The Court of the Empress Josephine.
by Imbert de Saint-Amand.
I.
THE BEGINNING OF THE EMPIRE.
"Two-thirds of my life is pa.s.sed, why should I so distress myself about what remains? The most brilliant fortune does not deserve all the trouble I take, the pettiness I detect in myself, or the humiliations and shame I endure; thirty years will destroy those giants of power which can be seen only by raising the head; we shall disappear, I who am so petty, and those whom I regard so eagerly, from whom I expected all my greatness. The most desirable of all blessings is repose, seclusion, a little spot we can call our own." When La Bruyere expressed himself so bitterly, when he spoke of the court "which satisfies no one," but "prevents one from being satisfied anywhere else," of the court, "that country where the joys are visible but false, and the sorrows hidden, but real," he had before him the brilliant Palace of Versailles, the unrivalled glory of the Sun King, a monarchy which thought itself immovable and eternal. What would he say in this century when dynasties fail like autumn leaves, and it takes much less than thirty years to destroy the giants of power; when the exile of to-day repeats to the exile of the morrow the motto of the churchyard: _Hodie mihi, eras tibi?_ What would this Christian philosopher say at a time when royal and imperial palaces have been like caravansaries through which sovereigns have pa.s.sed like travellers, when their brief resting-places have been consumed by the blaze of petroleum and are now but a heap of ashes?
The study of any court is sure to teach wisdom and indifference to human glories. In our France of the nineteenth century, fickle as it has been, inconstant, fertile in revolutions, recantations, and changes of every sort, this lesson is more impressive than it has been at any period of our history. Never has Providence shown more clearly the nothingness of this world"s grandeur and magnificence. Never has the saying of Ecclesiastes been more exactly verified: "Vanity of vanities; all is vanity!" We have before us the task of describing one of the most sumptuous courts that has ever existed, and of reviewing splendors all the more brilliant for their brevity. To this court of Napoleon and Josephine, to this majestic court, resplendent with glory, wealth, and fame, may well be applied Corneille"s lines:--
"All your happiness Subject to instability In a moment falls to the ground, And as it has the brilliancy of gla.s.s It also has its fragility."
We shall evoke the memory of the dead to revive this vanished court, and we shall consult, one after another, the persons who were eye-witnesses of these short-lived wonders. A prefect of the palace, M. de Bausset, wrote: "When I recall the memorable times of which I have just given a faint idea, I feel, after so many years, as if I had been taking part in the gorgeous scenes of the _Arabian Tales_ or of the _Thousand and One Nights_. The magic picture of all those splendors and glories has disappeared, and with it all the prestige of ambition and power." One of the ladies of the palace of the Empress Josephine, Madame de Remusat, has expressed the same thought: "I seem to be recalling a dream, but a dream resembling an Oriental tale, when I describe the lavish luxury of that period, the disputes for precedence, the claims of rank, the demands of every one." Yes, in all that there was something dreamlike, and the actors in that fairy spectacle which is called the Empire, that great show piece, with its scenery, now brilliant, now terrible, but ever changing, must have been even more astonished than the spectators. Aix-la-Chapelle and the court of Charlemagne, the castle of Fontainebleau and the Pope, Notre Dame and the coronation, the Champ de Mars and the distribution of eagles, the Cathedral of Milan and the Iron Crown, Genoa the superb and its naval festival, Austerlitz and the three emperors,--what a setting! what accessories! what personages! The peal of organs, the intoning of priests, the applause of the mult.i.tude and of the soldiers, the groans of the dying, the trumpet call, the roll of the drum, ball music, military bands, the cannon"s roar, were the joyful and mournful harmonies heard while the play went on. What we shall study amid this tumult and agitation is one woman. We have already studied her as the Viscountess of Beauharnais, as Citizeness Bonaparte, and as the wife of the First Consul. We shall now study her in her new part, that of Empress.
