The union of Hortense with Bonaparte's brother had not been followed by such good results for her as Josephine had anticipated. She had made a most unfortunate selection, for Louis Bonaparte was, of all the first consul's brothers, the one who concerned himself the least about politics, and was the least likely to engage in any intrigue. Besides, this alliance had materially diminished the affection which Louis had always previously manifested for Josephine. He blamed her, in the depths of his noble and upright heart, for having been so egotistic as to sacrifice the happiness of her daughter to her own personal welfare; he blamed her, too, for having forced him into a marriage which love had not concluded, and, although he never sided with her enemies, Josephine had, at least, lost a friend in him.
The wedded life of this young couple was something unusually strange. They had openly confessed the repulsion they felt for each other, and reciprocally made no secret of the fact that they had been driven into this union against their own wishes. In this singular interchange of confidence, they went so far as to commiserate each other, and to condole with one another as friends, over the wretchedness they endured in their married bondage.
They said frankly to each other that they could never love; that they detested one another: but they so keenly felt a mutual compassion, that out of that very compassion--that very hatred itself--love might possibly spring into being.
Louis could already sit for hours together beside his wife, busied with the effort to divert her with amusing remarks, and to drive away the clouds that obscured her brow; already, too, Hortense had come to regard it as her holiest and sweetest duty to endeavor to compensate her husband, by her kindly deportment toward him, and the delicate and attentive respect that distinguished her bearing, for the unhappiness he felt beside her; already had both, in fine, begun to console each other with the reflection that the child which Hortense now bore beneath her heart would, one day, be to them a compensation for their ill-starred marriage and their lost freedom.
"When I present you with a son," said Hortense, smiling, "and when he calls you by the sweet name of 'father,' you will forgive me for being his mother."
"And when you press that son to your heart--when you feel that you love him with boundless affection," said Louis, "you will pardon me for being your husband, and you will cease to hate me, at least, for I will be the father of your darling child."
Had sufficient time been allotted to these young, pure, and innocent hearts, to comprehend one another, they would have overcome their unhappiness, and love would have sprung up at last from hatred. But the world was pitiless to them; it had no compassion for their youth and their sufferings; with cruel hands it dashed away this tender blossoming of nascent affection, which was beginning to expand in their hearts. Josephine had wedded Hortense to her brother-in-law in order to secure in him an ally in the family, and to keep her daughter by her side; and now that daughter was made the target of insidious attacks and malicious calumnies--now another plan was adopted in order to remove Hortense from the scene. The conspirators had not succeeded in their designs by means of a matrimonial alliance, so they would now try the effect of calumny.
They went about whispering from ear to ear that Bonaparte had married his step-daughter to his brother, simply because he was attached to her himself, and had been jealous of Duroc.
These slanders were carried so far as to hint that the child whose birth Hortense expected was more nearly related to Bonaparte than merely through the fact that his step-daughter was his brother's wife.
This was an infernal but skilfully-planned calumny; for those who devised it well knew how Bonaparte detested the merest suspicion of such immorality, how strict he was in his own principles, and how repulsive it therefore would be to him to find himself made the object of such infamous slanders.
The conspirators calculated that, in order to terminate these evil rumors, the first consul would send his brother and Hortense away to a distance, and that the fated Josephine, being thus isolated, could also be the more readily removed. Thus Bonaparte, being separated from his guardian angel, would no longer hear her whispering:
"Bonaparte, do not ascend the throne! Be content with the glory of the greatest of mankind! Place no diadem upon thy brows; do not make thyself a king!"
In Paris, as I have said, these shameful calumnies were but very lightly whispered, but abroad they were only the more loudly heard. Bonaparte's enemies got hold of the scandalous story, and made a weapon of it with which to assail him as a hero.
One morning Bonaparte was reading an English newspaper which had always been hostile to him, and which, as he well knew, was the organ of Count d'Artois, then residing at Hartwell. As he continued to read, a dark shadow stole over his face, and he crumpled the paper in his clinched fist with a sudden and vehement motion. Then as suddenly again his countenance cleared, and a proud smile flitted across it. He had his master of ceremonies summoned to his presence, and bade him issue the necessary invitations for a court ball to be given, on the evening of the next day, at St. Cloud. He then went to Josephine to inform her in person of the projectedfête, and to say that he wished her to tell Hortense, who had been ailing for some time, that he particularly desired her to be present.
Hortense had been too long accustomed to obey her step-father's requests, to venture a refusal. She rose, therefore, from her couch on which she had been in the habit, for weeks past, of reclining, busied with her own dreams and musings, and bade her waiting women prepare her attire for the ball. Still she felt unwell, and seriously burdened by this festive attire, which harmonized so little with her feelings, and was so far from becoming to her figure, for she was only a few weeks from her confinement; but with her gentle and yielding disposition she did not venture, even in thought, to murmur at the compulsion imposed upon her by her step-father's command. She therefore repaired, at the appointed hour, to the ball at St. Cloud. Bonaparte stepped forward to meet her with a friendly smile, and, instead of thanking her for coming at all, earnestly urged her to dance.
