Empress Josephine: An Historical Sketch of the Days of Napoleon Part 47

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 a.s.signed 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 a.s.s, bearing a large silver cross before G.o.d'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 subst.i.tute 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 b.u.t.tons and buckles of diamonds in the shape of garters; the vest also was of white velvet, embroidered with gold and having diamond b.u.t.tons; 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 fas.h.i.+on 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 workmans.h.i.+p. 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 a.s.surances 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 gla.s.s, 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 a.s.sumed 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 d.u.c.h.ess 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 grat.i.tude 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 n.o.ble 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 G.o.d, at that moment, when Napoleon, or, much more, when Bonaparte was for her the real and visible Providence, there pa.s.sed 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 p.r.o.nounced 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 sec.u.m regnare faciat Christus." (G.o.d 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 G.o.d, 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 const.i.tution, 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 pa.s.sed 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 compa.s.sionate 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 a.s.sistance 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 G.o.d 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 wors.h.i.+pped him as her providence, her future, her happiness. Her heart was yet so full of pa.s.sion, 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 friends.h.i.+p. 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 a.s.sistance 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 fas.h.i.+onable, 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!