Let us go back to May 18, 1804, to the Palace of Saint Cloud. The Emperor had just been proclaimed by the Senate before the _plebiscite_ which was to ratify the new state of things. The curtain has risen, the play begins, and no drama is fuller of contrasts, of incidents, of movement. The leading actor, Napoleon, was already as familiar with his part as if he had played it since his childhood. Josephine is also at home in hers. As a woman of the world, she had learned, by practice in the drawing-room, to win even greater victories. For a fashionable beauty there is no great difference between an armchair and a throne. The minor actors are not so accustomed to their new position. Nothing is more amusing than the embarra.s.sment of the courtiers when they have to answer the Emperor"s questions. They begin with a blunder; then, in correcting themselves, they fall into still worse confusion; ten times a minute was repeated, Sire, General, Your Majesty, Citizen, First Consul. Constant, the Emperor"s valet de chambre, has given us a description of this 18th of May, 1804, a day devoted to receptions, presentations, interviews, and congratulations: "Every one," he says, "was filled with joy in the Palace of Saint Cloud; every one imagined that he had risen a step, like General Bonaparte, who, from First Consul, had become a monarch. Men were embracing and complimenting one another; confiding their share of hopes and plans for the future; there was no official so humble that he was not fired with ambition." In a word, the ante-chamber, barring the difference of persons, presented an exact imitation of what was going on in the drawing-room. It seemed like a first performance which had long been eagerly expected, arousing the same eager excitement among the players and the public. The day which had started bright grew dark; for a long time there were threatenings of a thunder-storm; but none looked on this as an evil omen.
All were inclined to cheery views. The courtiers displayed their zeal with all the ardor, the pa.s.sion, the _furia francese_, which is a national characteristic, and appears on the battle-field as well as in the ante- chamber. The French fight and flatter with equal enthusiasm.
Amid all these manifestations of devotion and delight, the members of the Imperial family alone, who should have been the most satisfied, and certainly the most astonished by their greatness, wore an anxious, almost a grieved look. They alone appeared discontented with their master. Their pride knew no bounds; their irritability was extreme. Nothing seemed good enough, for them. In the way of honors privileges, and when we recall their father"s modest at Ajaccio, it is hard to keep from smiling at the vanity of these new Princes of the blood. Of Napoleon"s four brothers, two were absent and on bad terms with him: Lucien, on account of his marriage with Madame Jouberton; Jerome, on account of his marriage with Miss Paterson. His mother, Madame Let.i.tia Bonaparte, an able woman, who combined great courage with uncommon good sense, had not lost her head over the wonderful good fortune of the modern Caesar. Having a presentiment that all this could not last, she economized from motives of prudence, not of avarice. While the courtiers were celebrating the Emperor"s new triumphs, she lingered in Rome with her son Lucien, whom she had followed in his voluntary exile, having p.r.o.nounced in his favor in his quarrel with Napoleon. As for Joseph and Louis, who, with their wives, had been raised to the dignity of Grand Elector and Constable, respectively, one might think that they were overburdened with wealth and honors, and would be perfectly satisfied. But not at all! They were indignant that they were not personally mentioned, in the _plebiscite_, by which their posterity was appointed to succeed to the French crown. This _plebiscite_ ran thus: "The French people desire the Inheritance of the Imperial dignity in the direct, natural, or adoptive line of descent from Napoleon Bonaparte, and in the direct, natural, legitimate line of descent from Joseph Bonaparte and from Louis Bonaparte, as is determined by the organic _senatus-consultum_ of the twenty-eighth Floreal, year XII." For the Emperor"s family, these stipulations were the cause of incessant squabbles and recriminations. Lucien and Jerome regarded their exclusion as an act of injustice. Joseph and Louis asked indignantly why their descendants were mentioned when they themselves were excluded. They were very jealous of Josephine, and of her son, Eugene de Beauharnais, and much annoyed by the Emperor"s reservation of the right of adoption, which threatened them and held out hopes for Eugene. Louis Bonaparte, indignant with the slanderous story, according to which his wife, Hortense, had been Napoleon"s mistress, treated her ill, and conceived a dislike for his own son, who was reported to be that of the Emperor. As for Elisa Bacciochi, Caroline Murat, and Pauline Borghese, they could not endure the mortification of being placed below the Empress, their sister-in-law, and the thought that they had not yet been given the t.i.tle of Princesses of the blood, which had been granted to the wife of Joseph and the wife of Louis, filled them with actual despair.
