Josephine at Navarre
A melancholy incident
Brutality of the Cossacks
Josephine remained for some days at Navarre, in a state of most painful anguish respecting the fate of the emperor. She allowed herself no relaxation, excepting a solitary ride each morning in the park, and another short ride after dinner with one of her ladies. The Emperor Alexander had immediately sent a guard of honor to protect Josephine from all intrusion. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers were swarming in all directions, and every dwelling was filled with terror and distraction. One melancholy incident we will record, illustrative of hundreds which might be narrated. Lord Londonderry, in the midst of a bloody skirmish, saw a young and beautiful French lady, the wife of a colonel, in a calêche, seized by three brutal Russian soldiers, who were carrying off, into the fields, their frantic and shrieking victim. The gallant Englishman, sword in hand, rushed forward for her deliverance from his barbarian allies. He succeeded in rescuing her, and, in the confusion of the battle still raging, ordered a dragoon to take her to his own quarters till she could be provided with suitable protection. The dragoon took the lady, half dead with terror, upon his horse behind him, and was galloping with her to a place of safety, when another ruffian band of Cossacks surrounded him, pierced his body with their sabers, and seized again the unhappy victim. She was never heard of more. The Emperor Alexander was greatly distressed at her fate, and made the utmost, though unavailing efforts to discover what had become of her. The revelations of the last day alone can divulge the horrors of this awful tragedy.
Affecting note from Napoleon
The grief of Josephine in these days of anxiety was intense in the extreme. She passed her whole time in talking about Napoleon, or in reading the letters she had lately received from him. He wrote frequently, as he escaped from place to place, but many of his letters were intercepted by the bands of soldiers traversing every road. The last she had received from him was dated at Brienne. It gave an account of a desperate engagement, in which the little band of Napoleon had been overwhelmed by numbers, and was concluded with the following affecting words: "On beholding those scenes where I had passed my boyhood, and comparing my peaceful condition then with the agitation and terrors which I now experience, I several times said, in my own mind, I have sought to meet death in many conflicts; I can no longer fear it. To me death would now be a blessing. But I would once more see Josephine."
Notwithstanding the desperate state of affairs, Josephine still cherished the hope that his commanding genius would yet enable him to retrieve his fortunes. All these hopes were, how ever, dispelled on the receipt of the following letter:
"Fontainebleau, April 16, 1814.
His downfall
Letter from Napoleon to Josephine
False friends
"Dear Josephine, – I wrote to you on the eighth of this month, but perhaps you have not received my letter. Hostilities still continued, and possibly it may have been intercepted. At present the communications must be re-established. I have formed my resolution. I have no doubt that this billet will reach you. I will not repeat what I said to you. Then I lamented my situation, now I congratulate myself upon it. My head and spirit are freed from an enormous weight. My fall is great, but it may, as men say, prove useful. In my retreat I shall substitute the pen for the sword. The history of my reign will be curious. The world has yet seen me only in profile. I shall show myself in full. How many things have I to disclose! how many are the men of whom a false estimate is entertained! I have heaped benefits upon millions of wretches! What have they done in the end for me? They have all betrayed me – yes, all. I except from this number the good Eugene, so worthy of you and of me. Adieu! my dear Josephine. Be resigned as I am, and never forget him who never forgot, and never will forget you. Farewell, Josephine.
"Napoleon.
"P.S. – I expect to hear from you at Elba. I am not very well."
Josephine resolves not to abandon Napoleon
Upon reading these tidings of so terrible an overthrow, Josephine was overwhelmed with grief, and for a time wept bitterly. Soon, however, recovering her self-possession, she exclaimed, "I must not remain here. My presence is necessary to the emperor. That duty is, indeed, more Maria Louisa's than mine, but the emperor is alone – forsaken. Well, I at least will not abandon him. I might be dispensed with while he was happy; now, I am sure that he expects me." After a pause of a few moments, in which she seemed absorbed in her own thoughts, she addressed her chamberlain, saying, "I may, however, interfere with his arrangements. You will remain here with me till intelligence be received from the allied sovereigns; they will respect her who was the wife of Napoleon."
Honor paid to Josephine
Commendation of Alexander
She was, indeed, remembered by them. The magnanimity of her conduct under the deep wrongs of the divorce had filled Europe with admiration. The allied sovereigns sent her assurances of their most friendly regards. They entreated her to return to Malmaison, and provided her with an ample guard for her protection. Her court was ever crowded with the most illustrious monarchs and nobles, who sought a presentation to do homage to her virtues. The Emperor Alexander was one of the first to visit her. He said to her on that occasion, "Madam, I burned with the desire of beholding you. Since I entered France, I have never heard your name pronounced but with benedictions. In the cottage and in the palace I have collected accounts of your angelic goodness, and I do myself a pleasure in thus presenting to your majesty the universal homage of which I am the bearer."
