soil, and so carry it out
+that the men of habit will lose their footing, and the old officers
+their heads, so that they will no more know where they are. The soldiers
+will see what one man, with a will of iron, can accomplish. All this
+I will do--and from this day I strike out from the dictionary the word
+'impossible!'"
+
+Carnot was true to his word. On the 23d day of February, 1796, Bonaparte
+was appointed by the Directory commander-in-chief of the army of Italy.
+
+From the face of the young general beamed forth the smile of victory;
+he was now certain of the future! He now knew that to his Josephine he
+could offer more than a hat and a sword, that he would bring her undying
+fame and victory's brilliant crown. This was to be the dowry before
+which the twenty-five thousand francs' yearly income, which the little
+giant Ragideau had so highly prized, would fall into the background.
+
+On the 9th of March the marriage between General Bonaparte and the widow
+Viscountess Josephine de Beauharnais took place. Barras, as member of
+the government, was Bonaparte's first witness; his second was Captain
+Lemarrois, his adjutant; and the choice of this witness was a delicate
+homage which Napoleon paid to his dear Josephine: for Lemarrois was the
+one who had first led the boy Eugene to Bonaparte, and had thus been the
+means of his acquaintance with Josephine.
+
+The two witnesses of Josephine were Tallien, who had delivered her from
+prison, and to whom she owed the restoration of her property, and a
+M. Calmelet, an old friend and counsellor of the Beauharnais family.
+[Footnote: "Souvenirs historiques du Baron de Meneval," vol. i., p.
+340.]
+
+In the pure modesty of her heart, Josephine had not desired that the two
+children of her deceased husband should be the witnesses of her second
+marriage, and Bonaparte was glad that Josephine's bridal wreath would
+not be bedewed with the tears of memory.
+
+On this happy day of Bonaparte's marriage, so much of the past was set
+aside, that the certificate of baptism of the betrothed was forgotten,
+and the number of years which made Josephine older than Bonaparte was
+struck out.
+
+The civil record, which M. Leclerc received of the marriage of Bonaparte
+and Josephine, describes them as being nearly of the same age, for it
+ran thus: "Napoleon Bonaparte, born in Ajaccio, on the 5th of February,
+1768; and Marie Josephe Rosa Tascher de la Pagerie, born in Martinique,
+the 23d of June, 1767."
+
+Bonaparte's glowing and impassioned love led him--in order to spare his
+Josephine the smallest, degree of humiliation--to alter and destroy the
+dates of the certificate of their baptism; for Bonaparte was born on the
+15th of August, 1769, and Josephine on the 23d of June, 1763. She was
+consequently six years older than he; but she knew not that these six
+years would, one day, be the abyss which was to swallow her happiness,
+her love, her grandeur.
+
+Two days after his marriage with Josephine, Bonaparte left Paris for the
+army, to travel in haste, an uninterrupted journey toward Italy.
+
+"I must hasten to my post," said he smiling to Josephine, "for an
+army without a chief is like a widow who can commit foolish deeds and
+endanger her reputation. I am responsible for the army's conduct from
+the moment of my appointment."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV. BONAPARTE'S LOVE-LETTERS.
+
+
+Carnot had told Bonaparte the truth concerning the state of the army in
+Italy. His statements were sustained by the proclamation which the new
+commander-in-chief of the army in Italy addressed to his soldiers, as
+for the first time he welcomed them at Nice.
+
+"Soldiers," said he, "you are naked and badly fed; the government owes
+you much, and can give you nothing. Your patience and the courage you
+have exhibited amid these rocks are worthy of admiration; but you gain
+no fame: no glory falls upon you here. I will lead you into the fertile
+plains of the world; rich provinces and large cities will fall into
+your power; there you will find honor, fame, and abundance. Soldiers of
+Italy, would you fail in courage and perseverance?" [Footnote: Norvins,
+"Histoire de Napoleon," vol. i., p. 89.]
+
+The mangled, ragged, half-starved soldiers answered with loud
+enthusiastic shouts. When the vivats had died away, an old veteran
+came out of the ranks, and with countenance half-defiant, half-smiling,
+looking at the little general, he asked: "General, what must we do
+that the roasted partridges, which are promised to us, may fly into our
+mouths?"
+
+"Conquer," cried Bonaparte, with a loud resounding voice--"conquer!
+To the brave, glory and good repasts! To the coward, disgrace! To the
+faint-hearted, misery! I will lead you into the path of victory. Will
+you follow?"
+
+"We will, we will!" shouted the soldiers. "Long live the little general
+who is to deliver us from our wretchedness, who is to lead us into
+victory's path!"
+
+Bonaparte kept his word. He led them to Voltri, to the bridge of Arcola,
+to Lodi. But amid his wild career of fights, hardships, vigils, studies, and
+perils, the thought of Josephine was the guiding star of his heart.
+His mind was with her amid the battle's storm; he thought of her in
+the camp, on the march, in the greatest conflict, and after the most
+brilliant victories. This was shown in the letters he wrote every day
+to Josephine; and in the brilliant hymns which the warrior, amid the
+carnage of war, sung with the enthusiastic fervor of a poet to his love
+and to his happiness.
+
+It is the mission of eminent historians, when describing his victorious
+campaign of Italy, to narrate his conquests; our mission is simply to
+observe him in his conduct toward Josephine, and to show how under the
+uniform of the warrior beat the heart of the lover.
+
+The letters which Bonaparte then wrote to Josephine are consequently
+what concerns us most, and from which we will select a few as a proof of
+the impassioned love which Napoleon felt for his young wife.
+
+LETTERS OF GENERAL BONAPARTE TO JOSEPHINE.
+
+I. "PORT MAURICE, the 14th Germinal (April 3), 1796.
+
+"I have received all your letters, but none has made so much impression
+on me as the last one. How can you, my adored friend, speak to me in
+that way? Do you not believe that my situation here is already horrible
+enough, without your exciting my longings, and still more setting my
+soul in rebellion? What a style! what emotions you describe! They glow
+like fire, they burn my poor heart! My own Josephine, away from you,
+there is no joy; away from you, the world is a wilderness in which I
+feel alone, and have no one in whom I can confide. You have taken from
+me more than my soul; you are the only thought of my life. When I feel
+weary with the burden of affairs, when I dread some inauspicious result,
+when men oppose me, when I am ready to curse life itself, I place my
+hand upon my heart, your image beats there; I gaze on it, and love is
+for me absolute bliss, and everything smiles except when I am away from
+my beloved.
+
+"By what art have you been able to enchain all my powers, and to
+concentrate in yourself all my mental existence? It is an enchantment,
+my dear friend, which is to end only with my life. To live for
+Josephine, such is the history of my life! I am working to return to
+you, I am dying to approach you! Fool that I am, I see not that I am
+more and more drifting away from you! How much space, how many mountains
+separate us! how long before you can read these words, the feeble
+expression of a throbbing soul in which you rule! Ah, my adored wife, I
+know not what future awaits me, but if it keeps me much longer away from
+you, it will be intolerable; my courage reaches not that far. There was
+a time when I was proud of my reputation; and sometimes when I cast
+my eyes on the wrong which men could have done me, on the fate which
+Providence might have in reserve for me, I prepared myself for the most
+unheard-of adversities without wrinkling the brow or suffering fear; but
+now the thought that my Josephine should be uncomfortable, or sick,
+or, above all, the cruel, horrible thought that she might love me
+less, makes my soul tremble, and my blood to remain still, bringing
+on sadness, despondency, and taking away even the courage of anger and
+despair. In times past I used to say, 'Men have no power over him who
+dies without regret.' But now to die without being loved by you, to die
+without the certainty of being loved, is for me the pains of hell, the
+living, fearful feeling of complete annihilation. It is as if I were
+going to suffocate! My own companion, you whom fate has given me, to
+make life's painful journey, the day when no more I can call your heart
+mine, when nature will be for me without warmth, without vitality. ... I
+will give way, my sweet friend (ma douce amie); my soul is sorrowful, my
+body languishes; men weary me. I have a good right to detest them, for
+they keep me away from my heart.
+
+"I am now in Port Maurice, near to Oneglia; to-morrow I go to Albenga.
+Both armies are moving forward; we are endeavoring to deceive each
+other. Victory belongs to the swiftest. I am well satisfied with General
+Beaulieu, he manoeuvres well; he is a stronger man than his predecessor.
+I trust to beat him soundly. Be without care; love me as your eyes;
+but no, that is not enough, as yourself, more than yourself, as your
+thoughts, as your spirit, your life, your all! Sweet friend, pardon me;
+I am beyond myself; nature is too weak for him who feels with passion,
+for him whom you love.
+
+"To Barras, Sucy, Madame Tallien, my heart-felt friendship; to Madame
+Chateau Renaud, kindest regards; for Eugene and Hortense, my true love.
+N. B."
+
+II. "ALBENGA, the 18th Germinal (April 7), 1796 [Footnote: The three
+following letters have never been published until recently, and are not
+to be found in any collection of letters from Napoleon and Josephine,
+not even among those published by Queen Hortense: "Lettres de Napoleon a
+Josephine, et de Josephine a Napoleon." They are published for the first
+time in the "Histoire de l'Imperatrice Josephine," by Aubenas, and were
+communicated to this author in Napoleon's manuscript by the well-known
+and famous gatherer of autographs, Feuillet de Couches.]
+
+"I have just now received your letter, which you break off, as you say,
+to go to the country; and then, you assume a tone as if you were envious
+of me, who am here nearly overwhelmed by affairs and by exertion! Ah, my
+dear friend, ... it is true, I am wrong. In the spring it is so pleasant
+in the country; and then the beloved one of eighteen years will be so
+happy there; how would it be possible to lose one moment for the sake
+of writing to him who is three hundred miles away from you, who lives,
+breathes, exists only in remembering you, who reads your letters as a
+man, after hunting for six hours, devours a meal he is fond of.
+
+"I am satisfied. Your last letter is cold, like friendship. I have not
+found in it the fire which glows in your eyes, the fire which I have
+at least imagined to be there. So far runs my fancy. I found that your
+first letters oppressed my soul too much; the revolution which they
+created in me disturbed my peace and bewildered my senses. I wanted
+letters more cold, and now they bring on me the chill of death. The
+fear of being no more loved by Josephine--the thought of having her
+inconstant--of seeing her ... But I martyrize myself with anguish! There
+is enough in the reality, without imagining any more! You cannot have
+inspired me with this immeasurable love without sharing it; and with
+such a soul, such thoughts, such an understanding as you possess, it
+is impossible that, as a reward for the most glowing attachment and
+devotion, you should return a mortal blow. ...
+
+"You say nothing of your bodily sufferings; they have my regret.
+Farewell till to-morrow, mio dolce amor. From my own wife a thought--and
+from fate a victory; these are all my wishes: one sole, undivided
+thought from you, worthy of him who every moment thinks of you.
+
+"My brother is here. He has heard of my marriage with pleasure. He longs
+to become acquainted with you. I am endeavoring to persuade him to go to
+Paris, His wife has recently given birth to a daughter. They send you
+a box of bonbons from Genoa as a present. You will receive oranges,
+perfumes, and water of orange-flowers, which I send you. Junot and Murat
+send their best wishes.
+
+"N. B."
+
+The victory which Bonaparte implored from his destiny was soon to take
+place; and the battle of Mondovi, which followed the capitulation of
+Cherasco, made Bonaparte master of Piedmont and of the passes of the
+Alps. He sent his brother Joseph to Paris, to lay before the Directory
+pressing considerations concerning the necessity and importance of
+concluding a permanent peace with the King of Sardinia, so as to isolate
+Austria entirely in Italy. At the same time Junot was to take to the
+Directory the conquered standards. Joseph and Junot travelled together
+from Nice by means of post-horses, and they made so rapid a journey that
+in one hundred and twenty hours they reached Paris.
+
+The victor's messengers and the conquered flags were received in Paris
+with shouts of rapture, and with a glowing enthusiasm for General
+Bonaparte. His name was on every tongue. In the streets and on the
+squares crowds gathered together to talk of the glorious news, and to
+shout their acclamations to the brave army and its general. Even the
+Directory, the five monarchs of France, shared the universal joy and
+enthusiasm. They received Joseph and Junot with affable complacency, and
+communicated to the army and to its general public eulogies. In honor
+of the messengers who had brought the standards and the propositions of
+peace, they gave a brilliant banquet; and Carnot, proud of having been
+the one who had brought about Bonaparte's appointment, went so far in
+his enthusiasm as at the close of the banquet to tear his garments open
+and exhibit to the assembled guests Napoleon's portrait which he carried
+on his breast.
+
+"Tell your brother," cried he to Joseph, "that I carry him here on my
+heart, for I foresee he will be the deliverer of France, and therefore
+he must know that in the Directory he has only admirers and friends."
+[Footnote: "Memoires du Roi Joseph," vol. i., p. 62.]
+
+But something else, more glorious than these salutations of love from
+France and from the Directory, was to be brought back by his messengers
+to the victorious commander-his wife, his Josephine; he claimed her
+as the reward of battles won. Joseph was not only the messenger of the
+general, he was also the messenger of the lover; and before delivering
+his papers to the Directory, he had first, as Bonaparte had ordered him,
+to deliver to Josephine his letter which called her to Milan. Napoleon
+had thus written to her:
+
+III. "TO MY SWEET FRIEND!
+
+"CAEN, the 3rd Floreal (May 24), 1796.
+
+"My brother will hand you this letter. I cherish for him the most
+intimate friendship. I trust he will also gain your affection. He
+deserves it. Nature has gifted him with a tender and inexhaustibly good
+character; he is full of rare qualities. I write to Barras to have
+him appointed consul to some Italian port. He desires to live with his
+little wife away from the world's great stream of events. I recommend
+him to you.
+
+"I have received your letters of the 16th and of the 21st. You have
+indeed for many days forgotten to write. What, then, are you doing? Yes,
+my dear friend, I am not exactly jealous, but I am sometimes uneasy.
+Hasten, then, for I tell you beforehand that if you delay I shall be
+sick. So great exertion, combined with your absence, is too much.
+
+"Your letters are the joys of my days, and my happy days are not too
+many. Junot takes to Paris twenty-two standards. You will come back with
+him, will you not? .... Misery without remedy, sorrow without comfort,
+unmitigated anguish, will be my portion if it is my misfortune to
+see him come back alone, my own adored wife! He will see you, he will
+breathe at your shrine, and perhaps you will even grant him the special
+and unsurpassed privilege of kissing your cheeks, and I, I will be far,
+far away! You will come here, at my side, to my heart, in my arms!
+Take wings, come, come! Yet, journey slowly; the road is long, bad,
+fatiguing! If your carriage were to upset, if some calamity were to
+happen, if the exertion. ... Set out at once, my beloved one, but travel
+slowly!
+
+"I have received a letter from Hortense, a very acceptable one indeed.
+I am going to answer it. I love her much, and will soon send her the
+perfumes she desires. N. B."
+
+But Josephine could not meet at once the ardent wishes of her husband.
+She had, on the receipt of his letter, made with Joseph all the
+necessary preparations for the journey; but the ailment which had so
+long troubled her, broke out, and a violent illness prostrated her.
+
+Bonaparte's suffering and anger at this news were unbounded; a terrible
+restlessness and anxiety took possession of him, and, to obtain speedy
+and reliable news from Josephine, he sent from Milan to Paris a special
+courier, whose only business it was to carry a letter to Josephine.
+
+The general had nothing to communicate to the Directory; it was only
+the lover writing to his beloved! What fire, what energy of passion,
+penetrated him, is evident from the following letter:
+
+IV. "TORTONA, at noon, the 27th Prairial,
+
+"In the Year IV. of the Republic (15th June, 1796).
+
+"To Josephine: My life is a ceaseless Alpine burden. An oppressive
+foreboding prevents me from breathing. I live no more, I have lost more
+than life, more than happiness, more than rest! I am without hope. I
+send you a courier. He will remain only four hours in Paris, and return
+with your answer. Write me only ten lines; they will be some comfort
+to me. ... You are sick, you love me, I have troubled you; you are
+pregnant, and I cannot see you. This thought bewilders me. I have done
+you so much wrong, that I know not how to make amends for it. I found
+fault because you remained in Paris, and you were sick! Forgive me, my
+beloved. The passion you have inspired in me has taken my reason away; I
+cannot find it again. One is never cured of this evil. My contemplations
+are so horrible, that it would be a satisfaction to see you; to press
+you for two hours to my heart, and then, to die together! Who takes care
+of you? I imagine that you have sent for Hortense. I love this child
+a thousand times more, when I think she can comfort you somewhat. As
+regards myself, there will be no solace, no rest, no hope, before the
+courier whom I have sent to you has returned, and you have told me in a
+long letter the cause of your illness, and how serious it is. I tell
+you beforehand that if it is dangerous I will at once go to Paris.
+My presence would be called for by your sickness. I have always been
+fortunate. Never has Fate stood against my wishes, and to-day it strikes
+me where only wounds are possible. Josephine, how can you delay so long
+in writing to me? Your last laconic note is dated the 3d of this month,
+and this adds to my sorrow. Yet I have it always in my pocket. Your
+portrait and your letters are always under my eyes.
+
+"I am nothing without you. I can scarcely understand how I have lived
+without knowing you. Ah, Josephine, if you know my heart, could you
+remain without writing from the 29th of May to the 16th of June, and not
+travel hither? Have you lent an ear to faithless friends, who wish to
+keep you away from me? I am angry with the whole world; I accuse every
+one round about you. I had calculated that you would leave on the 5th,
+and be at Milan on the 15th.
+
+"Josephine, if you love me, if you believe that all depends on the
+recovery of your health, take good care of yourself. I dare not tell you
+not to undertake so long a journey--not to travel in the heat, if
+you possibly can move. Make small journeys; write to me at every
+stopping-place, and send me each time your letters by a courier. ...
+Your sickness troubles me by night and by day. Without appetite or
+sleep, without regard for friendship, reputation, or country!--you and
+you alone! The rest of the world exists no more for me than if it were
+sunk into oblivion. I still cling to honor, for you hold to it; to fame,
+for it is a joy to you; if it were not for this, I would have abandoned
+every thing to hasten to your feet.
+
+"Sometimes, I say to myself: 'I trouble myself without cause, she is
+already well, she has left Paris and is on the way, she is perhaps in
+Lyons.' ... Fruitless deception! You are in your bed, suffering--more
+interesting--more worthy of adoration; you are pale, and your eyes are
+more languishing than ever! when you are well again, if one of us is
+to be sick, cannot I be the one? for I am stronger, I have more vital
+power, and would therefore sooner conquer sickness. Fate is cruel, it
+strikes me through you.
+
+"What sometimes comforts me is to know that on fate depends your
+sickness, but that it depends on no one to oblige me to outlive you.
+
+"Be careful, my dearly-beloved one, to tell me in your letter that you
+are convinced that I love you above all that can be conceived; that
+never has it come to me to think of other women; that they are all in my
+eyes without grace, beauty, or wit; that you, you entirely, you as I
+see you, as you are, can please me and fetter all the powers of my soul;
+that you have grasped it in all its immeasurableness; that my heart has
+no folds closed from your eyes, no thoughts which belong not to you;
+that my energies, arms, mind, every thing in me, is subject to you; that
+my spirit lives in your body; that the day when you will be inconstant
+or when you will cease to live, will be the day of my death, and that
+nature and earth are beautiful to my eyes only because you live in them.
+If you do not believe all this, if your soul is not convinced of it,
+penetrated with it, then I am deceived in you, then you love me no more.
+A magnetic fluid runs between persons who love one another. You know
+that I could never see, much less could I endure, a lover: to see him
+and to tear his heart would be one and the same thing; and then I might
+even lay hands on your sacred person.... no, I would never dare do it,
+but I would fly from a world where those I deem the most virtuous have
+deceived me.
+
+"But I am certain of your love, and proud of it. Accidents are
+probations which keep alive all the energies of our mutual affections.
+My adored one, you will give birth to a child resembling his mother;
+it will pass many years in your arms. Unfortunate that I am, I would be
+satisfied with one day! A thousand kisses on your eyes and lips! ....
+adored wife, how mighty is your spell! I am ill on account of your
+illness. I have a burning fever. Retain the courier no longer than
+six hours; then let him return, that he may bring me a letter from my
+sovereign. N. B."
+
+These were the first letters which Josephine received from her loving,
+tender husband. They are a splendid monument of affection with which
+love adorns the solitary grave of the departed empress; and surely in
+the dark hours of her life, the remembrance of these days of happiness,
+of these letters so full of passionate ardor, must have alleviated the
+bitterness of her grief and given her the consolation that at least she
+was once loved as perhaps no other woman on earth can boast! All these
+letters of Bonaparte, during the days of his first prosperity, and of
+his earnest cravings, Josephine had carefully gathered; they were to be,
+amid the precious and costly treasures which the future was to lay at
+her feet, the most glorious and most prized, and which she preserved
+with sacred loyalty as long as she lived.
+
+This is the reason that, out of all the letters which Bonaparte wrote
+to Josephine during long years, not one is lost; that there is no gap in
+the correspondence, and that we can with complete certainty, from week
+to week and year to year, follow the relations which existed between
+them, and that the thermometer can be placed on Bonaparte's heart
+to observe how by degrees the heat diminishes, the warmth of passion
+disappears into the cool temperature of a quiet friendship, and how it
+never sinks to cold indifference, even when Josephine had to yield to
+the young and proud daughter of Austria, and give up her place at the
+side of the emperor.
+
+Of all the letters of Josephine to Bonaparte, which were now so glowing
+that they seemed to devour him with flames of fire and bewildered his
+senses, and then so cold and indifferent that they caused the chill of
+death to pass over his frame--of all these, not one has been preserved
+to posterity. Perhaps the Emperor Napoleon destroyed them; when in the
+Tuileries he received Josephine's successor, his second wife, and
+when he endeavored to destroy in his own proud heart the memory of the
+beautiful, happy past, he there destroyed those letters, that they might
+return to dust, even as his own love had returned.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV. JOSEPHINE IN ITALY.
+
+
+Bonaparte's letter, which the courier brought to Josephine, found her
+recovered, and ready to follow her husband's call, and go to Milan.
+But she was deprived of one precious and joyous hope: the child, which
+Bonaparte so much envied because it would pass many years in Josephine's
+arms, was never to be born.
+
+In the last days of the month of June Josephine arrived in Milan. Her
+whole journey had been one uninterrupted triumph. In Turin, at the court
+of the King of Sardinia, she had received the homage of the people as
+if she were the wife of a mighty ruler; and wherever she went, she was
+received with honors and distinction. To Turin Bonaparte had sent before
+him one of his adjutants, General Marmont, afterward Duke de Ragusa, to
+convey to her his kindest regards and to accompany her with a military
+escort as far as Milan. In the palace de Serbelloni, his residence in
+Milan, adorned as for a feast, Bonaparte received her with a countenance
+radiant with joy and happy smiles such as seldom brightened his pale,
+gloomy features.
+
+But Bonaparte had neither much time nor leisure to devote to his
+domestic happiness, to his long-expected reunion with Josephine. Only
+three days could the happy lover obtain from the restless commander;
+then he had to tear himself away from his sweet repose, to carry
+on further the deadly strife which he had begun in Italy against
+Austria--which had decided not to give away one foot of Lombardy without
+a struggle--and not to submit to the conqueror of Lodi. A new army
+was marched into Italy under the command of General Wurmser, the same
+against whom, three years before, on the shores of the Rhine, Alexandre
+de Beauharnais had fought in vain. At the head of sixty thousand men
+Wurmser moved into Italy to relieve Mantua, besieged by the French.
+
+This alarming news awoke Bonaparte out of his dream of love, and neither
+Josephine's tears nor prayers could keep him back. He sent couriers to
+Paris, to implore from the Directory fresh troops and more money, to
+continue the campaign. The Directory answered him with the proposition
+to divide the army of Italy into two columns, one of which would act
+under the commander-in-chief, General Kellermann, the other under
+Bonaparte.
+
+But this proposition, which the jealous Directory made for the sake of
+breaking the growing power of Bonaparte, only served to lift him a step
+higher in his path to the brilliant career which he alone, in the depths
+of his heart, had traced, and the secret of which his closed lips would
+reveal to no one.
+
+Bonaparte's answer to this proposition of the Directory was, that if
+the power were to be divided, he could only refuse the half of this
+division, and would retire entirely from command.
+
+He wrote to Carnot: "It is a matter of indifference to me whether I
+carry on the war here or elsewhere. To serve my country, and deserve
+from posterity one page of history, is all my ambition! If both I and
+Kellermann command in Italy, then all is lost. General Kellermann has
+more experience than I, and will carry on the war more ably. But the
+matter can only be badly managed if we both command. It is no pleasure
+for me to serve with a man whom Europe considers the first general of
+the age."
+
+Carnot showed this letter to the Directory, and declared that if
+Bonaparte were to be given up, he would himself resign his position of
+secretary of war. The Directory was not prepared to accept this twofold
+responsibility, and they sacrificed Kellermann to the threats of
+Napoleon and Carnot.
+
+General Bonaparte was confirmed in his position of commander-in-chief of
+the army in Italy, even for the future, and the conduct of the war was
+left in his hands alone.
+
+With this fresh triumph over his enemies at home, Bonaparte marched from
+Milan to fight the re-enforced enemy of France in Italy.
+
+On this new war-path, amid dangers and conflicts, the tumults of the
+fight, the noise of the camp, the confusion of the bivouac, the young
+general did not for one moment forget the wife he so passionately loved.
+Nearly every day he wrote to her, and those letters, which were often
+written between the dictation of the battle's plan, the dispatches to
+the Directory, and the impending conflict, were faithful waymarks, whose
+directions it is easy to follow, and thus trace the whole successful
+course of the hero of Italy.
+
+To refer here to Bonaparte's letters to Josephine, implies at once the
+mention of Bonaparte's deeds and of Josephine's happiness. The first
+letter which he wrote after the interview in Milan is from Roverbella,
+and it tells her in a few words that he has just now beaten the foe,
+and that he is going to Verona. The second is also short and hastily
+written, but is full of many delicate assurances of love, and also that
+he has met and defeated the foe at Verona. The third letter is from
+Marmirolo, and shows that Bonaparte, notwithstanding his constant
+changes of position, had taken the precautions that Josephine's letters
+should everywhere follow him; for in Marmirolo he received one, and this
+tender letter filled him with so much joy, thanks, and longings, that,
+in virtue of it, he forgets conquests and triumphs entirely, and is only
+the longing, tender lover. He writes:
+
+"MARMIROLO, the 29th Messidor, 9 in the evening" (July 17), 1796.
+
+"I am just now in receipt of your letter, my adored one; it has filled
+my heart with joy. I am thankful for the pains you have taken to send me
+news about yourself; with your improved health, all will be well; I am
+convinced that you have now recovered. I would impress upon you the duty
+of riding often; this will be a healthy exercise for you.
+
+"Since I left you I am forever sorrowful. My happiness consists in being
+near you. Constantly does my memory renew your kisses, your tears, your
+amiable jealousy; and the charms of the incomparable Josephine kindle
+incessantly a burning flame within my heart and throughout my senses.
+When shall I, free from all disturbance and care, pass all my moments
+with you, and have nothing to do but to love, nothing to think of but
+the happiness to tell it and prove it to you? I am going to send you
+your horse, and I trust you will soon be able to be with me. A few days
+ago I thought I loved you, but since I have seen you again, I feel that
+I love you a thousand times more. Since I knew you, I worship you more
+and more every day; this proves the falsity of La Bruyere's maxim, which
+says that love springs up all at once. Every thing in nature has its
+growth in different degrees. Ah, I implore you, let me see some of your
+faults; be then less beautiful, less graceful, less tender, less good;
+especially be never tender, never weep: your tears deprive me of my
+reason, and change my blood into fire. Believe me, that it is not in my
+power to have a single thought which concerns you not, or an idea which
+is not subservient to you.
+
+"Keep very quiet. Recover soon your health. Come to me, that at least
+before dying we may say, 'We were happy so many, many days!'
+
+"Millions of kisses even for Fortune, notwithstanding its naughtiness.
+[Footnote: Fortune was that little peevish dog which, when Josephine
+was in prison, served as love-messenger between her and her children.]
+BONAPARTE."
+
+But this letter, full of tenderness and warmth, is not yet enough for
+the ardent lover; it does not express sufficiently his longing, his
+love. The very next day, from the same quarters of Marmirolo, he writes
+something like a postscript to the missive of the previous day. He tells
+her that he has made an attack upon Mantua, but that a sudden fall of
+the waters of the lake had delayed his troops already embarked, and that
+this day he is going to try again in some other way; that the enemy a
+few days past had made a sortie and killed a few hundred men, but that
+they themselves, with considerable loss, had to retreat rapidly into the
+fortress, and that three Neapolitan regiments had entered Brescia. But
+between each of these sentences intervene some strong assurance of his
+love, some tender or flattering words; and finally, at the end of the
+letter, comes the principal object, the cause why it was written. The
+tender lover wanted some token from his beloved: it is not enough for
+him always to carry her portrait and her letters, he must also have a
+lock of her hair. He writes:
+
+"I have lost my snuffbox; I pray you find me another, somewhat more
+flat, and pray have something pretty written upon it, with a lock
+of your hair. A thousand burning kisses, since you are so cold, love
+unbounded, and faithfulness beyond all proof."
+
+Two days afterward he writes again from Marmirolo, at first hastily, a
+few words about the war, then he comes to the main point. He has been
+guilty, toward Josephine, of a want of politeness, and, with all the
+tenderness and humility of a lover, he asks forgiveness. Her pardon and
+her constant tardiness in answering his letters, are to him more weighty
+matters than all the battles and victories of his restless camp-life,
+and therefore he begins at once with a complaint at his separation from
+her.
+
+"MARMIROLO, the 1st Thermidor, Year IV. (July 19, 1796.)" For the last
+two days I am without letters from you. This remark I have repeated
+thirty times; you feel that this for me is sad. You cannot, however,
+doubt of the tenderness and undivided solicitude with which you inspire
+me."
+
+"We attacked Mantua yesterday. We opened upon it, from two batteries, a
+fire of shells and red-hot balls. The whole night the unfortunate city
+was burning. The spectacle was terrible and sublime. We have taken
+possession of numerous outworks, and we open the trenches to-night.
+To-morrow we make our headquarters at Castiglione, and think of passing
+* the night there."
+
+"I have received a courier from Paris. He brought two letters for you: I
+have read them. Though this action seems to me very simple, as you
+gave me permission so to do, yet, I fear, it will annoy you, and that
+troubles me exceedingly. I wanted at first to seal them over again; but,
+pshaw! that would have been horrible. If I am guilty, I beg your pardon.
+I swear to you I did it not through jealousy; no, certainly not; I have
+of my adored one too high an opinion to indulge in such a feeling. I
+wish you would once for all allow me to read your letters; then I should
+not have any twittings of conscience or fear."
+
+"Achilles, the courier, has arrived from Milan; no letter from my adored
+one! Farewell, my sole happiness! When will you come, and be with me? I
+shall have to fetch you from Milan myself."
+
+"A thousand kisses, burning as my heart, pure as yours!"
+
+"I have sent for the courier; he says he was at your residence, and that
+you had nothing to say, nothing to order! Fie! wicked, hateful, cruel
+tyrant!--pretty little monster! You laugh at my threats and my madness;
+ah, you know very well that if I could shut you up in my heart, I would
+keep you there a prisoner."
+
+"Let me know that you are cheerful, right well, and loving!"
+
+"BONAPARTE."
+
+But Josephine seems not to have answered this letter as Napoleon
+desired. She knew that it was nothing but unfounded jealousy which had
+induced him to read the letters sent to her, and to punish him for this
+jealousy she forbade him to read her letters in the future.
+
+But while she reproached him in a jesting manner, and punished him for
+this jealousy, she, herself, with all the inconsistency of a lover, fell
+into the same fault, and could not hide from him the jealous fears which
+the ladies from Brescia, especially the beautiful Madame de Te----,
+had created within her mind. Bonaparte answered this letter as general,
+lover, and husband; he gives an account of his war operations, submits
+to her will as a lover, and commands her as a husband to come to him in
+Brescia.
+
+"CASTIGLIONE, the 4th Thermidor, Year IV. (July 22, 1796).
+
+"The wants of the army require my presence in these parts; it is
+impossible for me to go so far away as Milan; it would require for that
+purpose five or six days, and during that time circumstances might arise
+which would make my presence here absolutely necessary.
+
+"You assure me that your health is now good; consequently, I pray you
+to come to Brescia. At this moment I am sending Murat into the city to
+prepare you such a house as you wish.
+
+"I believe that you can very well sleep in Cassano on the 6th, if you
+leave Milan late, so as to be in Brescia on the 7th, where the most
+tender of lovers awaits you. I am in despair that you can believe, my
+dear friend, that my heart can be drawn toward any one but yourself;
+it belongs to you by right of conquest, and will be enduring and
+ever-lasting. I do not understand why you speak of Madame de Te----. I
+trouble myself no more about her than any other woman in Brescia. Since
+it annoys you that I open your letters, the enclosed one will be the
+last that I open; your letter did not reach me till after I had opened
+this.
+
+"Farewell, my tender one; send me often your news. Break up at once and
+come to me, and be happy without disquietude; all is well, and my heart
+belongs to you for life.
+
+"Be sure to return to the Adjutant Miollis the box of medallions which,
+as he writes, he has given you. There are so many babbling and bad
+tongues, that it is necessary to be always on one's guard.
+
+"Health, love, and speedy arrival in Brescia!
+
+"I have in Milan a carriage which is suited for city and country; use it
+on your journey. Bring your silver and a few necessary things. Travel by
+short stages, and during the cool of the morning and evening, so as not
+to weary you too much. The troops need only three days to reach Brescia,
+a distance of fourteen miles. I beg of you to pass the night of the 6th
+in Cassano; on the 7th I will come to meet you as far as possible.
+
+"Farewell, my Josephine; a thousand tender kisses!
+
+"BONAPARTE."
+
+Josephine gladly obeyed the wishes of her husband, and exactly on the
+7th Thermidor (July 25) she entered Brescia. Bonaparte had ridden an
+hour's distance to meet her, and, amid the shouts of the population, he
+led her in triumph into the house prepared for her reception.
+
+Three days were allowed to the general to enjoy his happiness and
+Josephine's presence. On the 28th of July he received the intelligence
+that Wurmser was advancing, and that he was in Marmirolo. At once
+Bonaparte broke up from Brescia, to meet him and offer battle.
+
+Brescia was no longer a dwelling-place for Josephine now that the enemy
+threatened it; she therefore accompanied her husband, and the effeminate
+creole, the tender Parisian, accustomed to all the comforts of life,
+the lady surrounded by numerous attendants in Milan, saw herself at once
+obliged, as the true wife of a soldier, to share with her husband all
+the hardships, inconveniences, and dangers of a campaign.
+
+The news of the advance of the Austrians became more and more precise.
+No sooner had Bonaparte arrived in Peschiera with his Josephine, than he
+learned that Montevaldo was attacked by the enemy. In great haste they
+pursued their journey; the next day they reached Verona, but Wurmser
+had been equally swift in his movements, and on the heights surrounding
+Verona were seen the light troops of Austria.
+
+Even a serious skirmish at the outposts took place, and Josephine,
+against her will, had to be the witness of this horrible, cannibal
+murder, which we are pleased to call war.
+
+Bonaparte, who had preceded his army, was forced to retreat from Verona,
+and went with Josephine to Castel Nuovo, where the majority of his
+troops were stationed. But it was a fearful journey, beset with dangers.
+Everywhere on the road lay the dying and the wounded who had remained
+behind after the different conflicts, and who with difficulty were
+crawling along to meet the army. Josephine's sensitive heart was
+painfully moved by the spectacle of these sufferings and these bleeding
+wounds. Napoleon noticed it on her pale cheeks and trembling lips, and
+in the tears which stood in her eyes. Besides which, a great battle
+was at hand, threatening her with new horrors. To guard her from them,
+Bonaparte made another sacrifice to his love, and resolved to part from
+her.
+
+She was to return to Brescia, while Napoleon, with his army, would meet
+the foe. With a thousand assurances of love, and the most tender vows,
+he took leave of Josephine, and she mastered herself so as to repress
+her anxiety and timidity, and to appear collected and brave. With
+a smile on her lip she bade him farewell, and began the journey,
+accompanied by a few well-armed horsemen, whom Bonaparte, in the most
+stringent terms, commanded not to leave his wife's carriage for an
+instant, and in case of attack to defend her with their lives.
+
+At first the journey was attended with no danger, and Josephine's heart
+began to beat with less anxiety; she already believed herself in safety.
+Suddenly, from a neighboring coppice, there rushed out a division of the
+enemy's cavalry; already were distinctly heard the shouts and cries with
+which they dashed toward the advancing carriage. To oppose this vast
+number of assailants was not to be thought of; only the most rapid
+flight could save them.
+
+The carriage was turned; the driver jumped upon the horses, and, in a
+mad gallop, onward it sped. To the swiftness of the horses Josephine
+owed her escape. She reached headquarters safely, and was received by
+Bonaparte with loud demonstrations of joy at her unexpected return.
+
+But Josephine had not the strength to conceal the anxiety of her heart,
+her fears and alarms. These horrible scenes of war, the sight of the
+wounded, the dangers she had lately incurred, the fearful preparations
+for fresh murders and massacres--all this troubled her mind so violently
+that she lost at once all courage and composure. A nervous trembling
+agitated her whole frame, and, not being able to control her agony, she
+broke into loud weeping.
+
+Bonaparte embraced her tenderly, and as he kissed the tears from her
+cheeks, he cried out, with a threatening flash in his eyes, "Wurmser
+will pay dearly for the tears he has caused!" [Footnote: Bonaparte's
+words.--"Memorial de Ste. Helene," vol. i., p. 174.]
+
+It was, however, a fortunate accident that the enemy's cavalry had
+hindered Josephine from reaching Brescia. A quarter of an hour after her
+return to headquarters the news arrived that the Austrians had advanced
+into Brescia. Meanwhile Josephine had already regained all her courage
+and steadfastness; she declared herself ready to abide by her husband,
+to bear with him the dangers and the fatigues of the campaign; that she
+wished to be with him, as it behooved the wife of a soldier.
+
+But Bonaparte felt that her company would cripple his courage and
+embarrass his movements. Josephine once more had to leave him, so that
+the tender lover might not disturb the keen commanding general, and that
+his head and not his heart might decide the necessary measures.
+
+He persuaded Josephine to leave him, and to retire into one of the
+central cities of Italy. She acceded to his wishes, and travelled away
+toward Florence. But, to reach that city, it was necessary to pass
+Mantua, which the French were investing. Her road passed near the walls
+of the besieged city, and one of the balls, which were whizzing around
+the carriage, struck one of the soldiers of her escort and wounded
+him mortally. It was a dangerous, fearful journey--war's confusion
+everywhere, wild shouts, fleeing, complaining farmers, constant cries of
+distress, anxiety, and want.
+
+But Josephine had armed her heart with great courage and resolution; she
+shrank from no danger, she overcame it all; she already had an undaunted
+confidence in her husband's destiny, and believed in the star of his
+prosperity.
+
+And this star led her on happily through all dangers, and protected
+her throughout this reckless and daring journey. Through Bologna and
+Ferrara, she came at last to Lucca; there to rest a few days from her
+hardships and anxieties. There, in Lucca, she was to experience the
+proud satisfaction of being witness of the deep confidence which had
+struck root in the heart of the Italians, in reference to the success
+of the French commander-in-chief. Though it was well known that Wurmser,
+with a superior force, was advancing against General Bonaparte, and
+his hungry, tattered troops, and that they were on the eve of a battle
+which, according to all appearances, promised to Napoleon a complete
+defeat, and to the Austrians a decisive victory, the town of Lucca
+was not afraid to give to the wife of Bonaparte a grand and public
+reception. The senate of Lucca received her with all the marks of
+distinction shown only to princesses; the senate came to her in official
+ceremony, and brought her as a gift of honor, in costly gold flasks, the
+produce of their land, the fine oil of Lucca.
+
+Josephine received these marks of honor with that grace and amiability
+with which she won all hearts, and, with her enchanting smile, thanking
+the senators, she told them, with all the confidence of a lover, that
+her victorious husband would, for the magnificent hospitality thus shown
+her, manifest his gratitude to the town of Lucca by the prosperity and
+liberty which he was ready to conquer for Italy.
+
+This confidence was shortly to be justified. No sooner had Josephine
+arrived in Florence, whither she had come from Lucca, than the news of
+the victory of the French army, commanded by her husband, reached there
+also.
+
+Suddenly abandoning the siege of Mantua, Bonaparte had gathered together
+all his forces, and with them he dealt blow after blow upon the three
+divisions of the army corps of Wurmser, until he had completely defeated
+them. The battles of Lonato and Castiglione were the fresh trophies of
+his fame. On the 10th of August Bonaparte made his victorious entry into
+Brescia, which only twelve days before he had been suddenly obliged to
+abandon with his Josephine, to whom he had then been barely reunited,
+and was still luxuriating in the bliss of her presence.
+
+Bonaparte had fulfilled his word: he had revenged Josephine, and Wurmser
+had indeed paid dearly for the tears which he had caused Josephine to
+shed!
+
+But after these days of storm and danger, the two lovers were to enjoy a
+few weeks of mutual happiness and of splendid triumphs.
+
+Josephine had returned from Florence to Milan, and thither Bonaparte
+came also in the middle of August, to rest in her arms after his battles
+and victories.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI. BONAPARTE AND JOSEPHINE IN MILAN.
+
+
+The days of armistice which Bonaparte passed in Milan were accompanied
+by festivities, enjoyments, and triumphs of all kinds. All Milan and
+Lombardy streamed forth to present their homage to the deliverer of
+Italy and to his charming, gracious wife; to give feasts in their
+honor, to praise them in enthusiastic songs, to celebrate their fame in
+concerts, serenades, and illuminations.
+
+The palace Serbelloni served Italy's deliverer once more as a residence,
+and it was well calculated for this on account of its vastness and
+elegance. This was one of the most beautiful buildings among the palaces
+of Milan. Over its massive lower structure, and its rez-de chaussee of
+red granite, sparkling in the sun with its play of many colors, arose
+bold and steep its light and graceful facade. The interior of this
+beautiful palace of the Dukes of Serbelloni was adorned with all the
+splendors which sculpture and painting gathered into the palaces of the
+Italian nobility.
+
+In those halls, whose roofs were richly decorated and gilded, and
+supported by white columns of marble, and whose walls were covered with
+those splendid and enormous mirrors which the republic of Venice alone
+then manufactured; and from whose tall windows hung down in long, heavy
+folds curtains of purple velvet, embroidered with gold, the work of the
+famous artisans of Milan--in those brilliant halls the happy couple,
+Bonaparte and Josephine, received the deputies of applauding Italy and
+the high aristocracy of all Lombardy.
+
+An eye-witness thus describes a reception-evening in the Serbelloni
+palace: "The hall in which the general received his visitors was a long
+gallery divided by marble columns into three smaller rooms; the two
+extreme divisions formed two large drawing-rooms, perfectly square, and
+the middle partition formed a long and wide promenade apartment. In the
+drawing-room, into which I entered, was Madame Bonaparte, the beautiful
+Madame Visconti, Madame Leopold Berthier, and Madame Ivan. Under the
+arches, at the entrance of the middle room, stood the general;
+around him, but at a distance, the chiefs of the war department,
+the magistrates of the city, with a few ministers of the Italian
+governments, all in respectful attitude before him. Nothing seemed to be
+more striking than the bearing of this little man among the dignitaries
+overawed by his character. His attitude had nothing of pride, but it had
+the dignity of a man conscious of his worth, and who feels that he is in
+the right place. Bonaparte tried not to increase his stature, so as to
+be on the same level with those around him; they already spared him that
+trouble, and bowed to him. None of those who conversed with him appeared
+taller than he. Berthier, Silmaine, Clarke, Augerean, awaited silently
+till he should address them, an honor which this evening was not
+conferred upon all. Never were headquarters so much like a court: they
+were the prelude to the Tuileries." [Footnote: Arnold, "Souvenirs d'un
+Sexagenaire," vol. iii., p. 10.]
+
+To Milan came the ambassadors of princes, of the free cities, and of
+the Italian republics. They all claimed Bonaparte's assistance and
+protection; they came bearers of good-will, of utterances of hope and
+fear, and expecting from him help and succor. The princes trembled for
+their thrones; the cities and republics for their independence; they
+wanted to conciliate by their submission the general whose sword could
+either threaten them all or give them ample protection. Bonaparte
+received this homage with the composure of a protector, and sometimes
+also with the proud reserve of a conqueror.
+
+He granted to the Duke of Parma the protection which he had sought, and
+permitted him to remain on his territory as prince and ruler, though the
+strongest expostulations had been made to Bonaparte on that point.
+
+"He is a Bourbon," they said; "he must no longer rule."
+
+"He is an unfortunate man," replied Bonaparte, proudly; "it is not worth
+while to attack him. If we leave him on his lands, he will rule only in
+our name; if we drive him away, he will be weaving intrigues everywhere.
+Let him remain where he is, I wish him no wrong; his presence can be
+useful, his absence would surely he hurtful."
+
+"But he is a Bourbon, citizen general, a Bourbon!" exclaimed Augereau,
+with animation.
+
+Bonaparte's countenance darkened, and his brow was overspread with
+frowns. "Well, then," cried he, with threatening tone, "he is a Bourbon!
+Is he therefore by nature of so despicable a family? Because three
+Bourbons have been killed in France, must we therefore hunt down all the
+others? I cannot approve of proscriptions which thus fall upon a whole
+family, a whole class of people. An absurd law has prohibited all the
+nobles from serving the republic, and yet Barras is in the Directory,
+and I am at the head of the army in Italy. We are consequently liable
+to punishment in virtue of your absurd and cruel system! Hunt down those
+who do wrong, but not masses who are innocent. Can you punish Paris
+and France for the crimes of the sans-culottes? The Bourbons are, it is
+said, the enemies of freedom; they have been led to the scaffold under
+the action of a right which I do not acknowledge. The Duke of Parma is
+weak, and a poltroon,--he will not stir. His people seem to love him,
+for we are here, and they rise not, they utter no complaint. Let him,
+then, continue to rule as long as he pays all that I exact from him."
+[Footnote: Napoleon's words.--See Hazlitt, "Histoire de Napoleon," vol.
+v., p. 1.]
+
+Thanks to the good-will and protection of the republican general, the
+Duke of Parma remained on his little throne--on the same throne which
+was one day to be to Napoleon's second wife a compensation for her lost
+imperial crown. The Empress of France was to become a Duchess of Parma;
+and now to her husband, the present general of the republic, the actual
+Duke of Parma was indebted that his little dukedom was not converted
+into a republic.
+
+It is true that the duke had to pay dearly for the protection which
+Bonaparte granted. He had to pay a war-subsidy of two million francs,
+and, besides, give from his collection his most beautiful painting,
+that of St. Jerome by Correggio, for the Museum of the Louvre in Paris.
+[Footnote: This splendid picture is now in the Vatican at Rome.] The
+duke, as a lover of art, was more distressed at the loss of this picture
+than at the enormous contribution he had to pay; for he soon caused the
+proposition to be made to General Bonaparte, to redeem from the French
+government that painting, for the sum of two hundred thousand francs, a
+proposition which Bonaparte, without any further consultation with the
+authorities in Paris, rejected with some degree of irritation.
+
+The Duke of Parma remained therefore the sovereign of his duchy, because
+it so pleased Bonaparte; but Bonaparte was led into error when he
+thought that, as his people rebelled not, they therefore loved their
+duke, and were satisfied with him. The women and the priests controlled
+entirely the feeble duke; and not only the people, but the better
+classes and the aristocracy, submitted to all this with great
+unwillingness. Once, when Joseph Bonaparte, whom the French republic had
+sent to give assurance of protection and recognition to the little Duke
+of Parma, was walking with a few cavaliers in the gardens around the
+duke's palace in Colorno, he expressed his admiration at the symmetry
+and beauty of the buildings.