Madame de Remusat, who was present at the first Imperial dinner at St.
Cloud, May 18, 1804, describes this curious repast. General Duroc, Grand Marshal of the Palace, told all the guests in succession of the t.i.tles of Prince and Princess to be given to Joseph and Louis, and their wives, but not to the Emperor"s sisters, or to their husbands. This fatal news prostrated Elisa, Caroline, and Pauline. When they sat down at table, Napoleon was good-humored and merry, possibly at heart enjoying the slight constraint that this novel formality enforced upon his guests. Madame Murat, when she heard the Emperor saying frequently _Princess_ Louis, could not hide her mortification or her tears. Every one was embarra.s.sed, while Napoleon smiled maliciously.
The next day the Emperor went to Paris to hold a grand reception at the Tuileries, for he was not a man to postpone the enjoyment of the splendor which his satisfied ambition could draw from his new t.i.tle. In this palace, where had ruled the Committee of Public Safety, where the Convention had sat, whence Robespierre had departed in triumph to preside over the festival in honor of the Supreme Being, nothing was heard but the t.i.tles of Emperor, Empress, My Lord, Prince, Princess, Imperial Highness, Most Serene Highness. It was a.s.serted that Bonaparte had cut up the red caps to make the ribbons of the Legions of Honor. The most fanatical Revolutionists had become conservative as soon as they had anything to preserve. The Empire was but a few hours old, and already the new-born court was alive with the same rivalries, jealousies, and vanities that fill the courts of the oldest monarchies. It was like Versailles, in the reign of Louis XIV., in the Gallery of Mirrors, or in the drawing-room of the Oeil de Boeuf. It would have taken a Dangeau to record, hour by hour, the minute points of etiquette. The Emperor walked, spoke, thought, acted, like a monarch of an old line. To nothing does a man so readily adapt himself as to power. One who has been invested with the highest rank is sure to imagine himself eternal; to think that he has always held it and will always keep it. Indeed, how is it possible to escape intoxication by the fumes of perpetual incense? How can a man tell the truth to himself when there is no one about him courageous enough to tell it to him? When the press is muzzled, and public power rests only on general approval, when there is no slave even to remind the triumphant hero, as in the ancient ovations, that he is only a man, how is it possible to avoid being infatuated by one"s greatness and not to imagine one"s self the absolute master of one"s destiny? The new Caesar met with no resistance. He was to publish scornfully in the _Moniteur_ the protest of Louis XVIII. against his accession. He was to be adored both by fierce Revolutionists and by great lords, by regicides and by Royalists and ecclesiastics. It seemed as if with him everything began, or rather started anew. "The old world was submerged," says Chateaubriand; "when the flood of anarchy withdrew, Napoleon appeared at the beginning of a new world, like those giants described by profane and sacred history at the beginning of society, appearing on earth after the Deluge."
The former general of the Revolution enjoyed his situation as absolute sovereign. He studied the laws of etiquette as closely as he studied the condition of his troops. He saw that the men of the old regime were more conversant in the art of flattery, more eager than the new men. As Madame de Stael says: "Whenever a gentleman of the old court recalled the ancient etiquette, suggested an additional bow, a certain way at knocking at the door of an ante-chamber, a ceremonious method of presenting a despatch, of folding a letter, of concluding it with this or that formula, he greeted as if he had helped on the happiness of the human race." Napoleon attached, or pretended to attach, great importance to the thousand nothings which up the life of courts. He established in the palace the same discipline as in the camps. Everything became a matter of rule.
Courtiers studied formalities as officers studied the art of war.
Regulations were as closely observed in the drawing-rooms as in the tents.
At the end of a few months Napoleon was to have the most brilliant, the most rigid court of Europe. At times the whirl of vanities surrounded him filled with impatience the great central sun, without whom his satellites would have been nothing. At other times, however, his pride was gratified by the thought that it was his will, his fancy, which evoked from nothing all the grandees of the earth. He was not pained at seeing such eagerness in behalf of trifles that he had invented. He liked to fill his courtiers with raptures or with despair, by a smile or a frown. He thought his sisters" ambition childish, but it amused him; and if they had to cry a little at first, he finally granted them what they wanted.
May 19, after the family dinner, Madame Murat was more and more distressed at not being a Princess, when she was a Bonaparte by birth, while Madame Joseph and Madame Louis, one of whom was a Clary, the other a Beauharnais, bore that t.i.tle, and burst out into complaints and reproaches. "Why," she asked of her all-powerful brother, "why condemn me and my sisters to obscurity, to contempt, while covering strangers with honors and dignities?" At first these words annoyed Napoleon. "In fact," he exclaimed, "judging from your pretensions, one would suppose that we inherited the crown from the late King our father." At the end of the interview, Madame Murat, not satisfied with crying, fainted away. Napoleon softened at once, and a few days later there appeared a notification in the _Moniteur_ that henceforth the Emperor"s sisters should be called Princesses and Imperial Highnesses.
The Empress"s Maid of Honor was Madame de La Rochefoucauld; her Lady of the Bedchamber was Madame de Lavalette. Her Ladies of the Palace, whose number was soon raised to twelve, and later still more augmented, were at first only four: Madame de Talhouet, Madame de Lucay, Madame de Lauriston, and Madame de Remusat. These ladies, too, aroused the hottest jealousies, and soon they gave rise to a sort of parody of the questions of vanity that agitated the Emperor"s family. The women who were admitted to the Empress"s intimacy could never console themselves for the privileges accorded to the Ladies of the Palace.
In essentials all courts are alike. On a greater or smaller scale they are rank with the same pettinesses, the same chattering gossip, the same trivial squabbles as the porter"s lodge, ante-chambers, and servants"
quarters. If we examine these things from the standpoint of a philosopher, we shall find but little difference between a steward and a chamberlain, between a chambermaid and a lady of the palace. We may go further and say that as soon as they have places and money at their disposal, republicans have courtesies, as much as monarchs, and everywhere and always there are to be found people ready to bow low if there is anything on the ground that they can pick up. Revolutions alter the forms of government, but not the human heart; afterwards, as before, there exist the same pretensions, the same prejudices, the same flatteries. The incense may be burned before a tribune, a dictator, or a Caesar, there are always the same flattering genuflections, the same cringing.
The new Empire began most brilliantly, but there was no lack of morose criticism. The Faubourg Saint Germain was for the most part hostile and scornful. It looked upon the high dignitaries of the Empire and on the Emperor himself as upstarts, and all the men of the old regime who went over to him they branded as renegades. The t.i.tle of "Citizen" was suppressed and that of "Monsieur" restored, after having been abandoned in conversation and writing for twelve years. Miot de Melito tells us in his Memoirs that at first public opinion was opposed to this change; even those who at the beginning had shown the greatest repugnance to being addressed as Citizen, disliked conferring the t.i.tle of Monsieur upon Revolutionists and the rabble, and they pretended to address as Citizen those whom they saw fit to include in this cla.s.s. Many turned the new state of affairs to ridicule. The Parisians, always of a malicious humor, made perpetual puns and epigrams in abundance.
The Faubourg Saint Germain, in spite of a few adhesions from personal motives, preserved an ironical att.i.tude. General de Segur, then a captain under the orders of the Grand Marshal of the Palace, observed that in 1804, with the exception of several obscure n.o.bles, either poor or ruined, and others already attached to Napoleon"s civil and military fortune, many negotiations and various temptations were required to persuade well-known persons to appear at the court as it was at first const.i.tuted. He goes on: "As a spectator and confidant of the means employed, I witnessed in those early days many refusals, and some I had to announce myself. I even heard many bitter complaints on this subject. I remember that in reply I mentioned to the Empress my own case, and told her what it had cost me to enlist under the tricolor, and then to enter the First Consul"s military household. The Empress understood me so well that she made to me a similar confidence, confessing her own struggles, her almost invincible repugnance, at the end of 1795, in spite of her feeling for Bonaparte, before she could make up her mind to marry the man whom at that time she herself used to call General Vendemiaire."
Although Josephine had become Empress, she remained a Legitimist, and saw clearly the weak points in the Empire. At the Tuileries, in the chamber of Marie Antoinette, she felt out of place; she was surprised to have for Lady of Honor a d.u.c.h.ess of an old family, and her sole ambition was to be pardoned by the Royalists for her elevation, to the highest rank.
Napoleon, too, was much concerned about the Bourbons, in whom he foresaw his successors, "One of his keenest regrets," wrote Prince Metternich, "was his inability to invoke legitimacy as the foundation of his power.
Few men have felt more deeply than he the precariousness and fragility of power when it lacks this foundation, its susceptibility to attack."
After recalling the Emperor"s attempt to induce Louis XVIII. to abandon his claims to the throne, Prince Metternich goes on: "In speaking to me of this matter, Napoleon said: "His reply was n.o.ble, full of n.o.ble traditions. In those Legitimists there is something outside of mere intellectual force."" The Emperor, who, at the beginning of his career, displayed such intense Republican enthusiasm, was by nature essentially a lover of authority and of the monarchy. He would have liked to be a sovereign of the old stamp. His pleasure in surrounding himself with members of the old aristocracy attests the aristocratic instincts of the so-called crowned apostle of democracy. The few Republicans who remained faithful to the principles were indignant with these tendencies; it was with grief that they saw the reappearance of the throne; and thus, from different motives the unreconciled Jacobins and the men of Coblentz who had not joined the court, showed the same feeling of bitterness and of hostility to the Empire.
The trial of General Moreau made clear the germs of opposition which existed in a latent condition. It is difficult to form an idea of the enormous throng that blocked all the approaches to the Palace of Justice the day the trial opened, and continued to crowd them during the twelve days that the trial lasted, which was as interesting to Royalists as to Republicans. The most fashionable people of Paris made a point of being present. Sentence was p.r.o.nounced June 10. Georges Cadoudal and nineteen of the accused, among whom were M. Armand de Polignac, and M. de Riviere, were condemned to death.
To the Emperor"s great surprise, Moreau was sentenced to only two years of prison. This penalty was remitted, and he was allowed to betake himself to the United States. To facilitate his establishing himself there, the Emperor bought his house in the rue d"Anjou Saint Honore, paying for it eight hundred thousand francs, much more than it was worth, and then he gave it to Bernadotte, who did not scruple to accept it. The sum was paid to Moreau out of the secret fund of the police before he left for Cadiz.
Josephine"s urgent solicitations saved the life of the Duke Armand de Polignac, whose death-sentence was commuted to four years" imprisonment before being transported. Madame Murat secured a modification of the sentence of the Marquis de Riviere; and these two acts of leniency, to which great publicity was given, were of great service in diminishing the irritation of the Royalists. After Moreau"s trial, the opposition, having become discouraged, and conscious of its weakness, laid down its arms, at least for a time. Napoleon was everywhere master.
The Republic was forgotten. Its name still appeared on the coins: "French Republic, Napoleon, Emperor"; but it survived as a mere ghost.
Nevertheless, the Emperor was anxious to celebrate in 1804 the Republican festival of July 14; but the object of this festival was so modified that it would have been hard to see in it the anniversary of the taking of the Bastille and of the first federation. In the celebration, not a single word was said about these two events. The official eulogy of the Revolution was replaced by a formal distribution of crosses of the Legion of Honor.
This was the first time that the Emperor and Empress appeared in public in full pomp. It was also the first time that they availed themselves of the privilege of driving through the broad road of the garden of the Tuileries. Accompanied by a magnificent procession, they went in great splendor to the Invalides, which the Revolution had turned into a Temple of Mars, and the Empire had turned again to a Catholic Church. At the door they were received by the Governor and M. de Segur, Grand Master of Ceremonies, and at the entrance to the church by the Cardinal du Belloy at the head of numerous priests. Napoleon and Josephine listened attentively to the ma.s.s; then, after a speech was uttered by the Grand Chancellor of the Legion of Honor, M. de Lacepede, the Emperor recited the form of the oath; at the end of which all the members of the Legion shouted "I swear."
This sight aroused the enthusiasm of the crowd, and the applause was loud.
In the middle of the ceremony, Napoleon called up to him Cardinal Caprara, who had taken a very important part in the negotiations concerning the Concordat, and was soon to help to persuade the Pope to come to Paris for the coronation. The Emperor took from his own neck the ribbon of the Legion of Honor, and gave it to the worthy and aged prelate. Then the knights of the new order pa.s.sed in line before the Imperial throne, while a man of the people, wearing a blouse, took his station on the steps of the throne. This excited some surprise, and he was asked what he wanted; he took out his appointment to the Legion. The Emperor at once called him up, and gave him the cross with the usual kiss.
The Empress"s beauty made a great impression, as we learn from Madame de Remusat, who generally prejudiced against her, but on this occasion was forced to recognize that Josephine, by her tasteful and careful dressing, succeeded in appearing young and charming amid the many young and pretty women by whom she was for the first time surrounded. "She stood there,"
Madame de Remusat goes on, "in the full light of the setting sun, wearing a dress of pink tulle, adorned with silver stars, cut very low after the fashion of the time, and crowned by a great many diamond cl.u.s.ters; and this fresh and brilliant dress, her graceful bearing, her delightful smile, her gentle expression produced such an effect that I heard a number of persons who had been present at the ceremony say that she effaced all her suite." Three days later the Emperor started for the camp at Boulogne.
In spite of the enthusiasm of the people and the army, one thing became clear to every thoughtful observer, and that was that the new regime, lacking strength to resist misfortunes, must have perpetual success in order to live. Napoleon was condemned, by the form of his government, not merely to succeed, but to dazzle, to astonish, to subjugate. His Empire required extraordinary magnificence, prodigious effects, Babylonian festivities, gigantic adventures, colossal victories. His Imperial escutcheon, to escape contempt, needed rich coats of gilding, and demanded glory to make up for the lack of antiquity. In order to make himself acceptable to the European, monarchs, his new brothers, and to remove the memory of the venerable t.i.tles of the Bourbons, this former officer of the armies of Louis XVI., the former second-lieutenant of artillery, who had suddenly become a Caesar, a Charlemagne, could make this sudden and strange transformation comprehensible only through unprecedented fame and splendor. He desired to have a feudal, majestic court, surrounded by all the pomp and ceremony of the Middle Ages. He saw how hard was the part he had to play, and he knew very well how much a nation needs glory to make it forget liberty. Hence a perpetual effort to make every day outshine the one before, and first to equal, then to surpa.s.s, the splendors of the oldest and most famous dynasties. This insatiable thirst for action and for renown was to be the source of Napoleon"s strength and also of his weakness. But only a few clear-sighted men made these reflections when the Empire began. The ma.s.ses, with their easy optimism, looked upon the new Emperor as an infallibly impeccable being, and thought that since he had not yet been beaten, he was invincible. Josephine indulged in no such illusions; she knew the defects in her husband"s character, and dreaded the future for him as well as for herself. Singularly enough for one so surrounded by flatteries, in her whole life her head was never for a moment turned by pride or infatuation.
II.
JOURNEY TO THE BANKS OF THE RHINE
Before having himself crowned by the Pope, after the example of Charlemagne, Napoleon was anxious to go to meditate at the tomb of the great Carlovingian Emperor, of whom he regarded himself as the worthy successor. A journey on the banks of the Rhine, a triumphal tour in the famous German cities which the France of the Revolution had been so proud to conquer, seemed to the new sovereign a fitting prologue to the pomp of the coronation. Napoleon was desirous of impressing the imaginations of people in his new Empire and in the old Empire of Germany. He wished the trumpets of fame to sound in his honor on both banks of the famous and disputed river.
The Empress, who had gone to Aix-la-Chapelle to take the waters, arrived there a few days before her husband. Napoleon wrote to her, August 6, 1804:--
"MY DEAR: I have been here at Calais since midnight; I am thinking of leaving this evening for Dunkirk. I am satisfied with what I see, and I am tolerably well. I hope that you will get as much good from the waters as I get from going about and from seeing the camps and the sea. Eugene has left for Blois. Hortense is well. Louis is at Plombieres. I am very anxious to see you. You are always essential to my happiness. A thousand kind messages."
The Emperor wrote again from Ostend, August 14, 1804:--
"MY DEAR: I have not heard from you for several days, though I should have been glad to hear that the waters have done you good and how you pa.s.s your time. I have been here a week. Day after to-morrow I shall be at Boulogne for a tolerably brilliant festival. Send me word by the messenger what you mean to do, and when you shall have finished your baths. I am much satisfied with the army and the fleet. Eugene is still at Blois. I hear no more about Hortense than if she were at the Congo. I am writing to scold her. Many kind wishes for all."
Napoleon reached Aix-la-Chapelle September 3. The Emperor Francis had, on the 10th of August, a.s.sumed the Imperial t.i.tle accorded to his house, of Emperor-elect of Germany, Hereditary Emperor of Austria, King of Bohemia and Hungary. He had then given orders to M. de Cobentzel to go to Aix-la- Chapelle to present his credentials to Napoleon. Napoleon received the Austrian diplomatist very kindly, and was soon surrounded by a mult.i.tude of foreign amba.s.sadors who came to pay their respects. He re-established the annual honors long before paid to the memory of Charlemagne, went down into the vault, and gave the priests of the Cathedral convincing proofs of his munificence. The Empress was shown a piece of the true cross which the Carlovingian Emperor had long worn on his breast as a talisman. She was offered a holy relic, almost the whole arm of that hero, but she declined it, saying that she did not wish to deprive Aix-la-Chapelle of so precious a memorial, especially when she had the arm of a man as great as Charlemagne to support her.
From Aix-la-Chapelle, Napoleon and Josephine went to Cologne, then to Coblentz, then to Mayence, travelling separately. The Emperor left Cologne September 16 at four in the afternoon, and reached Bonn a little before nightfall, to start again the next morning. The town pleased her very much, and she was sorry she could not remain there longer. She stayed at a fine house with a garden opening on a terrace that looked out over the Rhine. After supper she walked on the terrace. The delight of the people a.s.sembled below, the peacefulness of the night, and the beauty of the river in the moonlight, made the evening most enjoyable. At four the next morning the Empress started off again in her travelling carriage, and at ten she entered Coblentz. The Emperor did not get there until six in the evening, having left Cologne the same day. At Bonn he got on horseback to examine for himself everything that demanded close inspection. From Coblentz, where a ball was given them, Napoleon and Josephine went to Mayence, each by a different route. The Emperor followed the highway on the edge of the Rhine; the Empress ascended the river in a yacht which the Prince of Na.s.sau Weilburg had placed at her disposal. It was a picturesque voyage.
The morning mist soon cleared away. Josephine, who had breakfast served on deck, admired the many charming scenes between Boppard and Bacharach, the fertile fields, the towns perched on the steep banks; in the distance, the mountains covered with forests; then the narrowing river, the bounded view, the cliffs crowded together, where nothing can be seen but the river, the sky, and the crags crowned by the mirrored towns of mediaeval castles. The light boat, as it glided smoothly over the stream, with its gilded Neptune at the bow, recalled Cleopatra"s barge. At times the silence was profound, then the church-bells would be heard, as well as the cheers of the peasants on the river-banks. The pettiest villages had sent guards of honor, had hoisted flags, and raised triumphal arches. Curiously enough, the right bank, which did not belong to France, seemed to display quite as much zeal and enthusiasm as the left bank, the French one; on both sides were the same shouts of welcome, the same demonstrations, the same salutes. When she reached Saint Goar, on the left bank, the Empress saw the authorities of the town coming out to meet her, with military music, in boats decorated with branches of trees; and on the other side of the river, on the terrace of the castle of Hesse Rheinfels, the Hessian garrison was presenting arms, and their salutes joined with those of the inhabitants of Saint Goar, Further on, they shouted through a speaking- trumpet to hear the famous echo of the Lorelei, with its wonderfully distinct and frequent repet.i.tions. Then they pa.s.sed the fantastic castle of the Palatinate, built in the middle of the stream, and in old times the refuge of the Countesses Palatine, where their children were born and kept in security during their babyhood. The Empress landed at Bingen, where she spent the night, starting again the next morning. Towards three in the afternoon she reached Mayence, where twelve young girls belonging to the best families of the city were awaiting her. Almost simultaneously, the cannon at the other gate announced the Emperor"s arrival.
On his way, Napoleon had noticed on an island in the Rhine, at the very extremity of the French Empire, the convent of Rolandswerth. He was told that the nuns who lived there had refused to leave it during the last war, that very often the cannon-b.a.l.l.s of the contending armies had often fallen on the island without damaging the convent where those holy women were praying. The Emperor became interested in their fate, and made over to them the forty or fifty acres of which the little island consisted.
On their arrival at Mayence, September 21, Napoleon Josephine were most warmly greeted. In the evening all the streets and public buildings were illuminated. The Prince Archchancellor of the Germanic Empire, who owed to the French sovereign the preservation of his wealth and of his t.i.tle, desired to pay his respects. The Emperor was surrounded by a real court of German Princes. The Princess of the House of Hesse, the Duke and d.u.c.h.ess of Bavaria, the Elector of Baden, who was more than seventy-five years old, and had come with his son and grandson, appeared as if va.s.sals of the new Charlemagne, the second Theatre Francais had been summoned from Paris, and played before this public of Highnesses. Every one was struck by the celerity with which this crowned soldier had acquired the appearance of a sovereign belonging to an old line, while he still preserved the language and appearance of a soldier. One day he asked the hereditary Prince of Baden: "What did you do yesterday?" The young Prince replied with some embarra.s.sment that he had strolled about the streets. "You did very wrong," said Napoleon. "What you ought to have done was to visit the fortifications and inspect them carefully. How can you tell? Perhaps some day you will have to besiege Mayence. Who would have told me when I was a simple artillery officer walking about Toulon that I should be destined to take that city?" It was at Mayence that the treasures unjustly extorted from the German Princes were restored to them. It was at Mayence that Gutenberg"s name for the first time received formal homage.
General de Segur, In his Memoirs, narrates an anecdote about Napoleon"s stay in this old German city. The Emperor had gone incognito and without escort to an island in the Rhine, not far from the town. As he was walking in this almost deserted island, he noticed a wretched hut in which a poor woman was lamenting that her son had been drafted. "Console yourself,"
said Napoleon, without letting her know who he was, and giving her an a.s.sumed name: "Come to Mayence to-morrow and ask for me; I have some influence with the ministers and I will try to help you." The poor woman appeared punctually. With delight and surprise she saw that the stranger was the Emperor of the French. Napoleon delighted to tell her that her house which had been destroyed by the war should be rebuilt, that he would give her a little herd and several acres of land, and that her son should be restored to her.
A letter in the _Moniteur_ thus described the departure of Napoleon and Josephine: "Mayence, 11 Vendemiaire (October 3). The Empress left yesterday for Paris, by way of Saverne and Nancy. The Emperor is just leaving; he means to visit Frankenthal, Kaiserslanten, and Kreutznach; then he will take the road to Treves. The stay of Their Majesties has been for us a source of lasting pleasure and advantage. The most important interests of our department have been favorably regulated. We have nothing now to wish for except an opportunity to show our grat.i.tude, our devotion, and our fidelity, and the sincerity of the good wishes our citizens expressed by their unanimous cheers. The Electors, the Princes, and the many distinguished strangers who have given our city the appearance of a great capital, are now taking their departure."