She accompanied him to his carriage, and bade him adieu. This was their last interview but one. Soon Napoleon returned, a fugitive from Moscow.
Days of disaster were darkening around his path. All Europe had risen in arms against him, and were on the march toward his capital. In the midst of the terror of those dreadful days, he sought a hurried interview with his most faithful friend. It was their last meeting. As he was taking his leave of Josephine, at the close of this short and melancholy visit, he gazed upon her a moment in silence, tenderly and sadly, and then said, "Josephine! I have been as fortunate as was ever man on the face of this earth. But, in this hour, when a storm is gathering over my head, I have not, in this wide world, any one but you upon whom I can repose."
In the fearful conflict which ensued--the most terrible which history has recorded--Napoleon"s thoughts ever reverted to the wife of his youth. He kept up an almost daily correspondence with her, informing her of the pa.s.sing of events. His letters, written in the midst of all the confusion of the camp, were more affectionate and confiding than ever.
Adversity had softened his heart. In these dark days, when, with most Herculean power, he was struggling against fearful odds, and his throne was crumbling beneath his feet, it was observed that a letter from Josephine was rather torn than broken open, so great was the eagerness of Napoleon to receive a line from her. Wherever he was, however great the emergency in which he was placed, the moment a courier brought to him a letter from Josephine, all other business was laid aside until it had been read.
The allied armies were every day approaching nearer and nearer to Paris, and Josephine was overwhelmed with grief in contemplating the disasters which were falling upon Napoleon. At Malmaison, Josephine and the ladies of her court were employed in forming bandages and sc.r.a.ping lint for the innumerable wounded who filled the hospitals. The conflicting armies approached so near to Malmaison that it became dangerous for Josephine to remain there, and, in great apprehension, she one morning, at eight o"clock, took her carriage for Navarre. Two or three times on the road she was alarmed by the cry, "Cossacks! Cossacks!" When she had proceeded about thirty miles, the pole of her carriage broke, and at the same time a troop of hors.e.m.e.n appeared in the distance, riding down upon her.
They were French hussars; but Josephine thought that they were either Cossacks or Prussians, and, though the rain was falling in torrents, in her terror she leaped from the carriage, and began to fly across the fields. She had proceeded some distance before her attendants discovered the mistake. The carriage being repaired, she proceeded the rest of her way unmolested. The empress hardly uttered a word during this melancholy journey, but upon entering the palace she threw herself upon a couch, exclaiming, "Surely, surely Bonaparte is ignorant of what is pa.s.sing within sight of the gates of Paris, or, if he knows, how cruel the thoughts which must now agitate his breast! Oh! if he had listened to me."
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, ill.u.s.trative of hundreds which might be narrated. Lord Londonderry, in the midst of a b.l.o.o.d.y skirmish, saw a young and beautiful French lady, the wife of a colonel, in a caleche, 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.
The grief of Josephine in these days of anxiety was intense in the extreme. She pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sed 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.
"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 subst.i.tute 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."
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."
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 a.s.surances 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 ill.u.s.trious monarchs and n.o.bles, 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 p.r.o.nounced 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:
"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 a.s.surance 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."
A few days after this letter was written, the Emperor Alexander, with a number of ill.u.s.trious 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.
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:
"O G.o.d! 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 G.o.d, 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 pet.i.tion. And may this image of my husband bear me witness that my latest wish and my latest prayer were for him and my children."
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.
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."
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:
EUGENE AND HORTENSE
TO
JOSEPHINE.
THE END.