Array Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne - The Collected Works of Napoleon Bonaparte

Josephine has felt his wanderings less, as she has the future Emperor, her favourite grandson, with her, the little Oui-Oui, as she calls him, and for whom the damp spring weather of Holland was dangerous. She was also at Malmaison from the middle of May to June 18th. The original collection of Letters (Didot Frères, 1833) heads the letter correctly to the Empress Josephine at Malmaison , but the Correspondence , published by order of Napoleon III., gives it erroneously, to the Empress Josephine, at the Château of Navarre (No. 16,537).

I will come to see you. —He comes for two hours on June 13th, and makes himself thoroughly agreeable. Poor Josephine is light-headed with joy all the evening after. The meeting of the two Empresses is, however, indefinitely postponed, and Josephine had now no further reason to delay her departure. Leaving her little grandson Louis behind, she travels under the name of the Countess d'Arberg, and she is accompanied by Madame d'Audenarde and Mlle. de Mackau, who left the Princess Stephanie to come to Navarre. M. Masson notes that Madame de Rémusat needs the Aix waters, and will rejoin Josephine (within a week), under pretext of service, and thus obtain her cure gratuitously. They go viâ Lyons and Geneva to Aix-les-Bains. M. Masson, who has recently made a careful and complete study of this period, describes the daily round. "Josephine, on getting out of bed, takes conscientiously her baths and douches, then, as usual, lies down again until déjeuner , 11 A.M., for which the whole of the little Court are assembled at The Palace —wherever she lives, and however squalid the dwelling-place, her abode always bears this name. Afterwards she and her women-folk ply their interminable tapestry, while the latest novel or play (sent by Barbier from Paris) is read aloud. And so the day passes till five, when they dress for dinner at six; after dinner a ride. At nine the Empress's friends assemble in her room, Mlle. de Mackau sings; at eleven every one goes to bed." This programme, however, varies with the weather. Here is St. Amand's version ( Dernières Années de l'Impératrice Joséphine , p. 237): "A little reading in the morning, an airing ( le promenade ) afterwards, dinner at eight on account of the heat, games afterwards, and some little music; so passed existence."

No. 4.

July 8th. —On July 5th, driving along the Chambéry road, Josephine met the courier with a letter from Eugène describing the terrible fire at Prince Schwartzenberg's ball, where the Princess de la Leyen, mother of young Taschre's bride-elect, was burnt. It is noteworthy that the Emperor makes no allusion to the conflagration. As, however, this is the first letter since the end of May, others may have been lost or destroyed.

You will have seen Eugène — i.e. on his way to Milan, who arrived at Aix on July 10th. He had just been made heir to the Grand Duchy of Frankfort—a broad hint to him and to Europe that Italy would be eventually united to France under Napoleon's dynasty. This was the nadir of the Beauharnais family—Josephine repudiée , Hortense unqueened and unwed, 90and Eugène's expectations dissipated, and all within a few short months. Eugène had left his wife ill at Geneva, whither Josephine goes to visit her the next day, duly reporting her visit to Napoleon in her letter of July 14th (see No. 5). Geneva was always the home of the disaffected, and so the Empress had to be specially tactful, and the De Rémusat reports: "She speaks of the Emperor as of a brother, of the new Empress as the one who will give children to France, and if the rumours of the latter's condition be correct, I am certain she will be delighted about it."

That unfortunate daughter is coming to France — i.e. to reside when she is not at St. Leu (given to her by Napoleon) or at the waters. On the present occasion she has been at Plombières a month or more. On July 10th Napoleon instructs the Countess de Boubers to bring the Grand Duke of Berg to Paris, "whom he awaits with impatience" ( Brotonne , 625).

No. 5.

The conduct of the King of Holland has worried me. —This was in March, and by May the crisis was still more acute and Napoleon's patience exhausted. On May 20th he writes: "Before all things be a Frenchman and the Emperor's brother, and then you may be sure you are in the path of the true interests of Holland. Good sense and policy are necessary to the government of states, not sour unhealthy bile." And three days later: "Write me no more of your customary twaddle; three years now it has been going on, and every instant proves its falsehood! This is the last letter I shall ever write you in my life."

Louis at one time determined on war, and rather than surrender Amsterdam, to cut the dykes. The Emperor hears of this, summons his brother, and practically imprisons him until he countermands the defence of Amsterdam.

On July 1st Louis abdicated and fled to Toeplitz in Bohemia. Napoleon is terribly grieved at the conduct of his brother, who would never realise that the effective Continental blockade was Napoleon's last sheet-anchor to force peace upon England.

No. 6.

To die in a lake — i.e. the Lake of Bourget, shut in by the Dent du Chat, where a white squall had nearly capsized the sailing boat. Josephine had been on July 26th to visit the abbey Haute-Combe, place of sepulture of the Princes of Savoy, and the storm had overtaken her on the return voyage.

No. 8.

Paris, this Friday. —A very valuable note of M. Masson ( Josephine Repudiée , 198) enables us to fix this letter at its correct date. He says: "It has to do with the exile of Madame de la T—— (viz., the Princess Louis de la Trémoille), which takes place on September 28th, 1810, and this 28th September is also a Friday: there is also the question of Mlle. de Mackau being made a baroness" (and this lady had not joined the Court of Josephine till May 1810); "lastly, the B—— mentioned therein can only be Barante, the Prefect, whose dismissal (from Geneva) almost coincides with this letter." It may be added that the La Trémoille family was one of the oldest in France, allied with the Condés, and consequently with the Bourbons. Barante's fault had been connivance at the letters and conduct of Madame de Staël.

No. 9.

The only suitable places ... are either Milan or Navarre. —Milan had been her own suggestion conveyed by Eugène, but Napoleon, two months later, had told her she could spend the winter in France, and in spite of danger signals ("inspired by diplomacy rather than devotion" 91) from Madame de Rémusat (in her fulsome and tedious "despatch" sent from Paris in September, and probably inspired by the Emperor himself) she manages to get to Navarre, and even to spend the first fortnight of November at Malmaison. Before leaving Switzerland Josephine refuses to risk an interview with Madame de Staël. "In the first book she publishes she will not fail to report our conversation, and heaven knows how many things she will make me say that I have never even thought of."

No. 10.

In spite of the heading Josephine was at Malmaison on this day, and Napoleon writes Cambacérès: "My cousin, the Empress Josephine not leaving for Navarre till Monday or Tuesday, I wish you to pay her a visit. You will let me know on your return how you find her" ( Brotonne ,721). The real reason is to hasten her departure, and she gets to Navarre November 22nd (Thursday).

The Empress progresses satisfactorily. —Napoleon writes to this effect to her father, the Emperor of Austria, on the same day: "The Empress is very well.... It is impossible that the wife for whom I am indebted to you should be more perfect. Moreover, I beg your Majesty to rest assured that she and I are equally attached to you."