+
+"That is true," was the answer, "but just look at the buildings of the
+neighboring cloister! do you not see how superior that dwelling is
+to that of the sovereign? Wretched is the country where this can take
+place!" [Footnote: "Memoires du Roi Joseph," vol. i., p. 65.]
+
+Even the representatives of the republic of Venice came to Bonaparte.
+They came not only to secure his friendship, but also to complain that
+the French army, in its advance upon Brescia, had done injury to the
+neutral territory of Venice.
+
+Bonaparte directed at them a look of imperious severity, and, instead
+of laying stress on their neutrality, he asked in a sharp tone, "Are you
+for us, or against us?"
+
+"Signor, we are neutral, and--"
+
+"Do not be neutral," interrupted Bonaparte, with vehemence, "be strong,
+otherwise your friendship is useful to none."
+
+And, with imperious tone, he reproached them for the vacillating,
+perfidious conduct which, since 1792, had been the policy of Venice,
+and he threatened to punish and destroy that republic if she did not
+immediately prove herself to be the loyal friend of the French.
+
+While Bonaparte used the few short weeks of rest to bring Italy more and
+more under the yoke of France, it was Josephine's privilege to draw to
+herself and toward her husband the minds of the Italians, to win their
+hearts to her husband, and through him to the French republic, which
+he represented. She did this with all the grace and affability, all
+the genial tact and large-heartedness of a noble heart, which were the
+attributes of her beautiful and amiable person. She was unwearied
+in well-doing, in listening to all the petitions with which she was
+approached; she had for every complaint and every request an open ear;
+she not only promised to every applicant her intercession, but she made
+him presents, and was ever ready, by solicitations, flatteries, and
+expostulations, and, if necessary, even with tears, to entreat from her
+husband a mitigation of the punishment and sentence which he had decided
+upon in his just severity; and seldom had Bonaparte the courage to
+oppose her wishes. These were for Josephine glorious days of love and
+triumph. She depicts them herself in a letter to her aunt in plain,
+short words.
+
+"The Duke de Serbelloni," writes she, "will tell you, my dear aunt, how
+I have been received in Italy; how, wherever I passed, they celebrated
+my arrival; how all the Italian princes, even the Duke of Tuscany, the
+emperor's brother, gave festivities in my honor. Well, then, I would
+prefer to live as a plain citizeness of France. I like not the honorable
+distinctions of this country. They weary me. It is true, my health
+inclines me to be sad. I often feel very ill. If fate would bring me
+good health, then I should be entirely happy. I possess the most amiable
+husband that can be found. I have no occasion to desire anything. My
+wishes are his. The whole day he is worshipping me as if I were a
+deity; it is impossible to find a better husband. He writes often to
+my children--he loves them much. He sent to Hortense, through M.
+Serbelloni, a beautiful enamelled repeating watch, ornamented with fine
+pearls; to Eugene he sent also a fine gold watch." [Footnote: Aubenas,
+"Histoire de l'Imperatrice Josephine," vol. i., p. 349.]
+
+But soon these days of quietness and happiness were to be broken;
+the armistice was drawing to a close, when, with redoubled energy,
+Bonaparte, who had received from the government the wished-for
+re-enforcements, longed to resume the war with Austria, which on her
+side had sent another army into Italy, under General Alvinzi, to relieve
+Mantua, and to deliver Wurmser from his peril.
+
+On the 13th of August Bonaparte left Milan and returned to Brescia,
+where he established his headquarters, and where, with all the speed and
+restlessness of a warrior longing for victory, he made his preparations
+for the coming conflict.
+
+But amid the anxieties, the cares, the chances of this new campaign,
+his heart remained behind in Milan with his Josephine; when the
+general began to rest, the lover began to breathe. No sooner were
+the battle-plans, the fight, the preparations and the dispositions
+accomplished, than all his thoughts returned to Josephine, and he had
+again recourse to his written correspondence with his adored wife; for
+although he longed so much to have her with him, yet he was unwilling to
+occasion her so much inconvenience and so many privations.
+
+Bonaparte's letters are again way-marks during his glorious path of
+victory and triumph, while he was over-running Italy with wondrous
+rapidity--but, instead of relating these conquests, we turn to his
+letters to Josephine. Already, on his way to Brescia, he had written her
+several times. The very day after reaching there, after having made the
+necessary military arrangements, Bonaparte wrote to her:
+
+"BRESCIA, the 14th Fructidor, Year IV. (August 31, 1795).
+
+"I am leaving for Verona. I have hoped in vain to receive a letter from
+you; this makes me wretched and restless. At the time of my departure,
+you were somewhat suffering; I pray you, do not leave me in such a state
+of disquietude. You had promised me a greater punctuality; your tongue,
+then, chimed in with your heart...; you, whom Nature has gifted with a
+sweet disposition, with joyousness, and every thing which is agreeable,
+how can you forget him who loves you so warmly? Three days without
+a letter from you! I have during that time written to you several.
+Separation is horrible; the nights are long, tiresome, and insipid; the
+days are monotonous."
+
+"To-day, alone with thoughts, works, men, and their destructive schemes,
+I have not received from you a single note that I can press to my
+heart."
+
+"Headquarters are broken up; I leave in one hour. I have this night
+received expresses from Paris; there was nothing for you but the
+enclosed letter, which will afford you some pleasure."
+
+"Think on me; live for me; be often with your beloved, and believe that
+there is for him but one sorrow; that he shrinks only from this--to be
+no more loved by his Josephine. A thousand right sweet kisses, right
+tender, right exclusive kisses."
+
+"BONAPARTE."
+
+Three days after he tells her that he is now in the midst of war
+operations; that hostilities have begun again, and that he hopes in a
+few days to advance upon Trieste. But this occupied his mind less than
+his solicitude for Josephine. After a short paragraph on his military
+affairs, he continues:
+
+"No letter from you yet; I am really anxious; but I am assured that you
+are well, and that you have made an excursion on the Como Lake. Every
+day I wait impatiently for the courier who is to bring me news from you;
+you know how precious this is to me. I live no longer when away from
+you; the joy of my life is to be near my sweet Josephine. Think of me;
+write often, very often; this is the only remedy for separation; it is
+cruel, but I trust it will soon be over."
+
+"BONAPARTE."
+
+Meanwhile this separation was to last longer than Bonaparte had
+imagined. War held him entangled in its web so fast, that he had not
+time even to write to Josephine. In the next two letters he could only
+tell her, in a few lines, what had happened at the theatre of war; that
+he had again defeated Wurmser, and had surrounded him, and that he
+hopes to take Mantua. Even for his constant complaint about Josephine's
+slothfullness in writing, he finds no room in these short letters. In
+the next letter, however, it appears the more violently. He has no
+time to give her, as was his usual practice, any account of the war.
+He begins at once with the main object, which is--"Josephine has not
+written:"
+
+"VERONA, 1st day of Complementaires in Year V," "(September 17, 1796).
+
+"I write to you often, my beloved one, but you write seldom to me. You
+are wicked and hateful, very hateful--as hateful as you are inconstant.
+It is indeed faithlessness to deceive a wretched man, a tender lover!
+Must he lose his rights because he is away, burdened with hardship and
+labor? Without his Josephine, without the certainty of her love, what is
+there on earth for him? What would he do here?
+
+"We had yesterday a very bloody affair; the enemy has lost many men, and
+is well beaten. We have taken his advanced works before Mantua.
+
+"Farewell, adored Josephine! One of these nights the doors will open
+with a loud crash: as a jealous man, I am in your arms!
+
+"A thousand dear kisses! BONAPARTE."
+
+But the doors were not to be opened on any of the following nights for
+the jealous one! The events of war were to keep him away a long time
+from his Josephine. The Austrian Generals Wurmser and Alvinzi, with
+their two armies, demanded all the energy and activity of Bonaparte.
+Meanwhile, as he was preparing for the great battles which were to
+decide the fate of Italy, his thoughts were always turned to his
+Josephine; his deep longings grew day by day, still he had no longer
+cause to complain that Josephine did not write, that she had forgotten
+him! Contrariwise, Josephine did write; she had, while he was writing
+her angry letters about her silence, written several times, for
+Bonaparte in the following letter says that he has received many
+letters from her, which, probably on account of the difficulties of
+communication, had been delayed. He had received them with the highest
+delight, and pressed them to his lips and heart. But no sooner had he
+rejoiced over them, than he complains that they are cold, reserved, and
+old. No word, no expression, satisfies his ardent love. He complains
+that her letters are cold, and then, when she dips her pen in the fire
+of tender love, he complains again that her glowing letters "turn
+his blood into fire, and stir up his whole being." Love, with all its
+wantonness and all its pains, holds him captive in its hands, and the
+general has no means of appeasing the lover.
+
+The letter which complains of Josephine's coldness is dated
+
+"MODENA, 26th Vendemiaire of the Year V." (October 17, 1796),
+
+"I was yesterday the whole day on the field. To-day I have kept my bed.
+Fever and a violent headache have debarred me from writing to my adored
+one; but I have received her letters, I pressed them to my lips and
+to my heart, and the anguish of a separation of hundreds of miles
+disappeared. At this moment I see you at my side, neither capricious
+nor angry, but soft, tender, and wrapped in that goodness which is
+exclusively the attribute of my Josephine. It was a dream--judge if
+it could drive the fever away. Your letters are as cold as if you were
+fifty years old; they seem to have been composed after a marriage of
+fifteen years. One can see in them the friendship and sentiments of
+the winter of life. Pshaw! Josephine, ... that is very naughty, very
+abominable, very treasonable on your part. What more remains to make
+me worthy of pity? All is already done! To love me no more! To hate
+me! Well, then, let it be so! Every thing humiliates but hatred,
+and indifference with its marmoreal pulse, its staring eyes, and its
+measured steps. A thousand thousand kisses as tender as my heart! I
+am somewhat better. I leave to-morrow. The English are cruising on the
+Mediterranean. Corsica is ours. Good news for France and for the army.
+
+"BONAPARTE."
+
+Bonaparte had gone to wage the last decisive battle. He writes to her
+from Verona a few lines that he has arrived there, and that he is just
+going to mount his horse to pursue the march. In this letter, however,
+he does not tell Josephine that General Vaubois, with his fugitive
+regiments, has been beaten by the Tyrolese, and that, driven from their
+mountains, he has arrived in Verona; that Alvinzi occupies the Tyrol and
+has pushed on to Brenta and to Etsch. Bonaparte was gathering his troops
+to drive away General Alvinzi, who had occupied the heights of Caldiero,
+from these important positions, and to take possession of them by main
+force. A violent and desperate struggle ensued, and the day ended with
+victory on the side of the Austrians. Bonaparte had to return to Verona;
+Alvinzi maintained himself on the heights.
+
+To the irritated general, disappointed in his plans and humiliated, his
+love becomes his "bete de souffrance," upon which he takes vengeance
+for the defeat of Caldiero. Josephine has to endure the flaming wrath of
+Bonaparte, in whom now general and lover are fused into one; but in his
+expressions of anger the general has no complaints--it is the lover who
+murmurs, who reprimands, and is irritated.
+
+On the evening of the 12th November, the day of the defeat of Caldiero,
+Bonaparte returned to Verona. The next day he wrote to Josephine:
+
+"VERONA, the 3d Frimaire, Year V." (November 13, 1796)
+
+"I love you no more; on the contrary, I hate you. You are a wicked
+creature, very inconsistent, very stupid, very silly. You do not write
+to me. You do not love your husband. You know how much pleasure your
+letters would afford, and you do not write to him even six lines, which
+you can readily scribble out."
+
+"How, then, do you begin the day, madame? What important occupation
+takes away your time from writing to your very excellent lover? What new
+inclination chokes and thrusts aside the tender, abiding love which you
+have promised him? What can this wonderful, this new love be, which lays
+claim to all your time, and rules over your days, and hinders you from
+occupying yourself with your husband? Josephine, be on your guard; on
+some evil night the doors will be burst open and I shall stand before
+you!"
+
+"In truth, I am restless, my dear one, because I receive no news from
+you. Write me at once four pages about those things, which fill my heart
+with emotion and pleasure.
+
+"I trust soon to fold you in my arms, and then I will overwhelm you with
+a million of kisses burning like the equator."
+
+"BONAPARTE."
+
+Whilst Bonaparte was pursuing and engaging with Wurmser and Alvinzi in
+bloody hostilities, and writing to Josephine tender and angry letters
+of a lover ever jealous, ever dissatisfied and envious, Josephine was
+leading in Milan a life full of pleasure and amusement, full of splendor
+and triumphs, of receptions and festivities. Every new victory, every
+onward movement, was for the inhabitants of Milan, and her proud and
+rich nobles, a fresh and welcome occasion to celebrate and glorify the
+wife of General Bonaparte, and, through her, the hero who was to take
+away from their necks the yoke of the Austrian, and who suspected not
+that he was so soon to place upon them another yoke.
+
+Josephine, true to the wishes and commands of Bonaparte, accepted these
+festivities and this homage with all the affability and grace which
+distinguished her. She had by degrees become familiar with this
+ceaseless homage, which at first seemed so wearisome; by degrees she
+took delight in this life of pleasure, in the incense of adulation, and
+the brilliancies of fame. All the indolence, the dreamy carelessness,
+the graceful abandonment of the creole had been again awakened in her.
+She cradled herself playfully on the lulling, bright waves of pleasure
+as an insect with golden wings, and she smiled complacently at the
+stream of encircling festivities.
+
+Bonaparte had told her to use all the arts of a woman to bind the
+Milanese and the Lombards to herself and to her husband. With her smiles
+she was to continue the conquest begun by Bonaparte's sword.
+
+She could not, therefore, live alone in quiet solitude; she could not
+remain in obscurity while her husband was performing his part on the
+theatre of war; she could not, by an appearance of gravity, or by a
+clouded brow, furnish occasion to the suspicion that there existed doubt
+in the future success of her husband, or in his prosperity and victory.
+
+Roses were to crown her brow--a cheerful smile was to beam on her
+countenance; with joyous spirit, she was to take part in the festivities
+and pleasures--that the Milanese might see with what earnest confidence
+she believed in Napoleon's star! But Bonaparte, with all the instinct of
+a genuine lover, had read the deepest secret of her soul; he was envious
+and jealous, because he felt that Josephine did not belong to him with
+her whole heart, her whole being, all her emotions and thoughts. Her
+heart, which had received from the past so many scars and wounds,
+could not yet have blossomed anew; it had been warmed by the glow of
+Bonaparte's love, but it was not yet thoroughly penetrated with that
+passion which Bonaparte so painfully missed, so intensely craved.
+
+The earnest, unfettered nature of his love intimidated her, while it
+ravished and flattered her vanity; but her heart was not entirely his,
+it had yet room for her children, for her friends, for the things of
+this world!
+
+Josephine loved Bonaparte with that soft, modest, and retiring
+affection, which only by degrees--by the storms of anguish, jealousy,
+agony, and the possibility of losing him--was to be fanned into that
+vitality and glow which never cooled again in her heart, and which at
+last gave her the death-stroke.
+
+She therefore thought she was fulfilling her task when she, while
+Bonaparte was fighting with weapons, conquered with smiles, and received
+the homage of the conquered only as a tribute which they brought through
+her to the warlike genius of her husband.
+
+Meanwhile Bonaparte had taken vengeance for his defeat at Caldiero.
+Through a ruse of war, he had decoyed Alvinzi from his safe and
+impregnable position into one where he could meet him with his army
+anxious for the fray, and give him battle.
+
+The gigantic struggle lasted three days--and the close of the third day
+brought to the conqueror, Bonaparte, the laurel-wreath of undying glory,
+which, more enduring and dazzling than an imperial crown, surrounded
+with a halo the hero's brow long after that crown had fallen from it.
+
+This was the victory of Arcola, which Bonaparte himself decided by
+snatching from the flag-bearer the standard of the retreating regiment,
+and rushing with it, through a shower of balls, over the bridge of death
+and destruction, and, with a voice heard above the thundering cannon,
+shouting jubilant to his soldiers--"En avant, mes amis!" And bravely the
+soldiers followed him--a brilliant victory was the result.
+
+Elevated by this deed, the grandest and most glorious of his heroic
+career, Napoleon returned to Verona on the 19th November. The whole
+city--all Lombardy--sang to his praise their inspired hymns, and greeted
+with enthusiasm the conqueror of Arcola. He, however, wanted a sweeter
+reward; and after obtaining a second victory, on the 23d of November,
+by defeating Wurmser near Mantua, he longed to rest and enjoy an hour's
+happiness in the arms of his Josephine.
+
+From Verona he wrote to her on the day after the battle of Mantua, on
+the 24th of November:
+
+"I hope soon to be in your arms, my beloved one; I love you to madness!
+I write by this courier for Paris. All is well. Wurmser was defeated
+yesterday under Mantua. Your husband needs nothing but the love of his
+Josephine to be happy. BONAPARTE."
+
+But the most terrible doubts hung yet over this love. The letter in
+which Napoleon announced his coming had not reached Josephine; and, as
+the next day he came to Milan with all the cravings and impatience of a
+lover, he did not find Josephine there.
+
+She had not suspected his coming; she had not dreamed that the
+commanding officer could stop in his victorious course and give way to
+the lover. She thought him far away; and, ever faithful to Bonaparte's
+direction to assist him in the conquest of Italy, she had accepted an
+invitation from the city of Genoa, which had lately and gladly entered
+into alliance with France. The most brilliant festivities welcomed her
+in this city of wealth and palaces, and "Genova la superba" gathered
+all its magnificence, all the splendor of its glory, to offer, under the
+eyes of all Europe, her solemn homage to the wife of the celebrated hero
+of Arcola.
+
+While Josephine, with joyous pride was receiving this homage, Bonaparte,
+gloomy and murmuring, sat in his cabinet at Milan, and wrote to her:
+
+"MILAN, the 7th Frimaire, Year V.," Three o'clock. afternoon (November
+27, 1796).
+
+"I have just arrived in Milan, and rush to your apartments. I have left
+every thing to see you, to press you in my arms; .... you are not there!
+You are pursuing a circle of festivities through the cities. You go away
+from me at my approach; you trouble yourself no more about your dear
+Napoleon. A spleen has made you love him; inconstancy renders you
+indifferent.
+
+"Accustomed to dangers, I know a remedy against ennui and the troubles
+of life. The wretchedness I endure is not to be measured; I am entitled
+not to expect it.
+
+"I will wait here until the 9th. Do not trouble yourself. Pursue your
+pleasures; happiness is made for you. The whole world is too happy when
+it can please you, and your husband alone is very, very unhappy.
+
+"BONAPARTE."
+
+But this cry of anguish from this crushed heart did not reach Josephine;
+and the courier, who next day came to Milan from Genoa, brought
+from Josephine only a letter with numerous commissions for Berthier.
+Bonaparte's anger and sorrow knew no bounds, and he at once writes to
+her with all the utterances of despair and complaint of a lover, and the
+proud wrath of an injured husband:
+
+"MILAN, the 8th Frimaire, Year V., eight o'clock, evening.
+
+"The courier whom Berthier had sent to Milan has just arrived. You have
+had no time to write to me; that I can understand very well. In the
+midst of pleasures and amusements it would have been too much for you to
+make the smallest sacrifice for me. Berthier has shown me the letter you
+wrote to him. It is not my purpose to trouble you in your arrangements
+or in the festivities which you are enjoying; I am not worth the
+trouble; the happiness or the misery of a man you love no longer has not
+the right to interest you.
+
+"As regards myself, to love you and you alone, to make you happy, to do
+nothing that can wrong you in any way, is the desire and object of my
+life.
+
+"Be happy, have nothing to reproach me, trouble not yourself about the
+felicity of a man who only breathes in your life, who finds enjoyment
+only in your happiness. When I claim from you a love which would
+approach mine, I am wrong: how can one expect that a cobweb should weigh
+as much as gold? When I sacrifice to you all my wishes, all my thoughts,
+all the moments of my life, I merely obey the spell which your charms,
+your character, your whole person, exercise over my wretched heart. I
+am wrong, for Nature has not endowed me with the power of binding you
+to me; but I deserve from Josephine in return at least consideration and
+esteem, for I love her unto madness, and love her exclusively.
+
+"Farewell, adorable wife! farewell, my Josephine! May fate pour into my
+heart every trouble and every sorrow; but may it send to my Josephine
+serene and happy days! Who deserves it more than she? When it is well
+understood that she loves me no more, I will garner up into my heart my
+deep anguish, and be content to be in many things at least useful and
+good to her.
+
+"I open this letter once more to send you a kiss.... ah! Josephine. ...
+Josephine! BONAPARTE."
+
+Meanwhile it was not yet well understood that Josephine loved him no
+more; for as soon as she knew of Bonaparte's presence in Milan, she
+hastened to dispatch him a courier, and to apprise him of her sudden
+departure.
+
+Bonaparte did not leave Milan on the 9th; he remained there, waiting for
+Josephine, to lift her up in his arms from her carriage, and to bear
+her into her apartments; to enjoy with her a few happy days of a quiet,
+domestic, and mutual love, all to themselves.
+
+His presence with the army, however, soon became a matter of necessity;
+for Alvinzi was advancing with considerable re-enforcements, with two
+army corps to the relief of Mantua, and Bonaparte, notwithstanding
+his pressing remonstrances to the Directory, having received but few
+re-enforcements and very little money, had to exert all his powers and
+energy to press a few advantages from the superior forces of the enemy.
+Everywhere his presence and personal action were needed; and, constantly
+busy with war, ever sword in hand, he could not, for long weeks, even
+once take pen IN HAND and write to his Josephine. His longings had to
+subside before the force of circumstances, which claimed the general's
+whole time.
+
+On the 3d of February, 1797, he again finds time to send her a few
+lines, to say that he is breaking up and going to Rimini. Then, after
+Alvinzi had been again defeated, after the fortress of Mantua had
+capitulated, Bonaparte had to break up again and go to Rome, to require
+from the pope the reason why he had made common cause with Austria, and
+shown himself the enemy of the French republic. In Bologna he lingered a
+few days, as Josephine, in compliance with his wishes, had come there to
+make amends by her presence for so long a separation.
+
+She remained in Bologna, while Bonaparte advanced toward the city of
+the Church. But the gloomy quietude, the constant rumors of war, the
+threatening dangers, the intrigues with which she was surrounded, the
+hostile exertions of the priests, the want of society, of friendly
+faces, every thing had a tendency to make Josephine's residence in
+Bologna very disagreeable, and to bring on sadness and nervousness.
+
+In this gloomy state of mind she writes to Bonaparte that she feels
+sick, exhausted and helpless; that she is anxious to return to Paris. He
+answers her from Ancona:
+
+"The 8th Pluviose, Year V. (February 16, 1797).
+
+"You are sad, you are sick, you write to me no longer, you wish to
+return to Paris! Do you no longer love your friend? This thought makes
+me very unhappy. My dear friend, life is intolerable to me, since I have
+heard of your sadness.
+
+"I send you at once Moscati to take care of you. My health is somewhat
+feeble; my cold hangs on. I pray you spare yourself, and love me as much
+as I love you, and do write every day. My restlessness is horrible.
+
+"I have given orders to Moscati to accompany you to Ancona, if you will
+come. I will write to you and let you know where I am.
+
+"I may perhaps make peace with the pope, and then will soon be with you;
+it is the most intense desire of my life.
+
+"I send a hundred kisses. Think not that any thing can equal my love,
+unless it be my solicitude for you. Write to me every day yourself, my
+dearly-beloved one!
+
+"BONAPARTE."
+
+But Josephine, in her depressed state of mind, and her nervous
+irritability, did not have the courage to draw nearer the scenes of war,
+and she dreaded to face again such dangers as once she had encountered
+in Brescia and on her journey to Florence. She had not been able to
+overcome the indolence of the Creole so much as to write to Bonaparte.
+Fully conscious of his love and pardon, she relied upon them when, in
+her reluctance to every exertion, she announced to him, through the
+physician Moscati, that she would not come to Ancona, but would wait for
+him in Bologna.
+
+This news made a very painful impression upon Bonaparte, and filled him
+with sorrow, though it reached him on a day in which he had obtained
+a new triumph, a spiritual victory without any shedding of blood. The
+pope, frightened at the army detachments approaching Rome, as well as at
+the menacing language of the victor of Arcola, signed a peace with the
+French republic, and with the general whose sword had bowed into the
+dust all the princes of Italy, and freed all the population from their
+duties as subjects. Bonaparte announced this to Josephine, and it is
+evident how important it was to him that this news should precede even
+his love-murmurings and reproaches. His letter was dated
+
+"TOLONTINO, the 1st Ventose, Year V. (February 19,1797).
+
+"Peace with Rome is signed. Bologna, Ferrara, Romagna fall into the
+hands of the French republic. The pope has to pay us in a short time
+thirty millions, and gives us many precious objects of art.
+
+"I leave to-morrow for Ancona, and then for Rimini, Ravenna, and
+Bologna. If your health permits, come over to meet me in Ravenna, but, I
+implore you, spare yourself.
+
+"Not a word from your hand! What have I done? To think only of you,
+to love but you, to live but for my wife, to enjoy only my beloved's
+happiness, does this deserve such a cruel treatment from her? My friend,
+I implore you, think of me, and write to me every day. Either you are
+sick, or you love me no longer. Do you imagine, then, that my heart is
+of marble? Why do you have so little sympathy with my sorrow? You must
+have a very poor idea of me! That I cannot believe. You, to whom Nature
+has imparted so much understanding, so much amiability, and so much
+beauty, you, who alone can rule in my heart, you know, without doubt,
+what power you have over me!
+
+"Write to me, think of me, and love me.
+
+"Yours entirely, yours for life,
+
+"BONAPARTE."
+
+This is the last letter of Bonaparte to Josephine during his first
+Italian campaign--the last at least in the series of letters which
+Queen Hortense has made public, as the most beautiful and most glorious
+monument to her mother. [Footnote: "Lettres de Napoleon a Josephine et
+de Josephine a Napoleon et a sa fille. Londres et Leipzic, 1833."]
+
+We have dwelt upon them because these letters, like sunbeams, throw a
+bright light on the new pathway of Josephine's life--because they are an
+eloquent and splendid testimony to the love which Josephine had inspired
+in her young husband, and also to her amiableness, to her sweetness of
+disposition, to her grace, and to all the noble and charming qualities
+which procured her so much admiration and affection, and which still
+caused her to be loved, sought for and celebrated, when she had to
+descend from the height of a throne, and became the deserted, divorced
+wife of the man who loved her immeasurably, and who so often had sworn
+to her that this love would only end with his life!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII. THE COURT OF MONTEBELLO.
+
+
+On the 18th of April were finally signed, in Leoben, the preliminaries
+of peace between Austria and France, and which finally put an end to
+this cruel war. Austria was compelled to acknowledge herself defeated,
+for even the Archduke Charles, who had pushed forward from the Rhine
+with his army to oppose the conqueror of Wurmser and of Alvinzi, had not
+been able to arrest Bonaparte in his victorious career.
+
+Bonaparte had publicly declared he would march toward Vienna, and
+dictate to the Emperor of Germany, in his very palace, terms of peace.
+He was at the point of carrying into execution this bold plan. Since the
+battle of Tagliamento, on the 16th of March, the army of the archduke
+was broken, and he could no longer prevent Bonaparte from marching with
+his army over Laybach and Trieste into Germany. On the 25th of March,
+Bonaparte entered into Klagenfurt; and now that he was but forty miles
+from the capital, the Austrian court began to tremble at the approach
+of this army of sans-culottes who, under the leadership of General
+Bonaparte, had been transformed into heroes. She therefore accepted
+the propositions of peace made by Bonaparte, and, as already said, its
+preliminaries were signed in Leoben.
+
+Now Bonaparte could rest after such constant and bloody work, now he
+could again hasten to his Josephine, who was waiting for him in the
+palace of Serbelloni. The whole city--all Lombardy--was with her, awaiting him. His journey
+from Leoben to Milan was a continuous triumph, which, however, reached
+its culminating point at his entrance into the city. Milan had adorned
+herself for this day as a bride to receive her hero. From every balcony
+waved the united French and Italian standards, costly tapestries
+were hanging down, every window was occupied by beautiful women
+gayly attired, and who, with large bouquets of flowers and waving
+handkerchiefs, greeted the conqueror. All the dignitaries of the city
+went to meet him in processional pomp; from every tower sounded the
+welcome chimes, and the compact masses of the people in the streets and
+on the roofs of the houses filled the air with the jubilant shout: "Long
+live the deliverer of Italy! the conqueror of Austria!"
+
+Josephine, surrounded by ladies of the highest aristocracy of Lombardy,
+received her husband in the Palace Serbelloni. With radiant smiles, and
+yet with tears in her eyes, she received him, her heart swelling with a
+lofty joy at this ovation to Bonaparte; and through the glorification
+of this victory he appeared to her more beautiful, more worthy of love,
+than ever before. On this day of his return from so many battles
+and victories her heart gave itself up with all its power, all its
+unreservedness and fulness, to this wondrous man who had won so
+many important battles, and who bowed before her alone with all the
+submissive humility of a conquered man! From this day she loved him with
+that warm, strong love which was to end only with her death.
+
+Josephine had good reason to be happy on this day, for it brought her
+not only her husband, but also a new source of happiness, her son, her
+dear Eugene. Bonaparte had sent for him from Paris, and given him a
+commission of second lieutenant in the first regiment of hussars, and
+had also appointed him adjutant of the commanding general of the army of
+Italy, perhaps as much to give to Josephine a new proof of his affection
+as to attach Eugene to his person, for whom he felt the love of a
+father.
+
+Near the returned general, Josephine, to her supreme delight, saw her
+dear son, from whom she had been separated so long; and Eugene, whom she
+had left in Paris a mere boy, presented himself to her in Milan, in his
+officer's uniform, as a youth, with countenance beaming with joy and
+eyes full of lustre, ready to enter upon fame's pathway, on which his
+step-father, so brilliant a model, was walking before him. The maternal
+heart of Josephine felt both love and pride at the sight of this young
+man, so remarkable for his healthy appearance, and his youthful vigor
+and genius, and she thanked Bonaparte with redoubled love for the joyous
+surprise which his considerate affection had prepared for her.
+
+Now began for Josephine and Bonaparte happy days, illumined by all the
+splendor of festivities, of fealty exhibited, of triumphs realized.
+After lingering a few days in Milan, Bonaparte, with his wife, the
+whole train of his friends, his adjutants and servants, removed to the
+pleasure-castle of Montebello, near Milan.
+
+Here, amid rich natural scenery, in this large, imposing castle, which,
+built on the summit of a hill, mantled with olive-groves and vineyards,
+afforded on all sides a view of the surrounding, smiling plains of
+Lombardy--here Bonaparte wished to rest from the hardships and dangers
+of his last campaign; here, he wished to organize the great Italian
+republic which was then the object of his exertions, and whose iron
+crown he afterward coveted to place on his head. At Montebello he wished
+to enact new laws for Italy, create new institutious, reduce to silence,
+with threatening voice, the opposition of those who dared to oppose to
+the new law of liberty the old centennial rights of possession and of
+citizenship.
+
+Italy was to be free, such was the will of her deliverer; and he took
+great care not to let any one suspect or read the secret thoughts
+which he kept hid behind the pompous proclamations of his authority. He
+therefore answered evasively and vaguely those who came to fathom his
+designs, and to become acquainted with his plans.
+
+The Grand-duke of Tuscany sent to Montebello for this purpose, the
+Marquis Manfredini. He was instructed to ask General Bonaparte if it was
+his intention to destroy the grand-duchy of Tuscany, and to incorporate
+its territory into the great Italian republic. The marquis implored
+Bonaparte with persuasive, touching accents, to tell him what his plans
+were, and if he would allow Tuscany to subsist as an independent state.
+
+Bonaparte, smiling, shrugged his shoulders: "Signor marquis," said he,
+"you remind me of that creditor who once asked the Cardinal de Rohan
+when he wished to pay him. The cardinal simply answered: 'My dear sir,
+do not be so curious.' If your grand-duke will keep quiet, he will
+suffer no injury."
+
+Napoleon exhibited less friendliness and good-nature toward the republic
+of Venice, which had also sent her delegates to Montebello for the
+sake of reconciling the general, who had sworn vengeance against the
+republic, because a sort of Sicilian Vespers had been organized there
+against the French; and because, especially in Verona, and throughout
+the Venetian provinces, thousands of Frenchmen had been murdered by
+the revolted peasants, whom the fanatical priesthood had stirred to
+sedition.
+
+Now, that Bonaparte had defeated the Grand-duke Charles, the hope of
+the rebels, Venice humbly sent her most distinguished sons to plead for
+forgiveness and indulgence, and to promise full reparation. But Napoleon
+received them with contempt and threatening anger, and to their humble
+petitions replied in a thundering voice, "I will be an Attila to
+Venice!"
+
+Meanwhile the same general, who swore the ruin of Venice, showed himself
+conciliating and lenient toward Rome, and instead of being an Attila, he
+endeavored to be a preserver and a protector.
+
+The Directory in Paris was not fully satisfied with the peace which
+Bonaparte had concluded with the pope. They thought Napoleon had been
+too lenient with him; that he ought to have taken Rome from him, as he
+tore away Milan from the Emperor of Germany. The five rulers of France
+went so far as to make reproaches against Bonaparte for his leniency,
+and to require from him the downfall of the pope, and with him that of
+Catholicism.
+
+But Bonaparte had the boldness to oppose these demands of the Directory,
+and to set up his will in defiance to their supreme authority.
+
+He wrote to the Directory: "You say with reason that the Roman religion
+will long be the enemy of the republic; that is very true, but it is
+equally true that, on account of the great distance you are from the
+scene of events, you cannot measure the amount of difficulty there is in
+carrying out your orders.
+
+"You wish to destroy the Catholic Church in a city where it has ruled so
+many years. Believe me, it is useless to burden ourselves with fruitless
+labor. We have already enough to do; to defeat our enemies on the field
+of battle, it is not necessary to arouse all Europe against us--even the
+heretics, through policy, would defend the cause of the Holy See. Are
+you fully convinced that France would calmly look on? France needs a
+religious worship: that which you propose cannot, on account of its
+simplicity, replace this one. Follow my advice: let the pope be pope!
+If you bury his earthly power, acknowledge at least his spiritual
+authority. Force him not to seek refuge at a foreign court, where by his
+mere presence it would gain an immense ascendency. Italy wants religion
+and the pope. If she is wounded in her faith, she will be hostile to us,
+while now she is peaceably inclined. I repeat, the present difficulties
+are too weighty, to add new ones. Who can fathom the future? Who can
+assume the responsibility of such a deed as the one you propose? I shall
+not, therefore, do it, since you leave it with me to inform you on the
+subject. I consider it dangerous to conjure up fanaticism. The Catholic
+religion is that of the arts, and the arts are absolutely necessary
+to Italy's welfare. Be sure that if you destroy the former, you give a
+fatal blow to the latter, and that the Italians are good accountants.
+Ponder well these matters, then, and be sure that Catholicism has ceased
+to exist in France. Are you well satisfied that no one there will go
+back to it?"
+
+While in Montebello, though the sword had been laid aside, Bonaparte was
+still busy with war affairs, and the quarrels of princes and nations.
+Josephine at the same time passed there the honored life of a mighty
+princess, whose favors and intercessions the great and the powerful of
+earth endeavored to obtain by every conceivable means. The ladies of the
+aristocracy of Milan were eager to pay their homage to the wife of the
+deliverer; the courts of Italy, as well as other parts of Europe, sent
+ambassadors to General Bonaparte; and these gentlemen were naturally
+zealous in offering their incense to Josephine, in surrounding her with
+courtly and flattering attentions. The Marquis de Gallo, the ambassador
+of Spain at the court of Verona, came with the Austrian ambassador, the
+Count von Meerfeld, to Montebello, to enter into negotiations about the
+peace which was to form the precious key-stone to the preliminaries of
+Leobeu; and these two gentlemen, who opposed to the plain manners of
+Bonaparte's companions-in-arms the very essence of refined, polished,
+and witty courtiers, rivalled each other in showing to Josephine their
+highest consideration by their festivities and amusements; to win her
+favor and interest through the most complacent and considerate attention
+to all her views, wishes, and plans.
+
+Josephine received all this homage with the enchanting and smiling
+quietude of a woman who, without exaltation or pride, feels no surprise
+at any flattery or homage, but kindly and thankfully accepts what is
+due to her. Among this brilliant Italian aristocracy which surrounded
+her--among the ambassadors of the powers who sued not so much for
+alliance with France as for General Bonaparte's favor--among the
+generals and superior officers who had shared with Bonaparte the dangers
+of the battle-field and the laurels of victory--among learned
+men, artists, and poets, whom Bonaparte had often invited to
+Montebello--among so brilliant, so wealthy, so superior, so intelligent
+a society, Josephine shone as the resplendent sun around which all
+these planets moved, and from which they all received life, light, and
+happiness. She received the ambassadors of sovereigns with the dignity
+and affability of a princess; she conversed with the most distinguished
+ladies in cheerful simplicity, and with the unaffected joyousness and
+harmless innocency of a young maiden; she conversed with men of learning
+and artists in profound and serious tones, about their labors, their
+efforts, and success; she allowed the generals to relate the momentous
+events of the late great battles, and her eye shone with deeper pride
+and pleasure when from the mouth of the brave she heard the enthusiastic
+praise of her husband.
+
+Then her keen looks would be directed toward Bonaparte, who perchance
+stood in a window recess, engaged in some grave, solemn conversation
+with an eminent ambassador; her eyes again would glance from her husband
+to her son, to this young officer of seventeen years, who now laughed,
+jested, and played, as a boy, and then with respectful attention
+listened to the conversation of the generals, and whose countenance
+beamed with inspiration as they spoke to him of the mighty deeds of war
+and the plans of battle of his step-father, whom Eugene loved with the
+affection of a son, and the enthusiasm of a disciple who looks up to and
+reveres his master.
+
+Yes, Josephine was happy in these days of Montebello. The past, with
+its sad memories, its deceptions and errors, had sunk behind her, and
+a luminous future sent its rays upon her at the side of the man whom
+jubilant Italy proclaimed "her deliverer," and whom Josephine's joyous
+heart acknowledged to be her hero, her beloved. For now she loved him
+truly, not with that love of fifteen years past, with the marmoreal
+pulse, of which Bonaparte had spoken to her in his letters, but with
+all the depth and glow of which a woman's heart is capable, with all
+the passion and jealousy of which the heart of a creole alone is
+susceptible.
+
+Happy, sunny days of Montebello! days full of love, of poetry, of
+beauty, of happiness!--full of the first, genial, undisturbed, mutual
+communion!--days of the first triumphs, of the first homage, of the
+first dawn of a brilliant future! Never could the memory of those days
+fade away from Josephine's heart; never could the empress, in the long
+series of her triumphs and rejoicings, point to an hour like one of
+those she had, as the wife of the general, enjoyed at Montebello!
+
+Every day brought new festivities, new joys, new receptions: balls,
+official banquets, select friendly dinners, came by turns; in
+brilliant soirees, they received the aristocracy of Lombardy, who, with
+ever-growing zeal, struggled for the honor of being received at the
+court of Montebello, and to see the doors of the drawing-room of the
+wife of General Bonaparte open to them. Sometimes parties were made up
+for a chase, of which Berthier acted as master, and who was not a whit
+behind in organizing hunting-parties in the style of those of the former
+court of Versailles, where he once had acted as page.
+
+At times, in the warm days of May, the whole company went out together
+on the large and splendid piazza which ran along the castle, on the
+garden side, and which was supported by slender marble columns, and
+whose roof, made of thin wire-work, was thickly shaded by the foliage of
+the vine, the ivy, and the delicate leaves of the passion-flower. Here,
+resting on the marble settees, one listened in blessed happiness to
+the music of bands secreted in some myrtle-grove and playing military
+symphonies or patriotic melodies. Then, as the evening faded away, when
+the court of Montebello, as the Italians now called the residence of the
+general of the republic, had no brilliant reception, they gathered in
+the drawing-room, where Josephine, with all the affability of a lady
+from the great world, received her guests, and with all the modesty and
+grace of a simple housewife served herself the tea.
+
+These quiet social evenings in the little drawing-room of Josephine,
+away from excitement, were among Bonaparte's happiest moments; there,
+for a few hours at least, he forgot the mighty cares and schemes which
+occupied his mind, and abandoned himself to the joys of society, and
+to a cheerful intercourse with his family and friends. In these quiet
+evenings Josephine exerted all the art and refinement of her great
+social nature to render Bonaparte cheerful and to amuse him. She
+sometimes organized a party of vingtet-un, and Bonaparte with his
+cards was as eager for the victory as in days past he had been with his
+soldiers. Very often, when success did not favor him, and his cards were
+not such as suited him, the great general would condescend to correct
+fate (de corriger la fortune); and he was much delighted when in his
+expertness he succeeded, and, thanks to his correction of fate, obtained
+the victory over his play-mates. When the parti was ended, they went
+out on the terrace to enjoy the balmy air and refreshing coolness of
+the evening, and to take delight in witnessing the enchanting spectacle
+afforded by the thousands of little stars with which the fire-flies
+illumined the darkness of the summer night and encircled the lake as
+with a coronet of emeralds.
+
+When they grew tired of this, they returned to the drawing-room to
+listen to Josephine's fine, full, soul-like voice singing the songs of
+her island-home, or else to find amusement in the recital of fairy tales
+and marvellous stories. None understood this last accomplishment better
+than Bonaparte; and it required only the gracious request, the lovely
+smiles of his Josephine, to convert the general into one of those
+improvisatores who with their stories, more resembling a dramatic
+representation than a narrative, could exalt the Italian mind into
+ecstasy, and be ever sure to attract an attentive audience.
+
+Bonaparte understood the art of holding his audience in suspense, and
+keeping them in breathless attention, quite as well as an improvisator
+of the Place of St. Mark or of Toledo Street. His stories were always
+full of the highest dramatic action and thrilling effect; and it was his
+greatest triumph when he saw his hearers turn pale, and when Josephine,
+shuddering, clung anxiously to him, as if seeking from the soldier's
+hand protection against the fearful ghosts he had evoked.
+
+After the marvellous stories came grave scientific conversations with
+men of learning, whom Bonaparte had invited for the sake of deriving
+from their intercourse both interest and instruction. Among these were
+the renowned mathematicians Maria Fontana, Monge, and Berthelet; and
+the famous astronomer Oriani, whom Bonaparte, through a very flattering
+autographic note, had invited to Montebello.
+
+But Oriani, little accustomed to society and to conversation with any
+one but learned men, was very reluctant to come to Montebello, and would
+gladly have avoided it had he not been afraid of exciting the wrath
+of the great warrior. Bonaparte, surrounded by his generals, his
+staff-officers and adjutants, was in the large and splendidly-illumined
+drawing-room when Oriani made his appearance.
+
+The savant, timid and embarrassed, remained near the door, and dared not
+advance a single step farther on this brilliant floor, where the lights
+of the chandeliers were reflected, and which filled the savant with more
+bewilderment than the star-bespangled firmament.
+
+But Bonaparte's keen eye understood at once his newly-arrived guest; he
+advanced eagerly toward him, and as Oriani, stammering and embarrassed,
+was endeavoring to say something, but grew silent in the midst of his
+speech, the former smilingly asked:
+
+"What troubles you so much? You are among your friends; we honor
+science, and I willingly bow to it."
+
+"Ah, general," sighed Oriani, sorrowfully, "this magnificence dazzles
+me."
+
+Bonaparte shrugged his shoulders. "What!" said he, looking around with a
+contemptuous glance on the mirrors and rich tapestries which adorned the
+walls, and on the glittering chandeliers, the embroidered uniforms of
+the generals, and the costly toilets of the ladies--"what, do you call
+this magnificence? Can these miserable splendors blind the man who every
+night contemplates the far more lofty and impressive glories of the
+skies?"
+
+The savant, recalled by these warning words of Bonaparte to the
+consciousness of his own dignity, soon recovered his quiet demeanor
+and conversed long and gladly with the general, who never grew tired of
+putting questions to him, and of gaining from him information.
+
+But there were also cloudy moments in Montebello, oftentimes
+overshadowing the serene sunshine. They came from France--from Rome--and
+there were even some which had their origin in Montebello. These clouds
+which were formed in Montebello, and which caused slight showers of
+tears with Josephine, and little tempests of anger with Bonaparte, were
+certainly not of a very serious nature; they owed their origin to a
+lapdog, and this pet dog was Fortune, the same which in days gone by had
+been the letter-carrier between Josephine and her children when she
+was in the Carmelite prison. Notwithstanding Fortune had become old
+and peevish, Josephine and her children loved him for the sake of past
+reminiscences, while Bonaparte simply hated and detested him. Bonaparte
+had, however, perhaps without wishing it, erected for him an abiding
+monument in the "Memorial de Ste. Helene," where he gave a report of his
+hostilities with the lapdog Fortune, along with those of his wars with
+the European powers.
+
+"I was then," says Bonaparte, in his "Memorial," "the ruler of Italy,
+but in my own house I had nothing to say; there Josephine's will was
+supreme. There was an ugly, growling personage, at war with everybody,
+whose bad qualities made him intolerable to me and to others, yet he was
+an important individual, who was by Josephine and her children flattered
+from morning till evening, and who was the object of their most delicate
+attentions. Fortune, to me a hateful beast, was a horrible lapdog,
+with crooked legs and deformed body, without the slightest beauty or
+kindness, but of a most malicious disposition. I would gladly have
+killed him, and often prayed Heaven to deliver me from him. This
+happiness was, however, reserved for me in Montebello. A bull-dog which
+belonged to my cook became tired of his churlish incivilities, and not
+having the same considerateness as the rest of the inmates of the palace
+of Montebello, he attacked the detestable animal so violently as to
+kill him on the spot. Then began tears and sighs in the house. Josephine
+could not be comforted; Eugene wept, and I myself against my will put
+on a sorrowful countenance. But I gained nothing by this fortunate
+accident. After Fortune had been stuffed, sung in sonnets, and made
+immortal by funeral discourses, he was replaced by two setters, male
+and female. Then came the amiable displays and the bickerings of this
+love-couple, and afterward their progeny. So that I knew not what to do.
+
+"Soon after this, as I was walking in the park, I noticed my cook, who,
+as soon as he saw me, disappeared on a side-path.
+
+"'Are you afraid of me?' said I. "' Ah, general,' replied he, timidly, 'you have good reason to be angry
+with me.'
+
+"'I? What have you done?'
+
+"'My unfortunate dog has indeed killed poor little Fortune.'
+
+"'Where is your dog?'
+
+"'He is in the city. God have mercy on us! he dares not come here.'
+
+"'Listen, my good fellow' (but I spoke in a low voice, for fear of being
+heard), 'let your dog run about just as he likes--perhaps he may deliver
+me from the others.'
+
+"But this happiness was not in reserve for me. Josephine, not satisfied
+with dogs, soon after this procured a cat, which brought me into a state
+of despair; for this detestable animal was the most vicious of its race.
+...." [Footnote: Memorial de Ste. Helene.]
+
+The strifes with Fortune, with the setters, and with the cat, troubled
+Bonaparte less than the intrigues which his enemies in Italy, as well
+as in France, stirred up against him, and through them endeavored to
+destroy him.
+
+In Italy it was the priests who had sworn deadly enmity to Bonaparte,
+and who, with all the weapons which the arsenal of the Church,
+fanaticism, and superstition, furnished them, fought against the general
+who had dared to break the power of the pope, and to restrict within
+narrower limits the rule of the priests. It was these priests who
+continually made the most furious opposition to the ascendency which
+Bonaparte had won over the Italian mind, and sought constantly to rouse
+up, within the minds of the people, opposition to him.
+
+One day, Marmont announced that a certain Abbe Sergi was exciting the
+peasants against the French, and especially against Bonaparte; that he
+was preaching sedition and rebellion in Christ's name, and was showing
+to the ignorant laborers a letter, which he had received from Christ,
+in which it was declared that General Bonaparte was an atheist and a
+heretic, whom one ought to destroy and drive away from Italy's sacred
+soil.
+
+Bonaparte at once ordered Marmont to arrest this Abbe Sergi, who lived
+in Poncino, and to bring him to Montebello. His orders were followed,
+and, after a few days, the captive abbe was brought before the general.
+He seemed cheerful, unaffected, and assumed the appearance of being
+unconscious of guilt.
+
+"Are you the man," exclaimed Bonaparte, "to whom Christ writes letters
+from Paradise?"
+
+"Ah! signor general, you are joking," replied the abbe, smiling--but
+one of Bonaparte's angry looks fell upon his broad, well-fed face, and
+forced the priest into silence.
+
+"I am not joking," answered Bonaparte, angrily; "you, however,
+are joking with the peasants, since you are telling these poor,
+superstitious men that you are in correspondence with Christ."
+
+"Alas! signor general," sighed the abbe, with contrite mien, "I wanted
+to do something in the defence of our cause, and what can a poor
+clergyman do?--he has no weapons--"
+
+"Mind that in future you procure other weapons!" interrupted Bonaparte,
+vehemently. "That will be better for you than to dare use the Deity for
+your schemes of wickedness. I order you to receive no more letters from
+Paradise, not even from Christ. Correspond with your equals, and be on
+your guard, or you will soon find that I can punish the disobedient!"
+
+The abbe bowed penitently, and with tears in his eyes. Bonaparte turned
+his back to him, and ordered him to be taken to Poncino.
+
+From that day, however, much as he hated General Bonaparte, the Abbe
+Sergi received no more letters from Paradise.
+
+Nevertheless, the letters of the Abbe Sergi were not those which gave
+the most solicitude to Bonaparte; much worse were those he received from
+Paris, which gave him an account of the persevering intrigues of his
+enemies, and the malicious slanders that were circulated against him by
+the Directory, who were envious of his power and superiority, and which
+mischievous and poisonous calumnies were re-echoed in the newspapers.
+
+These insidious attacks of the journals, more than any thing else,
+excited Bonaparte's vehement anger. The hero who, on the battle-field,
+trembled not before the balls which whizzed about his head, had a
+violent dislike to those insect-stings of critics who, like wasps
+humming round about the laurel-wreath on his brow, ever found between
+the leaves of his fame some place where with their stings they could
+wound him, and who was as sensitive as a young blameless maiden would be
+against the wasp-stings of slander.
+
+This irritable sensitiveness led him to consider those detestable
+attacks of the journals worth a threatening denunciation to the
+Directory.
+
+"Citizen-directors," wrote he to them, "I owe you an open confession; my
+heart is depressed and filled with horror through the constant attacks
+of the Parisian journals. Sold to the enemies of the republic, they
+rush upon me, who am boldly defending the republic. 'I am keeping the
+plunder,' whilst I am defeating them; 'I affect despotism,' whilst I
+speak only as general-in-chief; 'I assume supreme power,' and yet I
+submit to law! Every thing I do is turned to a crime against me; the
+poison streams over me.
+
+"Were any one in Italy to dare give utterance to the one-thousandth part
+of those calumnies, I would impose upon him an awful silence!
+
+"In Paris, this is allowed to go on unpunished, and your tolerance is an
+encouragement. The Directory is thus producing the impression that it is
+opposed to me. If the directors suspect me, let them say so, and I will
+justify myself. If they are convinced of my uprightness, let them defend
+me.
+
+"In this circle of argument, I include the Directory with me, and cannot
+go beyond it. My desire is, to be useful to my country. Must I, for
+reward, drink the cup of poison?
+
+"I can no longer be satisfied with empty, evasive arguments; and if
+justice is not done to me, then I must take it myself. Therefore, I am
+yours. Salutation and brotherly love. BONAPAKTE."
+
+But all these vexations, hostilities, and calumnies, were, however,
+as already said, mere clouds, which now and then obscured the bright
+sunshine at the court of Montebello. At a smile or a loving word from
+Josephine, they flew away rapidly, and the sunshine again in all
+its splendor, the pleasures, feasts, and joys, continued in their
+undisturbed course. All Italy did homage to the conqueror, and it was
+therefore very natural that sculptors and painters should endeavor to
+draw some advantage from this enthusiasm for its deliverer, and that
+they should endeavor to represent to the admirers of Bonaparte his
+peculiar form and countenance.
+
+But Bonaparte did not like to have his portrait painted. The staring,
+watchful gaze of an artist was an annoyance to him; it made him restless
+and anxious, as if he feared that the scrutinizing look at his face
+might read the secrets of his soul. Yet at Josephine's tender and
+pressing request he had consented to its being taken by a young painter,
+Le Gros, whose distinguished talent had been brought to his notice.
+
+Le Gros came therefore to Montebello, happy in the thought that he could
+immortalize himself through a successful portrait of the hero whom he
+honored with all the enthusiasm of a young heart. But he waited in vain
+three days for Bonaparte to give him a sitting. The general had not one
+instant to spare for the unfortunate young artist.
+
+At last, at Josephine's pressing request, Bonaparte consented on the
+fourth day to sit for him one-quarter of an hour after breakfast. Le
+Gros came therefore delighted, at the time appointed, into the cabinet
+of Josephine, and had his easel ready, awaiting the moment when
+Bonaparte would sit in the arm-chair opposite. But, alas! the painter's
+hopes were not to be realized. The general could not bring himself to
+sit in that arm-chair, doing nothing but keeping his head quiet, so
+that the painter might copy his features. He had no sooner been seated,
+than he sprang up suddenly, and declared it was quite impossible to
+endure such martyrdom.
+
+Le Gros dared not repeat his request, but with tears in his eyes
+gathered up his painting-materials. Josephine smiled. "I see very well,"
+said she, "that I must have recourse to some extraordinary means to save
+for me and for posterity a portrait of the hero of Arcola."
+
+She sat down in the arm-chair, and beckoned to Le Gros to have his easel
+in readiness. Then with a tender voice she called Napoleon to her, and
+opening both arms she drew him down on her lap, and in this way she
+induced him to sit down quietly a few moments and allow the painter the
+sight of his face, thus enabling him to sketch the portrait. [Footnote:
+"Memoires et Souvenirs du Comte Lavalette," vol. i., p. 168.]
+
+At the end of this peculiar sitting, Bonaparte smilingly promised that
+he would next day grant the painter a second one, provided Josephine
+would again have the "extraordinary means" ready. She consented, and for
+four days in succession Le Gros was enabled to sit before him a quarter
+of an hour, and throw upon his canvas the features of the general, while
+he quietly sat on Josephine's lap.
+
+This picture, which Le Gros thus painted, thanks to the sweet ruse of
+Josephine, and which was scattered throughout Europe in copperplate
+prints, represented Bonaparte, with uncovered head, holding a standard
+in his hand, and with his face turned toward his soldiers, calling on
+them to follow him as he dashed on the bridge of Arcola, amid a shower
+of Austrian balls.
+
+It is a beautiful, imposing picture, and contemporaries praised it for
+its likeness to the hero, but no one could believe that this pale, grave
+countenance, these gloomy eyes, and earnest lips, which seemed incapable
+of a smile, were those of Bonaparte as he sat on the lap of his beloved
+Josephine when Le Gros was painting it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII. THE PEACE OF CAMPO FORMIO.
+
+
+After three months the time drew nigh when the peace negotiations
+were to reach a final conclusion, and when it was to be decided if the
+Emperor of Germany would make peace with the French republic or if he
+would renew the war.
+
+For three months had the negotiations continued in Montebello--three
+months of feasts, pleasures, and receptions. To the official and public
+rejoicings had been also added domestic joys. Madame Letitia came to
+Italy to warm her happy, proud mother's heart at the triumphs of her
+darling son; and she brought with her her daughter Pauline, while the
+youngest, Caroline, remained behind in Madame Campan's
+boarding-school. It could not be otherwise than that the sisters of
+the commander-in-chief, whose true beauty reminded one of the classic
+features of ancient Greece, should find among the officers of the army
+of Italy most enthusiastic admirers and worshippers, and that many
+should long for the favor of being more intimately connected by the ties
+of affection with the celebrated general.
+
+Bonaparte left his sisters entirely free to make a choice among their
+suitors, and he hesitated not to give his consent when Pauline became
+affianced to General Leclerc. After a few weeks, the marriage was
+celebrated in Montebello; and, soon after, the happy couple left that
+city to return to Paris, whither Madame Letitia had preceded them.
+
+Josephine, however, remained with her husband; she accompanied him from
+Montebello to Milan, where Bonaparte, now that the Austrian envoys had
+taken their leave, tarried some time, awaiting the final decision of the
+Austrian court upon his propositions. Meanwhile, the imperial court,
+for good reasons, still hesitated. It was known that in France there was
+secretly preparing an event which in a short time might bring on a new
+order of things, putting an end to the hateful republic, and once more
+placing the Bourbons on the throne of the lilies.
+
+General Pichegru, a zealous royalist, and intimate friend of the Prince
+de Conde, with whom he had been in secret correspondence for several
+months, had organized a conspiracy which had for its object the downfall
+of the Directory, the ruin of the republican administration, the recall
+of the monarchy to Paris, and the re-establishment of the Bourbons.
+
+But General Moreau, who, with his army on the Rhine, stood opposite to
+that of the royalists, had the good fortune to discover the conspiracy,
+by intercepting Pichegru's whole correspondence. The Directory, informed
+by Moreau, took secretly precautionary measures, and on the 18th
+Fructidor, Pichegru, with all his real or supposed guilty companions,
+was arrested. To these guilty ones belonged also, according to
+the opinion of the Directory, two out of their number, Carnot and
+Barthelemy, besides twenty-two deputies and one hundred and twenty-eight
+others, all among the educated classes of society. These were exiled
+to Cayenne; Carnot alone escaped from this distant and cruel exile by a
+timely flight to Geneva.
+
+The 18th Fructidor, which disarmed the royalists and destroyed their
+plans, had a great influence upon the negotiations carried on between
+France and Austria, which were entangled with so many difficulties.
+Austria, which had vacillated and delayed--for she was informed of the
+schemes of the royalists, and hoped that if Louis XVIII. should ascend
+the throne, she would be delivered from all the burdensome exactions
+of the republic--now saw that this abortive attempt had removed the
+royalists still further from their object and more firmly consolidated
+the republic; she was therefore inclined to push on negotiations more
+speedily, and to show greater readiness to bring on a final settlement.
+
+The conferences broken off in Montebello were resumed in Udine. Thither
+came the Austrian and French plenipotentiaries. Bonaparte, however,
+felt that his presence was also necessary, so as not to allow these
+conferences again to remain in abeyance. He therefore, accompanied by
+Josephine, went to Passeriano, a beautiful residence of the Doge
+Marini, not far from Udine, charmingly situated on the shores of the
+Tagliamento, and in the midst of a splendid park. But the residence
+in Passeriano was not enlivened by the pleasures, recreations, and
+festivities of Montebello. Politics alone occupied Bonaparte's mind, and
+not only the peace negotiations, but also the Directory of the republic,
+furnished him with too many occasions for ill-will and anger.
+
+Austria, which had added the Count von Coblentz to her
+plenipotentiaries, adhered obstinately to her former claims; and the
+Directory, which now felt stronger and more secure by their victory of
+the 18th Fructidor, were so determined not to accept these claims,
+that they wrote to General Bonaparte that they would sooner resume
+hostilities than concede to "the overpowered, treacherous Austria,
+sworn into all the conspiracies of the royalists, her unreasonable
+pretensions."
+
+But Bonaparte knew better than the proud lords of the Directory, that
+France needed peace as well as Austria; that France lacked gold,
+men, and ammunition, for the vigorous prosecution of the war. While,
+therefore, the Directory, enthroned in the Luxemburg, amid peace and
+luxury, desired a renewal of hostilities, it was the man of battles who
+desired peace, and who was inclined to make to Austria insignificant
+concessions sooner than see the work of peace dashed to pieces.
+
+The sole recreation in Passeriano consisted in the banquets which
+were interchanged between it and Udine, and where Josephine found much
+pleasure, at least in the conversation of the Count von Coblentz,
+who could speak to her with spirit and grace of his sojourn in
+Petersburg--of Catharine the Great, at whose court he had been
+accredited so long as ambassador from Austria, and who had even granted
+him the privilege of being present at her private evening circles at the
+Hermitage.
+
+Bonaparte was still busy with the glowing tenderness of a worshipping
+lover, in procuring for his Josephine pleasures and recreations, as each
+favorable opportunity presented itself.
+
+The republic of Venice, now laboring under the greatest anxiety and fear
+on account of Bonaparte's anger at her perfidy and enmity, had descended
+from the height of her proud attitude to the most abject humility. Her
+solicitude for mere existence made her so far forget her dignity, that
+she humbly invited Bonaparte, whose loud voice of anger pronounced only
+vengeance and destruction, to come and receive in person their homage
+and the assurance of their loyalty.
+
+Bonaparte refused this invitation as regarded his own person, for in
+his secret thoughts the ruin of Venice was a settled matter; and as
+the death-warrant of this republic of terror and secret government was
+already signed in his thoughts, he could not accept her feasts and her
+homage. But he did not wish before the time to betray to the republic
+his own conclusions, and his refusal to accept their invitation ought
+not to have the appearance of a hostile demonstration. He therefore sent
+to Venice a representative, who, in his name, was to receive the
+humble homage and the assurances of friendship from the republic. This
+representative was Josephine, and she gladly undertook this mission,
+without foreseeing that Venice, which adorned itself for her sake with
+flowers and festivities, was but the crowned victim at the eve of the
+sacrifice.
+
+As Bonaparte himself could not accompany his wife, he sent with her
+as an escort the ex-magistrate Marmont; and in his memoirs the latter
+relates with enthusiasm the feasts which the republic of Venice gave
+in honor of the general upon whom, as she well knew, her future fate
+depended.
+
+"Madame Bonaparte," says he, "was four days in Venice. I accompanied
+her hither. Three days were devoted to the most splendid feasts. On
+the first day there was a regatta, a species of amusement which
+seems reserved only to Venice, the queen of the sea. ... Six or seven
+gondolas, each manned by one or two oarsmen, perform a race which begins
+at St. Mark's Square, and ends at the Rialto bridge. These gondolas
+seem to fly; persons who have never seen them can form no idea of their
+swiftness. The beauty of the representation consists especially in the
+immense gatherings of the spectators. The Italians are extremely fond of
+this spectacle; they come from great distances on the continent to see
+it; there is not in Venice an individual who rushes not to the Canal
+Grande to enjoy the spectacle; and during the time of the regatta of
+which I am speaking, the wharves on the Canal Grande were covered with
+at least one hundred and fifty thousand persons, all full of curiosity.
+More than five hundred small and large barges, adorned with flowers,
+flags, and tapestries, followed the contesting gondolas.
+
+"The second day we had a sea-excursion; a banquet had been prepared on
+the Lido: the population followed in barges adorned with wreaths and
+flowers, and to the sound of music re-echoing far and near.
+
+"The third day, a night promenade took place. The palace of the doge,
+and the houses along the Canal Grande, were illuminated in the most
+brilliant manner, and gave light to hundreds of gondolas, which also
+were made luminous with divers-colored lamps. After a promenade of two
+hours, and a splendid display of fireworks in the midst of the waters,
+the ball opened in the palace of the doge. When we think of the means
+which the situation of Venice offers, the beauty of her architecture,
+the wonderful animation of the thousand gondolas closely pressed
+together, causing the impression of a city in motion; and when we think
+of the great exertions which such an occasion would naturally call
+forth, the brilliant imagination of this people so remarkable for its
+refined taste, and its burning lusts for pleasure--then we can form some
+idea of the wondrous spectacle presented by Venice in those days. It was
+no more the mighty Venice, it was the elegant, the luxurious Venice."
+[Footnote: "Memoires du Due de Raguse," vol. i., p. 287.]
+
+After those days of festivities, Josephine, the queen of them, returned
+to the quietude of Passeriano, which, after the sunshine of Venice, must
+have appeared to her still more gloomy and sad.
+
+But Bonaparte himself was weary of all this useless repose, and he
+resolved with a daring blow to cut into shreds those diplomatic knots of
+so many thousand interwoven threads.
+
+The instrument with which he was to give the blow was not the sword--it
+was not that which Alexander had used, but it was a cup. This cup, at a
+dejeuner given to him by the Count von Coblentz, where was displayed the
+costly porcelain service presented to him by the Empress Catharine, was
+dashed at the feet of the Count von Coblentz by Bonaparte, who, with a
+thundering voice, exclaimed: "In fourteen days I will dash to pieces the
+Austrian monarchy as I now break this!"
+
+The Count von Coblentz, infuriated at this, was still staring in
+bewilderment at the fragments of the imperial gift, when Bonaparte left
+the room, to enter his carriage. With a loud voice he called to one of
+the officers of his suite, and gave him orders to go at once to the
+camp of the Archduke Charles, and to tell him, in the name of General
+Bonaparte, that the peace negotiations were broken, and that hostilities
+would be resumed next day.
+
+But as Bonaparte was going toward his carriage, he met the Marquis de
+Gallo, who besought him to re-enter the room; he assured him that it
+had been resolved to accept Bonaparte's ultimatum--that is to say, to
+renounce all claims to the fortress of Mantua.
+
+On the next day [Footnote: The 17th of October, 1797.] the treaty of
+peace between Austria and France was signed. It had been decided that
+the ceremony of signing it should take place in the village of Campo
+Formio, which for this reason was declared to be neutral ground. It lay
+midway between Udine and Passeriano; and Bonaparte sent his adjutant,
+Marmont, into the village to select a house where the ceremony might
+take place. But there was not a single building which was in any way
+fitted to receive such distinguished guests. The Austrian diplomats,
+therefore, consented to come to Passeriano to ratify the terms of
+peace, provided, it should be named after the neutral territory of Campo
+Formio.
+
+The Count von Coblentz and the Marquis de Gallo passed the whole day at
+Passeriano, in the company of Bonaparte and Josephine. In Josephine's
+drawing-room each abandoned himself to the most cheerful and unaffected
+conversation, while at the same time the secretaries of both the
+Austrian and French embassies were in the cabinet of the French general,
+writing two copies of the mutual agreements of peace which were to be
+signed by Bonaparte and by the Austrian plenipotentiaries.
+
+During the whole day Bonaparte was in high spirits. He had reached his
+aim: the strife was over; diplomatic bickerings were at rest; the small
+as well as the great war was ended; peace was gained at last! Bonaparte
+had, not only on the battle-field, but also at the green-table, been
+victorious; he had not only overcome Austria, but also the Directory.
+During the whole day he remained in the drawing-room with Josephine and
+his Austrian guests, and without any affectation he took his part in
+the conversation. It was so pleasant to him to be thus in confidential
+intercourse, that, as the evening came on, he would not allow lights to
+be brought into the drawing-room. As if they were in a sociable family
+circle, in some old remote castle, they amused themselves in relating
+ghost-stories, and here, too, Bonaparte won a victory. His story
+surpassed all others in horrors and thrilling fears, and the dramatic
+mode of its delivery increased its effect. Josephine became excited
+as if by some living reality; and while Bonaparte, with an affrighted,
+trembling voice, was describing how the door opened, how the
+blood-stained ghost with hollow eyes entered, she screamed aloud, and
+tremblingly clung to his arm.
+
+At this moment it was announced that the secretaries had prepared
+the documents of the treaty, and that nothing was wanting to make it
+operative but the signatures.
+
+Bonaparte laughingly thanked his Josephine with a kiss for the
+flattering effect produced by his ghost-story, and then he hastened
+into his cabinet to attach his signature to the peace of Campo Formio.
+[Footnote: Lavalette, "Memoires," vol. i., p. 250.]
+
+This peace gave to France the left bank of the Rhine, with the fortress
+of Mayence: it delivered Italy from the rule of Austria, but it repaid
+Austria by giving her possession of the beautiful city of the lagoons,
+Venice, which made Austria mistress of the Adriatic Sea.
+
+Peace was concluded, and now Bonaparte, with his laurels and victories,
+could return to Paris; now he could hope that he had swept away,
+from the memory even of his adversaries, the sad success of the 13th
+Vendemiaire, by the series of brilliant victories and conquests which he
+had obtained in the name of their common country.
+
+Bonaparte prepared himself therefore to return home to France. But the
+Emperor of Germany, full of admiration for the hero of Arcola, and of
+joy at a peace which had given him Venice, and which gave to France
+little more than the captured cannon, standards, and prisoners, but
+undying glory, wished to show himself thankful to Bonaparte. He offered
+to the general millions of treasure, and, still more, a magnificent
+estate, and promised him the title of duke.
+
+But Bonaparte refused alike the money and the title. As a simple French
+general he wished to return to France, and, though in future days he
+created at his will many dukes, he now disdained to become a duke by
+the grace of the Emperor of Germany. He accepted nothing out of all the
+offered presents, but six splendid gray horses which the Emperor Francis
+had sent him from his own stalls. Bonaparte had won too many victories,
+to need the title of a German duke; he had obtained a sufficiently
+ample share of the war-booty not to need the wealth and the treasures of
+sovereign gifts. He was no longer the poor general, of whom his enemies
+could say that he had married the widow of General de Beauharnais
+on account of her riches and of her influence; he now, besides fame,
+possessed a few millions of francs, which, as a small portion of his
+share of the victory's rewards, he brought home with him.
+
+His work in Italy was accomplished; and in Milan, whither Bonaparte had
+returned with Josephine, they bade each other farewell: they wished to
+return to Paris by different routes.
+
+Bonaparte desired first to go to Rastadt, there to attend the great
+peace congress of Germany and France. His journey thither was a complete
+triumph. He was everywhere received with enthusiasm; everywhere the
+people applauded the conqueror of so many battles, the hero who,
+only twenty-eight years old, had, by his series of victories, gained
+immortality. His reception in Berne, especially, was enthusiastic
+and flattering; both sides of his pathway were lined with brilliant
+equipages, and the beautiful, richly apparelled ladies who sat in them
+threw him kisses, crowns of flowers and bouquets, shouting, "Long live
+the peace-maker!"
+
+He travelled over Mount Cenis to Rastadt, where he found in the crowd of
+German and French diplomats many generals and learned men, who had come
+there to see the man whom his very enemies admired, amongst whom he was
+nearly as popular as with his friends. However, Bonaparte remained but a
+few days there; for, after having attended the opening of the Congress,
+he pursued his journey to Paris, where he arrived on the 6th of
+December.
+
+Josephine, as we have already said, did not accompany her husband to
+Paris. Before leaving Italy, she desired to accomplish two objects of
+her heart. She wished to see Rome, the everlasting city of fame and of
+arts, the city of the ancient gods, and of the seat of St. Peter; and
+she wished also to embrace her son Eugene, who was there as an attache
+of Joseph Bonaparte, the ambassador of the French republic. Wherever she
+went, she was received with enthusiasm, not only as the wife of Italy's
+deliverer, but also on account of her personal merits. Through her
+affability, her amiableness, and her sweet disposition, which shunned
+every haughty exaltation, and yet was never lacking in dignity or in
+reserve--through the goodness of her heart, which was ever ready to help
+the unfortunate--through all those exquisite and praiseworthy qualities
+which adorned and beautified her, she had won the love and admiration
+of all Italy; and long afterward, when the deliverer of Italy had
+become her lord and her oppressor, when she had no longer cause to love
+Bonaparte, but only to curse him, Italy preserved for Josephine a memory
+full of admiration and love.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX. DAYS OF TRIUMPH.
+
+
+On the 5th of December, 1797, Bonaparte returned to Paris; and, a few
+days after, Josephine arrived also. In her little hotel, in the Street
+Chautereine, where she had passed so many bright and happy days, she
+hoped, after so many storms and hardships, to enjoy again new and
+cheerful sunny days of domestic enjoyments--she hoped to rest from
+all those triumphs which had accompanied at each step both her and her
+husband.
+
+This hope, however, was not to be realized, for greater triumphs still
+than those she had enjoyed in Italy awaited Bonaparte in Paris. The days
+of quietude, and the pleasures of home, which Josephine so much loved,
+and which she so well understood how to embellish with friendships and
+joys, were now forever past away. Placed at the side of a hero whose
+fame already filled all Europe, she could no longer calculate upon
+living in modest retirement, as she would have wished to do: it was
+her lot to share his burden of glory, as she also was illumined by its
+beams.
+
+From this moment nothing of former days remained; all was changed, all
+was altered by Bonaparte's laurels and victories. He was no more the
+servant of the republic, he was nearly its master; he had not only
+defeated Austria in Italy, but he had also defeated in France the
+Directory, which had sent him as its general to Italy, and which now saw
+him return home as the master of the five monarchs of France.
+
+Every thing now, as already said, assumed a new shape: even the house
+in which they lived, the street in which this house stood, had to be
+changed. Hitherto this street had been called "Rue Chautereine;" since
+Bonaparte's return the municipality of Paris gave it the name "Rue de
+la Victoire," and now to this Street of Victory the people of Paris
+streamed forth to see the conqueror; to stand there patiently for hours
+before the little hotel, and watch for the moment when at one of the
+windows the pale countenance of Bonaparte, with his long, smooth hair,
+might appear.
+
+Even the little hotel was to be altered. Bonaparte--who, in earlier
+days, had described, as his dream of happiness, the possession of a
+house, of a cabriolet, and to have at his table the company of a few
+friends, with his Josephine--now found that the little house in the Rue
+de la Victoire was too small for him; that it must be altered even as
+the street had been. The modest and tasteful arrangements which had
+sufficed the Widow Josephine de Beauharnais, appeared now to her young
+husband as insufficient; the little saloon, in which at one time he had
+felt so happy at the side of the viscountess, was no longer suited to
+his actual wants. Large reception-rooms and vestibules were needed,
+magnificent furniture was necessary, for the residence of the conqueror
+of Italy, in the Rue de la Victoire.
+
+Architects were engaged to enlarge and transform the small house into
+a large hotel, and it was left to Josephine's taste to convert the
+hitherto elegant private dwelling into a magnificent residence for the
+renowned general who had to be daily in readiness to receive
+official visits, delegations of welcome from the authorities, and the
+institutions of Paris, and from the other cities of France.
+
+For France was desirous to pay her homage to the hero of Arcola, and to
+celebrate his genius--to wish him prosperity, and to applaud him. The
+Directory had to adapt themselves to the universal sentiment; to pay
+their respects to the general with a cheerful mien and with friendly
+alacrity, while at heart they looked on him with vexation and envy.
+Bonaparte's popularity filled them with anxiety and fearful misgivings.
+
+But it was necessary to submit to this; the public sentiment required
+those festivities in honor of the general of the republic, and the five
+directors in the Luxemburg had no longer the power to guillotine the
+public sentiment, the true king of Paris, as once they had guillotined
+King Louis.
+
+The directors, therefore, inaugurated brilliant festivities;
+they received the conqueror of Italy in the Luxemburg with great
+demonstrations of solemnity, in which the Parisians took a part. In
+the immense court in front of the residence of the directors this
+celebration took place. In the midst of the open place a lofty platform
+was erected; it was the country's altar, on which the gigantic statues
+of Freedom, Equality, and of Peace, were lifted up. Around this altar
+was a second platform, with seats for the five hundred, the deputies,
+and the authorities; the standards conquered in the Italian war formed
+over the seats of the five directors a sort of canopy: they were,
+however, to them as the sword of Damocles, ready to fall upon them at
+any moment and destroy them.
+
+The directors, dressed in brilliant antique robes, created no
+impression, notwithstanding their theatrical splendor, in comparison
+with the sensation produced by the simple, unaffected appearance of
+General Bonaparte. He wore the plain green uniform which he had worn at
+Arcola and Lodi; his suite was limited to a few officers only, who, like
+himself, appeared in their ordinary uniforms, which they had worn on
+the battle-field. The two generals, Andreossy and Joubert, carried
+the standards which the Legislative Assembly, two years before, had
+presented to the army of Italy, and upon which could now be read the
+names of sixty-seven battles won.
+
+At one of the windows of the palace of the Luxemburg, Josephine watched
+this strange celebration, the splendors of which made her heart beat
+with delight, and filled her eyes with tears of joy. Near her was her
+daughter Hortense, lately withdrawn from Madame Campan's institution,
+to be with her mother, who, full of ecstasy and pride, gazed at the
+charming maiden at her side, just blooming into a young lady; and then
+beyond, at that pale young man with pensive eyes standing near yonder
+altar, and before whom all the authorities of Paris bowed--who was her
+husband, her Bonaparte, everywhere conqueror! Before her only was he the
+conquered! She listened with a happy smile to the long speech with which
+Talleyrand saluted Bonaparte in the name of his country; she heard how
+Barras, concealing within himself his jealousy and his envy, welcomed
+him; how with admiration he praised him; how he said that Nature, in
+one of her most exalted and greatest moments, had resolved to produce a
+masterpiece, and had given to the wondering world Bonaparte!
+
+And then, after this affected harangue, Josephine saw how Barras, with
+tears of emotion, embraced Bonaparte, and how the other Directors of
+France followed his example. A slight sarcastic smile for a moment
+played on Josephine's lips, for she well knew how little this friendship
+and this love of the Directory were to be trusted, how little sincerity
+was contained in the sentiments which they so publicly manifested toward
+the conqueror.
+
+With love's anxiety and a woman's instinct, she watched over her hero;
+she was ever busy to track out the meandering paths of his foes, to
+destroy the nets wherein they wished to entangle his feet. She had even
+braved the jealous wrath of Bonaparte when it was necessary to ferret
+out some intrigue of the Directory. The special spy, whom Barras had
+sent to Italy to watch the movements of Bonaparte, and to give him early
+reports of every word, Botot, had been received by Josephine with a
+friendly smile and with great attention; she manifested toward him a
+confiding friendship, and thus succeeded in discovering his secret,
+and behind the seeming friend to unveil the cunning spy of Bonaparte's
+enemies. She could therefore meet Bonaparte's anger with serene brow
+and pure conscience; and when he accused her of frivolity and
+unfaithfulness, she justified herself before him by unveiling the secret
+schemes and machinations of his foes. And these foes were chiefly the
+five directors. He therefore knew very well what he was to expect from
+the embraces, the tears, the kisses of Barras; and the flattering
+words which he spoke to him in the presence of the Parisians made no
+impression whatever on Bonaparte's heart.
+
+But the applause with which the people of Paris received him was not
+deceitful, like that of the Directory; the respect they paid him was not
+forced, and their applause therefore filled the hearts of Josephine
+and Bonaparte with joy. Wherever he appeared, he was greeted with
+loud demonstrations of joy; the poets praised him in their songs, the
+musicians sang hymns in his honor, and the men of science brought to him
+proofs of their esteem. The Institute of Sciences named him one of their
+members in the place of Carnot; the painters and architects paid him
+homage with their works. The renowned painter David requested the honor
+of taking Bonaparte's portrait, and the general acceded to his wishes
+because Josephine had promised that the painter's request should be
+granted. David desired to paint him on horseback near the bridge of Lodi
+or of Arcola, and he placed before him a sketch he had made for this
+picture. But Bonaparte rejected it.
+
+"No," said he, "I was not there alone, I conquered only with the whole
+army. Place me there, quiet and calm, seated upon a fiery horse."
+
+What did Bonaparte mean by this "fiery horse"? Are his words to be
+understood in all their beauty and simplicity? or did he, by the
+restless horse, which he so calmly reins in, already think of the
+republic which, under the guidance of his masterly hand, was one day
+to be converted into an empire? Who could read the depths of this man's
+heart, which screened itself so carefully, and whose secrets in regard
+to the future he dared not divulge even to his beloved Josephine?
+
+The first few weeks after their return from Italy were passed away amid
+festivities and demonstrations of respect. Josephine abandoned herself
+to this pomp with a high spirit, and with a deep love for enjoyment. Her
+whole being was thoroughly interpenetrated with the warmth of this new
+sun, which had risen over her in so wondrous a light, and surrounded her
+with its lustrous rays. All these festivities, banquets, representations
+at the grand opera, and at the Theatre Francais, these public ovations
+which accompanied Bonaparte at every step, at every promenade, at every
+attendance at the theatre,--all these marks of honor elated Josephine,
+filling her with an enthusiastic pride for the hero, the man whom she
+now loved with all the excitability of a woman's heart, and over whom
+fame rested as a halo, and which made him appear to Josephine still
+greater and more exalted. To him alone now belonged her whole heart and
+being; and now for the first time she experienced those nervous spasms
+of jealousy which at a later date were to mix so many bitter drops of
+gall in the golden cup of her greatness.
+
+At the ovations, the tokens of affection on the part of gentlemen
+delighted her, but she had no thanks for the ladies when, with their
+enthusiasm, brilliant eyes, bewitching smiles, and flattering words,
+they endeavored to manifest their adoration and gratitude to the hero of
+Italy; she could barely keep back her tears when, at the reception which
+Talleyrand, the minister of foreign affairs, gave to Bonaparte, the
+beautiful songstress Grassini appeared, and, with her entrancing voice,
+sang the fame of the conqueror who had bound captive to his triumphal
+car, as the most precious booty, the proud songstress herself.
+
+The Directory, however, would have gladly allowed the ladies to take
+part in this enthusiasm if the men had taken no share in it; but
+the admiration which they had everywhere manifested so strongly
+for Bonaparte, had completely overshadowed their own greatness and
+importance. They were no longer the monarchs of France--Bonaparte alone
+seemed to be its ruler--and their envious jealousy told them that
+it would require but a sign from his hand to impart to the French
+government a new form, to disenthrone the five directors, and to place
+himself in their position. The sole aim was, therefore, to remove
+Bonaparte as soon as practicable from Paris, and if possible from
+France, so as to check his popularity, and to oppose his ever-growing
+power.
+
+Bonaparte was but little inclined to meet these views of the Directory,
+and to accept the propositions made to him. He declined at once to go
+to Rastadt, there to attend to the discussions of the congress, with
+as much resolution as he had refused to go to Rome to punish the
+papal government for the enmity it had shown to Prance. He left it to
+diplomats to prattle in Rastadt over the green-table, and to General
+Berthier to punish the papal government, and to drive Pius out of the
+Eternal City, the seat of St. Peter, and erect there the altar of the
+republic of Rome.
+
+There were greater and loftier aims which Bonaparte now sought--and
+fame, which he loved quite as much as Josephine did, and was soon to
+love even more, was enticing him on to paths yet untrodden, where no
+hero of past ages had sought for it.
+
+In Egypt, near the pyramids of four thousand years, he desired to gather
+fresh laurels; from thence the astonished world was to hear the wondrous
+recitals of his victories. His lively fancy already imagined his name
+written on those gigantic monuments of past ages, the only earthly
+creations which have in themselves nearly the character of immortality.
+With his mighty deeds he wished to surpass all the heroes of modern
+times; he desired to rival Caesar and Alexander.
+
+Caesar had won fifty battles, Bonaparte wanted to win a hundred.
+Alexander had gone from Macedonia to the temple of Jupiter Ammon,
+Bonaparte wished to leave Paris to obtain victories at the cataracts of
+the Nile.
+
+The bitterness which existed between the Directory and Bonaparte was
+increasing more and more. He no longer spoke to the five monarchs as
+an obedient, submissive son of the republic; he spoke as their lord and
+master; he threatened when his will was not obeyed; he was wroth when he
+met with opposition. And the Directory had not the courage to reproach
+him for his undutiful conduct, or to enter the lists with him to dispute
+for the sovereignty, for they well knew that public sentiment would
+declare itself in his favor, that Paris would side with the general if
+matters were to come to a crisis between them. It was therefore better
+and wiser to avoid this strife, and, under some good pretext, remove
+Bonaparte and open to him some distant pathway to fame, so as to be rid
+of him.
+
+Egypt was far enough from Paris to give to the Directory guaranties
+of security, and it fell in with Bonaparte's plans. It was resolved
+therefore to send an expedition to Egypt, and he was appointed its
+commander-in-chief.
+
+Bonaparte had directed his eyes to the East when in Passeriano he was
+making peace with Austria. In Egypt were the battle-fields which were to
+surround his name with a fresh halo of glory.
+
+Josephine learned this resolution of Bonaparte with fear and anxiety,
+but she dared not betray this to any one, since this expedition was to
+remain a secret to all the world. Only in private could her tears flow,
+only before Bonaparte could she complain. Once, as she encircled him
+convulsively with her arms, her mind full of misgivings and her eyes of
+tears she asked him how many years he thought of remaining in Egypt.
+
+She had put this question only in a jesting form. He took it in full
+earnestness, and answered:
+
+"Either a few months or six years. All depends upon circumstances. I
+must win Egypt to civilization. I will gather there artists, learned
+men, mechanics of all trades, even women--dancers, songstresses, and
+actresses. I want to mould Egypt into a second France. One can do a
+great deal in six years. I am now twenty-nine years old, I shall be
+thirty-five when I return--that is not old. But I shall want more than
+six years if I go to India." [Footnote: Bourrienne, vol. ii., p. 49.]
+
+Josephine cried aloud with anguish and horror, and, embracing him in
+her arms, implored him with all the delicate tenderness of her anxious
+affection not to thrust her aside, but to allow her to accompany him to
+Egypt.
+
+But Bonaparte refused, and this time her tears, which he had never
+before denied, were fruitless. He felt that Josephine's presence would
+damp his ardent courage, retard his onward march, and that he would
+not have the necessary fearless energy to incur risks and perils if
+Josephine were to be threatened by their consequences. He could not
+expose her to the privations and restless wanderings of a campaign, and
+his burning love for her was too real for him to yield to her wishes.
+
+Josephine, meanwhile, was not silenced by his refusal; she persevered in
+her supplications, and Bonaparte, at last softened by her prayers, was
+obliged to come to terms. It was decided that Josephine should follow
+him to Egypt, that he would select a place of residence and prepare
+every thing for her reception there, so that she might without danger or
+too much inconvenience undertake the journey.
+
+But before commencing such an undertaking, Josephine's health needed
+recruiting; she was to go to the baths of Plombieres, and Bonaparte was
+to hold a ship in readiness in Toulon to bring her to Egypt.
+
+The ship which was chosen to transport her was the Pomona, the same
+in which, when only sixteen years old, she had come from Martinique to
+France. Then she had gone forth to an unknown world and to an unknown
+husband; now she was on the same ship to undertake a journey to an
+unknown world, but it was a beloved husband whom she was going to meet,
+and love gave her the strength to do so.
+
+Josephine, full of the sweetest confidence that she was soon to follow
+Bonaparte, and hereafter to see him again, accompanied him to Toulon.
+She had the strength to repress her tears as she bade him farewell, and
+to smile as he entreated her to keep her heart faithful to him.
+
+She showed herself at this separation stronger than Bonaparte himself,
+for while her eyes were bright with joyous love, his were sad and
+obscured by tears.
+
+The difference was this: Bonaparte knew that he was bidding farewell to
+Josephine for long years; she trusted that in a few months she would be
+reunited to him.
+
+Bonaparte imprinted a last kiss on the lips of Josephine. She embraced
+him tenderly in her arms, and, to shield herself against the deep
+anguish of the separation, she cried aloud:
+
+"In three months we meet again! The Pomona, which brought me to France,
+will bear me back to my hero, to my Achilles! In three months I shall be
+with you again. You have often called me the star of your fortune. How
+could this star abandon you when you are going to fight against your
+foes?"
+
+He gazed at her with a look at once full of deep love and sorrow:
+
+"Josephine," said he, solemnly, "my enemies are neither in Asia nor
+in Africa, but they are all in France. I leave you behind me in their
+midst, for you to watch them, and to unravel their schemes. Think
+of this, and be my strong and prudent wife." [Footnote: Bonaparte's
+words.--See Le Normand, vol. i., p. 278.]
+
+Deeply moved, he turned away, and hastened from her to the boat that was
+to bear him to the flag-ship, which was waiting only for the commanding
+general to come aboard before weighing anchor.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK III. THE EMPRESS AND THE DIVORCED.
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX. PLOMBIERES AND HALMAISON.
+
+
+While Bonaparte with the French fleet was sailing toward the East,
+there, in the wide valley of the Nile, to win a new fame, Josephine
+started for Plombieres, where she had requested her daughter Hortense
+to meet her. The splendid scenery and pleasant quietude of Plombieres
+offered at least some comfort and satisfaction to Josephine, whose
+heart was not yet healed from the anguish of separation. Her greatest
+consolation was the thought that in a few months she would go to her
+husband; that the Pomona would bear her to him who now possessed her
+whole soul, and surrounded her whole being with an enchantment which was
+to cease only with her life.
+
+She counted the days, the weeks, which separated her from the wished-for
+journey; she waited with impatient longing for the news that the Pomona,
+which needed a few repairs, was ready and all prepared for the distant
+but welcome voyage.
+
+Her sole recreation consisted in the company of, and in the cordial
+fellowship with Hortense, now grown up a young lady, and the
+companionship of a few intimate ladies who had followed her to
+Plombieres. Surrounded by these, she either sat in her drawing-room,
+busy with some manual labor, or else, followed by a single servant, she
+and Hortense made long walks in the wonderfully romantic vicinity of
+Plombieres.
+
+One morning she was in the drawing-room with her friends, working with
+the needle, conversing, and finding recreation in stepping through the
+wide-open folding-doors upon the balcony, from which a most enchanting
+view could be had of the lovely valley, and the mountains which stood
+round about it. While there, busily embroidering a rose, one of her
+friends, who had gone to the balcony, called her to come quickly to
+admire a remarkably small greyhound which was passing down the street.
+Josephine, whose love for dogs had made Napoleon pass many a restless
+hour, hastened to obey her friend's call, and went out upon the balcony,
+whither the rest of the ladies followed her, all curious to see the
+greyhound which had set Madame de Cambis into such an excitement. But
+the weight of these six ladies, gathered close together on the balcony,
+was too heavy for the plank and joist-work loosely put together. A
+fearful crash was heard; and as Hortense, who had remained in the
+drawing-room, busy with her painting, looked out, she saw neither the
+ladies nor the balcony. All had disappeared--nothing but a cloud of
+dust arose from the street, amidst a confusion of cries of distress, of
+shouts for help, and groans of pain.
+
+The balcony, with the ladies, had been precipitated into the street, and
+all those who were on it were more or less severely injured. Josephine
+recognized it as a providential protection that she had not paid
+with broken limbs, like her friends, for the curiosity of seeing the
+beautiful little greyhound, but had only received violent contusions and
+sprained joints. For weeks she had to suffer from the consequences of
+this fall, and was confined to her bed, not being able to lift herself
+up, nor with her bruised, swollen hands to bring the food to her mouth
+during this time. Hortense had to wait upon her mother as she had waited
+upon her when she was only a small, helpless child.
+
+While Josephine was thus for these weeks suffering, the Pomona,
+fully equipped, was sent to sea, for she was intrusted with important
+instructions for the commanding general Bonaparte, and could not
+possibly be detained for Josephine's recovery. She received this news
+with bitter tears, and resolutely declared that no sooner should she be
+recovered than she would sail for Egypt in any kind of vessel; that she
+was firmly decided to follow her husband and share his dangers.
+
+She had, however, twice received letters from Bonaparte. In the first of
+these he had, full of tender solicitude, entreated her not to undertake
+the fatiguing and dangerous voyage; in the second he had commanded
+her with all the earnestness of love to give up the enterprise, and
+requested as a proof of her affection and faithfulness, that she would
+listen to reason, remain in Paris, and watch over his interests, and be
+his guardian angel.
+
+Josephine read this last letter with a sorrowful smile, and, as she
+handed it to her friend Madame de Chateau-Renaud, she said, sighing:
+
+"The days of happiness are over. While in Italy, Bonaparte required that
+I should bid defiance to all dangers, so as to be at his side, for his
+letters then demanded my presence. Now he orders me to avoid dangers,
+and to remain quietly at home."
+
+"But it is out of pure love he does this!" exclaimed her friend. "See
+how affectionate and how tender his letter is! Certainly no man can love
+his wife more warmly than Bonaparte loves you."
+
+"Oh, yes," sighed Josephine, "he loves me yet, but I am no longer
+absolutely necessary--he can live without me; once love ruled over his
+reason, now his reason rules over his love. It will be as I fear: I
+shall day by day love him more fondly and more passionately, for he is
+my last love, but he will every day love me less, for perhaps I am his
+first love, and his heart will be young long after he reads upon my face
+that I am six years older than he."
+
+However, she conformed to the wishes of her husband; she was resigned,
+and gave up the thought of going to Egypt. At first she did it only
+with tears, but soon after there came news which made her accept her
+husband's wishes as the commands of Fate.
+
+The Pomona, the vessel which had once brought her from Martinique to
+France, and on board of which she was to go to Egypt, had been captured
+by an English man-of-war, and all her passengers sent as prisoners to
+England.
+
+The fall from the balcony had therefore saved Josephine from being
+carried into captivity to England. To this fall she owed her liberty!
+With all the levity and superstition of a creole, Josephine looked upon
+this fortunate mishap as a warning from Fate, and it seemed to her as if
+this had taken place to hinder her journey to Egypt. She therefore dried
+her tears and submitted to the orders alike of Fate and of her husband.
+
+She remained in France, and accepted her mission to watch, as a true
+friend and beloved one, over the interests of her husband, to observe
+his friends and foes, and to send him news of every thing which it was
+important for him to know.
+
+Once her fate decided, and she resolved to remain in France, she
+determined to make her life comfortable and pleasant; she wished to
+prepare for herself and her children a joyous existence, and procure
+also for her returning husband a gift which she knew would meet a
+long-cherished wish of his.
+
+She bought a residence, situated not far from Paris, the Castle
+Malmaison, if the name of castle can be properly given to a pretty,
+tastefully-built country residence, tolerably large and plain, but
+surrounded by a beautiful park.
+
+Their wishes and wants were yet simple, and the country residence,
+Malmaison, was amply sufficient to receive the family and the friends of
+General Bonaparte and his wife; it became too small and too narrow only
+when it had to accommodate the Emperor Napoleon, the empress, and their
+court-attendants and suite.
+
+But if the Castle Malmaison was not large, the park which surrounded
+it was all the larger and handsomer, and, with its shady walks, its
+wondrous beds of flowers, its majestic avenues, its splendid groves and
+lawns, it had for Josephine pleasures and joys ever new and fresh; and
+it furnished her, moreover, with the welcome opportunity of following
+the inclinations of her youth amidst the flowers, birds, trees, and
+plants.
+
+Josephine loved botany; it was natural that she should endeavor to
+collect together in Malmaison the most beautiful plants and flowers, and
+to arrange them in this her little earthly paradise. She enlisted the
+most able architects and the most skilful gardeners, and, under their
+direction, with the hands of hundreds of workmen, there soon arose one
+of the most beautiful hot-houses, wherein all these glories of earth,
+splendid flowers, and fruits of distant climes, would find a home!
+
+Josephine herself, with her fine taste and her deep knowledge of botany,
+directed all these arrangements and improvements; the builders as well
+as the gardeners had to submit their plans for her approbation, and it
+was not seldom that her keen, practised eye discovered in them defects
+which her ingenuity at once found means to correct.
+
+In Malmaison, Josephine created around her a new world, a quiet paradise
+of happiness, where she could dream, with blissful cheerfulness and
+with all the youthful energy of her heart, of a peaceful future, of
+delightful contentment, in the quiet enjoyment of Nature and of home.