Hortense gazed at him with amazement. She knew that hitherto Bonaparte had always sought to avoid the sight of a woman in her condition; he had frequently said that he thought there was nothing more indecent than for a female to join in the dance under such circumstances, and now it was he who asked her to do that very thing.
For this reason Hortense hesitated at first to comply, but Bonaparte grew only the more pressing and vehement in his request.
"You know how I like to see you dance, Hortense," he said, with his irresistible smile; "so do this much for me, even if you take the floor only once, and that for but a singlecontredance."
And Hortense, although most reluctant, although blushing with shame at the idea of exposing herself in such unseemly shape to the gaze of all, obeyed and joined the dances.
This took place in the evening--how greatly surprised, then, was Hortense when next morning she found, in the paper that she usually read, a poem, extolling her performance in words of ravishing flattery, and referring to the fact that, notwithstanding her advanced state of pregnancy, she had consented to tread a measure in thecontredance, as a peculiar trait of amiability!
Hortense, however, far from feeling flattered by this very emphatic piece of verse, took it as an affront, and hastened at once to the Tuileries, to complain to her mother, and to ask her how it was possible that, so early as the very next morning, there could be verses published in the newspapers concerning what had taken place at the ball on the preceding evening.
Bonaparte, who happened to be with Josephine when Hortense came in, and was the first to be questioned by her, gave her only an evasive and jocose reply, and withdrew. Hortense then turned to her mother, who was leaning over on the divan, her eyes reddened with weeping and her heart oppressed with grief. To her, Bonaparte had given no evasive answer, but had told the whole truth, and Josephine's heart was at that moment too full of wretchedness, too overladen with this fresh and bitter trouble, for her possibly to retain it within her own breast.
Hortense insisted upon an explanation, and her mother gave it. She told her that Bonaparte had got the poet Esmenard to write the verses beforehand, and that it was for this reason that he had urged her to dance; that he had ordered the ball for no other purpose than to have her dance, and have the poem that complimented her and referred to her pregnancy published in the next day's paper.
Then, when Hortense, in terror, begged to be informed of the ground for all these proceedings, Josephine had the cruel courage to tell her of the slanders that had been circulated in reference to herself and Bonaparte, and to say that he had arranged the poem, the ball, and her participation in the dance, because, on the preceding day, he had read in an English journal the calumnious statement that Madame Louis Bonaparte had safely given birth to a vigorous and healthy child some weeks previously, and he wished in this manner to refute the malicious statement.
Hortense received this fresh wound with a cold smile of scorn. She had not a word of anger or indignation for this unheard-of injury, this shameless slander; she neither wept nor complained, but, as she rose to take leave of her mother, she swooned away, and it required hours of exertion to restore her to consciousness.
A few weeks later, Hortense was delivered of a dead male infant, and so passed away her last dream of happiness; for thus was destroyed the hope of a better understanding between her and her husband.
Hortense rose from her sick-bed with a firm, determined heart. In those long, lonely days that she had passed during her confinement, she had the time and opportunity to meditate on many things, and keenly to estimate her whole present position and probable future. She had now become a mother, without having a child; yet the resolute energy of a mother remained to her. The youthful, gentle, dreamy, enthusiastic girl had now become transformed into a determined, active, energetic woman, that would no longer bow submissively to the blows of fortune, but would meet them with an open and defiant brow. Since her fate could not be changed, she accepted it, all the while resolved no longer to bend to its yoke, but to subdue it, and try to be happy by force of resolution; and, since a charming, peaceful, and harmonious fireside at home was denied her, to at least make her house a pleasant gathering-point for her friends--for men of scientific and artistic attainments, for poets and singers, for painters and sculptors, and for men of learning. Ere long, all Paris was talking about Madame Louis Bonaparte's drawing-rooms, the agreeable and elegant entertainments that were given there, and the concerts there arranged, in which the first singers of the day executed pieces that Hortense had composed, and Talma recited, with his wonderful, sonorous voice, the poems that she had written. Every one was anxious for admission to these entertainments, in which the participants not merely performed their parts, but greatly enjoyed themselves as well; where the guests indulged in no backbiting or abuse, but found more worthy and elevated subjects of conversation; where, in fine, they could admire the works of poets and artists, and enjoy the newly, awakened intellectual spirit of the age.
Hortense had firmly made up her mind that, since she had resigned herself to accept the burden of existence, she would strive to render it as agreeable as possible, and not to see any of its hateful and repulsive features, but to turn away from them with a noble and disdainful pride. She had never even referred to the frightful calumnies which her mother had privately made known to her, nor had she deemed any defence or proof of her innocence at all necessary. She felt that there were certain accusations against which to even undertake defence is to admit their possibility, and which, therefore, could only be combated by silence. The slanders that had been flung at her lay in a plane so far beneath her, that they could not rise high enough to reach her, but fell powerless at her feet, whence she did not deem it even worth her while to thrust them.