Maria Louisa, thinking only of self, declined accompanying Napoleon to his humble retreat. Josephine, not knowing her decision, wrote to the emperor:
Letter to Napoleon
"Now only can I calculate the whole extent of the misfortune of having beheld my union with you dissolved by law. Now do I indeed lament being no more than your friend, who can but mourn over a misfortune great as it is unexpected. Ah! sire, why can I not fly to you? Why can I not give you the assurance that exile has no terrors save for vulgar minds, and that, far from diminishing a sincere attachment, misfortune imparts to it a new force? I have been upon the point of quitting France to follow your footsteps, and to consecrate to you the remainder of an existence which you so long embellished. A single motive restrained me, and that you may divine. If I learn that I am the only one who will fulfill her duty, nothing shall detain me, and I will go to the only place where, henceforth, there can be happiness for me, since I shall be able to console you when you are there isolated and unfortunate! Say but the word, and I depart. Adieu, sire; whatever I would add would still be too little. It is no longer by words that my sentiments for you are to be proved, and for actions your consent is necessary."
Illustrious party at Malmaison
Illness of Josephine
A few days after this letter was written, the Emperor Alexander, with a number of illustrious guests, dined with Josephine at Malmaison. In the evening twilight, the party went out upon the beautiful lawn in front of the house for recreation. Josephine, whose health had become exceedingly precarious through care and sorrow, being regardless of herself in devotion to her friends, took a violent cold. The next day she was worse. Without any very definite form of disease, she day after day grew more faint and feeble, until it was evident that her final change was near at hand. Eugene and Hortense, her most affectionate children, were with her by day and by night. They communicated to her the judgment of her physician that death was near. She heard the tidings with perfect composure, and called for a clergyman to administer to her the last rites of religion.
Josephine always desired the happiness of France
Just after this solemnity the Emperor Alexander entered the room. Eugene and Hortense, bathed in tears, were kneeling at their mother's side. Josephine beckoned to the emperor to approach her, and said to him and her children, "I have always desired the happiness of France. I did all in my power to contribute to it; and I can say with truth, to all of you now present, at my last moments, that the first wife of Napoleon never caused a single tear to flow."
She called for the portrait of the emperor; she gazed upon it long and tenderly; and then, fervently pressing it in her clasped hands to her bosom, faintly articulated the following prayer:
Affecting prayer
"O God! watch over Napoleon while he remains in the desert of this world. Alas! though he hath committed great faults, hath he not expiated them by great sufferings? Just God, thou hast looked into his heart, and hast seen by how ardent a desire for useful and durable improvements he was animated. Deign to approve my last petition. And may this image of my husband bear me witness that my latest wish and my latest prayer were for him and my children."
Death of Josephine
It was the 29th of May, 1814. A tranquil summer's day was fading away into a cloudless, serene, and beautiful evening. The rays of the setting sun, struggling through the foliage of the open window, shone cheerfully upon the bed where the empress was dying. The vesper songs of the birds which filled the groves of Malmaison floated sweetly upon the ear, and the gentle spirit of Josephine, lulled to repose by these sweet anthems, sank into its last sleep. Gazing upon the portrait of the emperor, she exclaimed, "L'isle d'Elbe – Napoleon!" and died.
Tribute to her memory by Alexander
Alexander, as he gazed upon her lifeless remains, burst into tears, and uttered the following affecting yet just tribute of respect to her memory: "She is no more; that woman whom France named the beneficent, that angel of goodness, is no more. Those who have known Josephine can never forget her. She dies regretted by her offspring, her friends, and her cotemporaries."
Funeral ceremonies
Monumental inscription
For four days her body remained shrouded in state for its burial. During this time more than twenty thousand of the people of France visited her beloved remains. On the 2d of June, at mid-day, the funeral procession moved from Malmaison to Ruel, where the body was deposited in a tomb of the village church. The funeral services were conducted with the greatest magnificence, as the sovereigns of the allied armies united with the French in doing honor to her memory. When all had left the church but Eugene and Hortense, they knelt beside their mother's grave, and for a long time mingled their prayers and their tears. A beautiful monument of white marble, representing the empress kneeling in her coronation robes, is erected over her burial-place, with this simple but affecting inscription: