Napoleon's Letters To Josephine Part 80

No. 1A.

_It is written in a bad style._--M. Ma.s.son, however, is loud in its praises, and adds, "Voila donc le protocol du tutoiement"

re-established between them in spite of the second marriage, and their correspondence re-established on the old terms.

No. 2.

This letter seems to have been taken by Eugene to Paris, and thence forwarded to the Emperor with a letter from that Prince in which he enumerates Josephine's suggestions and wishes--(1) that she will not go to Aix-la-Chapelle if other waters are suggested by Corvisart; (2) that after stopping a few days at Malmaison she will go in June for three months to the baths, and afterwards to the south of France; visit Rome, Florence, and Naples incognito, spend the winter at Milan, and return to Malmaison and Navarre in the spring of 1811; (3) that in her absence Navarre shall be made habitable, for which fresh funds are required; (4) that Josephine wishes her cousins the Taschers to marry, one a relative of King Joseph, the other the Princess Amelie de la Leyen, niece of the Prince Primate.

To this Napoleon replies from Compiegne, April 26th, that the De Leyen match with Louis Tascher may take place,[89] but that he will not interest himself in the other (Henry) Tascher, who is giddy-headed and bad-tempered. "I consent to whatever the Empress does, but I will not confer any mark of my regard on a person who has behaved ill to me. I am very glad that the Empress likes Navarre. I am giving orders to have 12,000 which I owe her for 1810, and 12,000 for 1811 advanced to her. She will then have only the 80,000 from the public treasury to come in.... She is free to go to whatever spa she cares for, and even to return to Paris afterwards." He thinks, however, she would be happier in new scenes which they had never visited together, as they had Aix-la-Chapelle. If, however, the last are the best she may go to them, for "what I desire above all is that she may keep calm, and not allow herself to be excited by the gossip of Paris."

This letter goes far to soothe the poor chatelaine of Navarre.

No. 2A.

_Two letters._--The other, now missing, may have some reference to the pictures to which he refers in his letter to Fouche the next day. "Is it true that engravings are being published with the t.i.tle of _Josephine Beauharnais nee La Pagerie_? If this is true, have the prints seized, and let the engravers be punished" (_New Letters_, No.

253).

No. 3.

Probably written from Boulogne about the 25th. His northern tour with Marie Louise had been very similar to one taken in 1804, but his _entourage_ found the new bride very cold and callous compared to Josephine. Leaving Paris on April 29th Napoleon's _Correspondence_ till June is dated Laeken (April 30th); Antwerp (May 3rd); Bois-le-Duc; Middleburg, Gand, Bruges, Ostend (May 20th); Lille, Boulogne, Dieppe, Le Havre, Rouen (May 31st). He takes the Empress in a ca.n.a.l barge from Brussels to Malines and himself descends the subterranean vault of the Escaut-Oise ca.n.a.l, between St. Quentin and Cambrai. He is at St. Cloud on June 2nd.

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 Freres, 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 Chateau 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. Ma.s.son notes that Madame de Remusat needs the Aix waters, and will rejoin Josephine (within a week), under pretext of service, and thus obtain her cure gratuitously. They go _via_ Lyons and Geneva to Aix-les-Bains.

M. Ma.s.son, 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 _dejeuner_, 11 A.M., for which the whole of the little Court are a.s.sembled 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 pa.s.ses till five, when they dress for dinner at six; after dinner a ride. At nine the Empress's friends a.s.semble 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 (_Dernieres Annees de l'Imperatrice Josephine_, 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 pa.s.sed existence."

No. 4.

_July 8th._--On July 5th, driving along the Chambery road, Josephine met the courier with a letter from Eugene 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 Eugene_--_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 _repudiee_, Hortense unqueened and unwed,[90] and Eugene's expectations dissipated, and all within a few short months. Eugene 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 Remusat 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 Plombieres 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 d.y.k.es. 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. Ma.s.son (_Josephine Repudiee_, 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 Tremoille), 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 Tremoille family was one of the oldest in France, allied with the Condes, and consequently with the Bourbons. Barante's fault had been connivance at the letters and conduct of Madame de Stael.

No. 9.

_The only suitable places ... are either Milan or Navarre._--Milan had been her own suggestion conveyed by Eugene, 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 Remusat (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 Stael. "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 Cambaceres: "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 a.s.sured that she and I are equally attached to you."

FOOTNOTES

[87] On this occasion Baron Lejeune sees the Archduke Charles, and remarks: "There was nothing in his quiet face with its grave and gentle expression, or in his simple, modest, una.s.suming manner, to denote the mighty man of war; but no one who met his eyes could doubt him to be a genius."

[88] "This gloomy and forsaken chateau," says St. Amand, "whose only attraction was the half-forgotten memory of its vanished splendours, was a fit image of the woman who came to seek sanctuary there."

[89] He endows the husband with 4000 a year, and the t.i.tle of Count Tascher.

[90] "Une epouse sans epoux, et une reine sans royaume"--St. Amand.

[91] Aubenas.

SERIES O

No. 1.

_The New Year._--On this occasion, instead of her usual gifts (_etrennes_) she organised a lottery of jewels, of which Madame Ducrest gives a full account. Needless to say, Josephine worked the oracle so that every one got a suitable gift--including the old Bishop (see next note).