But Bonaparte continued to feel outraged and wounded by this vile story, and it annoyed him deeply to learn that these rumors were still spread abroad, and that his foes still bestirred themselves to keep him ever on the alert, and, if possible, to dim the lustre of his gloriously-won laurels by the shadow of an infamous crime.
"There are still rumors abroad of aliaisonbetween me and Hortense," said he one day to Bourrienne. "They have even invented the most repulsive stories concerning her first infant. At the time, I thought that these calumnies were circulated among the public because the latter go earnestly desired that I might have a child to inherit my name. But it is still spoken of, is it not?"
"Yes, general, it is still spoken of; and I confess that I did not believe this calumny would be so long continued."
"This is really abominable!" exclaimed Bonaparte, his eyes flashing with anger. "You, Bourrienne, you best know what truth there is in it. You have heard and seen all; not the smallest circumstance could escape you. You were her confidant in her love-affair with Duroc. I expect you to clear me of this infamous reproach if you should some day write my history. Posterity shall not associate my name with such infamy. I shall depend on you, Bourrienne, and you will at least admit that you have never believed in this abominable calumny?"
"No, never, general."
"I shall rely on you, Bourrienne, not only on my own account, but for the sake of poor Hortense. She is, without this, unhappy enough, as is my brother also. I am concerned about this, because I love them both, and because this very circumstance gives color to the reports which idle chatterboxes have circulated regarding my relations to her. Therefore, bear this in mind when you write of me hereafter."
"I shall do so, general; I shall tell the truth, but, unfortunately, I can not compel the world to believe the truth."
Bourrienne has, at all events, kept his word, and spoken the truth. With deep indignation he spurns the calumny with which it has been attempted to sully the memory of Bonaparte and Hortense, even down to our time; and, in his anger, he even forgets the elegant and considerate language of the courteous diplomat, which is elsewhere always characteristic of his writings.
"He lies in his throat," says Bourrienne, "who asserts that Bonaparte entertained other feelings for Hortense than those a step-father should entertain for his step-daughter! Hortense entertained for the first consul a feeling of reverential fear. She always spoke to him tremblingly. She never ventured to approach him with a petition. She was in the habit of coming to me, and I then submitted her wishes; and only when Bonaparte received them unfavorably did I mention the name of the petitioner. 'The silly thing!' said the first consul; 'why does she not speak to me herself? Is she afraid of me?' Napoleon always entertained a fatherly affection for her; since his marriage, he loved her as a father would have loved his child. I, who for years was a witness of her actions in the most private relations of life, I declare that I have never seen or heard the slightest circumstance that would tend to convict her of a criminal intimacy. One must consider this calumny as belonging to the category of those which malice so willingly circulates about those persons whose career has been brilliant, and which credulity and envy so willingly believe. I declare candidly that, if I entertained the slightest doubt with regard to this horrible calumny, I would say so. But Bonaparte is no more! Impartial history must not and shall not give countenance to this reproach; she should not make of a father and friend a libertine! Malicious and hostile authors have asserted, without, however, adducing any proof, that a criminal intimacy existed between Bonaparte and Hortense. A falsehood, an unworthy falsehood! And this report has been generally current, not only in France, but throughout all Europe. Alas! can it, then, be true that calumny exercises so mighty a charm that, when it has once taken possession of a man, he can never be freed from it again?"
Josephine's entreaties had been fruitless, or Bonaparte had, at least, only yielded to them in their literal sense. She had said: "I entreat you, do not make yourself a king!" Bonaparte did not make himself king, he made himself emperor. He did not take up the crown that had fallen from the head of the Bourbons; he created a new one for himself--a crown which the French people and Senate had, however, offered him. The revolution still stood a threatening spectre behind the French people; its return was feared, and, since the discovery of the conspiracy of Georges, Moreau, and Pichegru, the people anxiously asked themselves what was to become of France if the conspirators should succeed in murdering Bonaparte; and when the republic should again be sent adrift, without a pilot, on the wild sea of revolution. The people demanded that their institutions should be securely established and maintained, and believed that this could only be accomplished by a dynasty--by a monarchical form of government. The consulate for life must therefore be changed into an hereditary empire. Had not Bonaparte himself said: "One can be emperor of a republic, but not king of a republic; these two terms are incompatible!" They desired to make Napoleon emperor, because they flattered themselves that in so doing they should still be able to preserve the republic.
On the 18th of May, of the year 1804, the plan that had been so long and carefully prepared was carried into execution. On the 18th of May, the Senate repaired to St. Cloud, to entreat Bonaparte, in the name of the people and army, to accept the imperial dignity, and exchange the Roman chair of a consul for the French throne of an emperor.
Cambacérès, the late second consul of the republic, stood at the head of the Senate, and upon him devolved the duty of imparting to Bonaparte the wishes of the French people. Cambacérès--who, as a member of the Convention, had voted for the condemnation of Louis XVI., in order that royalty should be forever banished from French soil--this same Cambacérès, was now the first to salute Bonaparte with "imperial majesty," and with the little word, so full of significance, "sire." He rewarded Cambacérès, for this by writing to him on the game day, and appointing him high constable of the empire, as the first act of his imperial rule. In this letter, the first document in which Bonaparte signed himself merely Napoleon, the emperor retained the republican style of writing. He addressed Cambacérès, as "citizen consul," and followed the revolutionary method of reckoning time, his letter being dated "the 20th Floréal, of the year 12."
The second act of the emperor, on the first day of his new dignity, was to invest the members of his family also with new dignities, and to confer upon them the rank of Princes of France, with the title "imperial highness." Moreover, he made his brother Joseph prince elector, and his brother Louis connétable. On the same day it devolved upon Louis, in his new dignity, to present the generals and staff officers to the emperor, and then to conduct them to the empress--the Empress Josephine.
The prophecy of the negress of Martinique was now fulfilled. Josephine was "more than a queen." But Josephine, in the midst of the splendor of her new dignity, could only think, with an anxious heart, of the prophecy of the clairvoyante of Paris, who had told her, "You will wear a crown, but only for a short time." She felt that this wondrous fortune could not last long--that the new emperor would have to do as the kings or old had done, and sacrifice his dearest possession to Fate, in order to appease the hungry demons of vengeance and envy; and that he would, therefore, sacrifice her, in order to secure the perpetuity of his fortune and dynasty.
It was this that weighed down the heart of the new empress, and made her shrink in alarm from her new grandeur. It was, therefore, with a feeling of deep anxiety that she took possession of the new titles and honors that Fate had showered upon her, as from an inexhaustible horn of plenty. With a degree of alarm, and almost with shame, she heard herself addressed with the titles with which she had addressed the Queen of France years before, in these same halls, when she came to the Tuileries as Marquise de Beauharnais, to do homage to the beautiful Marie Antoinette. She had died on the scaffold and now Josephine was the "majesty" that sat enthroned in the Tuileries, her brilliant court assembled around her, while in a retired nook of England the legitimate King of France was leading a lonely and gloomy life.
Josephine, as we have said, was a good royalist; and, as empress, she still mourned over the fate of the unfortunate Bourbons, and esteemed it her sacred duty to assist and advise those who, true to their principles and duties, had followed the royal family, or had emigrated, in order that they might, at least, not be compelled to do homage to the new system. Her purse was always at the service of the emigrants; and, if Josephine continually made debts, in spite of her enormous monthly allowance, her extravagance was not alone the cause, but also her kindly, generous heart; for she was in the habit of setting apart the half of her monthly income for the relief of poor emigrants, and, no matter how great her own embarrassment, or how pressing her creditors, she never suffered the amount devoted to the relief of misfortune and the reward of fidelity to be applied to any other purpose[13].
[13]Mémoires sur la reine Hortense, par le Baron van Schelten, vol. i., p. 145.
Now that Josephine was an empress, her daughter, the wife of the High Constable of France, took the second position at the brilliant court of the emperor. The daughter of the beheaded viscount was now a "Princess of France," an "imperial highness," who must be approached with reverence, who had her court and her maids of honor, and whose liberty and personal inclinations, as was also the case with her mother, were confined in the fetters of the strict etiquette which Napoleon required to be observed at the new imperial court.
But neither Josephine nor Hortense allowed herself to be blinded by this new splendor. A crown could confer upon Josephine no additional happiness; glittering titles could neither enhance Hortense's youth and beauty, nor alleviate her secret misery. She would have been contented to live in retirement, at the side of a beloved husband; her proud position could not indemnify her for her lost woman's happiness.
But Fate seemed to pity the noble, gentle being, who knew how to bear misery and grandeur with the same smiling dignity, and offered her a recompense for the overthrow of her first mother's hope--a new hope--she promised to become a mother again.
Josephine received this intelligence with delight, for her daughter's hope was a hope for her too. If Hortense should give birth to a son, the gods might be reconciled, and misfortune be banished from the head of the empress. With this son, the dynasty of the new imperial family would be assured; this son could be the heir of the imperial crown, and Napoleon could well adopt as his own the child who was at the same time his nephew and his grandson.
Napoleon promised Josephine that he would do this; that he would rather content himself with an adopted son, in whom the blood of the emperor and of the empress was mixed, than be compelled to separate himself from her, from his Josephine. Napoleon still loved his wife; he still compared with all he thought good and beautiful, the woman who shed around his grandeur the lustre of her grace and loveliness.
When the people greeted their new emperor with loud cries of joy and thunders of applause, Napoleon, his countenance illumined with exultation, exclaimed: "How glorious a music is this! These acclamations and greetings sound as sweet and soft as the voice of Josephine! How proud and happy I am, to be loved by such a people[14]!"
[14]Bourrienne, vol. iv., p. 288.
But his proud ambition was not yet sated. As he bad once said, upon entering the Tuileries as first consul, "It is not enough tobein the Tuileries; one must alsoremainthere"--he now said: "It is not enough to have been made emperor by the French people; one must also have received his consecration as emperor from the Pope of Rome."
And Napoleon was now mighty enough to give laws to the world; not only to bend France, but also foreign sovereigns, to his will.
Napoleon desired for his crown the papal consecration; and the Pope left the holy city and repaired to Paris, to give the new emperor the blessing of the Church in the Cathedral of Notre-Dame. This was a new halo around Napoleon's head--a new, an unbounded triumph, which he celebrated over France, over the whole world and its prejudices, and over all the dynasties by the "grace of God." The Pope came to Paris to crown the emperor. The German emperors had been compelled to make a pilgrimage to Rome, to receive the papal benediction, and now the Pope made a pilgrimage to Paris to crown the French emperor, and acknowledge the son of the Revolution as the consecrated son of the Church. All France was intoxicated with delight at this intelligence; all France adored the hero, who made of the wonders of fiction a reality, and converted even the holy chair at Rome into the footstool of his grandeur. Napoleon's journey with Josephine through France, undertaken while they awaited the Pope's coming, was, therefore, a single, continuous triumph. It was not only the people who received him with shouts of joy, but the Church also sang to him, everywhere, hersanctus, sanctus, and the priests received him at the doors of their churches with loud benedictions, extolling him as the savior of France. Everywhere, the imperial couple was received with universal exultation, with the ringing of bells, with triumphal arches, and solemn addresses of welcome, the latter partaking sometimes of a transcendental nature.
"God created Bonaparte," said the Prefect of Arras, in his enthusiastic address to the emperor--"God created Bonaparte, and then He rested." And Count Louis of Narbonne, at that time not yet won over by the emperor, and not yet grand-marshal of the imperial court, whispered, quite audibly: "God would have done better had He rested a little sooner!"
Finally, the intelligence overran all France, that the wonder, in which they had not yet dared to believe, had become reality, and that Pope Pius VII. had crossed the boundaries of France, and was now approaching the capital. The Holy Father of the Church, that had now arisen victoriously from the ruins of the revolution, was everywhere received by the people and authorities with the greatest honor. The old royal palace at Fontainebleau had, by order of the emperor, been refurnished with imperial magnificence, and, as a peculiarly delicate attention, the Pope's bedchamber had been arranged in exact imitation of his bedchamber in the Quirinal at Home. The emperor, empress, and their suite, now repaired to Fontainebleau, to receive Pope Pius VII. The whole ceremony had, however, been previously arranged, and understanding had with the Pope concerning the various questions of etiquette. In conformity with this prearranged ceremony, when the couriers announced the approach of the Pope, Napoleon rode out to the chase, to give himself the appearance of meeting the Pope accidentally on his way. The equipages and the imperial court had taken position in the forest of Nemours. Napoleon, however, attired in hunting-dress, rode, with his suite, to the summit of a little hill, which the Pope's carriage had just reached. The Pope at once ordered a halt, and the emperor also brought his suite to a stand with a gesture of his hand. A brief interval of profound silence followed. All felt that a great historical event was taking place, and the eyes of all were fastened in wondering expectation on the two chief figures of this scene--on the emperor, who sat there on his horse, in his simple huntsman's attire; and on the Pope, in his gold-embroidered robes, leaning back in his equipage, drawn by six horses.
As Napoleon dismounted, the Pope hastened to descend from his carriage, hesitating a moment, however, after he had already placed his foot on the carriage-step; but Napoleon's foot had already touched the earth. Pius could, therefore, no longer hesitate; he must make up his mind to step, in his white, gold-embroidered satin slippers, on the wet soil, softened by a shower of rain, that had fallen on the previous day. The emperor's hunting-boots were certainly much better adapted to this meeting in the mud than the Pope's white satin slippers.
Emperor and Pope approached and embraced each other tenderly; then, through the inattention of the coachmen, seemingly, the imperial equipage was set in motion, and, in its rapid advance, interrupted this tender embrace. It seemed to be the merest accident that the emperor stood on the right, and the Pope on the left side of the equipage, that had now been brought to a stand again. The two doors of the carriage were simultaneously thrown open by the lackeys; at the same time, the Pope entered the carriage on the left, and the emperor on the right side, both seating themselves side by side at the same time. This settled the question of etiquette. Neither had preceded the other, but the emperor occupied the seat of honor on the Pope's right.
