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(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 canal barge from Brussels to Malines and
himself descends the subterranean vault of the Escaut-Oise canal,
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 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,[90] and 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 ful |