+
+But the old world outside did not cease its own march; it fought its
+battles, spun its intrigues, and continued its hostilities. Josephine
+could not withdraw herself from this old world; she dared not place the
+paradise of Malmaison as a wall of partition between her and the
+wild stir and tumult of Paris; she had to rush away from the world of
+innocence, from this country-life, into the whirlpool of the agitated,
+restless life of Paris.
+
+Bonaparte had made it a duty for her to watch his friends as well as his
+foes, and there were then happening in Paris events which appeared to
+the wife of General Bonaparte worthy of close observation. His long
+absence had diminished the number of his friends, and at the same time
+gave strength to and increased his enemies, who were ever busy to
+defame and vilify his heroic deeds, and to turn them into a crime; they
+represented that the expedition to Egypt, notwithstanding the glorious
+exploits of the French army, should have had more striking results, and
+the louder they cried out, the more feeble and timid were the voices
+of his friends. The latter daily found their position becoming more
+precarious, for they were the moderate republicans, the supporters of
+the actual order of things, and of the constitution which France had
+adopted. Against this constitution arose, with loud cries, two hostile
+parties, which increased every day, and assumed toward it a more and
+more threatening attitude.
+
+These parties were, on the one hand, the royalists, who saw their hopes
+increase every day, because the armies of the European powers, allied
+against France, were approaching nearer and nearer the French
+frontiers; and, on the other, the republicans of the past, who hoped to
+re-establish the old days of the Convention and of the red republic.
+
+Both parties tried to undermine society and the existing authorities;
+they organized conspiracies, seditions, and tumults, and were constantly
+inventing new intrigues, so as to destroy the government, and set
+themselves up in its place.
+
+The royalists trusted to the combined powers of the princes of Europe,
+with whom the exiled Bourbons were approaching; and in La Vendee the
+guerilla warfare had already begun against the republic.
+
+The red republicans dreamed of re-establishing the guillotine, which was
+to restore France to health by delivering her from all the adversaries
+of the republic and bring back the glorious days of 1793; they left
+nothing untried to excite the people into dissatisfaction and open
+rebellion.
+
+Against both parties stood the Directory, who in these days of tumult
+and sedition, were themselves feeble and without energy, seeking only to
+prolong their existence. They were satisfied to live on day by day, and
+shrank from every decided action which might increase the wrath of the
+parties or destroy the brilliant present of the mighty directors, in
+whose ears the title of "the five monarchs" sounded so sweetly.
+
+In the interior of France, anarchy, with all its horrors and confusion,
+prevailed, and, on the frontier, its enemies were taking advantage of
+this anarchy to give to the republic its mortal stroke.
+
+Turkey, Russia, the Kings of Sardinia, Naples, and Sweden, were allied
+with Austria, England, and Prussia, and they had begun to make immense
+preparations. A Russian army, led by Suwarrow, was marching toward
+Italy, to the help of Austria--to reconquer Lombardy. The Rastadt
+congress, from which a universal peace had been expected, had dissolved,
+and the only result was an increased enmity between Germany and
+France, the deputies of the latter, as they were returning home, being
+shamefully murdered in the open street, immediately before the gates of
+Rastadt, at the instigation of the Austrian Count Lehrbach.
+
+The murder of these ambassadors became the signal for the renewal of
+war, which was now to be prosecuted with increased bitterness.
+
+At this important, critical moment, when all Europe was buckling on
+its armor against France, which so much needed the guidance of her
+victorious general--at this moment, Bonaparte was not only away from
+Paris, but no news had been received from him for some months. Only
+a vague rumor was spread through Paris: "Bonaparte had fallen at the
+desperate attack on Acre," and this sufficed to discourage entirely his
+friends, and to make his enemies still more audacious and overbearing.
+
+At first Josephine was entirely cast down by the terrible news; but
+afterward came the reflection, the doubt, the hope, that all this
+might be a rumor spread by his enemies. She hastened to Paris to obtain
+information from the Directory, so as to find out if there were any
+foundation for the report of Bonaparte's death. But the Directory had
+as uncertain news as Josephine herself, and the absence of information
+seemed to confirm its truth.
+
+As she came one day to Barras to ask him if there were any news from
+the army, she heard him say to Rewbell, one of the five directors: "Here
+comes the wife of that hypocrite Bonaparte! If he is not dead to Europe,
+he is at least dead to France."
+
+This expression proved to her that Barras himself did not believe in his
+death, and gave to Josephine all her energy and presence of mind. She
+busied herself in endeavoring to find a clew to this horrible rumor; and
+she found that Bonaparte's enemies had spread it, and that only those
+to whom his death would be welcome, and his return be objectionable, had
+circulated this report.
+
+Her heart again beat with hope; she now felt, in the blissful joy which
+penetrated her whole being, that Bonaparte was not dead; that he lived
+still; that he would return home, to her great delight and to the terror
+of his foes. A cheerful assurance sustained her whole nature. While
+all those, who in the days of her happiness had rivalled each other in
+assuring her of their friendship and devotedness, the Directory, the
+ministers, the majority of the generals, turned away from her, cold and
+indifferent; and her few true friends, low-spirited and depressed, bowed
+their heads, while her foes and those of Bonaparte scornfully said in
+their joy, "Now the new King of Jerusalem and Cyprus has fallen under
+the blows of a new savage Omar." While every thing was against her,
+Josephine alone was cheerful, and confidingly looked into the future,
+for she felt and knew that the future would soon bring back her husband,
+her beloved.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI. THE FIRST FAITHLESSNESS.
+
+
+Josephines prophetic heart had not deceived her. Bonaparte lived! But
+his was a life of danger, of constantly renewed battles and hardships--a
+life in which he had constantly to guard against not only enemies, but
+also against sickness.
+
+Bonaparte had traversed the deserts with his army, visited the pyramids,
+conquered Cairo, and, in warmly-contested and fearful combats, had
+defeated and subdued the Mussulman. But these numerous victories had
+been followed by some defeats, and all his successes were more than
+counterbalanced by the fruitless storming of the impregnable Acre, and
+the failure to conquer Syria. The English admiral, Sidney Smith, with
+his vessels, anchored in the harbor of Acre, protected the besieged,
+and constantly provided them with provisions and ammunition, and so
+efficiently supported the pacha and his mercenary European soldiers,
+that Bonaparte, after two months of fruitless efforts, abandoned the
+siege on the 10th of May, 1799, and retreated into Egypt.
+
+This is not, however, the place to recall the stupendous enterprises of
+Bonaparte, which remind one of the deeds of the heroes and demi-gods of
+ancient Greece, or the nursery tales of extraordinary beings.
+
+His heroic deeds are engraven on history's page: there can be read
+the wondrous events of his Egyptian campaign, of his march through
+the wilderness, of the capture of Cairo, of his successful battles of
+Aboukir and Tabor, which led the heroic General Kleber, forgetting all
+rivalry, to embrace Bonaparte, exclaiming: "General Bonaparte, you are
+as great as the world, but the world is too small for you!"
+
+There, also, one can read of the cruel massacre of three thousand
+captive Mussulmen, of the revolt of Cairo; there are depicted the
+blood-stained laurels which Bonaparte won in this expedition, the
+original plan of which seems to have been conceived in the brain of one
+who was at once a demi-god and an adventurer.
+
+We leave, therefore, to history the exclusive privilege of narrating
+Bonaparte's career as a warrior; our task is with something
+superior--with his thoughts, feelings, and sufferings, in the days of
+his Egyptian campaign. It is not with the soldier, the captain, or his
+plans of battle, that we have to do, but with the man, and especially
+with the husband of Josephine--the woman who for his sake suffered,
+was full of solicitude, contended for him, and struggled with love and
+loyalty, while he fought only with sword and cannon.
+
+It is true, Bonaparte also had to suffer, and his anxieties for the
+success of his plans did not alone hang heavily on his heart, while with
+his army he besieged the impregnable Acre. At this very time his heart
+received a deep wound from his friend and confidant Junot, who drove
+the sting of jealousy into his sensitive heart. It is the privilege of
+friendship to pass by in silence nothing which calumny or ill-will may
+imagine or circulate, but truly to make known to our friend every thing
+which the public says of him, without regard to the sufferings which
+such communications may entail upon his heart. Junot made full use of
+this privilege. Bourrienne in his memoirs relates as follows:
+
+"While we were in the vicinity of the springs of Messoudiah, I saw one
+day Bonaparte, with his friend Junot, pacing to and fro, as he often
+did. I was not very far from them, and I know not why during this
+conversation my eyes were fixed on him. The face of the general was
+paler than usual, though I knew not the cause. There was a strange
+nervousness; his eyes seemed bewildered, and he often struck his head
+with his hand.
+
+"After a quarter of an hour, he left Junot and came toward me. I had
+noticed his angry, thoughtful expression. I went to meet him, and as I
+stood before him, Bonaparte, with a harsh and severe tone, exclaimed:
+'You have no affection for me. The women! ... Josephine! ... Had you any
+affection for me, you would long ago have given me the information which
+Junot has now told me: he is a true friend! Josephine! ... and I am six
+hundred miles away! ... You ought to have told me! ... Josephine! ...
+so to deceive me! ... You! ... "Woe to you all! I will uproot
+that detestable race of seducers and blondins! As regards
+her--separation!--yes: divorce, public separation before the eyes
+of all! ... I must write! I know every thing! ... It is her fault,
+Bourrienne! You ought to have told me.'
+
+"These vehement, broken utterances, the strange expression on his face,
+and his excited tone of voice, revealed only too clearly what had been
+the subject of the conversation he had had with Junot. I saw that Junot
+had been drawn into a fatal indiscretion, and that if he had really
+believed that charges could be made against Madame Bonaparte, he had
+exaggerated them in an unpardonable manner. My situation was one of
+extreme delicacy: I had, however, the good fortune to remain cool, and
+as soon as his first excitement had subsided, I began to tell him that
+I knew nothing about what Junot had told him; that if even such rumors,
+which often were circulated only by slander, had reached me, and if I
+had thought it my duty to communicate them to him, I should certainly
+not have chosen the moment when he was six hundred miles away from
+France to do so. I did not hesitate to tell him how blameworthy Junot's
+conduct appeared to me, and how ungenerous it was to accuse a woman
+thoughtlessly, when she was not present to justify or to defend herself;
+I told him that it was no proof of affection for Junot to add domestic
+troubles to the grave anxieties which already overburdened him.
+Notwithstanding my observations, to which, however, he listened with
+composure, the word 'separation' fell often from his lips, and one must
+understand to what a pitch the excitement of his feelings could carry
+him, to be able to imagine how Bonaparte appeared during this painful
+scene. I did not, however, give up the point; I came back to what I had
+said. I reminded him with what carelessness men received and circulated
+such reckless stories, suited only to the idle curiosity of gossips, and
+unworthy the attention of strong minds. I spoke to him of his fame: 'My
+fame?' cried he, 'ah, I know not what I would give if what Junot has
+told me is not true--so much do I love this woman ... if Josephine
+is guilty, I must be divorced from her forever. ... I will not be
+the ridicule of the idle babblers of Paris! I must write to Joseph to
+procure this separation.'
+
+"Though he was still much excited, yet he was somewhat more quiet. I
+took advantage of a moment's pause to combat this idea of separation
+which seemed to overrule him. I called his attention to the
+unreasonableness it would be, on such vague and probably false rumors,
+to write to his brother. 'If you send a letter,' said I, 'it will
+bear the impress of the excitement which has dictated it; as regards
+a separation, it will be time, after mature consideration, to speak of
+it.'
+
+"These last words made an impression on him which I had not expected so
+soon to see; he became perfectly calm, and listened to me as if he
+felt the need of receiving words of encouragement, and after this
+conversation he never again alluded to the subject. Fourteen days after,
+before Acre, he manifested to me the most violent displeasure against
+Junot, complained of the sufferings which such indiscreet revelations
+had caused him, and which he now considered as purely an invention
+of malice. I afterward noticed that he did not forgive Junot this
+stupidity. It is easy to understand why Josephine, when she learned from
+Napoleon this conduct of Junot, never could feel for him a very warm
+interest, or intercede in his favor." [Footnote: Bourrienne, "Memoires,"
+vol. ii., p. 212.]
+
+It will be seen that the very sensitive heart of Bonaparte had again
+been kindled into jealousy, as it so often had happened before in Italy.
+Absence--a momentary separation--was enough to enkindle these flames. We
+have seen in the letters which Bonaparte wrote to Josephine during the
+Italian campaign, how her silence--the least delay in her answering
+his letters--was enough for him to incriminate her, on account of his
+jealous affections; how, because she does not constantly write, he
+threatens to rush in some night unexpectedly, and with the rage of
+jealousy force the doors open, and murder "the young lover of eighteen,
+and curse Josephine because he must love her without bounds."
+
+Now he swears to root out this detestable race of seducers and blondins
+who have beguiled from him the heart of his Josephine. Full of passion
+and jealousy, he believes in the calumnies which Junot, with all the
+cruel inconsiderateness of a trusty friend, has whispered to him, and at
+once Josephine is guilty! She has had a love-correspondence with Charles
+Botot, the blond private secretary of Barras, for Charles Botot comes
+sometimes to Malmaison, and has often been seen near Josephine and her
+daughter Hortense in her loge! But by degrees comes reflection, and a
+fortnight after he believes that malice alone can have invented these
+calumnies. This noble conviction, however, was soon to be shaken by the
+enemy, for Josephine had enemies quite near Bonaparte, who longed to
+draw away from her a husband's heart and to drive him into a divorce.
+
+First of all there were the whole family of Bonaparte, who had seen with
+unwillingness Napoleon's marriage, for he was thereby much less under
+their influence, and they had wished that he would at all events have
+married Desiree Clary, the sister of Joseph's wife, and thus have been
+more closely united to the family.
+
+But, while he was in Egypt, another powerful enemy had been added to
+these. This was a young and beautiful woman, Madame Foures, the beloved
+of the ardent general.
+
+While Bonaparte, with all the madness of jealousy at a mere groundless
+calumny, which had come across the sea distorted and magnified,
+wished to be divorced from Josephine; while he complained of woman's
+faithlessness, frivolity, and inconstancy; while he cursed all women as
+coquettes, he himself was guilty of faithlessness. Forgetting his vows
+and his protestations of love for his wife, he had abandoned himself to
+a new affection without any regard to public opinion, and even made no
+secret of his intrigues.
+
+Unfortunate Josephine! The fears she had anticipated and dreaded before
+accepting Bonaparte's proffered hand were too soon to be realized. His
+heart began to grow cold while her love increased every day with deeper
+intensity; he had perchance already read in her amiable countenance the
+first signs of age, and he thought it might well be allowed to the young
+general not to maintain so strict a fealty to that faithfulness which he
+claimed from her.
+
+But Bonaparte still loved Josephine, although he was unfaithful to her.
+Surely this new love might well bear the guilt of the credulousness with
+which he judged Josephine, and the word of separation might thus easily
+come upon his lips, because the newly-loved one, amid the vows of her
+affection, might have whispered it in his ear.
+
+Madame Foures had an immense advantage over Josephine; she was barely
+twenty years old, was bewitchingly beautiful, was a coquette, and--she
+was there in Bonaparte's immediate presence, while the Mediterranean
+separated him from Josephine.
+
+Bonaparte abandoned himself to this new love with all his passionate
+nature. Not only did the whole army in Egypt know this, but his foes
+also became acquainted with it; and Sir Sidney Smith made use of this
+fact to attack his enemy in a way little known to the annals of warfare.
+Bonaparte had removed from the Egyptian army Madame Foures' injured
+husband, who held there the rank of a cavalry officer, by sending him
+with a message to the Directory. But the vessel in which he had sailed
+for France was captured by the English, and Admiral Sidney Smith
+undertook, with all the careless, open manner of an Englishman, to make
+him fully acquainted with the relations existing between his wife and
+General Bonaparte.
+
+He then gave to M. Foures, who was beside himself with anger and wrath,
+and who threatened bloody vengeance, his freedom, and exhibited his
+good-will toward him so far as to have him landed near Cairo, where
+Bonaparte then was with his beautiful mistress.
+
+Enraged with jealousy, M. Foures rushed to his wife, to make to her the
+most violent demonstrations. Perhaps too weak to part with an adored,
+beautiful wife, he simply ordered her to return with him to France.
+
+But Madame Foures made resistance. She called her mighty lover to her
+help; she claimed a separation; and the war-commissioner Duprat, who
+in the army was invested with the functions of a civil magistrate,
+pronounced, at the request of Madame Foures and at the order of
+Bonaparte, the decree of separation.
+
+Madame Foures was free, but this did not satisfy the secret wishes of
+her heart. The most important point was, that Bonaparte should be free
+also, that he also should desire to be divorced. Josephine must be
+removed from him and thrust aside, so that the beautiful Pauline Foures
+might take her place.
+
+No means, either of coquetry, tears, flatteries, or promises of enduring
+love, remained untried to induce Bonaparte to take the decisive step.
+Sometimes Pauline would pout; sometimes her eyes shed the tears of
+repentance over her own faithlessness, and she vowed she would take
+refuge in a cloister if Bonaparte would not restore her to honor by
+exalting her to the position of being his wife; sometimes she sought by
+her cheerful humor, her genial abandonment, to bind him to her, to amuse
+him; and sometimes, when dressed as a general, on a fiery horse, and
+surrounded by a vast number of adjutants, she would ride up to him and
+win by her smiles and flatteries friends, who calumniated Josephine,
+and represented to him the necessity of a separation from his inconstant
+wife.
+
+But, notwithstanding all the calumnies, and all the deceiving arts of
+his beloved, there existed in Bonaparte's heart something which spoke
+in favor of the poor, slandered, and forgotten Josephine; and, amid
+the exciting pleasures of his new passion, he remembered with longing,
+sorrowful heart the charming, gracious woman whom he once had tenderly
+loved, and whom he still so loved that he could not sacrifice her to
+his beautiful mistress. Still he persevered in showing to the latter the
+deepest, most tender, and undivided attention; and when the chances of
+war kept him away from her for a long time, when he went to Syria and
+left her in Cairo, Bonaparte wrote to her every day the most touching
+letters, which were forwarded by a special courier.
+
+This was occurring at the same time that Josephine in Paris was hoping
+in vain with painful longing for letters from her husband, and was
+watching over his interests with the kindest attention, while his
+enemies were spreading news of his death.
+
+Bonaparte had now no time to write to his wife, for the beautiful
+Pauline Foures laid claim to the little leisure which remained to the
+commanding general, and to her he addressed warm and glowing words of
+love, such as while in Italy he had addressed to Josephine when he swore
+to her never to love another woman.
+
+Meanwhile Fate rendered fruitless all the efforts of the beautiful
+Madame Foures to draw Bonaparte into a separation; Fate came to
+Josephine's rescue, and, strange to say, it came in the shape of the
+Frankfort Journal.
+
+The victorious battle of Aboukir, which Bonaparte, on the 25th of July,
+1799, had with his army won over the enemy, gave occasion to parleying
+negotiations between the French commander-in-chief and the English
+admiral, Sidney Smith. Bonaparte sent a commissioner on board the
+English flag-ship, and Sir Sidney Smith was cunning enough to send
+through this commissioner to the French general a few newspapers
+recently received from Europe. For ten months the French army and
+Bonaparte were without news from France, and this present of the English
+admiral was received by Bonaparte and his generals with the deepest joy
+and curiosity.
+
+Among these papers was a copy of the Journal de Frankfort of the 10th of
+June, 1799. This was the first newspaper which furnished Bonaparte with
+news from France for ten long months, and the natural consequence was
+that he glanced over it with the most inquisitive impatience. Suddenly
+he uttered a cry; the pallor of death overspread his face, and, fixing
+his flaming eyes on Bourrienne, who at this moment was alone with
+him--"My presentiments have not deceived me," exclaimed Bonaparte.
+"Italy is lost! The wretched creatures! All the results of our
+victories have vanished! I must go to France at once--this very moment!"
+[Footnote: Bourrienne, "Memoires," vol. ii., p. 305.]
+
+This newspaper informed Bonaparte of the late events in France. It told
+him that the French Directory had experienced a change, that only one of
+them, Barras, had remained in it, and that four new directors--Sieyes,
+Grohier, Moulins, and Ducos--were now its members. It told him much
+more--that the French army in Italy had suffered the most disastrous
+reverses; that all Italy had been reconquered by the combined armies of
+Russia and Austria under Suwarrow and the Archduke Charles, who were
+now advancing upon France, which was on every side surrounded by the
+revengeful enemies of the republic.
+
+No sooner had Bonaparte read this news than his decision was taken.
+Berthier was called into his tent, and under the seal of silence
+Bonaparte communicated to him his unwavering resolution of going
+immediately to France, but that this was to remain a secret to his
+whole army as well as all the generals. Berthier, Gautheaume, Eugene
+Beauharnais, Monge, and Bourrienne, were alone to accompany him, but the
+last two were not to be made acquainted with their departure for Europe
+before they had left Cairo with Bonaparte. As he noticed gleams of joy
+in Berthier's face at the news of returning to France, Bonaparte once
+more impressed upon him the duty of preserving silence and not to betray
+the secret by word or deed, and to do nothing which might induce friends
+or acquaintances to believe that a voyage was contemplated. The secret
+was indeed faithfully kept, and the few confidants intrusted with it
+took great care to divulge nothing, for fear he might punish them by
+leaving them in Egypt.
+
+Bonaparte himself maintained the most absolute secrecy; neither his
+beloved, the beautiful Pauline Foures, nor General Kleber, whom he had
+chosen to be his successor in the chief command of the army of Egypt,
+suspected any thing.
+
+To his beloved, Bonaparte said he was leaving Cairo for the sake of
+making a tour through the Delta, and that in a few weeks he would be
+with her again. The news he had received from Europe had suddenly cooled
+the glow of his passion, and, at the thought of returning to France,
+rose up again before his mind the image of Josephine in all her grace
+and loveliness. For a long time, while she was not at his side, he had
+been unfaithful to her, but he did not wish, for his own sake, to add
+scandal to faithlessness. He did not wish to bring to France with him,
+as sole booty from Egypt, a mistress.
+
+Pauline Foures, therefore, suspected as little of his plans as General
+Kleber. It was only after Bonaparte, with his small suite of five
+confidants and the Mameluke Roustan, had embarked at Alexandria, that
+Pauline learned that he had deserted--that he had abandoned her. In
+a short note which his master of the stall, Vigogne, handed to her,
+Bonaparte took leave of her, and made her a present of every thing he
+left behind in Cairo, including the house he occupied, with all its
+costly and luxurious furniture. [Footnote: The departure of Bonaparte
+made Madame Foures comfortless, and she now watched for an opportunity
+to hasten back to him in France. Touched by her tears and prayers,
+Junot furnished her with an opportunity, and Pauline reached Paris in
+November, 1799. But Bonaparte would no longer see her; he now sacrificed
+the mistress to the wife, as he had nearly sacrificed the wife to the
+mistress. Pauline received orders to leave Paris immediately; at the
+same time Bonaparte sent her a large sum of money, which he afterward
+repeated.--See Saint Elsne, "Les Amours et Galanteries des Rois de
+France," vol. ii., p. 320.]
+
+General Kleber learned Bonaparte's departure, only through the orders
+sent to him by the latter to assume the chief command of the army; his
+troops learned his absence by the order of the day, in which Bonaparte
+bade them farewell.
+
+After four weeks of a long voyage against tempestuous and contrary
+winds, the two frigates, upon one of which Bonaparte and Eugene and his
+other followers had embarked, touched at Ajaccio. The whole population
+had no sooner learned that Bonaparte was in the harbor, than they rushed
+out to see him, and to salute him with enthusiastic demonstrations;
+and it was in vain that their attention was drawn to the fact that both
+frigates had come directly from Egypt, and had to observe quarantine
+before any communication with the population could be allowed.
+
+"Pestilence sooner than the Austrians!" shouted the people, and hundreds
+and hundreds of boats surrounded the French vessels. Every one wanted
+to see the general, their famous countryman, Bonaparte. But Bonaparte's
+heart was sorrowful amid the general rejoicing, for in Ajaccio he had
+learned of the great battle of Novi, where the Austrians had gained the
+victory, and which had cost General Joubert's life.
+
+"It is too great an evil," said he, with a sigh; "there is no help for
+it." But as he gave up Italy, all his thoughts were more strongly bent
+upon Paris, and his desire to be there as soon as possible increased
+more and more.
+
+After a short stay in Ajaccio, the voyage to France, despite all
+quarantine regulations, was continued, and the star of fortune, which
+had hitherto protected him, still guided Bonaparte safely into the
+harbor of Frejus, though the English fleet had watched and pursued the
+French vessels. A courier was at once dispatched to the Directory in
+Paris to announce the arrival of Bonaparte, and that he would, without
+any delay, come to Paris.
+
+Josephine was at a dinner at Gohier's, one of the five directors, when
+this courier arrived, and with a shout of joy she received the news of
+her husband's coming. Her longing was such that she could not wait for
+him in Paris, in her house of the Rue de la Victoire. She resolved to
+meet him, and to be the first to bid him welcome, and to show him her
+unutterable love.
+
+No sooner was this resolution taken than it was carried out. She began
+her journey with the expectation of meeting her husband at Lyons, for
+in his letter to the Directory he stated that he would come by way of
+Lyons. In great haste, without rest or delay, Josephine travelled the
+road to that city, her heart beating, her luminous eyes gazing onward,
+looking with inexpressible expectancy at every approaching carriage, for
+it might bring her the husband so long absent from her!
+
+She little suspected that while she was hastening toward Lyons,
+Bonaparte had already arrived in Paris. He had changed the plan of
+his journey, and, entirely controlled by his impatient desires, he
+had driven to Paris by the shortest route. Josephine was not there to
+receive him in her house; she was not there to welcome the returning
+one--and the old serpent of jealousy and mistrust awoke again within
+him. To add to this, his brothers and sisters had seized the occasion to
+give vent to their ill-will by suspicions and accusations against their
+unwelcome sister-in-law. Bonaparte, full of sad apprehension at her
+absence, perhaps secretly wishing to find her guilty, listened to the
+whisperings of her enemies.
+
+He therefore did not go to meet Josephine the next day on her return
+from her unsuccessful journey. A few hours after, he opened his closed
+doors and went to see her. She advanced toward him with looks full of
+love and tenderness, and opened her arms to him, and wanted to press him
+closely to her heart.
+
+But he coldly held her back, and with deliberate severity and an
+expression of the highest indifference, he saluted her, and asked if she
+had returned happy and satisfied from her pleasure excursion with her
+light-haired friend.
+
+Josephine's tears gushed forth, and, as if annihilated, she sank down,
+but she had not a word of defence or of justification against the cruel
+accusation. Her heart had been too deeply wounded, her love too
+much insulted, to allow her to defend herself. Her tearful eyes only
+responded to Bonaparte's cruel question, and then in silence she retired
+to her apartments.
+
+For three days they did not see each other. Josephine remained in her
+rooms and wept. Bonaparte remained in his rooms and complained. To
+Bourrienne, who then was not only his private secretary but also his
+confidant, he complained bitterly of the faithlessness and inconstancy
+of Josephine, of the unheard-of indifference that she should undertake
+a pleasure-journey when she knew that he was soon to be in Paris. It
+was in vain that Bourrienne assured him that Josephine had undertaken no
+pleasure-excursion, that she had left Paris only to meet him, and to
+be the first to bid him welcome. He would not believe him, for in the
+melancholy gloominess of his jealousy he believed in the slanders which
+Josephine's enemies, and his brothers and sisters, had whispered in his
+ear, that Josephine had left Paris for a parti de plaisir with Charles
+Botot, the beautiful blondin whom Bonaparte so deeply hated. How
+profound his sadness was, may be seen by a letter which at this time he
+wrote to his brother Joseph, and in which he says:
+
+"I have a great deal of domestic sorrow ... your friendship to me is
+very dear; to become a misanthrope, there was nothing further needed
+than to lose her and to be betrayed by you. It is a sad situation indeed
+to have in one single heart all these emotions for the same person.
+
+"I will purchase a country residence either near Paris or in Burgundy;
+I am thinking of passing the winter there and of shutting myself up;
+I feel weary with human nature; I need solitude; I want to be alone;
+grandeur oppresses me, my feelings are distorted. Fame appears insipid
+at my twenty-nine years; I have tried every thing; nothing remains but
+to become an egotist." [Footnote: "Memoires du Roi Joseph." vol. i., p.
+189.]
+
+But, according to himself, "he cherished in his heart, at the same
+time; all manner of emotions for the same person;" that is, he hated and
+detested Josephine, but he also loved and admired her; was angry with
+her, and yet longed for her; he found her frivolous and faithless, and
+yet something in his heart ever spoke in her favor, and assured him that
+she was a noble and faithful being.
+
+Fortunately, there was one who confirmed into full conviction these low
+whisperings of his heart; fortunately, Bourrienne ceased not to argue
+against this jealousy of Bonaparte, and to assure him again and again
+that Josephine was innocent, that she had committed nothing to excite
+his anger.
+
+Finally, after three days of complaints and dreary accusations, love
+conquered in the heart of Bonaparte. He went to Josephine. She advanced
+to meet him with tears in her eyes, but with a soft, tender smile. The
+sight of her gracious appearance, her blanched cheeks, moved him, and,
+instead of explanations and mutual recriminations, he opened his arms to
+her, and she threw herself on his breast with a loud cry of exultation.
+
+Then came the explanations. He now believed that she had left Paris
+hurriedly for the sake of meeting him; and, as regarded the dangerous
+"blond," the private secretary of Barras, M. Charles Botot, Josephine
+smilingly handed to her husband a letter she had received from him a
+few days before. In this letter Charles Botot acknowledged his
+long-cherished affection for her daughter Hortense, and he claimed her
+hand in due form.
+
+"And you have doubtless accepted his offer?" asked Bonaparte, his face
+overcast again. "Since, unfortunately, you are married yourself, and he
+cannot be your husband, then of course he must marry the daughter, so
+as to be always near the mother. M. Charles Botot is no doubt to be your
+son-in-law? You have accepted his hand?"
+
+"No," said she, softly, "we have refused it, for Hortense does not love
+him, and she will follow her mother's example, and marry only through
+love. Besides," continued Josephine, with a sweet smile, "I wanted him
+no longer."
+
+"You wanted him no longer! How is this?" asked General Bonaparte,
+eagerly.
+
+"Barras has sent him his dismissal," said she, looking at her husband
+with an expression of cunning roguery. "M. Botot could no longer, as he
+has hitherto been--without, however, being conscious of it--be my spy in
+the Directory; I could no longer learn from him what the Directory were
+undertaking against my Bonaparte, against the hero whom they envy and
+caluminate so much, nor in what new snares they wished to entangle him!
+What had I to do with Botot, since he could not furnish me news of the
+intrigues of your enemies, nor afford me the chance of counteracting
+them? Charles Botot was nothing more to me than a mere lemon, which I
+squeezed for your sake; when there was nothing left in it I threw it
+away."
+
+"And is such the truth?" asked Bonaparte, eagerly. "This is no invention
+to raise my hopes, only to be cast down again?"
+
+Josephine smiled. "I have daily taken notes of what Charles Botot
+brought me," said she, gently; "I always hoped to find a safe
+opportunity to send this diary to you in Egypt, that you might be
+informed of what the Directory thought, and what was the public opinion,
+so that you might take your measures accordingly. But, for the last
+eight months, I knew not where you were, and so I have kept my diary:
+here it is."
+
+She gave the diary to Bonaparte, who, with impatient looks, ran over the
+pages, and was fully convinced of her devotedness and care. Josephine
+had well served his interests, and closely watched over his affairs.
+Then, ashamed and repentant, he looked at her, who, in return, smiled at
+him with gracious complacency.
+
+"Josephine," asked he, quietly, "can you forgive me? I have been
+foolish, but I swear to you that never again will I mistrust you, I will
+believe no one but you. Can you forgive me?"
+
+She embraced him in her arms, and tenderly said: "Love me, Bonaparte; I
+well deserve it!"
+
+Peace, therefore, was re-established, and Josephine's enemies had the
+bitter disappointment to see that their efforts had all been in vain;
+that again the most perfect unanimity and affection existed between
+them; that the cloud which their enmity had conjured up, had brought
+forth but a few tear-drops, a few thunderings; and that the love which
+Bonaparte carried in his heart for Josephine was not scattered into
+atoms.
+
+The cloud had passed away; the sun of happiness had reappeared; but it
+had yet some spots which were never to fade away. The word "separation"
+which Bonaparte, so often in Egypt, and now in Paris, had launched
+against Josephine, was to be henceforth the sword of Damocles, ever
+suspended over her head: like a dark, shadowy spectre it was to follow
+her everywhere; even amid scenes of happiness, joy, and glory, it was
+to be there to terrify her by its sinister presence, and by its gloomy
+warnings of the past!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII. THE EIGHTEENTH BRUMAIRE.
+
+
+Bonaparte's journey from Frejus to Paris, on his return from Egypt, had
+been a continued triumph. All France had applauded him. Everywhere he
+had been welcomed as a deliverer and savior; everywhere he had been
+hailed as the hope of the future, as the man from whom was to be
+expected assistance in distress, the restoration of peace, help, and
+salvation.
+
+For France was alarmed; she stood on the edge of a precipice, from which
+only the strong hand of a hero could save her. In the interior, anarchy
+prevailed amongst the authorities as well as the people. In La Vendee
+civil war raged, with all its sanguinary horrors, and the authorities
+endeavored to protect themselves against it by tyrannical laws, by
+despotic measures, which threatened both property and freedom. There
+existed no security either for person or for property, and a horrible,
+fanatical party-spirit penetrated all classes of society. The royalists
+had been defeated on the 18th Fructidor, but that very fact had again
+given the vantage-ground to the most decided opponents of the royalists,
+the red republicans, the terrorists of the past, who now intrigued and
+formed plots and counterplots, even as the royalists had done. They
+sought to create enmity and bitterness amongst the people, and hoped
+to re-establish on the ruins of the present administration the days of
+terror and of the guillotine.
+
+These red republicans, ever ready for the struggle, organized themselves
+into clubs and "constitutional circles," where the ruin of the actual
+state of things, and the severe and bloody republic of Robespierre,
+formed the substance of their harangues; and their numbers were
+constantly increased by new members being sworn in.
+
+The ballot in May, 1799, had been in favor of the Directory, and
+unfavorable to the moderate party, for only fanatical republicans had
+been elected to the Council of Five Hundred.
+
+Against these factions and republican clubs the Directory had to make a
+perpetual war: but their power and means failed to give them the victory
+in the strife. It was a constant oscillation and vacillation, a
+constant compromising and capitulating with all parties--and the natural
+consequence was, that these parties, as soon as they had secured the
+ear of the Directory, and gained an advantage, strove hard to obtain the
+ruling authority. Corruption and mistrust universally prevailed.
+Every thing had the appearance of dissolution and disorder. Highwaymen
+rendered the roads unsafe; and the authorities, instead of carrying out
+the severity of the law, were so corrupt and avaricious as to sell their
+silence and indulgence. The upright citizen sighed under the weight
+of tyrannical laws from which the thief and the seditious knew how to
+escape.
+
+The nation, reduced to despair by this arbitrary rule and corruption,
+longed for some one to deliver it from this dreadful state of
+dissolution; and the enthusiasm which was manifested at the return of
+General Bonaparte, was a confession that in him the people foresaw and
+recognized a deliverer. Exhausted and wearied, France sought for a man
+who would restore to her peace again--who would crush the foes within,
+and drive away the enemy from without.
+
+Bonaparte appeared to the people with all the prestige of his former and
+recent victories; he had planted the victorious French tricolor upon the
+summit of the capitol, and of the pyramids; he had given to France the
+most acceptable of presents, "glory;" he had adorned her brow with so
+many laurels, that he himself seemed to the people as if radiant with
+glory. All felt the need of a hero, of a dictator, to put an end to the
+prevailing anarchy and disturbances, and they knew that Bonaparte was
+the only one who could achieve this gigantic work.
+
+Bonaparte understood but too well these applauding and welcoming voices
+of the people, and his own breast responded favorably to them. The
+secret thoughts of his heart were now to be turned into deeds, and the
+ambitious dreams of his earlier days were to become realities. All
+that he had hitherto wanted was a bridge to throw over the abyss which
+separated the republicans, the defenders of liberty, equality, and
+fraternity, from rule, power, and dictatorship. Anarchy and exhaustion
+laid down this bridge, and on the 18th Brumaire, General Bonaparte, the
+hero of "liberal ideas," passed over it to exalt himself into dictator,
+consul, emperor, and tyrant of France.
+
+But the Directory also understood the voices of the applauding people;
+they also saw in him the man who had come to deprive them of power and
+to assume their authority. This was secretly yet violently discussed by
+the Directory, the Council of the Elders, and of the Five Hundred.
+
+One day, at a dinner given to a few friends by the Abbe Sieyes, one of
+the members of the Directory, the abbe, Cabanis, and Joseph Bonaparte,
+were conversing together, standing on the side of the drawing-room, near
+the chimney. It was conceded that undoubtedly a crisis was near at hand,
+that the republic had now reached its limit, and that, instead of five
+directors, only three would be elected, and that, without any doubt,
+Bonaparte would be one of the three.
+
+"Yes," cried Sieyes, with animation, "I am for General Bonaparte, for of
+all military men he is the most civil; but then I know very well what
+is in reserve for me: once elected, the general, casting aside his two
+colleagues, will do as I do now." And Sieyes, standing between Canabis
+and Joseph, placed his two arms on their shoulders, then, pushing them
+with a powerful jerk, he leaped forward and bounded into the middle
+of the room, to the great astonishment of his guests, who knew not the
+cause of this gymnastic performance of the abbe. [Footnote: "Memoires du
+Roi Joseph," vol. i., p. 77.]
+
+The other directors were also conscious of this movement of Bonaparte,
+and they secretly resolved to save themselves by causing his ruin.
+Either the Directory or Bonaparte had to fall! One had to perish, that
+the other might have the power! In order that the Directory might exist,
+Bonaparte must fall.
+
+The Directory had secretly come to this conclusion on Bonaparte's
+return. They were fully aware that a daring act alone could save them,
+and they were determined not to shrink from it.
+
+The deed was to take place on the 2d Brumaire. On that day he was to be
+arrested, and accused of having premeditated a coup d'etat against the
+Directory. Indeed, one M. de Mounier had come to Director Gohier and had
+denounced Bonaparte, whom he positively knew was conspiring to destroy
+the existing government. Gohier received these accusations with much
+gravity, and sent at once for the other directors to hasten to him,
+but only one, Moulins, was then in Paris to answer Gohier's summons. He
+came, and after a long conference both directors agreed that the next
+day they would have Bonaparte arrested on his return to Paris from
+Malmaison, where they knew he was to give a large banquet that day. They
+sent for the chief of police, and quietly gave him the order to station
+himself the next day with twelve resolute men on the road to Malmaison,
+and to arrest Bonaparte as he should drive that evening toward Paris.
+
+On this very day Josephine, who did not wish to be present at the
+banquet of gentlemen in Malmaison, had come to Paris to attend a party
+at the house of one of her friends. The conversation went on; they
+talked and jested, when a gentleman near Josephine told a friend that
+some striking event would probably take place that day in Paris, for he
+had just now met a friend who held an important office in the police. He
+had invited him to go to the theatre, but he declined, stating that he
+was to be on duty this evening, as some important affair was about being
+transacted--the arrest, as he thought, of some influential personage.
+
+Josephine's heart trembled with horrible misgivings at these words.
+Love's instinct convinced her that her husband was the one to be
+arrested, and she thought within herself that it was Destiny itself
+which sent her this intelligence, that she might save her husband from
+the fearful blow which awaited him. Thus persuaded, she gathered all her
+strength and presence of mind, and determined to act with energy,
+and battle against the enemies of her husband. Without betraying the
+slightest emotion, or exciting any suspicion that she had heard or
+noticed what was said, Josephine rose from her seat with a cheerful
+and composed countenance, and pleasantly took leave of the lady of the
+house. But once past the threshold of the house, once in her carriage,
+her anxious nature woke up again, and she began to act with energy and
+resolution. She pulled the string, to give her directions to the driver.
+As fast as the horses could speed, he was to drive his mistress to
+Colonel Perrin, the commanding officer of the guards of the Directory.
+In ten minutes she was there, and knowing well how devoted a guard he
+and all his soldiers would be to Bonaparte, she communicated to him her
+fears, and requested from him immediate and speedy assistance to remove
+the danger.
+
+Colonel Perrin was prepared to enter into her plans, and he promised to
+send to Malmaison a company of grenadiers, provided she would, as
+soon as possible, have General Murat send him an order to that effect.
+Josephine at once went to one of her true, reliable friends, who
+belonged to the Council of the Elders, and, making him acquainted with
+the danger which threatened her husband, requested him to gather a few
+devoted friends, and to attend to the orders which Murat would send
+them.
+
+After having made all these preparations, Josephine drove in full gallop
+toward Malmaison.
+
+The dinner, to which Bonaparte had invited gentlemen from all classes
+of society, was just over, and the guests were scattered, some in the
+drawing-rooms, and some in the garden, where Bonaparte was walking up
+and down in animated conversation with the secretary, Roger Ducos.
+
+At this moment the carriage of Josephine drove into the yard; and Murat,
+who, with a few gentlemen, stood under the porch, hastened to offer his
+hand so as to help Josephine to alight. An eye-witness who was present
+at this scene relates as follows:
+
+"'Where is the general?' asked Josephine, hastily, of General Murat.
+
+"'I do not know,' was the answer; 'he is gone with Roger, but Lucien is
+here.'
+
+"'Look at once for the general!' exclaimed Josephine, breathless, 'I
+must speak to him immediately.'
+
+"I approached her and said that he was in the garden. She ran--she
+flew! I placed myself at a window in the first story, from which I could
+easily see into the garden-walks. My expectations had not deceived me.
+
+"No sooner did Bonaparte see Josephine approach, than he left Roger
+Ducos and hurried to meet her. Both then walked into a path near by. I
+could see them well. Josephine spoke with animation; the general walked
+on; now and then she held him back. At last they took the path leading
+to the castle. I went down to meet them on the steps near the door.
+
+"Madame Bonaparte held her husband by the left hand. Her animated,
+expressive features had a bewitching pride and softness; it was a most
+delightful admixture of tenderness and heroism. Bonaparte looked around,
+pale and grave, but his eyes ever rested with pleasure on his wife. She
+refused to enter into the large hall, and retired to her room. Bonaparte
+called for Roger, and entered the saloon with him. His guests were
+awaiting his arrival, to take their leave. The carriages drove up, and
+the gentlemen left Malmaison to return to Paris. Only Lucien and Murat
+remained with Bonaparte; Madame Bonaparte joined them as they entered
+the vestibule. When she saw Murat, she exclaimed:
+
+"'How, general, you still here!--Do you not consider,' continued she,
+turning to Bonaparte, 'that Murat ought to be already in Paris with
+Perrin?--Away! quick! to horse, to the Rue Varennes, or I drive thither
+myself.'
+
+"Murat laughed; but four minutes after he was riding at a gallop on
+the road to the city. The three others returned to their rooms. I was
+curious to know what was the conversation; but as I had nothing more to
+do in the castle, I was about leaping on my horse to ride to Paris, when
+I saw a detachment of infantry marching toward the castle.
+
+"I thought it my duty to announce them to the general; he sat between
+his wife and his brother. 'How!' cried he, as he rose up hastily.
+'Troops?'
+
+"'What of them?' answered Madame Bonaparte, smiling. 'Your company has
+left you, now comes mine. It is a rendezvous; but be comforted--they are
+not too many.'
+
+"All three walked into the yard, where the troops were placing
+themselves in line without the sound of a drum.
+
+"'You are an extraordinary man, sir,' said Madame Bonaparte to the
+captain. 'Nearly as soon as I?'
+
+"'Madame,' replied the officer, 'we have been ready for the march these
+four hours.'
+
+"The officers followed the general into the drawing-room, and
+refreshments were distributed to the soldiers; it was a company of
+grenadiers.
+
+"At nine o'clock in the evening, a courier arrived, bearing dispatches
+to Bonaparte. At once he, his wife, and his brother, drove to Paris.
+The grenadiers were ordered to follow immediately and in silence."
+[Footnote: "Memoires secretes," vol. i., p. 26.]
+
+These dispatches, which Bonaparte had received from Paris, brought him
+the news that this time the danger was over--that the directors had
+abandoned their plan. Some fortunate accident may have warned them, even
+as Josephine herself had been warned. The spies who everywhere tracked
+Josephine, as well as Bonaparte, had carried to Gohier intelligence of
+all the strange movements of the wife of Bonaparte, and the director at
+once perceived that she was informed of the danger which threatened her
+husband, and that she was bent upon preventing it.
+
+But now that the plan of the directors had been unveiled, danger
+threatened them in their turn, and they immediately adopted measures to
+face this new peril. In place of Bonaparte, they must find some one
+whom they could arrest, without withdrawing their orders. They found a
+substitute in a wealthy merchant from Hamburg, who now resided in Paris.
+Gohier had him arrested, and accused him of having had relations with
+the enemies of France.
+
+Bonaparte assumed the appearance of having no doubts as to the sincerity
+of Gohier, of suspecting nothing as to his own arrest, which had been
+prevented by the timely and energetic action of Josephine. He thanked
+her with increased tenderness for her love and faithfulness, and as he
+pressed her affectionately to his breast, he swore to her that he would
+never again doubt her; that he would, by the most unreserved confidence,
+share with her his schemes and designs, and that henceforth he would
+look upon her as the good angel who watched over the pathway of his
+life.
+
+And Bonaparte kept his word. From this day his Josephine was not only
+his wife, but his confidante, his friend, who knew all his plans, and
+who could assist him with her advice and her exquisite practical
+tact. She it was who brought about a reconciliation with Moreau and
+Bernadotte; and by her amiable nature, attractive and dignified
+manner, and great social talents, she bound even his friends closer to
+Bonaparte; or with a smile, a kind word, some flattering observation, or
+some of those little attentions which often-times tell more effectually
+with those who receive them than great services, she would often win
+over to him his foes and opponents.
+
+"It is known but to few persons," says the author of the "Memoires
+secretes," "that Bonaparte always consulted his wife in civil matters,
+even when they were of the highest importance. This fact is entirely
+true, but Bonaparte would have been extremely mortified had he known
+that those around him suspected it. Had it been possible for me to
+divide my being, with what delight I should have followed this noble
+woman! I would relate a few traits of hers if I did not know that M.
+D. B., who is much better acquainted with her than I, is to write a
+biography. [Footnote: The "Memoires secretes" appeared in 1815. The
+biography spoken of by the author is probably that of Madame Ducrest,
+and which appeared in 1818.] I know not what were the events of the
+first years of Madame de Beauharnais, but if they were like those of her
+last fifteen years, we should have the history of a perfect woman. She
+has known but little of me, and therefore no interested motive guides
+my pen, no other sentiment than that of truth." [Footnote: "Memoires
+secretes," vol. i., p. 36.]
+
+The 2d Brumaire afforded sufficient reasons for Bonaparte to put into
+execution his resolutions. He now knew the enmity of the Directory;
+he knew he must cause their downfall if he himself did not wish to
+be destroyed by them. He knew that, during his last triumphal journey
+through France, he had heard sufficient to convince him that the voice
+of the people was for him, that every one longed for a change, that
+France was heartily wearied of revolutionary commotions, and above
+all things craved for rest and peace; that it wished to lay aside all
+political strife, and, like him, preferred to have nothing more to do
+with a republican majority.
+
+"Every one desires a more central government," said Napoleon to his
+brother Joseph. "Our dreams of a republic are the illusions of youth.
+Since the 9th Thermidor the republican party has dwindled away more and
+more; the efforts of the Bourbons and the foreigners, coupled with the
+memories of '93, have called forth against the republican system an
+imposing majority. If it had not been for the 13th Vendemiaire and the
+18th Fructidor, this majority would long ago have won the ascendency;
+the weaknesses, the imperiousness of the Directory, have done the rest.
+To-day the people are turning their hopes toward me, to-morrow it will
+be toward some one else."
+
+Bonaparte did not wish to wait until to-morrow. He had made all his
+preparations; he had made sure of his generals and officers; he knew
+also that the soldiers were for him, and that it required but a signal
+from him to bring about the catastrophe.
+
+He gave the signal by inviting on the 18th Brumaire, to a dejeuner in
+his house, all his confidants and friends, all the generals and superior
+officers, and also the commanding general of the National Guards. Nearly
+all of them came at this invitation; only General Bernadotte kept aloof,
+as he perceived that the breakfast had other objects than to converse
+and to eat. Sieyes and Ducos were the only directors who made their
+appearance; Gohier, that morning, had sent to Bonaparte an invitation
+to dinner, so as to deceive the more securely him whom he knew was his
+enemy; Barras and Moulins, suspecting Bonaparte's schemes, remained in
+the background, silently awaiting the result.
+
+While the guests were assembling in Bonaparte's house, and filling all
+the space in it, a friend and confidant of Bonaparte, in the Council of
+the Elders, made the following motion: "In consideration of the intense
+political excitement which prevails in Paris, it is necessary to remove
+the sessions to St. Cloud, and to give to General Bonaparte the supreme
+command of the troops."
+
+After a violent debate, the motion was suddenly adopted; and, when it
+was brought to Bonaparte, he saw that the moment for action had come.
+
+He told all those about him that at last the time was at hand to restore
+to France rest and peace, that he was decided to do this, and he called
+upon them to follow him. Every one was ready, and, surrounded by a
+brilliant suite, Bonaparte went first to the Council of the Elders, to
+express his thanks for his nomination, and solemnly to swear that he
+would adopt every measure necessary to save the country.
+
+Immediately after this he went to the Tuileries to hold a review of the
+troops stationed there. The soldiers and the people, who had streamed
+thither in masses to see him, received him with loud acclamations,
+assuring him of their loyalty and devotedness.
+
+No one this day rose in favor of the deputies, no one seemed to desire
+that their sittings should as heretofore take place in Paris, nor to
+think that force would have to be used to remove them.
+
+The palace of Luxemburg, in which their sittings had hitherto taken
+place, and St. Cloud, in which they were to meet in the future, were
+both, by orders of Bonaparte, surrounded with troops, and the deputies
+as well as the Council of the Elders adjourned that very day to St.
+Cloud.
+
+Moulins and Gohier alone had the courage to offer opposition, and, in
+a letter to the Council of the Elders, to describe Bonaparte as a
+criminal, who threatened the republic, and to demand of them his arrest;
+and also that they should immediately decree that the republic was in
+danger, and that it must be defended with all energy. But this letter
+fell into Bonaparte's hands; and the directors, when they saw that their
+request was unheeded, resigned, as Barras had done.
+
+The republic now had but two legitimate rulers, Sieyes and Ducos; and at
+their side stood Bonaparte, soon to exalt himself above them.
+
+The following day, the 19th Brumaire, was actually the decisive day.
+The Five Hundred, who now, like the Council of the Elders, held their
+deliberations in St. Cloud, were discussing under great excitement the
+abdication of the Directory and the necessity of a new election. The
+debates were so vehement and so full of passion that the president,
+Lucien Bonaparte, could not command order. A wild uproar arose, and at
+this moment Napoleon entered the hall. Every one rushed at him with wild
+frenzy; and the most violent recriminations were launched at him. "He
+is a traitor!" they cried out. "He is a Cromwell, who wants to seize
+the sovereign power!" What Bonaparte had never experienced on the
+battle-field, in the thickest of the fight, he now felt. He became
+bewildered by this violent strife of words, by this hailstorm of
+accusations which whizzed around his ears. He tried to speak; he
+tried to address the audience, but he could not--he could merely
+give utterance to a few broken sentences; he made charges against the
+Directory, with assurances of his own loyalty and devotedness, which
+the audience received with loud murmurs, and then with wild shouts.
+Bonaparte became more embarrassed and bewildered. Suddenly turning
+toward the door of the hall, he exclaimed, "Who loves me, let him follow
+me!" and he walked out hastily.
+
+The soldiers outside received him with great cheers, and this brought
+back Bonaparte's presence of mind. "General," whispered Augereau, as
+they mounted their horses, "you are in a critical position."
+
+"Think of Arcola," replied Bonaparte, calmly. "There the position seemed
+still more critical. Have patience for half an hour, and you will see
+how things change."
+
+Bonaparte made good use of this half hour. At its expiration he
+re-entered the hall of deliberation of the Five Hundred, surrounded by
+his officers, at the very moment when, on a motion of a member, they
+were renewing their oaths to the constitution. Again they received
+him with shouts: "Down with the tyrant!--down with the dictator! The
+sanctity of the law is violated! Death to the tyrant who brings soldiers
+here to do us violence!"
+
+One of the deputies rushed upon Bonaparte and seized him, but at that
+instant the grenadiers also entered the room, delivered their general,
+and carried him in triumph out of the hall.
+
+After his departure, the waves of wrath and political frenzy rose higher
+and higher. Shouts and imprecations filled the room with confusion;
+reproaches fell on all sides upon the president, Lucien Bonaparte, for
+not having immediately ordered the arrest of the traitor, who by his
+appearance, as well as by his armed escort, had insulted the assembly.
+When Lucien endeavored to defend Napoleon's conduct, he was interrupted
+by the cries: "He is a stain on the republic! He has tarnished his
+reputation!" Louder and wilder rose the cry to declare Napoleon an
+outlaw. [Footnote: "Memoires du Roi Joseph."]
+
+Lucien refused, and, as they urged their demand with increasing
+violence, he left the presidential chair, and with deep emotion put
+off the insignia of his office--his mantle and his sash--and was at the
+point of making for himself an outlet through the wild crowd pressing
+in frenzy around him, when the doors opened, and a company of grenadiers
+rushed in, who by main force carried him away out of the hall.
+
+Lucien, whom Napoleon awaited outside with his troops, immediately
+mounted his horse, and in this moment of deepest danger kept his
+presence of mind, being fully aware that he must now be decided to save
+himself and his brother or perish with him. He turned to the troops, and
+ordered them to protect the president of the Five Hundred, to defend the
+constitution attacked by a few fanatics, and to obey General Bonaparte,
+who was empowered by the Council of the Elders to arrest the seditious,
+and to protect the republic and its laws.
+
+The soldiers answered him with the acclamation, "Long live Bonaparte!"
+But a certain shudder was visible. A few warning voices were lifted
+up; they thought it strange that weapons should be directed against the
+representatives of the country.
+
+By a dramatic action Lucien brought the matter to a close, though it
+was at the time meant by him in all sincerity. He drew his sword, and,
+directing its point toward Napoleon's breast, he exclaimed: "I swear
+to pierce even my brother's heart if he ever dares touch the liberty of
+France!"
+
+These words had an electric effect; every one felt inspired, lifted up,
+and swore to obey Bonaparte, and to remain loyal to him even unto death.
+At a sign from Napoleon, Murat, with his grenadiers, dashed into the
+hall and drove away the assembly of the Five Hundred. At ten o'clock
+that evening St. Cloud was vacant; only a few deputies, like homeless
+night-birds, wandered around the palace out of which they had been so
+violently ejected.
+
+In the interior of St. Cloud, Bonaparte was busy preparing for the
+people of Paris a proclamation, in which he justified his deed, and
+repeated the sacred assurance "that he would protect liberty and the
+republic against all her enemies at home as well as abroad." When this
+was done, it was necessary to think of giving to the French people a new
+government, instead of the one which had been broken up. Napoleon had
+been in conference until the dawn of day with Talleyrand, Roderer, and
+Sieyes. Meanwhile Lucien had gathered around him in a room the members
+of the Five Hundred who were devoted to him, and had resumed the
+presidential chair; Napoleon's friends among the members of the Council
+of the Elders also gathered together, and both assemblies issued a
+decree, in which they declared there was no longer a Directory, and in
+which they excluded from the assembly as rebellious and factious a
+vast number of deputies. And more, they decreed the nomination of a
+provisional commission, and decided that it should consist of three
+members, who should bear the title of Consuls of the Republic, and they
+appointed as consuls Sieyes, Ducos, and Bonaparte.
+
+At three o'clock in the morning every thing was ready, and Napoleon,
+accompanied by Bourrienne, went to Paris. He had reached his goal; he
+was at the head of the administration, but his countenance betrayed no
+joyous excitement; he was taciturn and pensive, and during the whole
+journey to Paris he spoke not a word, but quietly leaned in a corner
+of the carriage. Perhaps he dreamed of a great and brilliant future;
+perhaps he was busy with the thought how he could ascend higher on this
+ladder to a throne, whose first step he had now ascended, since he had
+exalted himself into a consul of the republic.
+
+Not till he arrived at his residence in the Rue de la Victoire did
+Bonaparte's cheerfulness return, when, with countenance beaming
+with joy, and followed by Bourrienne, he hastened to Josephine, who,
+exhausted by anxiety and care during this day full of danger, had
+finally gone to rest. Near her bed Bonaparte sank into an arm-chair,
+and, gazing at her and seizing her hand, he turned smilingly to
+Bourrienne:
+
+"Is it not true," said he--"I said many foolish things?"
+
+"Well, yes, general, that cannot be denied," replied Bourrienne,
+shrugging his shoulders, while Josephine broke out into loud, joyous
+laughter.
+
+"I would sooner speak to soldiers than to lawyers," said Bonaparte,
+cheerfully. "These honorable fools made me timid. I am not accustomed to
+speak to an audience--but that will come in time."
+
+With affectionate sympathy Josephine requested him to relate in detail
+all the events of the day; and she listened with breathless attention to
+the descriptions which Bonaparte made in his own terse, brief, and lucid
+manner.
+
+"And Gohier?" said she, at last--"you know I love his wife, and when you
+were in Egypt he was ever kind and attentive to me. You will not touch
+him, will you, mon ami?"
+
+Bonaparte shrugged his shoulders. "What of it, my love?" said he; "it is
+not my fault if he is pushed aside. Why has he not wished it otherwise?
+He is a good-natured man, but a blockhead. He does not understand me....
+I would do much better to have him transported. He wrote against me to
+the Council of the Elders, but his letter fell into my hands, and the
+council has heard nothing of it. The unfortunate man!... Yesterday he
+expected me to dinner.... And that is called statesmanship.... Let us
+speak no more of this matter." [Footnote: Bonaparte's own words.--See
+Bourrienne, vol. iii., p. 106.]
+
+Then he began to relate to his Josephine how Bernadotte had acted,
+refusing to take any part in the events of the day, and how, when
+Bonaparte had requested him at least to undertake nothing against him,
+he answered: "As a citizen, I will keep quiet; but if the Directory
+gives me the order to act, I will fight against every disturber of the
+peace and every conspirator, whoever he may be."
+
+Bonaparte then suddenly turned to Bourrienne to dismiss him, that he
+might himself take some rest; and when he extended his hand to bid him
+farewell, he added, carelessly:
+
+"Apropos, to-morrow we sleep in the Luxemburg." It was decided!--the
+long-premeditated deed was done! With the 18th Brumaire, Bonaparte had
+made an important step forward on the path of fame and power whose end
+was seen by him alone.
+
+Bonaparte was no longer a general receiving orders from a superior
+authority; he was no longer the servant of the Directory; but he was now
+the one who would give orders--he was the master and ruler; he stood at
+the head of the French nation; he made the laws, and his deep, clear eye
+looked far beyond both consuls who stood at his side, into that future
+when he alone would be at the head of France; when, instead of the
+uprooted throne of the lilies, he would sit in the Tuileries, in the
+chair of the First Consul, this chair of a Caesar, which could so easily
+become an emperor's throne!
+
+On the 20th Brumaire, Napoleon occupied the residence of the Directory
+in the palace of the Luxemburg, after he had, through his brother Louis,
+made Gohier prisoner, the only one of the directors who still lingered
+there, and whom he afterward released. Josephine's intercession procured
+the liberty of the husband of her friend, and this generous pardon
+of the furious letter which Gohier had written against him was the
+thank-offering which Bonaparte presented to the gods as he made his
+entrance into the Luxemburg.
+
+The Luxemburg itself was, however, but a relay for a change of horses
+in the wondrous journey which Bonaparte had to travel from the lawyer's
+house on the island of Corsica to the throne-room of the Bourbons in the
+palace of the Tuileries.
+
+In simple equipage, he with Josephine made his entrance into the
+Luxemburg, but after the rest of a few weeks he left this station, to
+make his entrance into the Tuileries in a magnificent carriage, drawn
+by the six splendid grays which the Emperor of Austria had presented to
+General Bonaparte in Campo Formio. For already another change had taken
+place in the government of France, and the trefoil-leaf of the consuls
+had assumed another form.
+
+The two consuls, who had stood at the side of Bonaparte, invested with
+equal powers, had been set aside by the new constitution of the year
+VIII., which the people had adopted on the 17th of February, 1800 (18th
+Pluviose, year VIII.). This constitution named Bonaparte as consul for
+ten years, and with him two other consuls, who were more his secretaries
+than his colleagues. Next to him was Cambaceres, as second consul for
+ten years, and then Lebrun, as third consul for five years.
+
+With these two consuls, Bonaparte, on the 19th of February, 1800, made
+his solemn entry into the Tuileries. The old century, with its Bourbon
+throne, its bloody revolution, its horrors, its party passions, had
+passed away, and the new century found in the Tuileries a hero who
+wanted to crush all parties with a hand of iron, and to place his foot
+on the head of the revolution, so as to close the abyss which it had
+opened, in order to build himself an emperor's throne over it.
+
+He was for the present satisfied to hear himself called "First Consul;"
+he was willing for a short time to grant to the two men who sat at his
+side in the carriage drawn by the six imperial grays, that they should
+share the power with him, and should consider themselves vested with the
+same authority. But Cambaceres and Lebrun had a keen ear for the joyful
+shouts with which the people followed their triumphal march from the
+Luxemburg to the Tuileries. They knew very well that these shouts and
+acclamations were not addressed to them, but only to General Bonaparte,
+the conqueror of Lodi and Arcola, the hero of the pyramids, the "savior
+of society," who, on the 18th Brumaire, had rescued France from the
+terrorists. Both consuls were shrewd enough to draw a lesson from this
+enthusiasm of the people, and willingly to fall back into the shade
+rather than to be forced into it. The Tuileries had been appointed
+for the residence of the three consuls, but the next day after their
+triumphal entry Cambaceres left the royal palace to take up his abode in
+the Hotel Elboeuf, on the Place de Carrousel. Lebrun, who at first made
+the Flora Pavilion his headquarters, soon found it more advisable to
+take his lodgings elsewhere, and he left the Tuileries, to make his
+residence in the Faubourg St. Honore.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII. THE TUILERIES.
+
+
+The Tuileries had again found a master; the halls where Marie Antoinette
+received her joyous guests, her beautiful lady-friends, were now again
+alive with elegant female figures, and resounded with gay voices,
+cheerful laughter, and unaffected pleasantry. The apartments in which
+Louis XVI. had passed such sad and fearful days, where he had laid with
+his ministers such nefarious schemes, and where royalty had been trodden
+down under the feet of the infuriated populace--these rooms were now
+occupied by the hero who had subdued the people, slain the revolution
+and restored to France peace and glory.
+
+The Tuileries had again found a master--the throne-room was still vacant
+and empty, for the first consul of the republic dared not yet lay
+claim to this throne which the revolution had destroyed, and which the
+republic had forever removed from France. But if there was no throne
+in the Tuileries, there was at least a court; and "Madame Etiquette,"
+driven away from the royal palace since the days of the unfortunate
+Marie Antoinette, had again, though with modest and timid step, slipped
+into the Tuileries. It is true, she now clandestinely occupied a
+servant's room; but the day was not far distant when, as Egeria,
+she would whisper advice and dictate laws to the ear of the new Numa
+Pompilius; when all doors would be open to her, and when she alone
+would, at all times, have access to the mighty lord of France.
+
+In the Luxemburg, the fraternity and the equality of the revolution had
+been set aside, as, long before, on the 13th Vendemiaire, the liberty
+of the revolution had been cast away. In the Luxemburg the "citoyenne"
+Bonaparte had become "Madame" Bonaparte, and the young daughter of the
+citizeness Josephine heard herself called "Mademoiselle" Hortense!
+
+After the entrance into the Tuileries, fraternity and equality
+disappeared rapidly, and the distinctions of gentlemen and servants,
+rulers and subjects, superiors and subordinates, were again introduced.
+The chief of the administration was surrounded with honors and
+distinctions; the court, with all its grades, degrees, and titles, was
+there; it had its courtiers, flatterers, and defamers; and also its
+brilliant festivities, splendors, and pomp!
+
+It is true this was not the work of a moment, nor so rapid an
+achievement as the transition from the Luxemburg to the Tuileries, but
+the introduction of the words "madame" and "monsieur" removed the first
+obstacle which held the whole French nation bound to the same platform;
+and a second obstacle had fallen, when permission was granted to all
+the emigres, with the exception of the royal family, to return to their
+native country.
+
+The aristocrats of old France returned in vast numbers; they, the
+bearers of old names of glory, the legitimists, who had fled before the
+guillotine, now hoped to win again the throne from the consulate.
+
+They kept themselves, however, aloof from the consul, whose greatness
+and power were derived from the revolution, and who was to them a
+representative of the rebellious, criminal republic; but they presented
+themselves to his wife, they brought their homage to Josephine, the born
+aristocrat, the relative and friend of so many emigrant families, and
+they hoped, through her influence, to obtain what they dared not
+ask from the first consul--the re-establishment of the throne of the
+Bourbons.
+
+These aristocrats knew very well that Josephine longed for the return
+of the royal family; that in her heart she cherished love and loyalty to
+the unfortunate royal couple; and that, without any personal ambition,
+without any desire for fame, but with the devotedness of a royalist, and
+the affection of a noble, sensitive woman, she sighed for the time when
+Bonaparte would again restore to the heir of Louis XVI. the throne of
+the lilies, and recall to France the Count de Lille, to replace him as
+king on his brother's throne.
+
+In fact, Josephine had faith in this fairy-tale of her royal heart; she
+believed in those dreams with which her tender conscience lulled her
+to repose, whenever she reproached herself, that she, the subject, now
+walked and gave orders as mistress in this palace of royalty! "Why,
+indeed, could she not believe in the realization of those dreams, since
+Bonaparte himself seemed to cherish no further wishes than to rest on
+his laurels, and to enjoy, in delightful privacy, the peace he had given
+to France?
+
+"I am looked upon as ambitious," said Bonaparte one day, in the
+confidential evening conversations with his friends in Josephine's
+drawing-rooms, "I am looked upon as ambitious, and why? Listen, my
+friends, to what I am going to tell you, and which you may repeat to
+all. In three years I shall retire from public life; I shall then have
+about fifty thousand livres income, and that is sufficient for my mode
+of living. I will get a country residence, since Josephine loves a
+country life. One thing only I need, and this I claim--I want to be the
+justice of the peace for my circuit. Now, say, am I ambitious?"
+
+Every one laughed at the strange conceit of Bonaparte, who wished to
+exchange his present course for the position of a justice of the peace,
+and Bonaparte chimed in heartily with the laughter.
+
+But Josephine believed those words of Bonaparte, and their echoes had
+perchance penetrated even to Russia, to the ears of the pretender to
+the French throne, the Count de Lille, and to the ears of the Count
+d'Artois, his brother, and they both therefore based their hopes on
+Josephine's winning her husband to the cause of the Bourbons.
+
+Both sent their secret emissaries to Paris, to enter into some compact
+with Josephine, and to prepare their pathway to the throne, after having
+failed to negotiate directly with Bonaparte, who had repelled all their
+efforts, and with haughty pride had answered the autograph letter of the
+Count de Lille.
+
+The Count d'Artois, enlightened by the fruitless efforts of his brother,
+resorted to another scheme. He sent a female emissary to Paris--not
+to Bonaparte, but to Josephine. Napoleon himself speaks of it, in his
+Memorial of St. Helena, as follows:
+
+"The Count d'Artois made his advances in a more eloquent and refined
+manner. He sent to Paris the Duchess de Guiche, a charming woman, who
+by the elegance of her manners and by her personal attractions was well
+calculated to bring to a favorable result the object of her mission. She
+easily obtained an introduction to Madame Bonaparte, who was acquainted
+with all the persons of the old court. The beautiful duchess was
+therefore invited to a dejeuner at Malmaison; and during breakfast, when
+the conversation ran upon London, the emigrants, and the princes, Madame
+de Guiche stated that a few days before she had called upon the Count
+d'Artois. They had spoken of current events, of the future of France,
+of the royal family, and one of the confidants had asked the prince
+what would be the reward of the first consul if he re-established
+the Bourbons! The prince answered: 'First of all he would be created
+connetable, with all the privileges attached to that rank, if that were
+agreeable to him. But that would not be enough; we would erect to him
+on the Place de Carrousel a tall and costly column, and on it we would
+raise the statue of Bonaparte crowning the Bourbons.' A short time after
+the dejeuner the consul entered, and Josephine had nothing more pressing
+to do than to relate to him all these details. 'And have you inquired,'
+asked her husband, 'whether this column would have for a pedestal the
+corpse of the first consul?' The beautiful duchess was still present,
+and with her winning ways she was well calculated to carry her point. 'I
+shall ever be happy,' said she, 'and grateful for the kindness of
+Madame Bonaparte in having granted me the opportunity of gazing upon and
+listening to a great man--a hero.' But it was all in vain; the Duchess
+de Guiche the same night received orders to depart immediately; and
+the beauty of this emissary appeared to Josephine too dangerous for her
+urgently to intercede in her behalf. Early next morning Madame de Guiche
+was on her way to the frontier." [Footnote: "Memorial de Ste. Helene,"
+vol. i., p. 34.]
+
+The Count de Lille chose for his mediator a very devoted servant, the
+most skilful of all his agents, the Marquis de Clermont Gallerande. He
+also was kindly received by Josephine, and he found access to her ear.
+With intense sympathy, and tears in her eyes, she bade him tell her
+the sad wanderings of that unfortunate man, "his majesty the King of
+France," and who as a fugitive was barely tolerated, roaming from court
+to court, a protege of the good-will of foreign potentates. Drawn away
+by her generous heart, and by her unswerving loyalty to the faith of her
+childhood, she spoke enthusiastically of the young royal couple who once
+had ruled in the Tuileries; and she went so far as to express the hope
+that Bonaparte would again make good what the revolution had destroyed,
+and that he would restore to the King of France his lost throne.
+
+The Marquis de Clermont, to prove to her what confidence he reposed in
+her, and what consideration the King of France entertained for the first
+consul and his adored wife, communicated to her a letter from the Count
+de Lille to him, which was in itself a masterpiece, well calculated to
+move the heart of Josephine.
+
+The Count de Lille portrayed in this letter first the dangers which
+would threaten Bonaparte if he should allow himself to be drawn into the
+inconsiderate and criminal step of placing the crown of France on his
+own head, and then continued:
+
+"Sitting upon a volcano, Bonaparte would sooner or later be destroyed by
+it if he hastens not in due time to close the crater. Sitting upon
+the first step of the throne restored by his own hand, he would be
+the object of a monarch's gratitude; he would receive from France the
+highest regards, the more pure since they would be the result of his
+administration and of public esteem. No one can convince him of these
+truths better than she whose fortune is bound up with his, who can
+be happy only in his happiness and honored only in his reputation. I
+consider it a great point gained if you can come into some relation
+with her. I know her sentiments from days of old. The Count de Vermeuil,
+ex-governor of the Antilles, whose judgment as you know is most
+excellent, has told me more than once that in Martinique he had often
+noticed how her fealty to the crown deepened nearly to distraction; and
+the protection which she grants to my faithful subjects who appeal
+to her, entitles her justly to the name you give her, 'an angel of
+goodness.' Let my sentiments be known to Madame Bonaparte. You will not
+surprise her, but I flatter myself that her soul will rejoice to know
+them." [Footnote: Thibaudeau, "Histoire de la France, et de Napoleon
+Bonaparte," vol. ii., p. 202.]
+
+The Count de Lille was not deceived. Josephine's heart was filled with
+joy at this confidence of the "King of France;" she was pleased that the
+Marquis de Clermont had fulfilled his wishes, and that he should with
+this letter have sent her a present. She read it with a countenance full
+of enthusiasm, and with a tremulous voice, to her daughter Hortense,
+whom she had educated to be as good a royalist as herself; and both
+mother and daughter besieged, with earnest petitions, with tears and
+prayers, and every expression of love, the first consul to realize the
+hopes of the Count de Lille, and to recall the exiled prince to his
+kingdom.
+
+Bonaparte usually replied to all these requests with a silent smile;
+sometimes also, when they were too violent and pressing, he repelled
+them with unwilling vehemence.
+
+"These women belong entirely to the devil!" said he, in his anger to
+Bourrienne, "they are mad for royalty. The Faubourg St. Germain has
+turned their heads, they are made the protecting genii of the royalists;
+but they do not trouble me, and I am not displeased with them."
+
+Bourrienne ventured to warn Josephine, and to call her attention to
+this, that she might not so strongly plead before Bonaparte for the
+Count de Lille, but Josephine answered him with a sad smile: "I wish I
+could persuade him to call back the king, lest he himself may have the
+idea of becoming such; for the fear that he may do this always awakens
+in me a foreboding of evil, which I cannot banish from my mind."
+[Footnote: Bourrienne, vol. iv., p. 108.]
+
+But until the king was really recalled by the first consul, Josephine
+had to be pleased to assume the place of queen in the Tuileries, and to
+accept the homage which France and soon all Europe brought to her. For
+now that the republic was firmly established, and had made peace with
+the foreign powers, they sent their ambassadors to the republic, and
+were received in the name of France by the first consul and his wife.
+
+It was indeed an important and significant moment when Josephine for
+the first time in her apartments received the ambassadors of the foreign
+powers. It is true no one called this "to give audience;" no one spoke
+yet in genuine courtier's style of "great levee" or "little levee;" the
+appellation of "madame" was yet in use, and there was no court-marshal,
+no maids of honor, no chamberlains of the palace. But the substance was
+the same, and, instead of the high court-marshal, it was Talleyrand,
+the secretary for foreign affairs, who introduced to Josephine the
+ambassadors, and who called their names.
+
+This introduction of the ambassadors was the first grand ceremony which,
+since the revolution, had taken place in the Tuileries. With exquisite
+tact, Josephine had carefully avoided at this festivity any pomp, any
+luxury of toilet. In a plain white muslin dress, her beautiful brown
+hair bound up in a string of white pearls, and holding Talleyrand's
+hand, she entered the great reception hall, in which the foreign
+ambassadors, the generals, and the high dignitaries of the republic
+were gathered. She came without pretension or ostentation, but at her
+appearance a murmur of admiration ran through the company, and brought
+on her cheeks the timid blush of a young maiden. With the assurance of
+an accomplished lady of the world she received the salutations of the
+ambassadors, knew how to speak to each a gracious word, how to entertain
+them, not with those worn-out, stereotyped phrases customary at royal
+presentations, but in an interesting, intellectual manner, which at once
+opened the way to an exciting, witty, and unaffected conversation.
+
+Every one was enchanted with her, and from this day not only the French
+aristocracy, but all distinguished foreigners who came to Paris, were
+anxious to obtain the honor of a reception in the drawing-room of the
+wife of the first consul; from this day Josephine was the admiration of
+Europe, as she had already been that of France and Italy. As the wife
+of the first consul of France she could be observed and noticed by
+all Europe, and it is certainly a most remarkable and unheard-of
+circumstance that of all these thousands of eyes directed at her, none
+could find in her a stain or blemish; that, though neither beautiful nor
+young, her sweet disposition and grace so enchanted every one as to be
+accepted as substitutes for them, while on account of her goodness
+and generosity her very failings and weaknesses were overlooked, being
+interwoven with so many virtues.
+
+Constant, the first chamberlain of Bonaparte, who, at the time Bonaparte
+was elected first consul, entered his service, describes Josephine's
+appearance and character in the following manner:
+
+"Napoleon's wife was of medium size; her figure was moulded with rare
+perfection; her movements had a softness and an elasticity which gave
+to her walk something ethereal, without diminishing the majesty of a
+sovereign. Her very expressive physiognomy mirrored all the emotions of
+her soul without losing aught of the enchanting gentleness which was the
+very substance of her character. At the moment of joy or merriment she
+was beautiful to behold. Never did a woman more than she justify the
+expression that the eyes were the mirror of the soul. Hers were of a
+deep-blue color, shadowed by long, slightly-curved lids, and overarched
+by the most beautiful eyebrows in the world, and her simple look
+attracted you toward her as if by an irresistible power. It was
+difficult for Josephine to give to this bewitching look an appearance of
+severity, yet she knew how to make it imposing when she chose. Her hair
+was beautiful, long, and soft; its light-brown color agreed marvellously
+well with her complexion, which was a mixture of delicacy and freshness.
+At the dawn of her lofty power the empress was fond of putting on for
+a head-dress a red Madras, which gave her the piquant appearance of a
+creole. But what more than any thing else contributed to the charm which
+invested her whole person was the sweet tone of her voice. How often it
+has happened to me and to many others amid our occupations, as soon
+as this voice was heard, to remain still for the sake of enjoying the
+pleasure of hearing it! It might be said, perhaps, that the empress was
+not a beautiful woman; but her countenance, so full of expression and
+goodness, the angelic grace which was shed over her whole person, placed
+her among the most charming women of the world."
+
+Further on, speaking of her character, he continues:
+
+"Goodness was as inseparable from her character as grace from her
+person. Good even to weakness, sensitive beyond all expression, generous
+to extravagance, she was the delight of all those who were round about
+her; certain it is that there never was a woman more loved and more
+deservedly loved by those who approached her than Josephine. As she had
+known what adversity was, she was full of compassion for the sorrows
+of others; with a pleasant, equable temperament, full of condescension
+alike to foe and friend, she carried peace wherever discord or disunion
+existed; if the emperor was displeased with his brothers, or with any
+other person, she uttered words of affection, and soon restored harmony.
+She possessed a wondrous tact, a rare sentiment of what was becoming,
+and the soundest and most unerring judgment one can possibly imagine.
+Besides all this, Josephine had a remarkable memory, to which the
+emperor would often appeal. She was a good reader, and had a peculiar
+charm of her own which accorded with all her movements. Napoleon
+preferred her to all his other readers." [Footnote: Constant,
+"Memoires," vol. i., pp. 21, 39; vol. ii., p. 70.]
+
+The Duke de Rovigo, the Duchess d'Abrantes, Mdlle. Ducrest, the niece of
+the Countess de Genlis, Mdlle. d'Avrillon, General Lafayette, in a word,
+all who have written about that period who knew Josephine, bear similar
+testimony to her amiable disposition and her superior virtues.
+
+In the same manner the man for whom, as Mdlle. Ducrest says, "she would
+gladly have given her life," Napoleon, in his conversations with his
+confidential friends at St. Helena, ever spoke of her. "In all positions
+of life, Josephine's demeanor and actions were always pleasant or
+bewitching," said he. "It would have been impossible ever to surprise
+her, however intrusive you might be, so as to produce a disagreeable
+impression. I always found her in the same humor; she had the same
+amiable complacency; she was good, gentle, and ever devoted to her
+husband in true affection. He never saw her in bad humor; she was always
+constantly busy in endeavoring to please him." [Footnote: "Memorial de
+Ste. Helene," vol. i. pp. 38, 79.]
+
+And she pleased him more than any other woman; he loved her in these
+happy days of the consulate with all the affection of the first days of
+his marriage; his heart might now and then be drawn aside from her to
+other women, but it always returned true and loving to her.
+
+And this woman, whom the future King of France called an "angel of
+goodness," and the future Emperor of France, "grace in person," is the
+one who entered the Tuileries at Bonaparte's side to bring again into
+France the tone of good society, refinement of manners, intellectual
+conversation, and a love for the arts and sciences.
+
+She was fully conscious of this mission, and devoted herself with
+all the strength, energy, and perseverance of her character. Her
+drawing-room soon became the central rendezvous of men of science, art,
+learning, politics, and diplomacy, and to each Josephine knew how to
+address friendly and captivating words; she knew how to encourage every
+one by her noble affability, by her respectful interest in their works
+and plans--so much so that all strove to do as well as possible, and
+in her presence appeared more amiable than they otherwise would perhaps
+have been. Alongside of the distinguished men of every rank were seen
+the choicest company of ladies, young, beautiful, and captivating; the
+most intelligent women of the Faubourg St. Germain were not ashamed to
+appear in the drawing-room of the wife of the first consul, and thought
+that the glory of their old aristocratic names would not be tarnished
+by association with Madame Bonaparte, who by birth belonged to them,
+and formed a sort of connecting link between the departed royalty of the
+last century and the republicans of the present.
+
+This republicanism was soon to hide itself behind the columns and
+mirrors of the large hall of reception in the Tuileries. Bonaparte--the
+first consul, and shortly to be consul for life--would have nothing to
+do with this republicanism, which reminded him of the days of terrorism,
+anarchy, and the guillotine; and the words "Liberty, Equality, and
+Fraternity," which the revolution had written over the portals of the
+Tuileries, were obliterated by the consul of the republic. France had
+been sufficiently bled, and had suffered enough for these three words;
+it was now to rest under the shadow of legal order and of severe
+discipline, after its golden morning-dream of youth's enchanting hopes.
+
+Bonaparte was to re-establish order and law; Josephine was to remodel
+society and the saloon; her mission was to unite the aristocracy of
+ancient France with the parvenues of the new; she was to be to the
+latter a teacher of refinement, and of the genuine manners and habits of
+so-called good society.
+
+To accomplish this, the wife of the first consul needed the assistance
+of some ladies of those circles who had remained in lofty, haughty
+isolation; she needed the co-operation of the ladies of the Faubourg
+St. Germain. It is true they made their morning calls, and invited the
+former Viscountess de Beauharnais, with her daughter, to their evening
+receptions; but they carefully avoided being present at the evening
+circles of Madame Bonaparte, where their exclusiveness was beset with
+the danger of coming in contact with some "parvenu," or with some sprig
+of the army, or of the financial bureaus. Josephine therefore had to
+recruit her troops herself in the Faubourg St. Germain, so as to
+bring into her saloon the necessary contingent of the old legitimist
+aristocracy, and she found what she desired in a lady with whom she had
+been acquainted as Viscountess de Beauharnais, and who then had
+ever shown herself kind and friendly. This lady was the Countess de
+Montesson, the morganatic wife of the Duke d'Orleans, the father of
+the Duke Philippe Egalite, who, after betraying the monarchy to
+the revolution, was betrayed by the revolution, and, like his royal
+relatives, Louis and Marie Antoinette, had perished on the scaffold!
+
+Soon after his entrance into the Tuileries, the first consul invited,
+through his wife, the Countess de Montesson to visit him, and when she
+was announced he advanced to meet her with an unusual expression of
+friendship, and endeavored with great condescension to make her say in
+what manner he could please her or be of service to her.
+
+"General," said Madame de Montesson, much surprised, "I have no right
+whatever to claim any thing from you."
+
+Bonaparte smiled. "You are mistaken," said he; "I have been under many
+obligations to you for a long time past. Do you not know that to you I
+am indebted for my first laurels? You came with the Duke d'Orleans
+to Brienne for the purpose of distributing the prizes at the great
+examination, and when you placed on my head the laurel-crown, which has
+since been followed by others, you said, 'May it bring you happiness!'
+It is commonly believed that I am a fatalist; it is therefore very
+natural that I should not have forgotten my first coronation, and that
+it is still fresh in my memory. It would afford me much pleasure to be
+of service to you; besides, you can be useful to me. The tone of good
+society has nearly perished in France; we would like to renew it again
+with your assistance. I need some of the traditions of days gone by--you
+can assist my wife with them; and when a distinguished foreigner comes
+to Paris you can give him a reception which will convince him that
+nowhere else can so much gentleness and amiableness be found."
+[Footnote: "Memoires de Mdlle. Ducrest," vol. i., p. 9.]
+
+That Madame de Montesson might have a striking proof of Bonaparte's
+good-will, he renewed her yearly pension of one hundred and eighty
+thousand francs, which the duke had donated to her in his will, and
+which Bonaparte restored to her as the property which the revolution had
+confiscated for the nation's welfare. She manifested her gratitude to
+the first consul for this liberal pension by opening the saloons to
+the "parvenues of the Tuileries;" and leading the aristocrats of the
+Faubourg St. Germain into the drawing-rooms of Josephine, and then
+assisting her to form out of these elements a court whose lofty and
+brilliant centre was to be Josephine herself. The ladies of the Faubourg
+St. Germain were no longer ashamed to appear at the new court of the
+Tuileries, but excused themselves by saying: "We flatter Josephine, so
+as to keep her on our side, and to strengthen her loyalty to the king.
+She will, by her entrancing eloquence, persuade the consul to recall our
+King Louis XVIII., and give him his crown."
+
+But too soon, alas! were they made aware of their error. It was not long
+before they became convinced that, if Bonaparte's hands were busy in
+raising a throne, in lifting up from the earth the fallen crown of
+royalty, he was not doing this to place it on the brow of the Count de
+Lille; he had a nearer object in view--he considered his own head better
+suited to wear it.
+
+The conqueror of terrorism and of the revolution was not inclined to
+be defeated by the enemies of the republic, who were approaching the
+frontiers of France, to restore the Bourbons. He took up the glove which
+Austria had thrown down--for she had made alliance with England.
+
+On the 6th of May, 1800, Bonaparte left Paris, marched with his army
+over Mount St. Bernard, and assumed the chief command of the army in
+Italy, which recently had suffered so many disastrous defeats from
+Suwarrow and the Archduke Charles.
+
+At Marengo, on the 14th of June, Bonaparte obtained a brilliant triumph.
+Soon after, at Hohenlinden, Moreau also defeated the Austrians. These
+two decisive victories forced Austria to make peace with France, to
+abandon her alliance with England--that is to say, with the monarchical
+principles; and, at the peace ratified in the beginning of the year 1801
+at Limeville, to concede to France the grand-duchy of Tuscany.
+
+In July, Bonaparte returned in triumph to France, and was received
+by the people with enthusiastic acclamations. Paris was brilliantly
+illuminated on the day of his return, and round about the Tuileries
+arose the shouts of the people, who with applauding voices demanded
+to see the conqueror of Marengo, and would not remain quiet until he
+appeared on the balcony. Even Bonaparte was touched by this enthusiasm
+of the French people; as he retreated from the balcony and retired into
+his cabinet, he said to Bourrienne. "Listen! The people shout again
+and again; they still send their acclamations toward me. I love those
+sounds; they are nearly as sweet as Josephine's voice. How proud and
+happy I am to be loved by such a people!" [Footnote: Bourrienne, vol.
+v., p. 35.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV. THE INFERNAL MACHINE.
+
+
+The victory of Marengo, which had pleased the people, had filled the
+royalists with terror and fear, and destroyed their hopes of a speedy
+restoration of the monarchy, making them conscious of its fruitless
+pretensions. With the frenzy of hatred and the bitterness of revenge
+they turned against the first consul, who was not now their expected
+savior of the monarchy, but a usurper who wanted to gain France for
+himself.
+
+The royalists and the republicans united for the same object. Both
+parties longed to destroy Bonaparte: the one to re-establish the
+republic of the year 1793, and the other the throne of the Bourbons.
+Everywhere conspiracies and secret associations were organized, and
+the watchful and active police discovered in a few months more than ten
+plots, the aim of which was to murder Bonaparte.
+
+Josephine heard this with sorrow and fear, with tears of anxiety and
+love. She had now given her whole heart and soul to Bonaparte, and
+it was the torment of martyrdom to see him every day threatened by
+assassins and by invisible foes, who from dark and hidden places drew
+their daggers at him. Her love surrounded him with vigilant friends and
+servants, who sought to discover every danger and to remove it from his
+path.
+
+When he was coming to Malmaison, Josephine before his arrival would send
+her servants to search every hiding-place in the park, to see if in some
+shady grove a murderer might not be secreted; she entreated Junot or
+Murat to send scouts from Paris on the road to Malmaison to remove all
+suspicious persons from it. Yet her heart trembled with anxiety when she
+knew him to be on the way, and, when he had safely arrived, she would
+receive him with rapture, as if he had just escaped an imminent danger,
+and would make him laugh by the exclamations of joy with which she
+greeted him as one saved from danger.
+
+In the anxiety of her watchful love she made herself acquainted with
+all the details of the discovered conspiracies of both the Jacobins
+and royalists. She knew there were two permanent conspiracies at work,
+though their leaders had been discovered and led into prison.
+
+One of these conspiracies had been organized by the old Jacobins, the
+republicans of the Convention; and these bands of the "enraged," as
+they called themselves, numbered in their ranks all the enemies of
+constitutional order, all the men of the revolution of 1789; and all
+these men had sworn with solemn oaths to kill Bonaparte, and to deliver
+the republic from her greatest and most dangerous enemy.
+
+The other conspiracy, which had its ramifications throughout France, was
+formed by the royalists. "The Society of the White Mantle" was mostly
+composed of Chouans, daring men of Vendee, who were ever ready to
+sacrifice their lives to the mere notion of royalty, and who like the
+Jacobins had sworn to murder Bonaparte.
+
+Chevalier, who, with his ingenious infernal machine, sought to kill
+Bonaparte on his way to Malmaison, belonged to the Society of the White
+Mantle. But he was betrayed by his confidant and associate Becyer, who
+assisted the police to arrest him. To the conspiracy of the "enraged"
+belonged the Italians Ceracchi, Arena, and Diana, who at the opera, when
+the consul appeared in his loge, and was greeted by the acclamations of
+the people, were ready to fire their pistols at him. But at the moment
+they were about to commit the deed from behind the side-scenes, where
+they had hidden themselves, they were seized, arrested, and led to
+prison by the police. Josephine, as already said, knew all these
+conspiracies; she trembled for Bonaparte's life, and yet she could
+not prevent him from appearing in public, and she herself, smiling and
+apparently unsuspecting, had to appear at Bonaparte's side at the
+grand parades, in the national festivities, and at the theatrical
+performances; no feature on her face was to betray the anxiety she was
+enduring.
+
+One day, however, not only Bonaparte's life but also that of Josephine,
+was imperilled by the conspirators; the famous infernal machine which
+had been placed on their way to the opera, would have killed the first
+consul and his wife, if a red Persian shawl had not saved them both.
+
+At the grand opera, that evening, was to be performed Joseph Haydn's
+masterpiece, "The Creation." The Parisians awaited this performance
+with great expectation; they rushed to the opera, not only to hear the
+oratorio, the fame of which had spread from Vienna to Paris, but also
+to see Bonaparte and his wife, who it was known would attend the
+performance.
+
+Josephine had requested Bonaparte to be present at this great musical
+event, for she knew that the public would be delighted at his presence.
+He at first manifested no desire to do so, for he was not sufficiently
+versed in musical matters for it to afford him much enjoyment; and
+besides, there was but one kind of music he liked, and that was the
+Italian, the richness of whose melody pleased him, while the German and
+French left him dissatisfied and weary. However, Bonaparte gave way to
+the entreaties of Josephine, and resolved to drive to the opera.
+The dinner that day had been somewhat later than usual, for besides
+Josephine, her children, and Bonaparte's sister Caroline, Murat, the
+Generals Bessieres and Lannes, as well as Bonaparte's two adjutants,
+Lebrun and Rapp, had been present. Immediately after dinner they wanted
+to drive to the opera; but as Josephine lingered behind, busy with the
+arrangement of her shawl, Bonaparte declared he would drive in advance
+with the two Generals Bessieres and Lebrun, while Rapp was to accompany
+the ladies in the second carriage. With his usual rapidity of action he
+seized his hat and sword, and, followed by his companions, left the room
+to go to the carriage, which was waiting.
+
+Josephine, who imagined that Bonaparte was waiting for her at the
+carriage, hurriedly put on, without troubling herself any longer about
+the becoming arrangement of the folds, a red Persian shawl, which
+Bonaparte had sent her as a present from Egypt. She was going to leave,
+when Rapp, with the openness of a soldier, made the remark that she had
+not put on her shawl to-day with her accustomed elegance. She smiled,
+and begged him to arrange it after the fashion of Egyptian ladies. Rapp
+laughingly hastened to comply with her wishes; and while Josephine,
+Madame Murat, and Hortense, watched attentively the arrangement of the
+shawl in the hands of Rapp, Bonaparte's carriage was heard moving away.
+
+This noise put a speedy end to all further movements, and Josephine,
+with the ladies and Rapp, hastened to follow Bonaparte. Their carriage
+had no sooner reached the Place de Carrousel, than an appalling
+explosion was heard, and a bright flame like a lightning-flash filled
+the whole place with its glare; at the same moment the windows of the
+carriage were broken into fragments, which flew in every direction
+into the carriage, and one of which penetrated so deep into the arm
+of Hortense, that the blood gushed out. Josephine uttered a cry of
+horror--"Bonaparte is murdered!" At the same moment were heard loud
+shrieks and groans.
+
+Rapp, seized with fear, and only thinking that Bonaparte was in danger,
+sprang out of the carriage, and, careless of the wounded and bleeding,
+who lay near, ran onward to the opera to find out if Bonaparte had
+safely reached there. While the ladies, in mortal agony, remained on the
+Place de Carrousel, not knowing whether to return to the Tuileries or
+to drive forward, a messenger arrived at full speed to announce that the
+first consul had not been hurt, and that he was waiting for his wife
+in his loge, and begged her to come without delay. Meanwhile Rapp had
+reached the opera, and had penetrated into the box of the first consul.
+Bonaparte was seated calmly and unmoved in his accustomed place,
+examining the audience through his glass, and now and then addressing
+a few words to the secretary of police, Fouche, who stood near him.
+No sooner did Bonaparte see Rapp, than he said hastily, and in a low
+voice--"Josephine?"
+
+At that moment she entered, followed by Madame Murat and Hortense.
+Bonaparte saluted them with a smile, and with a look of unfathomable
+love he extended his hand to Josephine. She was still pale and
+trembling, although she had no conception of the greatness of the danger
+which had menaced her.
+
+Bonaparte endeavored to quiet her by stating that the explosion was
+probably the result of some accident or imprudence; but at this moment
+the prefect of the police entered who had been on the spot, and had
+come to give a report of the dreadful effects of the explosion. Fifteen
+persons had been killed, more than thirty had been severely wounded,
+and about forty houses seriously damaged. This was all the work of
+a so-called infernal machine--a small barrel filled with powder and
+quicksilver--which had been placed in a little carriage at the entrance
+of the Hue St. Nicaise.
+
+Until now Josephine did not realize the extent of the danger which had
+threatened her and her husband. Had the explosion taken place a few
+moments before, it would have killed the consul; if it had been one
+minute later, Josephine and her companions would have been involved
+in the catastrophe. It was the shawl which Rapp was arranging on her
+shoulders according to the rules of art, which caused them to retard
+their departure, and thus saved her life.
+
+An inexpressible horror now seized her and made her tremble; her looks,
+full of love and deep anguish, were fixed on Bonaparte, who, in a low
+voice, entreated her to compose herself, and not to make her distress
+public. Near Josephine sat Hortense, pale and agitated, like her mother;
+around her wounded arm was wrapped a handkerchief, stained here and
+there with blood. Madame Murat was quiet and composed, like Bonaparte,
+who was then giving instructions to the prefect of police to provide
+immediate assistance for the unfortunate persons who had been wounded.
+
+No one yet in the audience knew the appalling event. The thundering
+noise had been heard, but it was presumed to have been an artillery
+salute, and no evil was suspected, for Bonaparte, with his usual guards,
+had entered his box, and, advancing to its very edge, had saluted the
+public in a friendly way. This act of the first consul had its ordinary
+effect: the audience, indifferent to the music, rose and saluted their
+hero with loud acclamation and applause. Not till Josephine entered the
+loge had the acclamations subsided, and the music begun again. A few
+minutes after, the news of the fearful event spread all over the house:
+a murmur arose, and the music was interrupted anew.
+
+The Duchess d'Abrantes, who was present at this scene, gives a faithful,
+eloquent, and graphic picture of it:
+
+"A vague noise," says she, "began to spread from the parterre to the
+orchestra, and from the amphitheatre to the boxes. Soon the news of the
+occurrence was known all over the house, when, like a sudden clap of
+thunder, an acclamation burst forth, and the whole audience, with a
+single undivided look of love, seemed to desire to embrace Bonaparte.
+What I am narrating I have seen, and I am not the only one who saw it.
+... What excitement followed this first explosion of national anger,
+which at this moment was represented by the audience, whose horror at
+the dark plot cannot be described with words! Women were seen weeping
+and sobbing; men, pale as death, trembled with vengeance and anger,
+whatever might have been the political standard which they followed; all
+hearts and hands were united to prove that difference of opinion creates
+no difference in the interpretation of the code of honor. During the
+whole scene my eyes were fixed on the loge of the consul. He was quiet,
+and only seemed moved when public sentiment gave utterance to strong
+expressive words about the conspiracy, and these reached him. Madame
+Bonaparte was not fully composed. Her countenance was disturbed; even
+her attitude, generally so very graceful, was no longer under her
+control. She seemed to tremble under her shawl as under a protecting
+canopy, and in fact it was this shawl which had saved her from
+destruction. She was weeping; however much she endeavored to compose
+herself, she could not repress her tears; they would flow, against her
+will, down her pale cheeks, and, whenever Josephine fixed her eyes upon
+her husband, she trembled again. Even her daughter seemed extremely
+agitated, and Madame Murat alone preserved the family character, and
+seemed entirely herself." [Footnote: Duchess d'Abrantes, "Memoires,"
+vol. ii., p. 66.]
+
+At last, when the public excitement was somewhat abated, and the
+music was again resumed, the audience turned its attention to Hadyn's
+masterpiece. But Josephine had not the strength to bear this effort, and
+to submit to it quietly. She entreated her husband to retire with her
+and the ladies; and when at last he acceded to her request, and had
+quietly left the loge with her, Josephine sat by him in the carriage,
+opposite Caroline and Hortense, and, sobbing, threw herself on
+Bonaparte's breast, and cried out in her anguish:
+
+"What a life, where I must ever be trembling for you!"
+
+The infernal machine did not kill the first consul, but it gave to
+liberty and to the republic a fatal blow; it scattered into fragments
+what remained of the revolutionary institutions from the days of blood
+and terror. France rose up in disgust and horror against the party
+which made of assassins its companions, and consequently this conspiracy
+failed to accomplish what its originators had expected. They wanted to
+destroy Bonaparte and ruin his power, but this abortive attempt only
+increased his popularity, enlarged his power, and deepened the people's
+love for him who now appeared to them as a protecting rampart, and a
+barrier to the flood of anarchy.
+
+France gave herself up trembling, and without a will of her own, into
+the hands of the hero to whom she was indebted for fame and recognition
+by foreign powers, and through whom she hoped to secure domestic peace.
+France longed for a strong arm to support her; Bonaparte gave her this
+arm, but it not only supported France, it bowed her down; and from this
+day he placed the reins on the wild republican steed, and let it feel
+that it had found a master who had the power and the will to direct it
+entirely in accordance with his wishes.
+
+Bonaparte was determined to put an end to the seditions and conspiracies
+of the republicans, whom he hated because they had for their aim the
+downfall of all legitimate authority; and in turn was hated by them
+because he had abandoned their standard and turned against the republic
+with the faithlessness of a son who attacks the mother that gave him
+birth. Bonaparte maintained that it was the republicans who had set the
+infernal machine on his path, and paid no attention to the opinion of
+Fouche, who ascribed to the royalists the origin of the plot. Bonaparte
+wished first to do away with his most violent and bitter enemies,
+the republicans of the year 1789; he desired to possess the power of
+punishing such, and to render them harmless, and now the horror produced
+by this criminal act came to his assistance in carrying out this plan.
+
+The council of the state adopted the legislative enactment that the
+consuls should have "the power to remove from Paris those persons whose
+presence they considered dangerous to the public security, and that
+all such persons who should leave their place of banishment should be
+transported from the country!"
+
+Under this law, George Cadoudal, Chevalier, Arena, Ceracchi, and many
+others were executed; and one hundred and thirty persons, whose
+only crime was that of being suspected of dissatisfaction toward the
+administration of the consuls, and considered as Bonaparte's enemies,
+were transported to Cayenne.
+
+Such were for France the results of this infernal machine, the object of
+which was to assassinate the Consul Bonaparte, instead of which it had
+only the effect of destroying his enemies and strengthening his power.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV. THE CASHMERES AND THE LETTER.
+
+
+As mighty events always exercise an influence on minor ones, so this
+fearful attempt at murder became the occasion for the introduction into
+France of a new branch of industry, which had hitherto drawn millions
+from Europe to the East.
+
+Josephine, gratefully remembering her truly wonderful deliverance
+through the means of her Persian shawl, wore it afterward in preference
+to any other. Until then she had never fancied it, for when Bonaparte
+sent it to her from Egypt, she wrote to him: "I have received the shawl.
+It may be very beautiful and very costly, but I find it unsightly. Its
+great advantage consists in its lightness. I doubt, however, if this new
+fashion will meet with approbation. Notwithstanding, I am pleased with
+it, for it is rare and warm." [Footnote: "Memoires sur l'Imperatrice,"
+par Mademoiselle Ducrest, vol. iii., p. 227.]
+
+But after it had saved her life, she no longer thought it unsightly, she
+was fond of wrapping herself up in it, and the natural consequence was,
+that these Persian shawls soon formed the most fashionable and costly
+article of apparel.
+
+Every lady of the higher classes considered it a necessity to cover her
+tender shoulders with this valuable foreign material, and it soon became
+"comme il faut" a duty of position, to possess a collection of such
+Persian shawls, and to wear them at the balls and receptions in the
+Tuileries.
+
+The desire to possess such a precious article of fashion led these
+ladies oftentimes to "corriger la fortune" and to obtain, by some bold
+but not very creditable act, possession of such a shawl, which had
+now become in a certain measure the escutcheon of the new French
+aristocracy.
+
+The Duchess d'Abrantes, in reference to this matter, relates two thefts
+which at that time troubled the aristocratic society of the Tuileries,
+which prove that the ladies had taken instructions from the gentlemen,
+and that dishonest persons of both sexes were admitted into the society
+of heroes and their beautiful wives!
+
+At a morning reception in the Tuileries, the shawl of the Countess de
+St. Martin had been stolen; and this lady was very much distressed at
+the loss, for this cashmere was not only a present from Madame Murat,
+but was one of uncommon beauty, on account of the rarity of the design,
+consisting of paroquets in artistic groups, instead of the ordinary
+palm. The countess was therefore untiring in recounting to every one her
+irreparable loss, and uttered bitter curses against the bold female who
+had stolen her treasure.
+
+"A few weeks later," relates the duchess, "at a ball given by the
+minister Talleyrand, the countess came toward me with a bright
+countenance and told me that she had just now found her shawl, and,
+strange to say, upon the shoulders of a young lady at the ball!
+
+"'But,' said I to her, 'you will not accuse this lady before the whole
+company!'
+
+"'And why not?'
+
+"'Because that would be wrong. Leave this matter to me.'
+
+"She would not at first, but I pressed the subject on her consideration,
+and she agreed at length to remain somewhat behind, while I approached
+the young lady, who stood near the door, and was just going to leave the
+ballroom. I told her in a low voice that in all probability she had
+made a mistake; that she had perhaps mislaid her own cashmere, and had
+through carelessness taken the shawl of the Countess de St. Martin.
+
+"I was as polite as I could possibly be in such a communication; but the
+young lady looked at me unpleasantly for such an impertinent intrusion,
+and replied that 'since the time the Countess de St. Martin had deafened
+the ears of every one with the story of her stolen shawl, she had had
+ample leisure to recognize as her property the cashmere she wore.' Her
+mother, who stood a few steps from her, and was conversing with another
+lady, turned toward her when she heard her daughter speak in so loud a
+voice. But the Countess de St. Martin, who had overheard that she 'had
+deafened the ears of every one with the story of her stolen shawl,'
+rushed in to the rescue of her case.
+
+"'This cashmere belongs to me,' said she, haughtily--seizing, at the
+same time, the shawl with one hand, while the young lady with her fist
+thrust her back violently. I saw that in a moment they would come to
+blows.
+
+"'It will be easy to end this difficulty,' said I to the Countess de St.
+Martin. 'Madame will be kind enough to tell us where she has purchased
+this shawl which is so much like yours, and then you will see your
+mistake, and be satisfied.'
+
+"'It does not suit me to tell where I got this shawl,' replied the lady,
+looking at me contemptuously; 'there is no necessity for my telling you
+where I purchased it.'
+
+"'Well, then,' exclaimed eagerly the Countess de St. Martin, 'you
+confess, madame, that the shawl really belongs to you?'
+
+"The other answered with a sarcastic smile, and drew the shawl closer
+to her shoulders. A few persons, attracted by the strangeness of such
+a scene, had gathered around us, and seemed to wait for the end of so
+extraordinary an event.
+
+"The countess continued with a loud voice:
+
+"'Well, then, madame, since the shawl belongs to you, you can explain to
+me why the name of Christine, which is my first name, is embroidered in
+red silk on the small edging. Madame Junot will be kind enough to look
+for this name.'
+
+"The young woman became pale as death. I shall never during my life
+forget the despairing look which she gave me, as with trembling hand she
+passed me the shawl, just as her father appeared from a room near the
+place of the scene. I took the cashmere with an unsteady hand, and
+sought reluctantly for the name of Christine, for I trusted she would at
+least have taken it out; but the deathly paleness of the guilty one told
+the contrary, and in fact I had no sooner unfolded the shawl, than the
+name appeared, embroidered at the narrow edging.
+
+"'Ah!' at last exclaimed the countess, in a triumphant tone, 'I have--'
+but as she raised her eyes to the young woman, she was touched by her
+despairing look. 'Well, then,' cried she, 'this is one of those mistakes
+which so often happen. To-morrow I will return your cashmere.--We have
+exchanged cashmeres,' said she, turning to the young lady's father,
+who, surprised at seeing her naked shoulders, gazed at his daughter,
+not understanding the matter. 'You will have the goodness to send me my
+shawl to-morrow,' added she, noticing how the young woman trembled.
+
+"We returned into the ballroom, and the next day the young lady sent to
+the Countess de St. Martin her precious shawl.
+
+"Something similar to this happened at the same time to Madame Hamelin.
+She was at a ball; when rising from her seat to join in a contra-dance,
+she left there a very beautiful black shawl; when she returned,
+her shawl was no longer there, but she saw it on the shoulders of a
+well-known and distinguished lady. Approaching her, she said:
+
+"'Madame, you have my shawl!'
+
+"'Not at all, madame!'
+
+"'But, madame, this is my shawl, and, as an evidence, I can state the
+number of its palms--it has exactly thirteen, a very unusual number!'
+
+"'My shawl has also, by chance, precisely thirteen palms.'
+
+"'But,' said Madame Hamelin, 'I have torn it since I came here. You can
+see where it is torn, and by that means I recognize my shawl.'
+
+"'Ah, my goodness! my shawl has also been torn; that is precisely why I
+bought it, for I obtained it on that account somewhat cheaper.'
+
+"It is useless to dispute with a person who is determined to follow
+Basil's receipt, that 'what is worth taking is worth keeping.' Madame
+Hamelin lost her shawl, and had, as a sole consolation, the petty
+vengeance of relating to everybody how it was taken, and of pointing
+out the thief, who was in the meanwhile perfectly shameless." [Footnote:
+Abrantes, "Memoires," vol. ix., pp. 70-76.]
+
+No one, however, had a larger and more choice selection of these
+cashmere shawls than Josephine. Mdlle. Ducrest relates that the deceased
+empress had more than one hundred and fifty of the most magnificent and
+costly cashmere shawls. She had sent to Constantinople patterns from
+which she had them made there, as pleasing to the eye as they were
+costly and precious. Every week M. Lenormant, the first man-milliner
+in Paris, came to Navarra, the country residence of the empress,
+and brought his most beautiful shawls for her selection. The empress
+possessed several (having a white ground covered with roses, violets,
+paroquets, peacocks, and other objects of beauty hitherto unknown in
+France) each of which cost from fifteen to twenty thousand francs.
+
+The empress went so far in her passion for cashmeres as to have dresses
+made of the same material. One day she had put on one of these dresses,
+which was so beautiful, that some gentlemen invited to dinner could not
+withhold their admiration. One of them, Count Pourtales, thought that
+this splendid material would be well adapted for a gentleman's vest.
+Josephine, in her large-heartedness, had a pair of scissors brought; she
+then cut her dress into several pieces sufficiently large for a vest,
+and divided them among the gentlemen present, so that only the bodice
+of the dress remained, with a small piece around the waist But this
+improvised spencer over the white richly-embroidered under-dress, was so
+exceedingly becoming to the empress, and brought out so exquisitely her
+beautiful bust, and slender graceful waist, that it would have been
+easy to consider as a piece of coquetry what was simply Josephine's
+spontaneous generosity. [Footnote: Mademoiselle Ducrest.]
+
+Josephine, however, did not so assiduously attend to her cashmere shawls
+as to forget the unfortunate victims of the infernal machine. On the
+contrary, she saw with deep pain how every one was busy in inculpating
+others, and in casting suspicions on royalists and Jacobins, so as to
+give a pretext to punish them. She noticed that all those who wished to
+gain the consul's favor were zealous in spying out fresh culprits, for
+it was well known that Bonaparte was inclined to make of all hostile
+parties a terrible example, so that, through the severity of the
+punishment and the number of the punished, he might deter the
+dissatisfied from any further plots.
+
+Josephine's compassionate heart was distressed, through sympathy for so
+many unfortunate persons, whom wicked men maliciously were endeavoring
+to drag into guilt, so as to have them punished; and the injustice which
+the judges manifested at every hearing filled her with anger and
+horror. Ever ready to help the needy, and to protect the persecuted, she
+addressed herself to Fouche, the minister of police, and requested him
+to use mildness and compassion. She wrote to him:
+
+"Citizen minister, while trembling at the frightful calamity which has
+taken place, I feel uneasy and pained at the fear of the punishments
+which hang over the poor creatures who, I am told, belong to families
+with which I have been connected in days past. I shall therefore be
+appealed to by mothers, sisters, and despairing wives; my heart will be
+lacerated by the sad consciousness that I cannot obtain pardon for all
+those who implore it.
+
+"The generosity of the consul is great, his affection for me is
+boundless, I know it well; but the crime is of so awful a nature that
+he will deem it necessary to make an example of extreme severity. The
+supreme magistrate was not alone exposed to danger--many others were
+killed and wounded by this sad event, and it is this which will make the
+consul severe and implacable.
+
+"I conjure you, then, citizen minister, to avoid extending your
+researches too far, and not always to spy out new persons who might be
+compromised by this horrible machine. Must France, which has been held
+in terror by so many executions, have to sigh over new victims? Is
+it not much more important to appease the minds of the people than to
+excite them by new terrors? Finally, would it not be advisable, so soon
+as the originators of this awful crime are captured, to have compassion
+and mercy upon subordinate persons who may have been entangled in it
+through dangerous sophisms and fanatical sentiments?
+
+"Barely vested with the supreme authority, ought not the first consul
+study to win the hearts rather than to make slaves of his people?
+Moderate, therefore, by your advice, where in his first excitement he
+may be too severe. To punish is, alas, too often necessary! To pardon
+is, I trust, still more. In a word, be a protector to the unfortunate
+who, through their confession or repentance, have already made in part
+penance for their guilt.
+
+"As I myself, without any fault on my part, nearly lost my life in the
+revolution, you can easily understand that I take an interest in those
+who can perhaps be saved without thereby endangering my husband's life,
+which is so precious to me and to France. I therefore earnestly desire
+that you will make a distinction between the leaders of this conspiracy
+and those who, from fear or weakness, have been seduced into bringing
+upon themselves a portion of the guilt. As a woman, a wife, a mother,
+I can readily feel for all the heart-rending agonies of those families
+which appeal to me.
+
+"Do what you possibly can, citizen minister, to diminish their numbers;
+you will thereby spare me much anxiety. I can never be deaf to the cries
+of distress from the needy; but in this matter you can do a great
+deal more than I can, and therefore pardon what may seem strange in my
+pleadings with you.
+
+"Believe in my gratitude and loyalty of sentiment.
+
+"JOSEPHINE." [Footnote: Ducrest, "Memoires," vol. iii., p. 231.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI. MALMAISON.
+
+
+In the Tuileries the first consul, with his wife, resided in all the
+pomp and dignity of his new office. There he was the sovereign, the
+commander; there he ruled, and, like a king, all bowed to him; the
+people humbled themselves and recognized him as their master.
+
+In the Tuileries etiquette and the stiff pomp of a princely court
+prevailed more and more. Bonaparte required of his wife that she should
+there represent the dignity and the grandeur of her new position;
+that she should appear as the first, the most exalted, and the most
+unapproachable of women. In the Tuileries there were no more evenings
+of pleasant social gatherings, of joyous conversation with friends whom
+affection made equals, and who, in love and admiration, recognizing
+Bonaparte's ascendency, brought him of their own free choice their
+esteem and high consideration. Now, it was all honor and duty; now,
+the friends of the past wore servants who, for duty's sake, had to
+be subservient to their master, and abide by the rules of etiquette,
+otherwise the frown on their lofty ruler's brow would bring them back
+within their bounds.
+
+Josephine was pained at these limits set to her personal freedom--at
+these claims of etiquette, which did not permit her friends to remain at
+her side, but strove to exalt above them the wife of the first consul.
+Her sense of modesty ever accepted the pleasant, genial household
+affections as more agreeable and more precious than the burdensome
+representations, levees, and the tediousness of ceremonial receptions;
+her sense of modesty longed for the quiet and repose of retirement, and
+she was happy when, at the close of the court festivities, she could
+return to Malmaison, there to enjoy the coming of spring, the blossoming
+of summer, and the glorious beauty of autumn with its manifold colors.
+
+In Malmaison were centered all her joys and pleasures. There she could
+satisfy all the inclinations of her heart, all the fancies of her
+imagination, all the wants of her mind; there she could be the tender
+wife and mother, and the faithful friend; there she could receive,
+without the annoyance of etiquette, men of learning and art; there she
+could cultivate the soil and devote herself to botany, her favorite
+study, and to her flowers, the dearest and most faithful friends of her
+whole life.
+
+Josephine sought for and found in Malmaison her earthly paradise; there
+she was happy, and the care and the secret anguish which in Paris wove
+around her heart its network, and every now and then whispered the
+nefarious words of divorce and separation, followed her not in the
+beautiful and friendly Malmaison; she left all this in Paris with the
+stiff Madame Etiquette, who once in the Tuileries had poisoned the
+existence of the Queen Marie Antoinette, and now sought to intrude
+herself upon the consulate as an ill-tempered sovereign.
+
+But in Malmaison there was no etiquette, none of the dignified coldness
+of court-life. There you were allowed to laugh, to jest, and to be
+happy. In Malmaison the first consul laid aside his gravity; there his
+gloomy brow brightened, and he became again General Bonaparte, the
+lover of his Josephine, the confidential companion of his friends, the
+harmless individual, who seemed to have nothing to require from Heaven
+but the happiness of the passing hour, and who could laugh at a joke
+with the same guilelessuess as any other child of the people who never
+deemed it necessary to cultivate a close intimacy with the grave and
+gloomy Madame Politique.
+
+It is true Malmaison was not Bonaparte's sole country residence. The
+city of Paris had presented him with the pleasure-castle of St. Cloud,
+the same which Louis XVI. gave to his wife, and where, to the very great
+annoyance of the proud Parisians, she had for the first time engraven
+on the regulation-tablets, at the entrance of the park, the fatal
+words--"De par la Reine."
+
+Now this royal mansion of pleasure belonged to the first consul of
+the republic; it was his summer residence, but there he was still the
+consul, the first magistrate, and the representative of France; and
+he had there to give receptions, hold levees, receive the ministers,
+councillors of state, and the foreign ambassadors, and appear in all the
+pomp and circumstance of his position.
+
+But in Malmaison his countenance and his being were changed. Here he was
+the cheerful man, enjoying life; he was the joyous companion, the modest
+land-owner, who with genial delight surveyed the produce of his soil,
+and even calculated how much profit it could bring him.
+
+"The first consul in Malmaison," said the English minister, Fox, "the
+first consul in St. Cloud, and the first consul in the Tuileries, are
+three different persons, who together form that great and wonderful
+idea; I should exceedingly like to be able to represent exactly after
+nature these three portraits; they must be very much alike, and yet very
+different."
+
+It is certain, however, that of these three portraits that of the first
+consul in Malmaison was the most amiable, and that of the first consul
+of the Tuileries the most imposing.
+
+In Malmaison Bonaparte's countenance was cheerful and free from care;
+in the Tuileries he was grave and dignified. On his clouded brow were
+enthroned great designs; from the deep, dark eyes shot lightnings ready
+to fire a world--to erect or destroy kingdoms. In Malmaison these eyes
+with cheerful brilliancy reposed on Josephine; his otherwise earnest
+lips welcomed there the beloved of his heart with merry pleasantry and
+spirited raillery; there he loved to see Josephine in simple, modest
+toilet; and if in the lofty halls of the Tuileries he exacted from the
+wife of the first consul a brilliant toilet, the bejewelled magnificence
+of the first lady of France, he was delighted when in Malmaison he saw
+coming through the green foliage the wife of General Bonaparte in simple
+white muslin, with a laughing countenance; and with her sweet voice,
+which he still considered as the finest music he ever heard, she bade
+welcome to her husband who here was changed into her tender lover.
+
+In Malmaison, Bonaparte would even put off his general's uniform,
+and, in his plain gray coat of a soldier, walk through the park in the
+neighborhood, resting on the arm of his confidant, Duroc, and would
+begin a friendly conversation with the first farmer he met, perfectly
+satisfied when in the little man with the gray tightly-buttoned coat, no
+one suspected or imagined to see the first consul of the republic.
+
+Every Saturday the first consul hastened to the chateau to pass there,
+as he said, his Sunday, his day of rest; and only on Monday morning did
+he return to Paris, "to take up his chain again."
+
+How genial and happy were these days of rest! How eagerly did Josephine
+labor to make them days of felicity for Bonaparte! how ingenious to
+prepare for him new festivities and new surprises! and how her eyes
+brightened when she had succeeded in making Bonaparte joyous and
+contented!
+
+If the weather was favorable, the whole company in Malmaison, the young
+generals, with their beautiful, young, and lively wives, who surrounded
+Bonaparte and Josephine, and of whom a great number belonged to their
+family, made promenades through the park, then they seated themselves on
+a fine spot to repeat stories or to indulge in harmless sociable games,
+in which Bonaparte with the most cheerful alacrity took part. Even
+down to the game of "catch" and to that of "room-renting" did Bonaparte
+condescend to play; and as Marie Antoinette with her husband and her
+court played at blindman's-buff in the gardens of Trianon, so Bonaparte
+was pleased on the lawns of Malmaison to play at "room-renting."
+
+How often after a dark, cloudy morning, when suddenly at noon the skies
+would become clear and the sunshine break through the clouds, would
+Bonaparte's countenance gladden with all the spirit of a school-boy, in
+the midst of holidays, and, throwing off his coat, laughingly exclaim,
+"Now come, one and all, and let us rent the room!"
+
+And then on the large, open lawn, surrounded on all sides by tall trees,
+the first consul with his wife, his generals and their young wives,
+would begin the exhilarating, harmless child's-play, forgetful of all
+care, void of all fear, except that he should lose his tree, and that as
+a penniless individual having to rent a room he would have to stand in
+the centre before all eyes, just as first consul he stood before all
+eyes in the centre of France, and struggled for a place the importance
+and title of which were known only to his silent soul. But in Malmaison,
+at the game of "room to let," Bonaparte had no remembrance whatever of
+the ambitious wishes of the first consul; the whole world seemed to have
+set, the memories of his youth passed before his eyes in such beauty,
+saluting him with the gracious looks of childhood, as nearly to make him
+an enthusiast.
+
+How often, when on Josephine's arm, surrounded by a laughing, noisy
+group of friends, and walking through shady paths, on hearing the bells
+of the neighboring village chime their vespers, would Bonaparte suddenly
+interrupt the conversation and stand still to hear them! With a motion
+of the hand he would command silence, while he listened with a smile of
+grief to sounds which recalled days long gone by. "These bells remind me
+of the days of my boyhood," said he to Josephine; "it seems to me, when
+I hear them, that I am still in Brienne."
+
+To keep alive the memories of his school-days in Brienne, he sent for
+one of his teachers, the Abbe Dupuis, who had been remarkably kind to
+him, and invited him to Malmaison, to arrange there a library, and to
+take charge of it; he sent also for the porter of Brienne whose wife he
+had so severely prohibited from entering the theatre, and made him the
+porter of the chateau.
+
+In bad weather and on rainy days the whole company gathered in the large
+drawing-room, and found amusement in playing the various games of cards,
+in which Bonaparte not only took much interest, but in which he so
+eagerly played, that he often had recourse to apparent bungling, so as
+to command success. Adjoining the drawing-room, where conversation and
+amusements took place, was a room where the company sang and practised
+music, to the delight of Bonaparte, who often, when one of his favorite
+tunes was played, would chime in vigorously with the melody, nowise
+disturbed by the fact that he never could catch the right tune, and that
+he broke out every time into distressing discordance!
+
+But all songs and music subsided, all plays were interrupted, when
+Bonaparte, excited perhaps by the approaching twilight, or by some
+awakened memory, began to relate one of those tragic, fearful stories
+which no one could tell so well as he. Then, with arms folded behind his
+back, he slowly paced the drawing-room, and with sinister looks, tragic
+manner, and sepulchral voice, he would begin the solemn introduction of
+his narrative:
+
+"When death strikes, at a distance, a person whom we love," said he,
+one evening, with a voice tremulous with horror, "a certain foreboding
+nearly always makes us anticipate the event, and the person, touched by
+the hand of death, appears to us at the moment we lose him on earth."
+
+"How very sad and mournful that sounds!" sighed Josephine, as she placed
+both her arms on Bonaparte's shoulder, as if she would hold him, and
+chain him to earth, that he might not vanish away with every ghost-like
+form.
+
+Bonaparte turned to her with a genial smile, and shook his head at her,
+so as to assure her of his existence and his love. Then he began his
+story with all the earnestness and tragic power of an improvisator
+of ancient Rome. He told how once Louis XIV., in the great gallery of
+Versailles, received the bulletin of the battle of Friedlingen, and how,
+unfolding it, he read to the assembled court the names of the slain and
+of the wounded. Quietness reigned in the splendidly-illumined gallery;
+and the courtiers in their embroidered coats, who, ordinarily, were
+so full of merriment and so high-spirited, had, all at once, become
+thoughtful. They gathered in a circle around the monarch, from whose
+lips slowly, like falling tears, fell one by one the names of the
+killed. Here and there the cheeks of their relatives turned pale.
+Suddenly the Count de Beaugre saw appear, at the farther end of the
+gallery, stately and ghost-like, the blood-stained figure of his son,
+who, with eyes wide open, stared at his father, and saluted him with a
+slight motion of the head, and then glided away through the door. "My
+son is dead!" cried Count de Beaugre--and, at the very same moment,
+the king uttered his name as one of the slain!" [Footnote: Bourrienne,
+"Memoires," vol. iii., p. 225.]
+
+"Ah! may I never see such a ghost-like figure," murmured Josephine,
+drawing closer to her husband. "Bonaparte, promise me that you will
+never go to war again; that you will keep peace with all the world, so
+that I may have no cause of alarm!"
+
+"And to tremble at my ghost," exclaimed Bonaparte, laughing. "Look at
+this selfish woman, she does not wish me a hero's death, lest I should
+appear to her here in the shape of a bloody placard!"
+
+With her small bejewelled hand Josephine closed his mouth, and ordered
+lights to be brought; she asked Lavalette to play a lively dancing-tune,
+and cried out to the joyous youthful group, at the head of whom were
+Hortense and Eugene, to fall in for a dance.
+
+"Nothing more charming," writes the Duchess d'Abrantes, "could be seen
+than a ball in Malmaison, made up as it was of the young ladies whom the
+military family of the first consul brought together, and who, without
+having the name of it, formed the court of Madame Bonaparte. They were
+all young, many of them very beautiful; and when this lovely group were
+dressed in white crape, adorned with flowers, their heads crowned with
+wreaths as fresh as the hues of their young, laughing, charming faces,
+it was indeed a bewitching sight to witness the animated and lively
+dance in these halls, through which walked the first consul, surrounded
+by the men with whom he discussed and decided the destinies of Europe."
+[Footnote: Abrantes, "Memoires," vol. iii., p. 329.]
+
+But the best and most exciting amusement in Malmaison was the theatre;
+and nothing delighted Bonaparte so much as this, where the young troop
+of lovers in the palace performed little operas and vaudevilles,
+and went through their parts with all the eagerness of real actors,
+perfectly happy in having the consul and his wife for audience. In
+Malmaison, Bonaparte abandoned himself with boundless joy to his
+fondness for the theatre; here he applauded with all the gusto of an
+amateur, laughed with the laisser-aller of a college-boy at the harmless
+jokes of the vaudevilles, and here also he took great pleasure in the
+dramatic performances of Eugene, who excelled especially in comic roles.
+
+Bonaparte had a most convenient stage constructed in Malmaison for his
+actors; he had the most beautiful costumes made for each new piece, and
+the actors Talma and Michet had to come every week to the chateau, to
+give the young people instruction in their parts. The ordinary actors
+of this theatre in the castle were Eugene and Hortense, Caroline Murat,
+Lauriston, M. Didelot, the prefect of the palace, some of the officers
+attached to the establishment, and the Count Bourrienne, the friend of
+Bonaparte's youth, who now had become the first secretary of the consul.
+The pieces which Bonaparte attended with the greatest pleasure were the
+"Barber of Seville," and "Mistrust and Malice." The young and amiable
+Hortense made an excellent Rosine in the "Barber of Seville," and
+Bonaparte never failed to clap his hands in hearty applause to Hortense,
+when Josephine with cheerful smiles would thank him, for she seemed as
+proud of her daughter's talent as of her husband's applause.
+
+Bourrienne, in his memoirs, gives a faithful description of those
+evening theatrical performances, and of the happy life enjoyed in
+Malmaison; he lingers with a sober joy over those beautiful and innocent
+memories of other days.
+
+"Bonaparte," says he, "found great pleasure in our dramatic
+entertainments; he loved to see comedies represented by those who
+surrounded him, and oftentimes paid us flattering compliments. Though it
+amused me as much as it did the others, yet I was more than once obliged
+to call Bonaparte's attention to the fact that my other occupations did
+not give me time enough to learn my parts. He then, in his flattering
+way, said: 'Ah, Bourrienne, let me alone. You have so excellent a
+memory! You know that this is an amusement to me! You see that these
+performances enliven Malmaison and make it cheerful! Josephine is so
+fond of them! Rise a little earlier!'
+
+"'It is a fact--I sleep a great deal!'
+
+"'Allons, Bourrienne, do it to please me; you do make me laugh so
+heartily! Deprive me not of this pleasure. You know well that otherwise
+I have but few recreations.'
+
+"'Ah, parbleu! I will not deprive you of it. I am happy to be able to
+contribute something to your amusement.' Consequently I rose earlier, to
+learn my parts.
+
+"On the theatre days the company at Malmaison was always very large.
+After the performance a brilliant crowd undulated like waves in the
+halls of the first story. The most animated and varied conversation took
+place, and I can truly affirm that cheerfulness and sincerity were the
+life of those conversations, and their principal charm. Refreshments of
+all kinds were distributed, and Josephine performed the honors of those
+gatherings with so much amiableness and complacency that each one might
+believe she busied herself more with him than with any one else. At the
+end of the delightful soirees, which generally closed after midnight,
+we returned to Paris, where the cares of life awaited us." [Footnote:
+Bourrienne, "Memoires," vol. v., p. 26.]
+
+Time was spent not only in festivities and amusements at Malmaison, but
+sciences and arts also formed there a serious occupation, and it was
+Josephine who was the prime mover. She invited to the chateau painters,
+sculptors, musicians, architects, and savants of every profession, and
+thus to the Graces she added the Arts for companions.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII. FLOWERS AND MUSIC.
+
+
+Above all things, Josephine, in her retreat, devoted her time and
+leisure hours to botany and to her dear flowers. Alexander Lenoir, the
+famous architect of that day, had to assist her in enlarging the little
+castle of Malinaison, and to open more suitable halls for the arts
+and sciences. Under Josephine's direction there arose the splendid
+library-room resting upon columns; it was Josephine who had the
+beautiful gallery of paintings constructed, and also with remarkable
+judgment purchased a selection of the finest paintings of the great
+masters to adorn this gallery. Besides which, she gave to living
+painters orders of importance, and encouraged them to originate new
+pieces, that art itself might have a part in the new era of peace and
+prosperity, which, under the consulate, seemed to spread over France.
+
+Alongside of the paintings Josephine adorned this gallery with the
+finest antique statues, with a collection of the rarest painted vases
+of Pompeii, and with ten paintings on cement, memorials of Grecian art,
+representing the nine Muses and Apollo Mersagetos. These last splendid
+subjects were a present which the King of Naples had given to Josephine
+during her residence in Italy. Always attentive not only to promote the
+arts, but also to help the artists and to increase their reputation,
+Josephine would buy some new pieces of sculpture, and give them a
+place in Malmaison. The two most exquisite masterpieces of Canova, "The
+Dancing-Girl" and "Paris," were purchased by Josephine at an enormous
+price for her gallery, whose chief ornament they were.
+
+Her fondness for flowers was such that she spared neither expense
+nor labor to procure those worthy of Malmaison. She caused also large
+green-houses and hot-houses to be constructed, the latter suited to
+the culture of the pineapple and of the peach. In the green-houses were
+found flowers and plants of every zone, and of all countries. People,
+knowing her taste for botany, sent her from the most remote places the
+choicest plants. Even the prince regent of England, the most violent
+and bitter enemy of the first consul, had high esteem for this taste of
+Josephine; and during the war, when some French ships, captured by the
+English, were found to have on board a collection of tropical plants for
+her, he had them carried with all dispatch to Madame Bonaparte.
+
+Josephine had a lofty aim: she wanted to gather into her hot-houses all
+the species and families, all the varieties of the tropical plants,
+and she strove to accomplish this with a perseverance, a zeal, and an
+earnestness of which no one would have thought her indolent, soft Creole
+nature capable. To increase her precious collection, she spared neither
+money nor time, neither supplications nor efforts. All travellers, all
+seafaring men, who came into her drawing-room were entreated to send
+plants to Malmaison; and even the secretary of the navy did not fail
+to give instructions to the captains of vessels sailing to far-distant
+lands to bring back plants for the wife of the first consul. If it were
+a matter of purchase, nothing was too expensive, and when, through her
+fondness for beautiful objects, Josephine's purse was exhausted, and her
+means curtailed, she sooner gave up the purchase of a beautiful ornament
+than that of a rare plant.
+
+The hot-houses of Malmaison caused, therefore, a considerable increase
+in her expenses, and were a heavy burden to her treasury; and for their
+sake, when the day of payment came, Josephine had to receive from her
+husband many severe reproaches, and was forced to shed many a bitter
+tear. But this, perhaps, made them still dearer; no sooner were the
+tears dried up and the expenses covered, than Josephine again abandoned
+herself with renewed zeal to her passion for collecting plants and
+costly studies in botany, especially since she had succeeded in winning
+to her person the renowned botanist and learned Bonpland, and in having
+him appointed superintendent of her gardens and hot-houses. It was
+Bonpland who cultivated Josephine's inclination for botany, and exalted
+her passion into a science. He filled the green-houses of Malmaison
+with the rarest plants, and taught Josephine at the same time their
+classifications and sexes, and she quickly proved herself to be a
+zealous and tractable pupil. She soon learned the names of the plants,
+as well as their family names, as classified by the naturalists; she
+became acquainted with their origin and their virtues, and was extremely
+sad and dejected when, in one of her families, a single species was
+wanting. But what a joy when this gap was filled! No price was too
+exorbitant, then, to procure the missing species; and one day she paid
+for a small, insignificant plant from Chili the high price of three
+thousand francs, filling Bonpland with ecstasy, but the emperor with
+deep wrath as soon as he heard it. [Footnote: Avrillon, "Memoires sur
+l'Imperatrice Josephine."]
+
+Next to botany, it was music which Josephine delighted in and
+cultivated. Since the cares and the numerous relations of her
+diversified life claimed so much of her time, she had abandoned the
+exercises of music; and it was only at the hour of unusual serenity of
+mind, or of more lively recollections of the past, that she was
+heard singing softly one of the songs of her own native isle, even as
+Bonaparte himself, when he was meditating and deciding about some new
+campaign, would betray the drift of his thoughts by singing louder and
+louder the favorite melody of the day, Marlborough s'en va-t-en guerre.
+But Josephine had the satisfaction that Hortense was not only an
+excellent performer on the piano and the harp, but that she could also
+write original compositions, whose softness and harmonious combinations
+made them popular throughout France. Another satisfaction was, that
+Eugene sang, in a fine clear voice, with great talent, and that
+frequently he would by his excellent singing draw even the first consul
+into loud expressions of admiration.
+
+Bonaparte was not easily satisfied as regards singing; it was seldom
+that music elicited any commendation from him. The Italian music alone
+could excite his enthusiasm, and through its impassioned fervor rouse
+him up, or its humorous passages enliven him. Therefore Bonaparte, when
+consul or emperor, always patronized the Italian music in preference to
+any other, and he constantly and publicly expressed this liking, without
+considering how much he might thereby wound the French artistes in their
+ambition and love of fame. He therefore appointed an Italian to be first
+singer at the opera. It is true this was Maestro Paesiello, whose operas
+were then making their way through Europe, and everywhere meeting with
+approbation. Bonaparte also was extremely fond of them, and at every
+opportunity he manifested to the maestro his good-will and approbation.
+But one day this commendation of Paesiello was changed to the most
+stinging censure. It was on the occasion of the first representation
+of Paesiello's Zingari in Fiera. The first consul and his wife were in
+their loge, and to show to the public how much he honored and esteemed
+the composer, he had invited Paesiello to attend the performance in his
+loge.
+
+Bonaparte followed the performance with the most enthusiastic
+demonstrations of gratification; he heartily applauded each part, and
+paid to Paesiello compliments which were the more flattering since every
+one knew that the lips which uttered them were not profuse in their use.
+A tenor part had just ended, and its effect had been remarkable. The
+audience was full of enthusiasm. Bonaparte, who by his hearty applause
+had given the signal to a storm of cheers, turned toward Paesiello, and,
+offering him his hand, exclaimed:
+
+"Truly, my dear friend, the man who has composed this melody can boast
+of being the first composer in Europe!"
+
+Paesiello became pale, his whole body trembled, and, with stammering
+voice, he said:
+
+"General, this melody is from Cimarosa. I have placed it in my opera
+merely to please the singers."
+
+The first consul shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"I am sorry, my dear sir," said he, "but I cannot recall what I have
+said."
+
+The next day, however, he sent to the composer of the opera, as an
+acknowledgment of his esteem, a magnificent present, with which he
+no doubt wished to heal the pain which he had unwittingly caused the
+maestro. But Paesiello possessed a temper easily wounded, and the more
+so since he considered himself as the first and greatest composer in
+the world, and was sincere in the opinion that others could compose good
+music, but that his alone was grand and distinguished.
+
+Bonaparte's present could not, therefore, heal the wound which the
+praise of Cimarosa's melody had inflicted, and this wound was soon to
+be probed deeper, and become fatal to Paesiello. Another new opera from
+Paesiello, Proserpina, was to be represented. The first consul, who was
+anxious to secure for his protege a brilliant success, had given
+orders to bring it out in the most splendid style; the most beautiful
+decorations and the richest costumes had been provided, and a stage
+erected for a ballet, on which the favorite ballet-leaders of Paris were
+to practise their art.
+
+The mighty first consul was, on the evening of the first performance of
+the opera of Proserpina, to learn the lesson, that there exists a power
+which will not be bound in fetters, and which is stronger and more
+influential than the dictates of the mighty--the power of public
+opinion. This stood in direct opposition to the first consul, by the
+voiceless, cold silence with which it received Paesiello's piece.
+Bonaparte might applaud as heartily as he pleased, and that might
+elicit an echo from the group of his favorites, but the public
+remained unmoved, and Bonaparte had the humiliation to see this opera,
+notwithstanding his approbation, prove a complete failure. He felt as
+nervous and excited as the composer himself, for he declared loudly
+and angrily that the French knew nothing about music, and that it was
+necessary to teach them that the Italians alone understood the art of
+composition.
+
+To teach this to the French the opera of Proserpina was to be repeated
+until the mind of the public should have been educated to its beauty,
+and they had been forced to acknowledge it. A decided warfare ensued
+between this opera and the public, each party being determined to
+have its own way; the authorities persevered in having the performance
+repeated, and the public kept away from it with equal obstinacy. The
+latter, however, had the advantage in this case, for they could not be
+forced to attend where they were unwilling to go, and so they won the
+victory, and the authorities had to yield.
+
+Paesiello, touched to the quick by the failure of Proserpina, resigned
+his position as leader, and left Paris to return to Italy. The question
+now was, how to fill this important and honorable position. The
+Parisians were excited about this nomination, and divided into two
+parties, each of which defended its candidate with the greatest zeal,
+and maintained that he would be the one who would receive Bonaparte's
+appointment. The candidates of these two parties were the Frenchman
+Mehul and the Italian Cherubini. Those who formed the party of Cherubini
+calculated especially on Bonaparte's well-known preference for Italian
+music. They knew that, though he was much attached to Mehul, whom he had
+known before the expedition to Egypt, and had shown him many favors, yet
+he had often expressed his contempt for French music, and was committed
+against him by the very fact of his maintaining that the Italians alone
+understood the art of musical composition.
+
+Mehul had for a long time endured in silence the criticisms of
+Bonaparte; he had patiently returned no answer when he repeated to him:
+"Science, and only science--that is all the French musicians understand;
+my dear sir, grace, melody, and joyousness, are unknown to you Frenchmen
+and to the Germans; the Italians alone are masters here."
+
+One day Mehul, having become tired of these constant discouraging
+remarks, resolved to let the first consul, who so often gave him bitter
+pills to swallow, have a taste of them himself.
+
+He went, therefore, to his friend, the poet Marsollier, and begged him
+to write an extremely lively and extravagant piece, whose design
+would be absurd enough to make it pass as the work of some Italian
+pamphlet-writer, and at the same time he enjoined the most profound
+secrecy.
+
+Marsollier complied willingly with the wishes of his friend, and after
+a few days he brought him the text for the small opera Irato. With the
+same alacrity did Mehul sit down to the task of composing, and when the
+work was done, Marsollier went to the committee of the comic opera to
+tell them he had just received from Italy a score whose music was
+so extraordinary that he was fully convinced of its success, and
+had therefore been to the trouble, notwithstanding the weakness and
+foolishness of the libretto, to translate the text into French. The
+committee tried the score, was enchanted with the music, and was fully
+convinced of the brilliant success of the little opera, inasmuch as the
+strange and lively text was well adapted to excite the hilarity and the
+merriment of the public. The first singers of the opera were rivals for
+the parts; all the newspapers published the pompous advertisement that
+in a short time would be performed at the Opera Comique a charming,
+entrancing opera, the maiden piece of a young Italian.
+
+Finally its first performance was announced; the first consul declared
+that he and his wife would attend, and he invited Mehul, whom he liked
+to tease and worry, because he loved him from his heart, to attend the
+performance in his loge.
+
+"It will undoubtedly be a mortification to you, my poor friend," said
+he, laughing; "but perhaps when you hear this enchanting music, so
+different from that of the French, you will imitate it, and cease
+composing."
+
+Mehul replied with a bow; he then began to excuse himself from
+accompanying the first consul to the theatre; and it was only after
+Bonaparte and Josephine had pressed him very much, that he accepted the
+invitation, and went with them to their loge.
+
+The opera began, and, immediately after the first melody, Bonaparte
+applauded and expressed his admiration. There never had been any
+thing more charming--never had the French written music with so much
+freshness, elegance, or so naturally. Bonaparte continued his praise,
+and often-times repeated: "It is certain there is nothing superior to
+Italian music."
+
+At last the opera ended amid a real storm of applause; and, with their
+enthusiasm at the highest pitch, the audience claimed to know the names
+of the poet and of the composer. After a long pause the curtain rose and
+the registrar appeared; he made the three customary bows, and in a loud
+voice named Marsollier as the author and Mehul as the composer of the
+opera Irato.
+
+The audience received this news with an unceasing storm of applause.
+They, like the consul and the singers who had taken part in the opera,
+knew nothing of the mystification, so well had the secret been kept.
+
+Josephine turned smilingly to Bonaparte, and with her own charming grace
+offered her hand to Mehul and thanked him for the twofold enjoyment he
+had that day prepared for her, by furnishing her his entrancing opera,
+and by having prepared a little defeat of Bonaparte, that traitor to his
+country, who dared prefer the Italian music to the French.
+
+Bonaparte himself looked at the affair on its bright side; he had
+enjoyed the opera; he had laughed; he was satisfied, and consequently he
+overlooked the deceitful surprise.
+
+"Conquer me always in this manner!" said he, laughing, to Mehul, "and I
+shall enjoy both your fame and my amusement."
+
+The friends of Cherubini thought of this little event when the question
+arose as to the appointment to the situation of first singer at the
+Grand Opera, and they therefore did not hesitate to wager that Cherubini
+would be appointed, since he was an Italian.
+
+But they knew not that Bonaparte had pardoned Mehul, and frequently
+joked with him, whilst he ever grumbled at Cherubini on account of an
+expression which the latter had once allowed himself to use against
+General Bonaparte.
+
+Bonaparte had conversed with Cherubini after a representation of one of
+his operas, and, while he congratulated him, he however added that this
+opera did not please him as much as the other pieces of Cherubini--that
+he thought it somewhat sober and scientific, and that he missed in
+it the accustomed richness of the maestro's melodies. This criticism
+wounded Cherubini as if pierced by a dagger, and with the irritable
+vehemence of an Italian he replied:
+
+"General, busy yourself in winning battles--that is your trade; but
+leave me to practise mine, about which you know nothing."
+
+The Consul Bonaparte had neither forgotten nor pardoned Cherubini's
+answer; and, despite his fondness for Italian music, he was resolved to
+give to Mehul the position vacated by Paesiello.
+
+Josephine approved entirely of this choice, and, in order to witness
+Mehul's joy, she invited him to Malmaison, that the consul might
+there inform him of his appointment. How great, however, was her and
+Bonaparte's surprise, when Mehul, instead of being delighted with this
+distinguished appointment, positively refused to accept it!
+
+"I can accept this position only under one condition," said Mehul,
+"which is, that I may be allowed to divide it with my friend Cherubini."
+
+"Do not speak to me about him," exclaimed Bonaparte, with animation; "he
+is a coarse man, and I cannot tolerate him."
+
+"He may have had the misfortune to displease you," replied Mehul,
+eagerly, "but he is a master to us all, and especially as regards sacred
+music. He now is in a very inferior position; he has a large family, and
+I sincerely desire to reconcile him to you."
+
+"I repeat to you that I do not wish to know any thing about him."
+
+"In that case I must decline the position," said Mehul, gravely,
+"and nothing will alter my resolution. I am a member of the
+Institute--Cherubini is not; I do not wish it to be said that I
+have misused the good-will with which you honor me for the sake of
+confiscating to my profit every situation, and of despoiling a man of
+reputation of the reward to which he is most justly entitled."
+
+And Mehul, notwithstanding Josephine's intercession and Bonaparte's
+ill-will, remained firm in his decision; he would not accept the
+honorable and distinguished position of first singer at the Grand Opera;
+and Bonaparte, after expressing his determination, would not change it.
+Neither would he confer upon Cherubini the honor refused by Mehnl. He
+therefore commissioned Josephine to name a successor to Paesiello; and
+she went to Madame de Montesson, to confer with her on the matter.
+
+Madame de Montesson could suggest no definite plan, but she told
+Josephine of a French composer, of the name of Lesueur, who,
+notwithstanding his great talents, lived in his native city of Paris
+poor and unknown, and who had not succeeded in having his opera, "The
+Bards," represented at the Grand Opera, simply on the ground that he
+was a Frenchman, and that every one knew Bonaparte's strange aversion to
+French music.
+
+Josephine's generous heart at once took sides with Lesueur; her
+exquisite tact taught her that the public ought to know that the first
+consul would not consult his own personal gratification, when the
+question was to render justice to a Frenchman. She therefore recommended
+to her husband, with all her ability, the poor composer Lesueur, who was
+unknown to fame, and lost in obscurity; she represented his appointment
+as such an act of generosity and of policy, that Bonaparte acceded to
+her wishes at once, and appointed Lesueur to the office of first master
+of the Grand Opera.
+
+And Josephine had the pleasure of seeing that the new opera-leader
+justified her expectations. His opera, "The Bards," was naturally
+brought into requisition; it had a brilliant and unexampled success,
+and even Bonaparte, at the first representation, forgot his prejudices
+against French music, and applauded quite as heartily as if it had been
+Italian.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVIII. PRELUDE TO THE EMPIRE.
+
+
+The sun of happiness which for Josephine seemed to shine so brightly
+over Malmaison, had nevertheless its long shadows and its dark specks;
+even her gracious countenance was obscured, her heart filled with
+sad forebodings, and her bosom stung as if by scorpions hidden under
+flowers.
+
+Josephine had in her immediate circle violent and bitter enemies, who
+were ever busy in undermining the influence which she possessed over her
+husband, to steal from his heart the love he cherished for her, and to
+remove from his side the woman who, by her presence, kept them in the
+shade, and who wielded or destroyed the influence which they desired to
+have over him.
+
+These enemies were the brothers and especially the sisters of
+Bonaparte. Among the brothers of the first consul, Lucien showed to his
+sister-in-law the most violent and irreconcilable enmity. He left no
+means untried to do her injury, and to convert her into an object of
+suspicion, and this because he was convinced that Josephine was the
+prime cause of the hostile sentiments of Napoleon against him, and
+because he believed that, Josephine once out of the way, Napoleon's
+ear would be open to conviction, and that he, Lucien, the most powerful
+citizen, next to his brother, would be the second "first consul." He
+was not aware that Napoleon's keen eagle eye had fathomed his ambitious
+heart; that he was the one who kept Lucien away, because he mistrusted
+him, because he feared his ambition, and even looked upon him as capable
+of the bold design of casting Napoleon aside, and setting himself up
+in his place. Lucien was unaware of the influence which Josephine
+frequently exerted over the mind of the first consul, in favor of
+himself; that it was she who had pacified Napoleon's anger at Lucien's
+marriage, contracted without his consent, and prevented him from
+annulling it violently. The other brothers of Napoleon, influenced,
+perhaps, by the enmity of Lucien, were also disaffected toward their
+sister-in-law, and of them all, only Louis, the youngest, the one who
+loved the first consul most tenderly and most sincerely, showed toward
+her due respect and affection.
+
+His three sisters were still more active in their opposition. Constantly
+quarrelling among themselves, they, however, united heartily in the
+common feeling of hatred to Josephine. It was she who stood in their
+way, who every day excited anew their anger by the position she held at
+Napoleon's side, and in virtue of which the three sisters were thrust
+into the background. Josephine, the wife of the first consul, was the
+one to whom France made obeisance, upon whom the ambassadors of foreign
+powers first waited, and afterward upon the sisters of the first consul.
+It was Josephine who took the precedence in solemn ceremonies, and to
+whom, by Bonaparte's commands, they had to manifest respect. And
+this woman, who by her eminence placed the sisters of Bonaparte in an
+inferior position, was not of nobler or more distinguished blood than
+they; she was not young, she was not beautiful, she was not even able to
+give birth to a child, for which her husband so intensely longed.
+
+The three sisters might have been submissive to the daughter of a
+prince, they might have conceded to her the right of precedence, but the
+widow of the Viscount de Beauharnais was not superior to them in rank
+or birth; she was far inferior to them in beauty and youth--and yet they
+had to give way to her, and see her take the first place!
+
+From these sentiments of jealousy and envy sprang the enmity which the
+three sisters of Bonaparte, Madame Elise Bacciocchi, Madame Pauline
+Borghese, and Madame Caroline Murat, cherished against Josephine, and
+which her gentle words and kind heart could never assuage.
+
+Josephine was in their way--she must therefore fall. Such is the key to
+the right understanding of the conduct of the three beautiful sisters
+of Napoleon toward the wife of their brother. In their violence they
+disregarded all propriety, and shrank from no calumny or malice to
+accomplish their ends. It was a constant warfare with intrigues and
+malicious suspicions. Every action of Josephine was observed, every step
+was watched, in the hope of finding something to render her suspicious
+to her husband. On every occasion the three sisters besieged him with
+complaints concerning the lofty and proud demeanor of Josephine, and
+ridiculed him about his old, childless wife, who stood in the way of
+his growing fame! Though Bonaparte in these conflicts always sided with
+Josephine against his sisters, yet there probably remained in his heart
+a sting from the ridicule which they had directed against him.
+
+This hostility of the Bonaparte family was not unknown to Josephine; her
+soul suffered under these ceaseless attacks, her heart was agonized at
+the thought that the efforts of her sisters-in-law might finally succeed
+in withdrawing from her the love of her husband. She was persuaded that
+even in the Bonaparte family she needed a protector, that she must
+look for one among the brothers, so as to counteract the enmity of the
+sisters; and she chose for this Louis Bonaparte. She entreated Napoleon
+to give to his young, beloved brother the hand of her daughter Hortense.
+It would be a new bond chaining Bonaparte to her--a new fortress for
+her love--if he would but make her daughter his sister-in-law, and his
+brother her son-in-law.
+
+Napoleon did not oppose her wishes; he consented that Hortense should be
+married to his brother. It is true the young people were not consulted;
+for the first time, Josephine's selfishness got the better of her love
+for her child--she sacrificed the welfare of her daughter to secure her
+own happiness.
+
+But Hortense loved another, yet she yielded to the entreaties and tears
+of her mother, and became the wife of this laconic, timid young man,
+whose meagre, unpretending appearance resembled so little the ideal
+which her maidenly heart had pictured of her future husband.
+
+Louis on his side had not the slightest inclination for Hortense; he
+never would have chosen her for his wife, for their characters were too
+different; their inclinations and wishes were not in sympathy with each
+other. But through obedience to the wishes of his brother, he accepted
+the proffered hand of Josephine's daughter, and became the husband of
+the beautiful, blond-haired Hortense de Beauharnais.
+
+In February, of the year 1802, the marriage of the young couple took
+place, and this family event was celebrated with the most magnificent
+festivities. Josephine's joy and happiness were complete--she had thrown
+a bridge over the abyss, and was now secure against the hostilities of
+her sisters-in-law, by giving up her own daughter.
+
+Every thing was resplendent with beauty and joy at these festivities;
+every thing wore an appearance of happiness; only the countenances of
+the newly-married couple were grave and sad, and their deep melancholy
+contrasted strikingly with the happiness of which they themselves were
+the cause. Adorned with diamonds and flowers, Hortense appeared to be a
+stranger to all the pomp which surrounded her, and to be occupied only
+with her own sad communings. Louis Bonaparte was pale and grave, like
+Hortense; he seldom addressed a word to the young wife that the orders
+of his brother had given him; and she avoided her husband's looks,
+perhaps to hinder him from reading there the indifference and dislike
+she felt for him. [Footnote: "Memoires sur l'Imperatrice Josephine, la
+Cour de Navarre," etc., par Mlle. Ducrest, vol. i., p. 49.]
+
+But Josephine was happy, for she knew the noble, faithful, and generous
+spirit of the man to whom she had given her daughter; and she trusted
+that the two young hearts, now that they were linked together, would
+soon love one another. She hoped much more from this alliance; she hoped
+not only to find in it a shield against domestic animosities, but also
+to give to her husband, even if indirectly, the children he so much
+desired--for the offspring of his brother and the daughter of his
+Josephine would be nearly the same as his own, and they could adopt
+and love them as such. This was Josephine's hope, the dream of her
+happiness, when she gave her daughter in marriage to the brother of her
+husband.
+
+The fact that the first consul was childless was not only a family
+solicitude, it was also a political question. The people themselves had
+changed the face of affairs, they had by solemn vote decided to confer
+the consulate for life upon Napoleon, who had previously been elected
+for ten years only. In other words, the French people had chosen
+Bonaparte for their master and ruler, and he now lacked but the title
+to be king. Every one felt and knew that this consulate for life was
+but the prelude to royalty; that the golden laurel-wreath of the first
+consul would soon be converted into a golden crown, so as to secure to
+France an enduring peace, and to make firm its political situation.
+
+With her keen political instinct, Josephine trembled at the thought
+that the King or Emperor Bonaparte would have to establish for himself
+a dynasty--that he would have to appease the apprehensions of France
+by offering to the nation a son who would be his legitimate heir and
+successor. Thus was the subject of divorce kept hanging over her head
+until the conviction was forced upon her mind that some day Napoleon
+would be led into sacrificing his love to politics. Josephine was
+conscious of it, and consequently the hopes of Napoleon's future
+greatness, which so pleased his brothers and sisters, only made her
+sorrowful, and she therefore entreated Bonaparte with tender appeal to
+remain content with the high dignity he already possessed, and not to
+tempt fate, nor to allow it to bear him up to a dizzy height, from which
+the stormy winds of adversity might the more easily prostrate him.
+
+Bonaparte listened to her with a smile, and generally in silence. Once
+only he replied to her: "Has not your prophetess in Martinique told you
+that one day you would be more than a queen?"
+
+"And the prophecy is already realized," exclaimed Josephine. "The wife
+of the consul for life is more than a queen, for her husband is the
+elect of thirty millions of hearts!" Bonaparte laughed, and said
+nothing.
+
+Another time Josephine asked him--"Now, Bonaparte, when are you going to
+make me Empress of the Gauls?"
+
+He shrugged his shoulders. "What an idea," said he; "the little
+Josephine an empress!"
+
+Josephine answered him with the words of Corneille--"'Le premier qui fut
+roi fut un soldat heureux'" (the first king was a successful soldier);
+and she added, "The wife of this fortunate soldier shares his rank."
+
+He placed his small, white hand, adorned with rings, under her chin, and
+gazed at her with a deep, strange look.
+
+"Now, Josephine," said he, after a short pause, "your successful soldier
+is only, for the present, consul for life, and you are sharing his rank.
+Be careful, then, that the wife of the first consul surrounds herself
+with all the brilliancy and the pomp which beseem her dignity. No more
+economy, no more modest simplicity! The industry of France is at a low
+ebb--we must make it rise. We must give receptions; we must prove to
+France that the court of a consul can be as splendid as that of a king.
+You understand what pomp is--none better than you! Now show yourself
+brilliant, magnificent, so that the other ladies may imitate you. But,
+no foreign stuffs! Silk and velvet from the fabrics of Lyons!"
+
+"Yes," said Josephine, with charming tenderness, "and when afterward my
+bills become due, you cut them down--you find them too high."
+
+"I only cut down what is too exorbitant," said Bonaparte, laughing. "I
+have no objection for you to give to the manufacturers any amount
+of work and profit, but I do not wish them to cheat you." [Footnote:
+Abrantes, "Memoires" vol. iv.]
+
+Henceforth, the consulate began gradually to exhibit a splendor and pomp
+which were behind no princely court, and which relegated, amid the dark
+legends of the fabulous past, the fraternity and the equality of the
+republic. The absence of pretension, and the simplicity of Malmaison,
+were now done away with; everywhere the consul for life was followed by
+the splendors of his dignity, and everywhere Josephine was accompanied
+by her court.
+
+For now she had a court, and an anteroom, with all its intrigues and
+flatteries; and its conspiracies already wove their chains around the
+consul and his wife. It was not suddenly, it was not spontaneously, that
+this court of the first consul was formed; two years were required
+for its organization--two years of unceasing labor on the new code of
+regulations, which etiquette dictated from the remembrances of the past
+to the palace-officers of the Consul Bonaparte. "How was this in times
+past? What was the practice?" Such were the constant questions in the
+interior of the Tuileries, and for the answers they appealed to Madame
+de Montesson, to the old courtiers, the servants and adherents of
+royalty. Instead of creating every thing new, they turned by degrees
+to the usages and manners of the past. Always and in all countries
+have there been seen at courts caricatures and persons of ill-mannered
+awkwardness; at the opening of the court of the first consul it is
+probable that these existed, and appeared still more strange to those
+who had been used to the manners, traditions, and language of the
+ancient court of Versailles. Their awkwardness, however, was soon
+overcome; and Josephine understood so well the rare art of presiding at
+a court establishment--she was such an accomplished mistress of refined
+manners and of noble deportment--she united to the perfect manners of
+the old nobility the most exquisite adroitness, and she knew so well how
+to adapt all these advantages to every new circumstance--that soon every
+one bowed to her sovereignty and submitted to her laws.
+
+From the glittering halls of the Tuileries there soon disappeared the
+sword and the uniform, to be replaced by the gold-embroidered dress, the
+silk stockings, and the chapeau bras; and on the glassy floors of
+the Tuileries generals and marshals appeared as fine cavaliers, who,
+submitting to the rules of etiquette, left behind with their regiments
+the coarse language of the camp. Many of these young generals and heroes
+had married the beautiful but impoverished daughters of the
+aristocrats of old monarchical France. These young women, who were the
+representatives of the ancient noblesse, brought to the Tuileries the
+traditions of their mothers, and distinguished themselves by the ease
+of their courtly deportment and their graceful manners; and they thus
+unconsciously became the teachers of the other young women, who, like
+their husbands, owed their aristocratic name only to the sword and to
+their fresh laurels, and not to ancient escutcheons.
+
+In the Tuileries and in St. Cloud there were reception-days,
+audience-days, and great and small levees, at which were assembled all
+that France possessed of rank, name, and fame, and where the ambassadors
+of all the powers accredited at the court of the consul, where all the
+higher clergy and the pope's nuncio, appeared in full dress.
+
+Bonaparte ventured to remove still further from the landmarks of the
+revolution, and from its so-called conquests. He restored to France the
+church; he reopened the temples of religion, and he also gave back to
+the people their priests.
+
+Just as in the days of old monarchical France, every Sunday, and at
+every festival, a solemn mass was said at St. Cloud; and in the glass
+gallery on the way to the chapel, Bonaparte received petitions
+and granted short audiences. France, with the instinct of its old
+inclinations and habits, readily returned to this new order of things;
+and even those who once had with enthusiasm saluted the Goddess of
+Reason, went now, with hands joined in prayer and eyes bent low, to
+Notre Dame, to offer again their supplications to the God of Love.
+
+Every thing seemed to return to the old track, every thing was as in the
+days preceding the revolution--the re-establishment of the throne, the
+national, willing approbation that the republic had become a monarchy,
+was, however, still wanting.
+
+Finally, on the 18th of May, 1804, France spoke out the decisive word,
+and, by the voice of its representatives the senators, it offered to
+Bonaparte the crown, and requested him to ascend as emperor the throne
+of France.
+
+Napoleon acceded to these wishes, and, as the senate, in a ceremonious
+procession, marshalled by Cambaceres, came to St. Cloud to communicate
+to Bonaparte the wish of France, and to offer to him and to Josephine
+the dignities of an empire, he accepted it without surprise, and
+apparently without joy, and allowed himself to be proclaimed NAPOLEON,
+THE FIRST EMPEROR OF THE FRENCH.
+
+On this memorable day, after Cambaceres, in the name of the senate and
+of France, had addressed the first consul as the actual emperor, he
+turned to Josephine, who, with that unparalleled admixture of grandeur,
+grace, and tender womanly beauty, which were all so especially her own,
+was present at this audience at Napoleon's side.
+
+"Madame," said Cambaceres, "there remains yet to the senate a pleasant
+duty to perform: to bring to your imperial majesty the homage of its
+respect and the expression of gratitude of the French people. Yes,
+madame, the public sentiment acknowledges the good which you are ever
+performing; that you are always accessible to the unfortunate; that you
+use your influence with the chief magistrate only to diminish evil, and
+to procure a hearing to those who seek it; and that your majesty
+with this well-doing combines the most amiable tenderness, rendering
+thankfulness a pleasant duty. These noble qualities of your majesty
+foretell that the name of the Empress Josephine will be a watchword
+of trust and hope; and, as the virtues of Napoleon will ever be to his
+followers an example to teach them the difficult art of government,
+so also, the lively remembrance of your goodness will teach to their
+honorable wives that to strive to dry the tear is the surest means of
+ruling the heart. The senate deems itself happy in being the first
+to congratulate your imperial majesty, and he who has the honor of
+addressing you these sentiments in the name of the senate, dares trust
+that you will ever number him among your most faithful servants."
+
+It was, then, decided! France had accepted her master, and Cambaceres in
+his solemn address had already marked out the situation of France and of
+her rulers. Bonaparte and Josephine were now their imperial majesties,
+the senators were their most faithful servants. What remained to the
+people but to call themselves "faithful subjects?"
+
+The people, however, had made known their wishes only through the voice
+of the senate; it was the senators who had converted Bonaparte into the
+Emperor Napoleon; but the people were also to make their will known in a
+solemn manner; they were, through a universal public suffrage, to decide
+whether the imperial dignity should be given only for life to Napoleon
+the First, Emperor of the French, or whether it should be hereditary in
+his family.
+
+France, wearied with storms and divisions, decided with her five
+millions of votes for the hereditary imperial dignity in Bonaparte's
+family, and thus the people of France created their fourth dynasty.
+
+Meanwhile Josephine received this new decision of the nation, not with
+that disquietude and care which she had formerly experienced.
+Bonaparte had given her the deepest and strongest proof of his love
+and faithfulness. He had not only withstood the pressure of his whole
+family, which had conjured him before his election to the empire to be
+divorced from his childless wife, but he had in the generosity of his
+love appointed his heirs and successors, and these were to be the sons
+of Hortense. The senate had decreed that the imperial dignity should be
+transmitted as a heritage to Napoleon's two brothers Joseph and
+Louis, and moreover they had given to Napoleon the right to choose his
+successors and heirs from the families of the two brothers.
+
+Napoleon had given to Josephine the strongest proof of affection--he had
+declared the son of her daughter Hortense and of his brother Louis, the
+little Napoleon Louis, to be his successor and heir, and the idea of
+a divorce no longer caused apprehensions before which Josephine need
+tremble.
+
+Bonaparte had appointed the sons of his brother and of Josephine's
+daughter as his heirs, and the heir of the new imperial throne was
+already born. Hortense's youth made it hopeful that she would add to the
+new branch of the Napoleonic dynasty new leaves and new boughs.
+
+Josephine could now rejoice in her happiness and her glory; she could
+abandon herself to the new splendors of her life with all the enjoyment
+of her sensitive and excitable nature. She could now receive with smiles
+and with affable condescension the homage of France, for she was not
+only empress by a nation's vote, but she was also empress by the choice
+of Napoleon her husband.
+
+The brilliancy of this new and glorious horizon was soon overhung by a
+sombre cloud. The execution of the Duke d'Enghien threw its dark shadows
+from the last days of the consulate upon the truly royalist heart of
+Josephine; and now that heart was to receive fresh wounds through the
+royalists, to whom she had remained true with all the memories of
+youth, and in whose behalf she had so often, so zealously, and so warmly
+interceded with her husband.
+
+A new conspiracy against Napoleon's life was discovered, and this time
+it was the men of the highest ranks of the old aristocracy who were
+implicated in it. George Cadoudal, the unwearied conspirator, had, while
+in England, planned with the leaders of the monarchical party residing
+in France, or who were away from it, a new conspiracy, whose object was
+to destroy Bonaparte and to re-establish the monarchy.
+
+But Fate was again on the side of the hero of Arcola. His good star
+still protected him. The conspiracy was discovered, and all those
+concerned in it were arrested. Among them were the Generals Pichegru and
+Moreau, the Counts de Polignac, Riviere, Saint Coster, Charles d'Hozier,
+and many others of the leading and most distinguished royalists. They
+were now under the avenging sword of justice, and the tribunal had
+condemned twenty of the accused to death, among whom were the above
+named. The emperor alone had the power to save them and to extend mercy.
+But he was this time determined to exhibit a merciless severity, so as
+to put an end to the royalists, and to prove to them that he was the
+ruler of France, and that the people without a murmur had given him the
+power to punish, as guilty of high-treason, those who dared touch their
+emperor.
+
+Josephine's heart, however, remained true to her memories and her piety;
+and, according to her judgment, those who, with so much heroic loyalty,
+remained true to the exiled monarchy, were criminals only as they had
+imperilled her husband's life, but criminals who, since their plans were
+destroyed, deserved pardon, because they had sinned through devotion to
+sacred principles.
+
+Josephine, therefore, opposed Bonaparte's anger, and begged for pardon
+for the son of the former friend of Queen Marie Antoinette, the Count
+Jules de Polignac. Bonaparte, however, remained inexorable; he repelled
+Josephine with vehemence, reproaching her for asking for the life of
+those who threatened his. But she would not be deterred; since Bonaparte
+had turned her away with her petitions and prayers, she wanted at least
+to give to the wife of the Count de Polignac an opportunity to ask
+pardon for her condemned husband. Despite Bonaparte's wrath, Josephine
+led the Countess de Polignac into a corridor through which the emperor
+had to pass, when he went from the council-room into his cabinet, and by
+this means the countess was fortunate enough, by her tears and prayers,
+to save her husband's life. The Count de Polignac was pardoned; and now
+that Bonaparte's heart had once been opened to mercy, he also granted to
+Josephine the lives of Count Riviere and of General Lajolais, in behalf
+of whom Hortense had appealed to the emperor. More than twenty of the
+conspirators were accused and sentenced, some to death and some to
+severe punishment, but one-half of the accused were, thanks to the
+prayers of Josephine and of her daughter, pardoned; a few were put to
+death, and the rest transported. Pichegru committed suicide in prison;
+Moreau received permission to emigrate to America; George Cadoudal
+perished on the scaffold.
+
+After this last fruitless attempt to re-establish in France the throne
+of the Bourbons, the royalists, wearied and terrified, had at least
+for a time to withdraw into obscurity and solitude, and the
+newly-established empire appeared in still more striking magnificence.
+The monarchy by God's grace had been conquered by the empire by the
+people's grace, and Napoleon wanted now to show himself to astonished
+Europe in all the glory of his new dignity. He therefore undertook a
+journey with his wife through the conquered German provinces; he went
+to Aix-la-Chapelle, to the city of coronation of the ancient German
+emperors, and which now belonged to imperial France; he went to Mayence,
+the golden Mayence of the old Roman days, and which now, after so many
+streams of bloodshed, had been transferred to France.
+
+This journey of the emperor and empress was one uninterrupted triumphal
+procession; the population of the old German city applauded, in
+dishonorable faithlessness, the new foreign ruler; all the clergy
+received their imperial majesties at the door of the cathedral, where
+Germany's first emperor, Charlemagne, was buried; and, to flatter the
+Empress Josephine, the clergy caused a miracle to be performed by her
+hand. There existed in the sacred treasury of the cathedral a casket of
+gold, containing the most precious relics, but which was never opened to
+the eyes of mortals, and whose lock no key fitted. Only once a year was
+this precious, sacred casket of relics shown to the worshipping crowd,
+and then locked up in the holy shrine. But for Josephine this treasury
+was condescendingly opened, and to the empress was presented this casket
+of relics, and behold, the miracle took place! At the touch of the
+empress the lid of the casket sprang up, and in it were seen the
+most precious jewels of royalty, amongst which was the seal-ring of
+Charlemagne. [Footnote: Constant, "Memoires," vol. iii.] No one was more
+surprised at this miracle than the clergy!
+
+The neighboring German princes came to ancient Mayence to do homage to
+Josephine, and to win the favor of the sovereign of France toward their
+little principalities, and to assure him of their devotedness. Bonaparte
+already understood how to receive the humble, flattering German princes
+with the mien of a gracious protector, and to look upon them with the
+eye of an emperor, to whom not only the nations but also the princes
+must bow; and Josephine also excited the admiration of genuine princes
+and legitimate princesses, by the graciousness and grandeur, by the
+unaffected dignity and ease with which she knew how to represent the
+sovereign and the empress.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIX. THE POPE IN PARIS.
+
+
+Fate had reserved another triumph for the ruler of France, the Emperor
+Napoleon--the triumph that the empire by the people's grace should be
+converted and exalted into the empire by God's grace. Pope Pius VII.,
+full of thankfulness that Napoleon had re-established the Church in
+France, and restored to the clergy their rights, had consented to come
+to Paris for the sake of giving to the empire, created by the will
+of the French people, the benediction of the Church, and in solemn
+coronation to place the imperial crown on the head anointed by the hands
+of God's vice-gerent.
+
+Bonaparte received this news with the lofty composure of an emperor who
+finds it quite natural that the whole world should bow to his wishes,
+and Josephine received it with the modesty and joyous humility of a
+pious Christian. She desired above all things the blessing of God and of
+the Church to rest upon this crown, whose possession had seemed to her
+until now a spoliation, a sacrilege, and about which her conscience so
+often reproached her. But when God's vicegerent, when the Holy Father of
+Christendom should himself have blessed her husband's crown, and should
+have made fast on Josephine's brow the imperial diadem, then all blame
+was removed, then the empress could hope that Heaven's blessing would
+accompany the new emperor and his wife!
+
+But was it really Napoleon's wish that Josephine should take part in
+this grand ceremony of coronation? Did he wish that, like him, she
+should receive from the hands of the pope the consecrated crown?
+
+Such was the deep, important question which occupied, at the approaching
+arrival of the pope, the young imperial court; a question, too,
+which occupied Josephine's mind, and also the whole family, and more
+especially the sisters of Bonaparte.
+
+Josephine naturally desired that it should be so, for this solemn
+coronation would be a new bond uniting her to her husband, a new
+guaranty against the evil which the empress's foreboding spirit still
+dreaded. But for the very same reasons her enemies prepared their
+weapons to prevent Josephine from obtaining this new consecration and
+this new glory, and harsh and bitter conflicts took place within the
+inner circles of the imperial family on account of it, which on both
+sides were carried on with the deepest animosity and obstinacy, but
+finally to a complete triumph for Josephine.
+
+Thiers, in his "History of the Consulate and of the Empire," relates the
+last scenes in this family quarrel:
+
+"Napoleon vacillated between his affection for his wife and the secret
+presentiments of his policy, when an occurrence took place which nearly
+caused the sudden ruin of the unfortunate Josephine. Every one was in a
+state of agitation about the new monarch--brothers, sisters, and allies!
+In the solemnity which seemed to give to each a blessing, all desired to
+perform parts adequate to their actual pretensions, and to their hopes
+of the future. At the sight of this restlessness, and witnessing the
+pretensions and claims to which Napoleon was exposed from one of his
+sisters, Josephine, carried away by anxiety and jealousy, gave utterance
+to an insulting suspicion against his sister and against Napoleon, a
+suspicion which agreed with the most bitter calumnies of the royalist
+emigrants. Napoleon grew violently angry, and, as his wrath mastered his
+better feelings, he declared to Josephine that he wanted to be divorced
+from her; that he would have to be, sooner or later, and that it was
+therefore better to announce it on the spot, before other bonds should
+unite them still closer together. He sent for his two adopted children,
+communicated to them this decision, and thus produced on them a most
+painful impression. Hortense and Eugene de Beauharnais declared with
+a sad but unwavering determination that they would follow their mother
+into the exile which was being prepared for her. Josephine manifested
+a resigned and dignified sorrow. The contrast of their sorrow with the
+satisfaction which the other portion of the imperial family manifested,
+deeply lacerated Napoleon's heart, and he relented; for he could not
+consent to see the companion of his youth and her children, who had been
+the objects of his deserved affection, made so unhappy by being forced
+into exile. He took Josephine in his arms, told her with emotion that
+he could never have the strength to part from her, even if policy itself
+should dictate it; and he then promised her that she should be crowned
+with him, and at his side should receive from the pope the divine
+blessing." [Footnote: Thiers, "Histoire du Consulat et de l'Empire."
+vol. v., p. 249.]
+
+Josephine, therefore, had won a victory over the hostile sisters, but
+this defeat made them still more embittered, and though they were now
+compelled to recognize Josephine as the imperial wife of their brother,
+yet they would retreat only step by step, and at "least secure a place
+near the imperial throne, and not be compelled by the empress to stand
+behind. Yet this was exactly what was to take place according to the
+programme, which prescribed for the festivity in Notre Dame that on the
+day of coronation the brothers of the emperor should carry the trail of
+his mantle, and that his sisters should at the same time carry the trail
+of the empress's mantle. But the sisters of Napoleon decidedly opposed
+this arrangement.
+
+"The emperor, tired of these constant wranglings and domestic strifes,
+decided as judge, and declared he would no longer listen to these
+unheard-of and unjustifiable pretensions.
+
+"'Truly,' said he, to the beautiful Pauline, who, as Princess Borghese,
+considered herself justified in making opposition, 'truly, one would
+think, after listening to you, that I have despoiled you of the
+inheritance of the most blessed king our father.'" [Footnote: "Histoire
+du Consulat," vol. v., p. 251.]
+
+The ambitious sisters, kept within bounds by the angry voice of their
+brother, who now for the first time showed himself their ruling emperor,
+had to fall into their places, and abide by the regulations of the
+ceremony.
+
+Nothing was wanted now to perfect the sacred celebration which was
+to crown all the triumphs and victories of Napoleon, nothing but the
+arrival of the pope: the whole imperial family, as well as France,
+awaited his advent with impatience.
+
+At last the couriers brought the news that the pope had touched the
+French soil, and that the people were streaming toward him to manifest
+their respect, and to implore his blessing on their knees; the same
+people who precisely ten years before had closed the churches, driven
+the priests into exile, and consecrated their bacchanalian worship to
+the Goddess of Reason!
+
+At last, on the 25th day of November, the pope entered Fontainebleau,
+where the emperor and the empress had hastened to receive him. No sooner
+was the pope's approach announced, than Napoleon mounted his horse and
+rode to meet him some distance on the way. In the centre of the road
+took place the first interview between the representative of Christendom
+and the youngest son of the Church, a son who now sat on the throne of
+those who in former times had enjoyed the privilege of being called the
+elder sons of the Church.
+
+The pope alighted from his carriage as soon as the emperor was in
+sight; Napoleon dismounted and hastened to meet and embrace tenderly
+his holiness, and then to ascend with him the carriage, the question of
+precedence remaining undecided, as the pope and the emperor entered the
+carriage at the same time from opposite sides.
+
+Josephine, surrounded by the official dignitaries, the ministers of
+state, and all the generals, received the pope under the peristyle of
+the palace of Fontainebleau; and then, after Napoleon had led him into
+his room, Josephine, accompanied by her ladies, went to welcome Pius,
+not as empress, but as an humble, devout daughter of the Church, who
+wished to implore a blessing from the Holy Father of Christendom.
+Josephine was deeply moved; her whole being was agitated and exalted at
+once by this greatest of all the privileges which destiny had reserved
+for her, and by this consecration which she was to receive at the hands
+of the vicar of Christ.
+
+As the pope, agreeably affected by this respect and emotion of the
+empress, offered her his hand with a genial smile, Josephine, humble as
+a little girl, sank down on her knees before him, kissed his hand, and
+with streaming eyes implored his benediction. Pius, in his soft, winning
+manner, promised to love her as a daughter, and that she should ever
+find in him a father.
+
+The empress, deeply moved by this affectionate condescension of the
+pope, and impressed by the importance and solemnity of the moment,
+bade her ladies withdraw, whilst she, in solitude and silence, as a
+confessing child before the priest, should unveil her innermost heart
+to the Holy Father. She then sank down upon her knees, and, stammering,
+ashamed, with her voice broken by her sobs, acknowledged to the pope
+that her marriage to Napoleon had never received, the consecration of
+the Church; that, contracted amid the stormy days of the revolution, it
+still lacked the blessing hand of the priest, and that her own husband
+was to be blamed for this neglect. In vain had she often besought him
+that, since he had restored the Church to Prance, he should himself give
+to the world a striking example of his own return by having his marriage
+blessed by it. But Napoleon refused, although he had been the cause of
+Cardinal Caprera giving to the marriage of his sister Caroline Murat,
+long after it had been contracted, the blessing of the Church.
+
+Pius heard this confession of his imperial penitent with holy
+resentment, and he promised her his aid and protection, assuring her he
+would refuse the act of coronation if the ecclesiastical marriage did
+not precede it.
+
+No sooner had Josephine left him, than the pope asked for an interview
+with the emperor, to whom he declared, with all the zeal of a true
+servant of the Church, and the conviction of a devout, God-fearing man,
+that he was willing to crown him, and to grant him the blessing of
+the Church, for the state of the conscience of emperors had never been
+examined before their anointment; but if his wife was to be crowned with
+him, he must refuse his co-operation, because in crowning Josephine he
+dare not grant the divine sanction to concubinage.
+
+Napoleon, though inwardly much irritated at Josephine, who, as he at
+once supposed, had made this confession to the pope in her own interest,
+was still willing to abide by the circumstances. He did not wish to
+irritate the pope, who as was well known was unyielding in all matters
+pertaining to faith; moreover, he could not change any thing in the
+already published ceremonial of the day, and thus he consented to have
+the ecclesiastical marriage. After this conversation with the pope,
+Napoleon went at once to Josephine, and the whole strength of his anger
+was spent in violent reproaches against her untimely indiscretion.
+
+Josephine endured these silently, and full of inward satisfaction; she
+did not listen to Napoleon's angry words; she only heard that he was
+decided to have his marriage sanctioned by the Church, and now she would
+be his wife before God, as she had been before men for the last
+ten years. Now at last her fate was decided, and her marriage made
+irrevocable; now she would no longer dread that Napoleon would punish
+her childlessness by a divorce.
+
+During the night which preceded the day of the coronation, the night
+of the 1st of December, the ecclesiastical marriage of Napoleon and
+Josephine took place in the chapel of the Tuileries. The only witnesses
+were Talleyrand and Berthier, from both of whom the emperor had exacted
+an oath of profound silence. Cardinal Fesch, the emperor's uncle,
+performed the ceremony, and pronounced the benediction of the Church
+over this marriage, which Bonaparte's love for Josephine had induced him
+to consent to, and which her love endeavored to make indissoluble.
+
+This marriage, which she desired both as a loving woman and as a devout
+Christian, was the most glorious triumph which Josephine had ever
+obtained over the enmity of her husband's sisters, for it was a new
+proof of the love and faithfulness of this man, whom neither expediency,
+nor family, nor state reasons, could remove from her, and who, with
+the hand of love, had guided her away from all the dangers which had
+surrounded her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XL.
+
+THE CORONATION.
+
+
+At last, on the 2d of December, came the day which Napoleon had during
+many years past longed for within the recesses of his heart; the day
+which his ambition had hoped for, the day of his solemn coronation.
+And now the victorious soldier was to see all his laurels woven into an
+imperial crown--that which Julius Caesar had tried to win, and for which
+the republic punished him with death.
+
+But now the republicans were silent: before this new Julius Caesar they
+dare not lift up their swords, for the power belonged to him, and that
+he knew how to punish had been seen by trembling France not long ago
+at the execution of George Cadoudal and his associates, the people
+sanctioning those executions.
+
+There was no Brutus there to plunge the dagger into the breast of the
+new Cassar. His was the victory, the throne, the crown; and all France
+was in joyous excitement at this new triumph, that the pope himself
+should come from Rome to Paris so as to place the crown on the head of
+an emperor by the grace of the people, and to make of the elect of the
+people an elect of God.
+
+The day had scarcely begun to dawn when all the streets of Paris through
+which the imperial as well as the papal procession had to move toward
+Notre Dame were filled with wave-like masses of human beings, who soon
+occupied not only the streets but all the windows and all the roofs of
+the houses. Those who were fortunate enough to be provided with cards
+of admission into Notre Dame, went at six o'clock in the morning to the
+cathedral, for whose adorning during the last fourteen days more than a
+thousand workmen had been busy, and who had not yet quite finished their
+work, retiring only when the approach of the pope and of his suite was
+announced. In the interior of the Tuileries began from the commencement
+of the day, on three different sides, a lively movement.
+
+Here, in the apartments which the pope occupied, gathered together the
+cardinals, the clergy, and all the church dignitaries who in the pope's
+suite were to proceed to Notre Dame.
+
+There, in the apartments of the emperor, a host of courtiers and
+officers waited from early dawn for the moment when the toilet of the
+emperor should be completed, and he should go to the great throne-room,
+where the empress and the imperial family would await him.
+
+The greatest excitement, however, naturally prevailed in the apartments
+of the empress, whose toilet occupied a host of chambermaids and ladies
+of the court, and which had already been for months the subject of
+thought, labor, and art, for painter and embroiderer, and for all
+manner of professions, as well as for the master of ceremonies. For this
+imperial toilet-ceremonial was to be in accordance with the traditions
+of ancient France, but was not, at the same time, to be a mere imitation
+of the coronation-toilet of the Bourbons, whom the revolution had
+dethroned, the same revolution which had opened for Napoleon the way to
+the throne.
+
+For this important ceremony, therefore, special costumes, somewhat
+resembling those of former centuries, had been found. The painter Ingres
+had furnished the designs for these costumes, and also plans for the
+procession and for the groupings in Notre Dame; he had prepared all this
+in pictures of great effect for the emperor's inspection. But in order
+to show to advantage the several costumes, as well as the train of
+personages, and the subdivisions of the different groups of the imperial
+dignitaries, Ingres had caused small puppets to be dressed in similar
+costumes, and arrayed in the order of the procession according to the
+prescribed ceremonies for that day; and for weeks the imperial court had
+been studying these costumes, and every one's duty had been to impress
+on his mind the position assigned to him for the day of coronation.
+[Footnote: Constant, "Memoires," vol. iii., p. 111.]
+
+The pope's toilet was the first completed; and at nine o'clock, all
+dressed in white, he entered a carriage drawn by eight grays; over it in
+gilt bronze were the tiara and the attributes of papacy. In front of the
+carriage rode one of his chamberlains upon a white ass, bearing a large
+silver cross before God's vicegerent. Behind it in new carriages came
+the cardinals, the prelates, and the Italian officers of the pope's
+palace.
+
+While the papal train was moving slowly on the quays of the Seine toward
+the cathedral, amid the sounds of bells, and the unceasing, joyful
+shouts of the people, all was yet in motion within the apartments of
+the emperor and empress. On all sides hurried along the dignitaries and
+officers who were to form a part of the imperial procession.
+
+For this day, Napoleon had been obliged to cast off his plain uniform
+and substitute the splendid theatrical costume of imperial magnificence.
+The stockings were of silk, wrought with gold, embroidered round the
+edge with imperial crowns; the shoes were of white velvet, worked and
+embroidered with gold; short breeches of white velvet, embroidered with
+gold at the hips, and with buttons and buckles of diamonds in the shape
+of garters; the vest also was of white velvet, embroidered with gold and
+having diamond buttons; the coat was of crimson velvet, with facings of
+white velvet along all the seams above and around, and sparkling with
+gold; the half-mantle was also crimson, lined with white satin, and
+hanging over the left shoulder, while on the right shoulder and upon
+the breast it was fastened with a pair of diamond clasps. Sleeves of the
+most costly lace fell about the arms; the cravat was of Indian muslin,
+the collar likewise of lace; the cap, of black velvet, was adorned with
+two plumes and surrounded by a coronet of diamonds, which "the regent"
+used as a clasp. Such was the costume which the emperor wore in the
+procession from the Tuileries to Notre Dame. In the vestry of the
+cathedral he put on the ample state-robes, that is to say, the robe and
+mantle of emperor. [Footnote: Constant, "Memoires," vol. ii., p. 212.]
+
+The toilet of the empress was no less splendid and brilliant. It
+consisted of an elaborate robe with a long train; this robe was of
+silver brocade, with gold bees scattered all over; in front it was
+embroidered into a maze of gold-leaves; at the lower edge was a gold
+fringe; the shoulders alone were bare; long armlets of wrought gold, and
+adorned at the upper part with diamonds, enclosed the arm and covered
+one-half of the hand. It required all the art and grace of Josephine
+to carry this robe, it being without any waist, and, according to the
+fashion of the times, extremely narrow, and yet in wearing it to lose
+naught of her elegance or condescending dignity. At the upper part of
+the dress rose a collar a la Medicis of lace worked in with gold, and
+which Josephine had been constrained to wear, so as at least, through
+some historic details, to make her toilet correspond to the costume
+of the renaissance worn by Napoleon. A gold girdle, adorned with
+thirty-nine diamond rosettes, fastened under the breast her tunic-like
+dress. In her fondness for the antique, Josephine, instead of diamonds
+and pearls, had preferred for bracelets, ear-rings, and necklace,
+some choice stones of rare workmanship. Her beautiful thick hair was
+encircled and held together by a splendid diadem, a masterpiece of
+modern art. This toilet was to be completed, like that of Napoleon,
+before the solemn entrance into the cathedral, by putting on the
+imperial mantle, which was fastened on the shoulders with gold buckles
+and diamond clasps.
+
+At last the imperial toilets were completed; all the dignitaries, as
+well as the imperial family, gathered together in the throne-room,
+ready for the procession. Holding Josephine by the hand, her countenance
+expressing deep emotion, and her eye obscured by the tears shed as a
+price for the solemn marriage of that night, Napoleon appeared in
+the midst of his brilliant courtiers, and received the impressive,
+heart-felt wishes of his family, his brothers and sisters, who pressed
+around him and the empress, and who at this moment, forgetting all envy
+and jealousy, had only words of thankfulness and assurances of love,
+devotedness, and loyalty.
+
+Napoleon replied to them all in the short, comprehensive words which he
+addressed to his brother Joseph, whilst with his naming eyes he examined
+his brothers and sisters in the brilliant costumes of their dignity and
+glory:
+
+"Joseph," said he, "could our father see us now!" [Footnote: Meneval,
+"Souvenirs," vol. i., p. 204.]
+
+From the pomp and solemnity of this important moment the thoughts of the
+emperor, for whom the pope was waiting in Notre Dame, wandered far
+away to the gloomy, quiet death-bed of his father, whose last hour was
+embittered by the tormenting thought of leaving his family unprotected
+and with but little means.
+
+The thundering roar of cannon and the chimes of bells proclaimed that
+the emperor and empress, with their train, were now leaving the palace
+to ascend into the wonderful carriage made of gold and glass, and which
+was waiting for them at the Pavilion de l'Horloge to proceed toward the
+cathedral.
+
+This carriage, prepared expressly for this day's celebration, was of
+enormous size and breadth, with windows on all sides, and entirely alike
+in its front and back seats. It therefore happened that their imperial
+majesties, on entering the carriage, not thinking of the direction to be
+taken, sat down on the front instead of the back seat.
+
+The empress noticed the mistake, and when she laughingly called the
+emperor's attention to it, they both took the back seat without a
+suspicion that this little error was a bad omen.
+
+Another little mishap occurred before they entered Notre Dame, which
+threw a gloom of sad forebodings and fear over the heart of the empress.
+
+Whilst alighting out of the carriage, the empress, whose hand was
+occupied in the holding and carrying her robe and mantle, let slip
+from her fingers the imperial ring which the pope had brought her for a
+present, and which before the coronation he was to bless, according to
+the accustomed ceremonial, and then place it on her finger as a token of
+remembrance of the holy consecration. This made Josephine tremble, and
+her cheeks turned pale, especially as the ring could nowhere be found.
+It had rolled a considerable distance from the carriage, and only after
+some minutes did Eugene Beauharnais find it and bring it to his mother,
+to her great delight and satisfaction. [Footnote: Aubenas, "Histoire de
+l'Imperatrice Josephine," vol. ii., p. 283.]
+
+At last the procession entered Notre Dame, and the brilliant solemnity
+began. It is not our purpose to describe here again the ceremony which
+has been in all its details portrayed in so many works, and to repeat
+the solemn addresses and the different events of this great and
+memorable day. It is with Josephine we have to do, and with what
+concerns her individual destiny--that alone claims our attentive
+consideration.
+
+One event, however, is to be mentioned. At the moment the emperor took
+from the altar the so-called crown of Charles the Great, and with firm
+hand placed it on his head--at the moment when he assumed the place of
+the ancient Kings of France, a small stone, which had detached itself
+from the cupola, fell down, touched his head, leaped on his shoulder,
+slipped down his imperial mantle, and rolled over the altar-steps near
+to the pope's throne, where it remained still until an Italian priest
+picked it up. [Footnote: Abrantes. "Memoires," vol. vii., p. 258.]
+
+At the moment of his loftiest grandeur the destiny of his future aimed
+its first stone at him, and marked him as the one upon whom its anger
+was to fall.
+
+This was the third evil omen of the day; but fortunately Josephine had
+not noticed it. Her whole soul was absorbed in the sacred rites; and,
+after the emperor had crowned himself, her heart trembled with deep
+emotion and agitation, for now the moment had come when she was to take
+her part in the solemnity.
+
+The Duchess d'Abrantes, who was quite near Josephine, and an immediate
+witness of the whole celebration, depicts the next scene in the
+following words: "The moment when the greatest number of eyes were fixed
+upon the altar-steps where the emperor stood, was when Josephine was
+crowned by him, and was solemnly consecrated Empress of the French. What
+a moment! ... what a homage! What a proof of love manifested to her from
+him who so much loved her!
+
+"David's painting, and many other pictures taken during the coronation,
+at the very spot and time, have well represented the empress at the
+feet of Napoleon, who crowns her; then the pope, the priests, and
+even persons who were four hundred miles away--as, for instance, the
+emperor's mother, who was then in Rome, but whom David nevertheless
+brings into his picture. But nothing, however, can give us a true
+description, or even an approximate idea, of this alike touching and
+lofty scene, where a great man by his own efforts ascends a throne, for
+on this occasion he was full of gratitude and emotion.
+
+"When the moment had come for Josephine to take her part in the great
+drama, the empress rose from the throne and approached the altar, where
+the emperor was waiting for her; she was followed by the ladies of the
+palace and by her whole court, while the Princesses Caroline, Julie (the
+wife of Joseph), the Princess Elise, and Louis Bonaparte, carried the
+trail of her robe. One of the most admirable features in the beauty of
+the Empress Josephine was not her fine, graceful figure, but the bearing
+of her head--the gracious and noble manner in which she moved and
+walked. I have had the honor to be introduced to many 'real princesses,'
+as they are termed, in the Faubourg St. Germain, and I can in all
+sincerity say that I have never seen one who appeared to me so imposing
+as the Empress Josephine. In her, grace and majesty were blended. When
+she put on the grand imperial robes there was no woman whose appearance
+could be more royal in demeanor, and, in reality, none who understood
+the art of occupying a throne as well as she, though she never had been
+instructed in it.