The coronation of the imperial pair took place on the 2d of December, 1804, in the Cathedral of Notre-Dame. Not only all Paris, but all France, was in motion on this day. An immense concourse of people surged to and fro in the streets; the windows of all the houses were filled with richly-adorned and beautiful women, the bells were ringing in all the churches, and joyous music, intermixed with the shouts of the people, was heard in every direction. For a moment, however, these shouts were changed into laughter, and that was when the papal procession approached, headed by an ass led by the halter, in accordance with an ancient custom of Rome. While the Pope, with the high dignitaries of the Church, repaired to the cathedral to await there the coming of the imperial couple, Napoleon was putting on the imperial insignia in the Tuileries, enveloping himself in the green velvet mantle, bordered with ermine, and thickly studded with brilliants, and arraying himself in the whole glittering paraphernalia of his new dignity. When already on the point of leaving the Tuileries with his wife, who stood at his side in her imperial attire, Bonaparte suddenly gave the order that the notary Ragideau should be called to the palace, as he desired to see him at once.
A messenger was at once sent, in an imperial equipage, to bring him from his dwelling, and in a quarter of an hour the little notary Ragideau entered the cabinet of the empress, in which the imperial pair were alone, awaiting him in their glittering attire.
His eyes beaming, a triumphant smile on his lips, Napoleon stepped forward to meet the little notary. "Well, Master Ragideau," said he, gayly, "I have had you called, merely to ask you whether General Bonaparte really possesses nothing besides his hat and his sword, or whether you will now forgive Viscountess Beauharnais for having married me;" and, as Ragideau looked at him in astonishment, and Josephine asked the meaning of his strange words, Bonaparte related how, while standing in Ragideau's antechamber on a certain occasion, he had heard the notary advising Josephine not to marry poor little Bonaparte; not to become the wife of the general, who possessed nothing but his hat and his sword.
The notary's words had entered the ambitious young man's heart like a dagger, and had wounded him deeply. But he had uttered no complaint, and made no mention of it; but to-day, on the day of his supreme triumph, to-day the emperor remembered that moment of humiliation, and, arrayed with the full insignia of the highest earthly dignity, he accorded himself the triumph of reminding the little notary that he had once advised Josephine not to marry him, because of his poverty.
The poor General Bonaparte had now transformed himself into the mighty Emperor Napoleon. Then he possessed nothing but his hat and his sword, but now the Pope awaited him in the cathedral of Notre-Dame, to place the golden imperial crown on his head.
Hortense had not been able to take any part in the festivities of the coronation; but another festivity had been prepared for her in the retirement of her apartments. She had given birth to a son; and in this child the happy mother found consolation and a new hope.
Josephine, who had assumed the imperial crown with a feeling of foreboding sadness, received the intelligence of the birth of her grandson with exultation. It seemed to her that the clouds that had been gathering over her head were now dissipated, and that a day of unclouded sunshine now smiled down upon her. Hortense had assured her mother's future; she had given birth to a son, and had thus given a first support to the new imperial dynasty. There was now no longer a reason why Napoleon should entertain the thoughts of a separation, for there was a son to whom he could one day bequeath the imperial throne of France.
The emperor also seemed to be disposed to favor Josephine's wishes, and to adopt his brother's son as his own. Had he not requested the Pope to delay his departure for a few days, in order to baptize the child? The Pope performed this sacred rite at St. Cloud, the emperor holding the child, and Madame Letitia standing at his side as second witness. Hortense now possessed an object upon which she could lavish the whole wealth of love that had until now lain concealed in her heart. The little Napoleon Charles was Hortense's first happy love; and she gave way to this intoxicating feeling with the most intense delight.
Josephine's house was now her home in the fullest sense of the word; she no longer shared her home with her husband, and could now bestow her undivided love and care upon her child. Louis Napoleon, the Grand-Constable of France, had been appointed Governor of Piedmont by Napoleon; and Hortense, owing to her delicate health, had not been compelled to accompany him, but had been permitted to remain in her little house in Paris, which she could exchange when summer came for her husband's new estate, the castle of Saint-Leu.
But the tranquillity which Josephine enjoyed with her child in this charming country-resort was to be of short duration. The brother and sister-in-law of the emperor could not hope to be permitted to lead a life of retirement. They were rays of the sun that now dazzled the whole world; they must fulfil their destiny, and contribute their light to the ruling sun.
An order of Napoleon recalled the constable, who had returned from Piedmont a short time before, and repaired to Saint-Leu to see his son, to Paris. Napoleon had appointed his brother to a brilliant destiny; the Constable of France was to become a king. Delegates of the Republic of Batavia, the late Holland, had arrived in Paris, and requested their mighty neighbor, the Emperor Napoleon, to give them a king, who should unite them with the glittering empire, through the ties of blood. Napoleon intended to fulfil their wishes, and present them with a king, in the person of his brother Louis.
But Louis was rather appalled than dazzled by this offer, and refused to accept the proposed dignity. In this refusal he was also in perfect harmony with his wife, who did all in her power to strengthen his resolution. Both felt that the crown which it was proposed to place on their heads would be nothing more than a golden chain of dependence; that the King of Holland could be nothing more than the vassal of France; and their personal relations to each other added another objection to this political consideration.
In Paris, husband and wife could forget the chain that bound them together; there they were in the circle of their friends, and could avoid each other. The great, glittering imperial court served to separate and reconcile the young couple, who had never forgiven themselves for having fettered each other in this involuntary union. In Paris they had amusements, friends, society; while in Holland they would live in entire dependence on each other, and hear continually the rattling of the chain with which each had bound the other to the galley of a union without love.
Both felt this, and both were, therefore, united in the endeavor to ward off this new misfortune that was suspended over their heads, in the form of a kingly crown.
But how could they resist successfully the iron will of Napoleon? Hortense had never had the courage to address Napoleon directly on the subject of her wishes and petitions, and Josephine already felt that her wishes no longer exercised the power of earlier days over the emperor. She therefore avoided interceding where she was not sure of being successful.
At the outset, Louis had the courage to resist his brother openly; but Napoleon's angry glance annihilated his opposition, and his gentle, yielding nature was forced to succumb. In the presence of the deputation of the Batavian Republic, that so ardently longed for a sceptre and crown, Napoleon appealed to his brother Louis to accept the crown which had been freely tendered him, and to be to his country a king who would respect and protect its liberties, its laws, and its religion.
With emotion, Louis Bonaparte declared himself ready to accept this crown, and to be a good and true ruler to his new country.
And to keep this oath faithfully was from this time the single and sacred endeavor to which he devoted his every thought and energy. The people of Holland having chosen him to be their king, he was determined to do honor to their choice; having been compelled to give up his own country and nationality, he determined to belong to his new country with his whole heart and being--to become a thorough Hollander, as he could no longer remain a Frenchman.
This heretofore so gentle and passive nature now developed an entirely new energy; this dreamer, this pale, silent brother of the emperor, was now suddenly transformed into a bold, self-reliant man of action, who had fixed his gaze on a noble aim, and was ready to devote all the powers of his being to its attainment. As King of Holland, he desired, above all, to be beloved by his subjects, and to be able to contribute to their welfare and happiness. He studied their language with untiring diligence, and made himself acquainted with their manners and customs, for the purpose of making them his own. He investigated the sources of their wealth and of their wants, and sought to develop the former and relieve the latter. He was restless in his efforts to provide for his country, and to merit the love and confidence which his subjects bestowed on him.
His wife also exerted herself to do justice to her new and glittering position, and to wear worthily the crown which she had so unwillingly accepted. In her drawing-rooms she brought together, at brilliant entertainments, the old aristocracy and the new nobility of Holland, and taught the stiff society of that country the fine, unconstrained tone, and the vivacious intellectual conversation of Parisian society. It was under Hortense's fostering hand that art and science first made their way into the aristocratic parlors of Holland, giving to their social reunions a higher and nobler importance.
And Hortense was not only the protectress of art and science, but also the mother of the poor, the ministering angel of the unhappy, whose tears she dried, and whose misery she alleviated--and this royal pair, though adored and blessed by their subjects, could not find within their palaces the least reflection of the happiness they so well knew how to confer upon others without its walls. Between these two beings, so gentle and yielding to others, a strange antipathy continued to exist, and not even the birth of a second, and of a third, son could fill up the chasm that separated them.
And this chasm was soon to be broadened by a new blow of destiny. Hortense's eldest, the adopted son of Napoleon, the presumptive heir to his throne, the child that Napoleon loved so dearly that he often played with him for hours on the terraces of St. Cloud, the child Josephine worshipped, because its existence seemed to assure her own happiness, the child that had awakened the first feeling of motherly bliss in Hortense's bosom, the child that had often even consoled Louis Bonaparte for the unenjoyable present with bright hopes for the future--the little Napoleon Charles died in the year 1807, of the measles.
This was a terrific blow that struck the parents, and the imperial pair of France with equal force. Napoleon's eyes filled with tears when this intelligence was brought him, and a cry of horror escaped Josephine's lips.
"Now I am lost!" she murmured in a low voice; "now my fate is decided. He will put me away."
But after this first egotistical outburst of her own pain, she hastened to the Hague to weep with her daughter, and bring her away from the place associated with her loss and her anguish. Hortense returned with the empress to St. Cloud; while her husband, who had almost succumbed to his grief, was compelled to seek renewed health in the baths of the Pyrenees. The royal palace at the Hague now stood desolate again; death had banished life and joy from its halls; and, though the royal pair were subsequently compelled to return to it, joy and happiness came back with them no more.
King Louis had returned from the Pyrenees in a more gloomy and ill-natured frame of mind than ever; a sickly distrust, a repulsive irritability, had taken possession of his whole being, and his young wife no longer had the good-will to bear with his caprices, and excuse his irritable disposition. They were totally different in their views, desires, inclinations, and aspirations; and their children, instead of being a means of reuniting, seemed to estrange them the more, for each insisted on considering them his or her exclusive property, and in having them educated according to his or her views and wishes.
But Hortense was soon to forget her own household troubles and cares, in the greater misery of her mother. A letter from Josephine, an agonized appeal to her daughter for consolation, recalled Hortense to her mother's side, and she left the Hague and hastened to Paris.
Josephine's fears, and the prophecies of the French clairvoyante, were now about to be fulfilled. The crown which Josephine had reluctantly and sorrowfully accepted, and which she had afterward worn with so much grace and amiability, with such natural majesty and dignity, was about to fall from her head. Napoleon had the cruel courage, now that the dreamed-of future had been realized, to put away from him the woman who had loved him and chosen him when he had nothing to offer her but his hopes for the future. Josephine, who, with smiling courage and brave fidelity, had stood at his side in the times of want and humiliation, was now to be banished from his side into the isolation of a glittering widowhood. Napoleon had the courage to determine that this should be done, but he lacked the courage to break it to Josephine, and to pronounce the word of separation himself. He was determined to sacrifice to his ambition the woman he had so long called his "good angel;" and he, who had never trembled in battle, trembled at the thought of her tears, and avoided meeting her sad, entreating gaze.
But Josephine divined the whole terrible misfortune that hung threateningly over her head. She read it in the gloomy, averted countenance of the emperor, who, since his recent return from Vienna, had caused the door that connected his room with that of his wife to be locked; she read it in the faces of the courtiers, who dared to address her with less reverence, but with a touch of compassionate sympathy; she heard it in the low whispering that ceased when she approached a group of persons in her parlors; it was betrayed to her in the covert, mysterious insinuations of the public press, which attached a deep and comprehensive significance to the emperor's journey to Vienna.
She knew that her destiny must now be fulfilled, and that she was too weak to offer any resistance. But she was determined to act her part as wife and empress worthily to the end. Her tears should not flow outwardly, but inwardly to her grief-stricken heart; she suppressed her sighs with a smile, and concealed the pallor of her cheeks with rouge. But she longed for a heart to whom she could confide her anguish, and show her tears, and therefore called her daughter to her side.
How painful was this reunion of mother and daughter, how many tears were shed, how bitter were the lamentations Josephine whispered in her daughter's ear!
"If you knew," said she, "in what torments I have passed the last few weeks, in which I was no longer his wife, although compelled to appear before the world as such! What glances, Hortense, what glances courtiers fasten upon a discarded woman! In what uncertainty, what expectancy more cruel than death, have I lived and am I still living, awaiting the lightning stroke that has long glowed in Napoleon's eyes[15]!"
[15]Josephine's own words.--Bourrienne, vol. viii., p. 243.
Hortense listened to her mother's lamentations with a heart full of bitterness. She thought of how she had been compelled to sacrifice her own happiness to that of her mother, of how she had been condemned to a union without love, in order that the happiness of her mother's union might be established on a firm basis. And now all had been in vain; the sacrifice had not sufficed to arrest the tide of misfortune now about to bear down her unhappy mother. Hortense could do nothing to avert it. She was a queen, and yet only a weak, pitiable woman, who envied the beggar on the street her freedom and her humble lot. Both mother and daughter stood on the summit of earthly magnificence, and yet this empress and this queen felt themselves so poor and miserable, that they looked back with envy at the days of the revolution--the days in which they had led in retirement a life of poverty and want. Then, though struggling with want and care, they had been rich in hopes, in wishes, in illusions; now, they possessed all that could adorn life; now millions of men bowed down to them, and saluted them with the proud word "majesty," and yet empress and queen were now poor in hopes and wishes, poor in the illusions that lay shattered at their feet, and rejoicing only in the one happiness, that of being able to confide their misery to each other.
A few days after her arrival, the emperor caused Hortense to be called to his cabinet. He advanced toward her with vivacity, but before the gaze of her large eyes the glance of the man before whom the whole world now bowed, almost quailed.
"Hortense," said he, "we are now called on to decide an important matter, and it is our duty not to recoil. The nation has done so much for me and my family, that I owe them the sacrifice which they demand of me. The tranquillity and welfare of France require that I shall choose a wife who can give the country an heir to the throne. Josephine has been living in suspense and anguish for six months, and this must end. You, Hortense, are her dearest friend and her confidante; she loves you more than all else in the world. Will you undertake to prepare your mother for this step? You would thereby relieve my heart of a heavy burden."
Hortense had the strength to suppress her tears, and fasten her eyes on the emperor's countenance in a firm, determined gaze. His glance again quailed, as the lion recoils from the angry glance of a pure, innocent woman. Hortense had the courage to positively refuse the emperors request.
"How, Hortense!" exclaimed Napoleon with emotion. "You then refuse my request?"
"Sire," said she, hardly able longer to restrain her tears, "sire, I have not the strength to stab my mother to the heart[16]."
[16]Schelten, vol. ii., p. 45.
And regardless of etiquette, Hortense turned away and left the emperor's cabinet, the tears pouring in streams from her eyes.