+
+"I read all that I have now said in the eyes of Napoleon. He watched
+with delight the empress as she moved toward him; and as she knelt
+before him, ... as the tears she could not restrain streamed down her
+folded hands, which were lifted up to him more than to God, at that
+moment, when Napoleon, or, much more, when Bonaparte was for her the
+real and visible Providence, there passed over these two beings one of
+those fugitive minutes, unique in its kind, and never to be recalled
+in a whole life, and which fills to overflowing the void of many long
+years. The emperor performed with an unexcelled grace the most minute
+details of every part of the subsequent ceremony, especially when the
+moment came to crown the empress.
+
+"This ceremony was to be performed by the emperor himself, who, after
+he had received the small closed crown surmounted by a cross, placed it
+first on his own head, and then afterward on the head of the empress. He
+performed these two movements with a most exquisite slowness, which was
+indeed admirable. But at the moment when he was to crown her who was for
+him, according to a prophecy, 'the star of happiness,' he made himself,
+if I dare use the expression, coquettish. He arranged this little crown
+which was to stand over her coronet of diamonds, and placed it on her
+head, then lifted it up to replace it in another way, as if to promise
+her that this crown would be light and pleasant to her." [Footnote:
+Abrantes, "Memoires."]
+
+After this twofold crowning performed by Napoleon himself, the pope,
+surrounded by cardinals and prelates, approached the throne, and
+arriving upon the platform pronounced in a loud voice, spreading his
+hands over their imperial majesties, the ancient Latin formula of
+enthronization: "In hoc solio confirme vos Deus, et in regno aeterno
+secum regnare faciat Christus." (God establish you on this throne, and
+Christ make you reign with Him in His everlasting kingdom.) He then
+kissed the emperor on the cheeks, and turning himself to the audience,
+cried with a loud voice: "Vivat imperator in aeternum!"
+
+The immense cathedral resounded with one glad shout of thousands of
+voices: "Long live the emperor! long live the empress!" Napoleon, calm
+and reserved, answered this acclamation with a friendly motion of the
+head. Josephine stood near him, pale, deeply moved, her eyes, full of
+tears, fixed on the emperor, as if she would pray to him, and not to
+God, for the prosperity and blessing of the future.
+
+Meanwhile the pope had descended from his throne, and while he
+approached the altar, the bands played "Long live the emperor," which
+the Abbe Kose had composed for this solemnity. Then the pope, standing
+before the altar, intoned the Te Deum, which was at once executed by
+four choirs and two orchestras, and which completed the ecclesiastical
+part of the ceremony.
+
+This was followed by a secular one. The emperor took, on the Bible
+which Cardinal Fesch presented to him, the oath prescribed in the
+constitution, and whereby he pledged himself solemnly to maintain "the
+most wise results of the revolution, to defend the integrity of the
+territory, and to rule only in the interest of the happiness and glory
+of the French people." After he had taken this oath, a herald approached
+the edge of the platform, and, according to ancient custom, cried out in
+a loud voice: "The most mighty and glorious Emperor Napoleon, Emperor of
+the French, is crowned and enthroned! Long live the emperor!"
+
+A tremendous, prolonged shout of joy followed this proclamation: "Long
+live the emperor! Long live the empress!" and then an artillery
+salute thundered forth from behind the cathedral, and a similar salute
+responded from the Tuileries, and from the Invalides, and proclaimed to
+all Paris that France had again found a ruler, that a new dynasty had
+been lifted up above the French people.
+
+At this moment from the Place de Carrousel ascended an enormous air
+balloon surmounted by an ornamental, gigantic crown, and which, on the
+wings of the wind, was to announce to France the same tidings proclaimed
+to Paris by bell and cannon: "The republic of France is converted into
+an empire! The free republicans are now the subjects of the Emperor
+Napoleon I.!"
+
+The gigantic balloon arose amid the joyous shouts of the crowd, and soon
+disappeared from the gaze of the spectators. It flew, as a trophy of
+victory of Napoleon I., all over France. Thousands saw it and understood
+its silent and yet eloquent meaning, but no one could tell where it
+had fallen, finally, after many weeks, the emperor, who had often asked
+after the balloon's fate, received the wished-for answer. The balloon
+had fallen in Rome, upon Nero's grave!
+
+Napoleon remained silent a moment at this news: a shadow passed over his
+countenance; then his brow brightened again, and he exclaimed: "Well, I
+would sooner see it there, than in the dust of the streets!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLI. DAYS OF HAPPINESS.
+
+
+The prophecy of the old woman in Martinique had now been fulfilled:
+Josephine was more than a queen, she was an empress! She stood on life's
+summit, and a world lay at her feet. Before the husband who stood at her
+side, the princes and the people of Europe bowed in the dust, and paid
+him homage--the hero who by new victories had won ever-increasing fame
+and fresh laurels, who had defeated Austria, Prussia, and Russia, and
+who had engraven on the rolls of French glory the mighty victories of
+Austerlitz, Jena, and Eylau!
+
+Josephine stood on the pinnacle of life; she saw the princes of foreign
+states come to France as conquered, as captives, and as allies, to bring
+to her husband and to herself the homage of subjects; she saw devoted
+courtiers and flatterers; pomp and splendor surrounded her on every
+side.
+
+Amid this glory she remained simple and modest--she never gave up her
+cheerful gentleness and mildness; she never forgot the days which had
+been; she never allowed herself to be exalted by the brilliancy of the
+moment to an ambitious pride or to a lofty self-conceit. The friends of
+the widow Josephine de Beauharnais always found in the empress Josephine
+a thankful, obliging friend, ever ready to appeal to her husband, and
+intercede with him in their behalf. To the royalists, when weary of
+their long exile, though poor and helpless still loyal to the royal
+family--when they returned to France with bleeding feet and wounded
+hearts, to implore from the Emperor of the French the privilege of
+dying in their native country--to them all Josephine was a counsellor,
+a helper, a compassionate protectress. With deep interest she inquired
+from them how it fared with the Count de Lille, whom her heart yet
+named as the King of France, though her lips dared not utter it. All the
+assistance she gave to the royalists, and the protection she afforded
+them, oftentimes despite Napoleon's anger, all the loyalty, the
+generosity, and self-denial she manifested, were the quiet sacrifice
+which she offered to God for her own happiness, and with which she
+sought to propitiate the revengeful spirit of the old monarchy,
+loitering perchance in the Tuileries, where she now, in the place of the
+wife of the Count de Lille, was enthroned as sovereign.
+
+Josephine's heart was unwearied and inexhaustible in well-doing and in
+liberality; if Napoleon was truly the emperor and the father of the army
+and of the soldiers, Josephine was equally the empress and the mother of
+the poor and unfortunate.
+
+But she was also, in the true sense of the word, the empress of the
+happy. No one understood so well as she did how to be the leader at
+festivals, to preside at a joyous company, to give new attractions by
+her gracious womanly sweetness and amiableness, or to receive homage
+with such beaming eyes, and to make others happy while she herself
+seemed to be made happy by them.
+
+Amid this life full of splendor and grandeur there were sad hours,
+when the sun was shadowed by clouds, and the eyes of the Empress of the
+French filled with such bitter tears as only the wife and the widow of
+General Beauharnais could shed.
+
+Three things especially contributed to draw these tears from the eyes of
+the Empress Josephine: her jealousy, her extravagance, and, lastly, her
+childlessness. Josephine was jealous, for she not only loved Napoleon,
+she worshipped him as her providence, her future, her happiness. Her
+heart was yet so full of passion, and so young, that it hoped for much
+happiness, and could not submit to that resignation which is
+satisfied to give more love than it receives, and instead of the
+warm, intoxicating cup of love, to receive the cool, sober beverage of
+friendship. Josephine wanted not merely to be the friend, but to remain
+Napoleon's beloved one; and she looked upon all these beautiful women
+who adorned the imperial court of the Tuileries as enemies who came to
+dispute with her the love of her husband.
+
+And, alas! she had too often to acknowledge herself defeated in this
+struggle, to see her rivals triumph, and for weeks to retreat into
+the background before the victorious one who may have succeeded in
+enchaining the inconstant heart of Napoleon, and to make the proud
+Caesar bow to her love. But afterward, when love's short dream had
+vanished, Napoleon, penitent, would come back with renewed love to
+his Josephine, whom he still called "the star of his happiness;" and
+oftentimes, touched by her tears, he sacrificed to her anxiety and
+jealousy a love-caprice, and became more affectionate, more agreeable
+even, than when he had forsaken her; for then, to prove to her
+how unreserved was his confidence, he often told her of his new
+love-adventures, and was even indiscreet enough at times to betray all
+his gallantries to her.
+
+The second object of the constant solicitude and trials of the empress
+was her extravagance. She did not understand how to economize; her
+indolent creole nature found it impossible to calculate, to bring
+numbers into columns, or to question tedious figures, to see if debt and
+purse agreed--if her generous heart must be prevented from giving to
+the poor--from rendering assistance to the helpless, or from spending
+handfuls for the suffering; to see if her taste for the arts was no
+longer to be gratified with pictures, paintings, statues, cameos,
+and other objects of vertu, which filled her with so much joy and
+admiration; if her elegant manners and fondness for finery and dress
+were to be denied all that was costly, all that was fashionable, and
+which seemed to have been expressly invented for the adorning of an
+empress. And when, in some of those grave, melancholy hours of internal
+anxiety, the cruel phantoms of the future reckonings arose before her
+and warned her to stop purchasing, Josephine comforted herself with the
+idea that it was Napoleon himself who had requested her to be to all the
+ladies of his court a pattern of elegance, and to be distinguished above
+all by the most brilliant, the choicest, the costliest toilet.
+
+The emperor would often come into the cabinet of the empress, and to the
+great astonishment of her ladies-in-waiting would enter into the most
+minute details of her dress, and designate the robes and ornaments which
+he desired her to wear on some special festivity. It even happened in
+Aix-la-Chapelle that Napoleon, who had come into the toilet-room of the
+empress and found that she had put on a robe which did not please him,
+poured ink on the costly dress of silver brocade, so as to compel her
+to put on another. [Footnote: Avrillon, "Memoires," vol. i., p. 98; and
+Constant, "Memoires," vol. iii., p. 103.]
+
+And then how was it possible to resist the temptation of purchasing
+all those beautiful things which were constantly brought to her for
+inspection? Josephine loved what was beautiful, tasteful, and artistic;
+all works of art which she admired must be purchased, whatever price was
+asked; and when the merchants came to offer to the empress their superb
+and splendid articles of luxury, how could she have the cruel courage
+to repel them? How often did she purchase objects of extraordinary value
+for which she had no need, simply to please herself and the merchant!
+Every thing that was beautiful and tasteful pleased her, and she must
+possess it. No one had a more remarkably fine taste than Josephine, but
+the artists, the manufacturers, the merchants, also had fine taste,
+and they came to the empress with the best they had; it was therefore
+natural that she should purchase from them But unfortunately the happy
+moment of the purchase was followed by the unhappy one of the payment,
+and the outlay was constantly beyond the income of the empress, whose
+treasury, besides, was so often emptied in charities, pensions, and
+presents. Then when the merchants urged payment, and the purse was
+empty, Josephine had recourse to the emperor, and had to entreat him to
+meet her expenses, and then came violent scenes, reproaches, and
+bitter words. The emperor was angry, Josephine wept, and payment and
+reconciliation followed these scenes. Josephine promised to the emperor
+and to herself to be more economical in the future, and no longer to
+purchase what she could not pay for, but ever came the temptation, with
+all its inviting treasures, and being no saintly Anthony, she would fall
+a prey to the temptation.
+
+The third and thickest cloud which often darkened the serene sky of
+her happiness after her marriage was, as already said, Josephine's
+childlessness. This was the bitter drop which was mixed in the golden
+cup of her joy--this was the sting which, however deeply hid under the
+roses, still reached her heart and wounded it painfully. She had no
+children who could call Napoleon father, no offspring to prolong the
+future of the new dynasty. And therefore the firmer the emperor's
+power became, the higher he stood above all other princes, the more
+distressing and the more anxious were the emotions which filled the
+heart of Josephine, the louder was the warning voice which ceased not to
+whisper to her heart, and which she forgot only now and then under the
+glow of Napoleon's assurances of love, or amid the noise of festivities.
+This voice whispered: "You must give place to another. Napoleon will
+reject you, to marry a wife of princely birth, who will give an heir to
+his empire!"
+
+How Josephine strove to silence these agonizing whisperings of her
+heart! With what restlessness of sorrow she rushed into the gayeties and
+amusements of a court life! How she sought, in charitable occupations,
+in the joys of society, in every thing which was congruous to the life
+of a woman, of an empress, to obtain the forgetfulness of her torments!
+With what envious attention she listened to the whispers of courtiers,
+scrutinized their features, read their looks, to find out if they still
+believed in the existence of an empress in the wife of Napoleon! With
+what jealous solicitude she observed all the families on European
+thrones, and considered what princesses among them were marriageable,
+and whether Napoleon's relations with the fathers of such princesses
+were more intimate than those with the other princes!
+
+And then she ever sought to deafen this vigilant, warning voice, by
+comforting herself with the thought that the emperor had adopted his
+brother's son, the son of Hortense, and that he had made him his heir,
+and consequently the throne and the dynasty were secure in a successor.
+
+But alas! Fate would not leave this last comfort to the unfortunate
+empress. In May of the year 1807, Prince Napoleon, the crown prince
+of Holland, Napoleon's adopted son and successor, died of a child's
+disease, which in a few days tore him away from the arms of his
+despairing mother.
+
+Josephine's anguish was boundless, and in the first hours of this
+misfortune, which with such annihilating force fell upon her, the
+empress, as if in a state of hallucination, gazed into the future,
+and, with prophetic voice, exclaimed: "Now I am lost! Now is divorce
+certain!"
+
+Yes, she was lost! She felt it, she knew it! Nothing the emperor did
+to pacify her anguish--the numerous expressions of his love, of his
+sympathy, of his winning affection--nothing could any longer deceive
+Josephine. The voices which had so long whispered in her breast now
+cried aloud: "You must give place to another! Napoleon will reject you,
+so as to have a son!"
+
+But the emperor seemed still to try to dispel these fears, and, to give
+to his Josephine a new proof of his love and faithfulness, he chose
+Eugene de Beauharnais, the son of Josephine, for his adopted heir, and
+named him Vice-King of Italy, and gave him in marriage the daughter of
+the King of Bavaria; he thus afforded to Europe the proof that he still
+considered Josephine as his wife, and that he desired to be shown to
+her all the respect due to her dignity, for he travelled to Munich in
+company with her in order to be present at the nuptials.
+
+This journey to attend her son's marriage was the last pleasure of
+Josephine--her last days of honors and happiness. Once more she saw
+herself surrounded by all the splendor and the pomp of her rank; once
+more she was publicly honored and admired as the wife of the first and
+greatest ruler of the world, the wife of the Emperor Napoleon.
+
+Perhaps Josephine, in these hours of happiness, when as empress, wife,
+and mother, she enjoyed the purest and most sacred pleasure, forgot the
+sad forebodings and fears of her soul. Perhaps she now believed that,
+since Napoleon had adopted her Eugene as his son, and had given to this
+son a wife of royal extraction, Fate would be propitious to her; that
+the emperor would be satisfied with the son of his choice, and that the
+future scions of the royal princess would be the heirs of his throne.
+
+But one word of Napoleon frightened her out of this ephemeral security
+into which happiness had lulled her.
+
+Josephine wept as she bade farewell to her son; she was comfortless when
+with his young wife Eugene left for Italy. She complained to Napoleon,
+in justification of her tears, that she should seldom see her son, that
+now he was lost to his mother's heart.
+
+The emperor, who at first had endeavored to comfort her felt at last
+wounded by her sorrow.
+
+"You weep, Josephine," said he, hastily, "but you have no reasonable
+motives to do so; you weep simply because you are separated from your
+son. If already the absence of your children causes you so much sorrow,
+think then what I must endure! The tenderness which you feel for your
+children makes me cruelly experience how unhappy it is for me to have
+none." [Footnote: Avrillon, "Memoires sur l'Imperatrice Josephine," vol.
+i., p. 202.]
+
+Josephine trembled, and her tears ceased flowing in the presence of the
+emperor, but only to fall more abundantly as soon as he had left her.
+Now she wept no longer at her separation from her son; her tears were
+still more bitter and painful--she grieved over the coming future; she
+wept because those voices which happiness for a moment had deafened, now
+spoke more loudly--more fearfully and menacingly shouted: "Napoleon will
+reject you! He will choose for himself a wife of royal birth, who will
+give an heir to his throne and his empire."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLII. DIVORCE.
+
+
+It was at last decided! The storm which had so long and so fearfully
+rolled over Josephine's head was to burst, and with one single flash
+destroy her earthly happiness, her love, her future!
+
+The peace of Vienna had been ratified on the 13th of October, 1809.
+Napoleon passed the three long months of peace negotiations in Vienna
+and in Schonbrunn, while Josephine, solitary and full of sad misgivings,
+lived quietly in the retreat of Malmaison.
+
+Now that peace was signed, Napoleon returned to France with fresh
+laurels and new crowns of victory. But not, as usual after so long
+an absence, did he greet Josephine with the tenderness and joy of a
+home-returning husband. He approached her with clouded brow; with a
+proud, cold demeanor; with the mien of a ruling master, before whom all
+must bow, even his wife, even his own heart.
+
+At Fontainebleau, whither the emperor in a few, short, commanding
+words--in a letter of three lines--had invited the empress, did the
+first interview of Josephine and Napoleon take place. She hastened to
+meet her husband with a cheerful face and beaming eyes. He, however,
+received her coldly, and endeavored to hide his feelings of uneasiness
+and shame under a repulsive, domineering manner.
+
+He returned to his home victorious; the whole world lay conquered at
+his feet; he was triumphant. He had so deeply humiliated the pride of
+Austria that she not only accepted his harsh terms of peace, but, as
+once men had appeased the Minotaur by the sacrifice of the most amiable
+and most beautiful maiden, so Austria had asked in a low voice whether
+the daughter of the emperor, Maria Louisa might not give to the
+alliance of Austria and France the consecration of love. Napoleon
+eagerly entered into the scheme; and while Josephine, as his married
+wife before God and man, stood yet at his side, he already had begun
+negotiations, the object of which was to make the daughter of the
+Austrian emperor his wife, and before Napoleon returned to France those
+negotiations had been brought to a satisfactory result.
+
+The ambitious Maria Louisa was to be the wife of the Emperor of the
+French. Nothing more was wanted but that Napoleon should reject his
+legitimate wife, whom the pope had anointed! He had but to disenthrone
+her who for fifteen years, with true and tender love, had shared his
+existence. He had only to be divorced publicly and solemnly, so as
+immediately to possess a bride, the daughter of an emperor!
+
+Napoleon came to Fontainebleau to accomplish this cruel task, to break
+at once his marriage with Josephine and her heart. He knew what terrible
+sufferings he was preparing for her; he himself quailed under the
+anguish she was to endure; his heart was full of sorrow and woe, and
+yet his resolution was irrevocable. Policy had controlled his heart,
+ambition had conquered his love, and the man was determined to sacrifice
+his wife to the emperor.
+
+Josephine felt this at the first word he addressed her, at the first
+look he gave her, after so long a separation, and her heart shrank
+within itself in bitter anguish, while a stream of tears started from
+her eyes.
+
+But Napoleon asked not for the cause of these tears; he had not the
+courage to wage an open war with this brave, loving heart, and to subdue
+her love and despair with the two-edged sword of his state policy and
+craftiness. He did not wish to utter the word; he wanted to make her
+feel what an abyss was now open between them; all confidential and
+social intercourse was to be avoided, so that the empress might become
+conscious that love and fellowship of hearts had ceased also.
+
+On the evening after the first interview the empress found that the door
+of communication between her apartments and those of the emperor had
+been closed. Napoleon did not, as had been his wont, bid her good-night
+with a cordial and friendly kiss, but, in the presence of her ladies, he
+dismissed her with a cold salutation. The next day the emperor expressly
+avoided her society; and when at rare moments he was with her, he was
+so taciturn, so morose and cold, that the empress had not the courage to
+ask for an explanation, or to reproach him, but, trembling and afraid,
+she bowed under the iron pressure of his severe, angry looks.
+
+To prevent their being with each other alone, and to avoid this horrible
+solitude, dreaded alike by Napoleon and Josephine, the emperor sent the
+next day for all the princes and princesses of his family to come to
+Fontainebleau. His sisters, no longer kept in control by the domineering
+will of the emperor, made Josephine feel their malice and enmity; they
+found pleasure in letting the empress see their own ascendency, their
+secure position, and in treating her with coldness and disrespect. The
+emperor, instead of guarding Josephine against these humiliations, had
+the cruel courage to increase them; for, without reserve or modesty,
+and in the very presence of Josephine, he offered the most familiar and
+positive attentions to two ladies of his court--ladies whom he honored
+with special favor. [Footnote: Thiers, "Histoire du Consulat et de
+l'Empire," vol. xi., p. 323.]
+
+It was death-like agony which Josephine suffered in those days of
+Fontainebleau; it was a cruel martyrdom, which she, however, endured
+with all the gentleness of her nature, with the devotedness and
+uncomplaining anguish of true and genuine love.
+
+Napoleon could not endure this. The sight of this yet beloved pale face,
+with its sweet, angelic smile, lacerated his heart and tortured him with
+reproaches. He wanted to have festivities and amusements, so as not to
+witness this quiet, devoted anguish, so as not to read every day in the
+sorrowful, red eyes of Josephine, the story of nights passed in tears.
+
+The court returned to Paris, there to celebrate the new victorious peace
+with brilliant feasts. Napoleon, so as to be delivered from the tearful
+companionship of Josephine, made the journey on horseback, and never
+once rode near her carriage.
+
+In Paris had begun at once a series of festivities, at which German
+princes, the Kings of Saxony, of Bavaria, and of Wurtemberg, were
+present, to congratulate Napoleon on his victories in Germany. The
+Empress Josephine, by virtue of her rank, had to appear at these
+receptions; she had, although in the deepest despondency, to wear a
+smile on her lip, to appear as empress at the side of the man who met
+her with coldness and estrangement, and whom she yet loved with the true
+love of a wife! She had to see the courtiers, with the keen instinct of
+their race, desert her, leaving around her person an insulting void and
+vacancy. Her heart was tortured with anguish and woe, and yet she could
+not uproot her love from it; she did not have the courage to speak the
+decisive word, and to desire the divorce which she knew hung over her,
+and which at any moment might agonize her heart!
+
+Josephine did not possess the cowardice to commit suicide; she was ready
+to receive the fatal blow, but she could not plunge the dagger into her
+own heart.
+
+Napoleon, unable to endure these tortures, longed to bring them to an
+end. He secretly made all the necessary arrangements, and communicated
+to the first chancellor, Cambaceres, his irrevocable resolution to be
+divorced from the empress. He, however, notified him that he wanted
+this act of separation to be accomplished in the most respectful
+and honorable form for Josephine, and he therefore, with Cambaceres,
+prepared and decided upon all the details of this public divorce.
+
+It only remained now to find some one who would announce to Josephine
+her fate, who would communicate to her the emperor's determination.
+Napoleon had not the courage to do it himself, and he wanted to confide
+this duty to the Vice-King Eugene, whom for this purpose he had invited
+to Paris.
+
+But Eugene declined to become a messenger of evil tidings to his
+mother; and when Napoleon turned to Hortense, she refused to give to
+her mother's heart the mortal stroke. The emperor, deeply touched by the
+sorrow manifested by the children of Josephine, was not able to repress
+his tears. He wept with them over their blasted happiness--their
+betrayed love. But his tears could not make him swerve from his
+resolution.
+
+"The nation has done so much for me," said he, "that I owe it the
+sacrifice of my dearest inclinations. The peace of France demands that I
+choose a new companion. Since, for many months, the empress has lived
+in the torments of uncertainty, and every thing is now ready for a new
+marriage, we must therefore come to a final explanation." [Footnote:
+Lavalette, "Memoires," vol. ii., p. 44.]
+
+But as none could be found to carry this fatal news to Josephine,
+Napoleon had to take upon himself the unwelcome task.
+
+Wearied with the tears of the slighted empress, with the reproaches of
+his own conscience and with his own sufferings, Napoleon suddenly broke
+the sad, gloomy silence which had been so long maintained between him
+and his wife; in answer to her tears and reproaches, he told her that it
+was full time now to arrive at a final conclusion; that he had resolved
+to form new ties; that the interest of the state demanded from them both
+an enormous sacrifice; that he reckoned on her courage and devotedness
+to consent to a divorce, to which he himself acceded only with the
+greatest reluctance. [Footnote: Thiers, "Histoire du Consulat," vol.
+xi., p. 340.]
+
+But Josephine did not hear the last words. At the word divorce she
+swooned with a death-like shriek; and Napoleon, alarmed at the sight of
+her insensibility, called out to the officers in waiting to help him to
+carry the empress into her rooms upon her bed.
+
+Such hours of despair, of bitter pain, of writhing, agonized love did
+Josephine now endure! How courageous, yet how difficult, the struggle
+against the wretchedness of a rejected love! How angrily and scornfully
+she would rise up against her cruel fate! How lovingly, humbly, gently
+she would acquiesce in it, as to a long-expected, inevitable fatality!
+
+These were long days of pain and distress; but Josephine was not alone
+in her sufferings, for the emperor's heart was also touched with her
+quiet endurance, and her deep agony at this separation.
+
+At last the empress came out victorious from these conflicts of heart
+and soul, and she repressed her tears with the firm will of a noble,
+loving woman! She bade her son Eugene announce to the emperor that she
+assented to the divorce on two conditions: first, that her own offspring
+should not be exiled or rejected, but that they should still remain
+Napoleon's adopted children, and maintain their rank and position at his
+court; secondly, that she should be allowed to remain in France, and,
+if possible, in the vicinity of Paris, so that, as she said with a sweet
+smile, she might be near the emperor, and still hope in the pleasure of
+seeing him.
+
+Napoleon's countenance manifested violent agitation when Eugene
+communicated to him his mother's conditions; for a long time he paced
+the room to and fro, his hands behind his back, and unable to gather
+strength enough to return an answer. Then, with a trembling voice,
+he said that he not only granted all these conditions, but that they
+corresponded entirely with the wishes of his heart, and that he would
+add to them a third condition, namely, that Josephine should still be
+honored and treated by him and by the world as empress, and that she
+should still be surrounded with all the honors belonging to that rank.
+
+There was yet wanting, for the full offering of the sacrifice, the
+public and solemn act of divorcement; but before that could take place
+it was necessary to make the requisite preparations, to arrange the
+future household of the divorced empress, and to prepare every thing for
+Josephine's reception in Malmaison, whither she desired to retire
+from the world. The mournful solemnity was put off until the 15th of
+December, and until then Josephine, according to the rules of etiquette,
+was to appear before the world as the ruling empress, the wife of
+Napoleon. Twice it was necessary to perform the painful duty of
+appearing publicly in all the pomp of her imperial dignity, and to wear
+the heavy burden of that crown which already had fallen from her head.
+On the morning of the 3d of December she had to be present at the
+chanting of the Te Deum in Notre Dame, in thanksgiving for the peace
+of Vienna, and to appear at the ball which the city of Paris that same
+evening gave to the emperor and empress.
+
+This ball was the last festivity which Josephine attended as empress,
+but even then she received not all the honors which were due to her
+as such. Napoleon himself had given orders that the ladies of Paris,
+gathered in the Hotel de Ville, with the wife of the governor of the
+capital, and the Duchess d'Abrantes at their head, should not, as usual,
+meet the empress at the foot of the stairs, but that they should quietly
+await her approach in the throne-room, while the marshal of ceremonies
+would alone accompany her up the stairs.
+
+The Duchess d'Abrantes, deeply affected by this order of the emperor,
+which at once revealed the sad secret of the approaching future, had
+reluctantly to submit to this arrangement, which so cruelly broke the
+established etiquette. She has herself, in her memoirs, given full
+particulars of this evening, and her words are so touching and so full
+of sentiment that we cannot refuse to make them known here:
+
+"We, therefore," says she, [Footnote: Abrantes, "Memoires." vol. xii.,
+p. 289.] "ascended the throne-room, and were no sooner seated, than the
+drums began to beat, and the empress entered. I shall never forget that
+figure, in the costume which so marvellously suited her... never will
+this gentle face, now wrapped in mourning crape, fade away from my
+memory. It was evident that she was not prepared for the solitude which
+she had found on the grand staircase; and yet Junot, in spite of the
+risk of being blamed by the emperor, went to receive her, and he had
+even managed that the empress should meet on the stairs a few ladies
+who, it is true, did not very well know how they came and what they had
+to do there. The empress, however, was not deceived; as she entered the
+grand hall and approached the throne on which, in the presence of the
+public of the capital, she was to sit probably for the last time....her
+feet trembled and her eyes filled with tears. ....I tried to catch her
+eyes; I would willingly have sunk at her feet and told her how much I
+suffered....She understood me, and looked at me with the most agonizing
+gaze which perhaps was ever in her eyes since that now blighted crown
+had been placed on her head. That look spoke of agony--it revealed
+depths of sorrow!... What must she have suffered on this awful
+day!....She felt wretched, dying, and yet she smiled! Oh, what a torture
+was that crown!... Junot stood by her.
+
+"'You were not afraid of Jupiter's wrath,' said I to him afterward.
+
+"'No,' said he, with a gloomy look, 'no, I fear him not, when he is
+wrong....'
+
+"The drums beat a second time; they announced the emperor's approach....
+A few minutes after he came in, walking rapidly, and accompanied by the
+Queen of Naples and the King of Westphalia. The heat was extraordinary,
+though it was cold out of doors. The Queen of Naples, whose gracious,
+charming smile seemed to demand from the Parisians the salutation,
+'Welcome to Paris,' spoke to every one, and with the expression of
+uncommon goodness. Napoleon, also, who wished to appear friendly, walked
+up and down the room, talking and questioning, followed by Berthier, who
+fairly skipped at his side, fulfilling more the duties of a chamberlain
+than those of a connetable. A trifling circumstance in reference to
+Berthier struck me. The emperor, who for some time had been seated on
+his arm-chair near the empress, descended the steps of the throne to
+go once more around the hall; at the moment he rose I saw him bend down
+toward the empress, probably to tell her that she was to accompany
+him. He rose up first; Berthier, who had stood behind him, rushed on to
+follow his master; the empress was already standing up, when his feet
+caught in the train of her mantle, and he nearly fell down, causing the
+empress almost to fall. However, he disentangled himself, and, without
+one word of excuse to the empress, he followed the emperor. Certainly
+Berthier had not the intention to be wanting in respect to the empress;
+but he knew the secret--he knew the whole drama soon to be performed....
+and assuredly he would not have so acted one year ago as he did
+to-day..... The empress had remained standing with a marvellous dignity;
+she smiled as if the accident was the result of mere awkward-ness....
+but her eyes were full of tears, and her lips trembled...."
+
+At last the 15th of December had come; the day on which Josephine was
+to endure the most cruel agony of her life, the day on which she was
+solemnly to descend from the throne and bid farewell to her whole
+brilliant past, and commence a despised, lonely, gloomy future.
+
+In the large cabinet of ceremonies were gathered on this day, at noon,
+the emperor, the Empress Josephine, the emperor's mother, the King and
+Queen of Holland, the King and Queen of Westphalia, the King and Queen
+of Naples, the Vice-king Eugene, the Princess Pauline Borghese, the
+high-chancellor Cambaceres, and the secretary of civil affairs, St. Jean
+d'Angely. Josephine was pale and trembling; her children were agitated,
+and hiding their tears under an appearance of quietude, so as to instil
+courage into their mother.
+
+Napoleon, standing upright, his hand in that of the empress, read with
+tremulous voice:
+
+"My cousin, prince state-chancellor, I have dispatched you an order to
+summon you hither into my cabinet for the purpose of communicating to
+you the resolution which I and the empress, my much-beloved wife, have
+taken. I am rejoiced that the kings, queens, and princesses, my brothers
+and sisters, my brothers-in-law and sisters-in-law, my daughter-in-law
+and my son-in-law, who also is my adopted son, as well as my mother, are
+here present to hear what I have to say.
+
+"The policy of my empire, the interest and wants of my people, direct
+all my actions, and now demand that I should leave children heirs of the
+love I have for my people, and heirs of this throne to which Providence
+has exalted me. However, for many years past, I have lost the hope of
+having children through the marriage of my beloved wife, the Empress
+Josephine; and this obliges me to sacrifice the sweetest inclinations of
+my heart, so as to consult only the welfare of the state, and for that
+cause to desire the dissolution of my marriage.
+
+"Already advanced to my fortieth year, I still may hope to live long
+enough to bring up in my sentiments and thoughts the children whom it
+may please Providence to give me. God knows how much this resolution has
+cost my heart; but there is no sacrifice too great for my courage if it
+can be shown to me that such a sacrifice is necessary to the welfare of
+France.
+
+"It is necessary for me to add that, far from having any cause of
+complaint, I have, contrariwise, but to praise the devotedness and
+affection of my much-beloved wife; she has embellished fifteen years
+of my life; the remembrance of these years will therefore ever remain
+engraven on my heart. She has been crowned at my hands; it is my will
+that she retain the rank and title of empress, and especially that she
+never doubt my sentiments, and that she ever hold me as her best and
+dearest friend."
+
+When he came to the words "she has embellished fifteen years of my
+life," tears started to Napoleon's eyes, and, with a voice trembling
+through emotion, he read the concluding words.
+
+It was now Josephine's turn. She began to read the paper which had been
+prepared for her:
+
+"With the permission of our mighty and dear husband, I must declare
+that, whereas I can no longer cherish the hope of having children to
+meet the wants of his policy and the wants of France, I am ready to give
+the highest proof of affection and devotedness which was ever given upon
+earth...."
+
+Josephine could proceed no further; sobs choked her voice. She tried to
+continue, but her trembling lips could no more utter a word. She handed
+to Count St. Jean d'Angely the paper, who, with tremulous voice, read as
+follows:
+
+"I have obtained every thing from his goodness; his hand has crowned me,
+and on the exaltation of this throne I have received only proofs of the
+sympathy and love of the French people.
+
+"I believe it is but manifesting my gratitude for these sentiments when
+I consent to the dissolution of a marriage which is an obstacle to the
+welfare of France, since it deprives her of the happiness of being
+one day ruled by the posterity of a great man, whom Providence has so
+manifestly favored, as through him to bring to an end the horrors of
+a terrible revolution, and to re-establish the altar, the throne, and
+social order. The dissolution of my marriage will not, however, alter
+the sentiments of my heart; the emperor will always find in me his most
+devoted friend. I know how much this action, made incumbent upon him by
+policy and by the great interests in view, has troubled his heart; but
+we, the one and the other, are proud of the sacrifice which we offer to
+the welfare of our country."
+
+When he had finished, Napoleon, visibly affected, embraced Josephine,
+took her hand, and led her back to her apartments, where he soon left
+her insensible in the arms of her children. [Footnote: Thiers, "Histoire
+du Consulat," etc., vol. xi., p. 349.]
+
+Napoleon himself, sad and silent, returned to his cabinet, where, in a
+state of complete exhaustion, he fell into an easy-chair.
+
+On the evening of the same day he again visited Josephine, to pass a few
+hours with her in quiet, undisturbed communion; to speak in tenderness
+and love of the future, to weep with her, and, full of deepest emotion
+and sincerity, to assure her of his undying gratitude for the past, and
+of his abiding friendship for the future.
+
+Josephine passed the night in tears, struggling with her heart,
+sometimes breaking into bitter complaints and reproaches, which she
+immediately repressed with that gentleness and mildness so much her own,
+and with that love which never for a moment departed from her breast.
+
+There remained yet to perform the last, the most painful scene of this
+great, tearful drama. Josephine had to leave the Tuileries; she had
+forever to retire from the place which she so long had occupied at her
+husband's side; she had to descend into the open grave of her mournful
+abandonment; as a widow, to part with the corpse of her love and of the
+past, and to put on mourning apparel for a husband who was not yet dead,
+but who only rejected her to give his hand and his heart to another
+woman.
+
+The next day at two o'clock, the moment had come for Josephine to leave
+the Tuileries, to make room for the yet unknown wife of the future.
+Napoleon wanted to leave Paris at the same moment, and pass a few days
+of quiet and solitude in Trianon.
+
+The carriages of the emperor and empress were both ready; the last
+farewell of husband and wife, now to part forever, had yet to be said.
+M. de Meneval, who was the sole witness of those sad moments, gives of
+them a most affecting description, which bears upon its face the merit
+of truth and impartiality.
+
+"When it was announced to the emperor that the carriage was ready, he
+stood up, took his hat, and said: 'Meneval, come with me.'
+
+"I followed him through the narrow winding stairs which led from his
+room into that of the empress. She was alone, and seemed absorbed in
+the saddest thoughts, At the noise we made in entering she rose up and
+eagerly threw herself, sobbing, upon the neck of the emperor, who
+drew her to his breast and embraced her several times; but Josephine,
+overcome by excitement, had fainted. I hastened to ring for assistance.
+The emperor, to avoid the renewal of a painful scene, which it was not
+in his power to prevent, placed the empress in my arms as soon as he
+perceived her senses return, and ordered me not to leave her, and then
+he hurried away through the halls of the first story, at whose gate
+his carriage was waiting. Josephine became immediately conscious of the
+emperor's absence; her tears and sobs redoubled. Her women, who had
+now entered, laid her on a sofa, and busied themselves with tender
+solicitude to bring her relief. In her bewilderment she had seized my
+hands, and urgently entreated me to tell the emperor not to forget her,
+and to assure him of her devotedness, which would outlast every trial.
+I had to promise her that at my arrival in Trianon I would wait upon the
+emperor and see that he would write to her. It caused her pain to see
+me leave, as if my departure tore away the last bond which united her to
+the emperor. I left her, deeply affected by so true a sorrow and by so
+sincere a devotion. During the whole journey I was deeply moved, and
+could not but bewail the merciless political considerations which tore
+violently apart the bonds of so faithful an affection for the sake
+of contracting a new union, which, after all, contained but uncertain
+chances.
+
+"In Trianon I told the emperor all that had happened since his
+departure, and I conveyed to him the message intrusted to me by the
+empress. The emperor was still suffering from the emotions caused by
+this farewell scene. He spoke warmly of Josephine's qualities, of the
+depth and sincerity of the sentiments she cherished for him; he looked
+upon her as a devoted friend, and, in fact, he has ever maintained for
+her a heart-felt affection. The very same evening he sent her a letter
+to console her in her solitude. When he learned that she was sad and
+wept much, he wrote to her again, complained tenderly of her want of
+courage, and told her how deeply this troubled him." [Footnote: Meneval,
+"Napoleon et Marie Louise.--Souvenirs Historiques," vol. i., pp.
+230-232.]
+
+It is true Josephine's sorrow was bitter, and the first night of
+solitude in Malmaison was especially distressing and horrible. But even
+in these hours of painful struggle the empress maintained her gentleness
+and mildness of character. Mademoiselle d'Avrillon, one of the ladies in
+waiting, has given her testimony to that effect:
+
+"I was with the empress during the greater part of the night," writes
+she; "sleep was impossible, and time passed away in conversation.
+The empress was moved to the very depth of her heart; it is true, she
+complained of her fate, but in expressions so gentle, in so resigned a
+manner, that tears would come to her eyes. There was no bitterness
+in her words, not even during this first night when the blow which
+destroyed her, had fallen upon her; she spoke of the emperor with the
+same love, with the same respect, as she had always done. Her grief
+was most acute: she suffered as a wife, as a mother, and with all the
+wounded sensitiveness of a woman, but she endured her affliction with
+courage, and remained unchanged in gentleness, love, and goodness."
+[Footnote: Avrillon, "Memoires," vol. ii., p. 166.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIII. THE DIVORCED.
+
+
+Josephine had accepted her fate, and, descending from the imperial
+throne whose ornament she had long been, retired into the solitude and
+quietness of private life.
+
+But the love and admiration of the French nation followed the empress to
+Malmaison, where she had retreated from the world, and where the regard
+and friendship, if not the love of Napoleon himself, endeavored to
+alleviate the sufferings of her solitude. During the first days after
+her divorce, the road from Paris to Malmaison presented as animated a
+scene of equipages as in days gone by, when the emperor resided there
+with his wife. All those whose position justified it, hastened
+to Malmaison to pay their respects to Josephine, and through the
+expressions of their sympathy to soften the asperities of her sorrow.
+Doubtless many came also through curiosity, to observe how the empress,
+once so much honored, endured the humiliation of her present situation.
+Others, believing they would exhibit their devotedness to the emperor if
+they should follow their master's example, abandoned the empress, as he
+had done, and took no further notice of her.
+
+But the emperor soon undeceived the latter, manifesting his
+dissatisfaction by his cold demeanor and repelling indifference toward
+them, whilst he loudly praised all those who had exercised their
+gratitude by visiting Malmaison, and in expressing their devotedness to
+the empress.
+
+He himself went beyond his whole court in showing attention and respect
+to Josephine. The very next day after their separation, the emperor went
+to Malmaison to visit her, and to take with her a long walk through the
+park. During the following days he came again, and once invited her and
+the ladies of her new court to a dinner in Trianon.
+
+Josephine might have imagined that nothing had been altered in her
+situation, and that she was still Napoleon's wife. But there were
+wanting in their intercourse those little, inexpressible shades of
+confidence which her exquisite tact and her instinctive feelings felt
+yet more deeply than the more important and visible changes.
+
+When Napoleon came or went, he no longer embraced her, but merely
+pressed her hand in a friendly manner, and often called her "madame"
+and "you;" he was more formal, more polite to her than he had ever been
+before.
+
+And then his daily visits ceased; in their place came his letters, it is
+true, but they were only the letters of a friend, who tried to comfort
+her in her misfortune, but took no sympathetic interest in her distress.
+
+Soon these letters became more rare, and when they did come they were
+shorter. The emperor had to busy himself with other matters than with
+the solitary, rejected woman in Malmaison; he had now to occupy his
+thoughts with his young and beautiful bride--with Maria Louisa, the
+daughter of the Emperor of Austria, who was soon to enter Paris as the
+wife of Napoleon, the Emperor of France.
+
+Bitter and painful indeed were those first days of resignation for
+Josephine; harsh and unsparing were the conflicts she had to fight with
+her own heart, before its wounds could be closed, and its pains and its
+humiliations cease to torment her!
+
+But Josephine had a brave heart, a strong will, and a resolute
+determination to control herself. She conquered herself into rest and
+resignation; she did not wish that the emperor, the happy bridegroom,
+should ever hear of her red, weeping eyes, of her lamentations and
+sighs; she did not wish that, in the golden cup which the husband of
+the emperor's young daughter was drinking in the full joyousness of a
+conqueror, her tears should commingle therein as drops of gall.
+
+She controlled herself so far as to be able with smiling calmness
+to have related to her how Paris was celebrating the new marriage
+festivities, how the new Empress of the French was everywhere received
+with enthusiasm. She was even able to inquire, with an expression of
+friendly sympathy, after Maria Louisa, the young wife of sixteen,
+who had taken the place of the woman of forty-eight, and from whom
+Josephine, in the sincerity of her love, required but one thing, namely,
+to make Napoleon happy.
+
+When she was told that Napoleon loved Maria Louisa with all the passion
+of a fiery lover, Josephine conquered herself so as to smile and thank
+God that she had accepted her sacrifice and thus secured Napoleon's
+happiness.
+
+But the emperor, however much he might be enamored of his young wife,
+never forgot the bride of the past, the beloved one of his youth, of
+whom he had been not only captivated, but whom he had loved from the
+very depths of his soul. He surrounded her, though from a distance, with
+attentions and tokens of affection; he would often write to her; and at
+times, when his heart was burdened and full of cares, he would come to
+Malmaison, and visit this woman who understood how to read in his face
+the thoughts of his heart, this woman whose soft, gracious, and amiable
+disposition--even as a tranquillizing and invigorating breeze after
+a sultry day--could quiet his excited soul; to this woman he came for
+refreshment, for a little repose, and sweet communion.
+
+It is true those visits of the emperor to his divorced wife were made
+secretly and privately, for his second wife was jealous of the affection
+which Napoleon still retained for Josephine; she listened with gloomy
+attention to the descriptions which were made to her of the amiableness,
+of the unwithered beauty of Josephine; and one day, after hearing that
+the emperor had visited her in Malmaison, Maria Louisa broke out into
+tears, and complained bitterly of this mortification caused by her
+husband.
+
+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 you, 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
+he 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.
+
+But her heart was mortally wounded. "I cannot overcome the fearful
+sadness which has seized me," said she to Mlle. Cochelet, the friend
+of her daughter Hortense; "I do all I can to hide my cares from my
+children, but I suffer only the more." [Footnote: Mlle. Cochelet.
+"Memoires," vol. ii.]
+
+"You will see," said she to the Duchess d'Abrantes, who had visited her
+at Malmaison, "you will see that Napoleon's misfortune will cause my
+death. My heart is broken--it will not be healed." [Footnote: Abrantes,
+"Memoires," vol. xvii.]
+
+She was right, her heart was broken, it would not be healed! It seemed
+at first but merely an indisposition which seized the empress, and which
+obliged her to decline the announced visit of the Emperor Alexander,
+nothing but a slight inflammation of the neck, accompanied by a little
+fever. But the disease increased hour after hour. On the 27th of May,
+Josephine was obliged to keep her bed; on the 29th her sufferings in
+the neck were so serious that she nearly suffocated, and her fever had
+become so intense that she had but few moments of consciousness. In her
+fancy she often called aloud for Napoleon, and the last word which her
+dying lips uttered was his name.
+
+Josephine died on the 29th of May, 1814. That love which had illumined
+her life occasioned her death, and will sanctify her name for ever as
+with a saintly halo.
+
+She was buried on the 2d of June in the church at Rueil. It was a solemn
+funeral procession, to which all the kings and princes assembled in
+Paris sent their substitutes in their carriages; but the most beautiful
+mourning procession which followed her to the grave were the tears,
+the sighs of the poor, the suffering of the unfortunate, for all whom
+Josephine had been a benefactress, a good angel, and who lost in her a
+comforter, a mother.
+
+In the church of Rueil, Eugene and Hortense erected a monument to their
+mother; and when in 1837 Queen Hortense, the mother of the Emperor
+Napoleon III., died at Arenenberg, her corpse was, according to her last
+wishes, brought to Rueil and laid at her mother's side. Her son erected
+there a monument to her; and this son, the grandchild of Josephine, is
+now the Emperor of the French, Napoleon III. Josephine's sacrifice has been in vain. Napoleon's dynasty, for
+whose sake she sacrificed happiness, love, and a crown, has not been
+perpetuated through the woman to whom Josephine was sacrificed--not
+through Maria Louisa, who gave to France and to the emperor a son, but
+through the daughter of Josephine, who gave to Napoleon more than a son,
+her love, her heart, and her life!
+
+Providence is just! Upon the throne from which the childless empress was
+rejected, sits now the grandchild of Josephine, and his very existence
+demonstrates how vain are all man's calculations and desires, and how
+like withered leaves they are carried away and tossed about by the
+breath of destiny!
+
+It was not the emperor's daughter who perpetuated Napoleon's dynasty,
+but the widow of General Beauharnais, Josephine Tascher de la Pagerie.
+
+Josephine, therefore, is avenged in history; she was also avenged
+in Napoleon's heart, for he bitterly lamented that he had ever been
+separated from her. "I ought not to have allowed myself to be separated
+from Josephine," said he, a short time before his death in St.
+Helena, "no, I ought not to have been divorced from her; that was my
+misfortune!"
+
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Empress Josephine, by Louise Muhlbach
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