The Austrian campaign, and Buonaparte's sojourn at Schönbrunn, gave him a sight of the Archduchess Maria Louisa, and determined his conduct. The house of Hapsburg, however ancient and however proud, was under the foot of the conqueror, and the sacrifice of an archduchess might be considered a cheap one for more favourable terms than Austria was otherwise likely to receive. It had the fate of Prussia before its eyes, and the bargain was concluded. It might have seemed to require no little courage in an Austrian princess to venture on becoming Empress of France after the awful experience of her aunt Marie Antoinette. But Maria Louisa was scarcely eighteen. She had seen Buonaparte, who had endeavoured to make himself agreeable to her; and so young a girl, of a military nation, might be as much dazzled with the conqueror's glory as older, if not wiser, heads. She made no objection to the match. In appearance she was of light, fair complexion, with light-brown hair, of a somewhat tall figure, blue eyes, and with a remarkably beautiful hand and foot. Altogether, she was an animated and agreeable young lady.

Buonaparte apparently lost no time, after his return to Paris from Schönbrunn, in communicating to Josephine the fact that the business of the divorce and the new marriage was settled. On the 30th of November, 1809, he opened the unpleasant reality to her in a private interview, and she fell into such violent agitation, and finally into so deep a swoon, as to alarm Napoleon. He blamed Hortense for not having broken the matter to her three days before, as he had desired. But however much Napoleon might be affected at this rude disruption of an old and endeared tie, his feelings never stood in the way of his ambitious plans. The preparations for the divorce went on, and on the 15th of December a grand council was held in the Tuileries on the subject. At this important council all the family of Napoleon, his brothers and sisters, now all kings and queens, were summoned from their kingdoms to attend, and did attend, except Joseph from Spain, Madame Bacciochi—that is, Elise—and Lucien, who had refused to be made a king. Cambacérès, now Duke of Parma and arch-chancellor of the Empire, and St. Jean d'Angély, the Minister of State, attended to take the depositions. Napoleon then said a few words expressive of his grief at this sad but necessary act, of affection for and admiration of the wife he was about to put away, and of his hope of a posterity to fill his throne, saying he was yet but forty, and might reasonably expect to live to train up children who should prove a blessing to the empire. Josephine, with a voice choked with tears, arose, and, in a short speech, made the act a voluntary one on her part. After this the arch-chancellor presented the written instrument of divorce, which they signed, and to which all the family appended their signatures. This act was presented to the Senate the very next day by St. Jean d'Angély, and, strangely enough, Eugene Beauharnais, Josephine's son, was chosen to second it, which he did in a speech of some length. The Senate passed the necessary Senatus Consultum, certifying the divorce, and conferring on Josephine the title of empress-queen, with the estate of Navarre and two millions of francs per annum. They also voted addresses to both Napoleon and Josephine of the most complimentary character. This being done, Napoleon went off to St. Cloud, and Josephine retired to the beautiful abode of Malmaison, near St. Germains, where she continued to reside for the remainder of her life, and made herself beloved for her acts of kindness and benevolence, of which the English détenus, of whom there were several at St. Germains, were participants.

Another council was immediately summoned to determine on the choice of a new Empress. All had been arranged before between the House of Austria and Napoleon, and the cue was given to the council to suggest accordingly. Eugene Beauharnais was again strangely appointed to propose to Prince Schwarzenberg for the hand of the archduchess, and, having his instructions, his proposal was accepted, and the whole of this formality was concluded in four-and-twenty hours. Josephine set out for her new estate in Navarre, and Marshal Berthier was appointed to act as proxy for his master in the espousals of the bride at Vienna. There were difficulties in the case which, strictly Catholic as the Hapsburg family is, it is surprising that they could be so easily got over, and which show how much that Imperial family was under the control of "the Upstart," as they familiarly styled him amongst themselves. The Pope had been too grievously insulted and persecuted by Buonaparte for it to be possible for him to pronounce the former marriage invalid; had it not been also contrary to the canons of the Church to abrogate marriage, which it regards as an entirely sacred and indissoluble ceremony. To remove this difficulty, it was stated to the Austrian family that Buonaparte's marriage with Josephine had been merely a revolutionary marriage before a magistrate, and therefore no marriage at all—the fact being originally true, but it had ceased to be so some days previous to Buonaparte's coronation, when, to remove the Pope's objection, they had been privately married by Buonaparte's uncle, Cardinal Fesch. The wedding took place at Vienna, on the 11th of March, 1810, and a few days afterwards the young Empress set out for France, accompanied by the Queen of Naples. Buonaparte, who maintained the strictest etiquette at his Court, had had all the ceremonies which were to attend his marriage in Paris arranged with the most minute exactness. He then set out himself to meet his Austrian bride, very much in the manner that he had gone to meet the Pope. Near Soissons—riding alone, and in an ordinary dress—Buonaparte met the carriage of his new wife, got in, and went on with her to Soissons and thence to the old château of Compiègne.

Soon after his marriage Buonaparte made a tour with his Imperial bride. It was very much the same that he had made with Josephine shortly before their coronation—namely, through the northern provinces of France, through Belgium and Holland. He decided, during this journey, on the occasion of his uniting the part of the Low Countries called Zealand with the Department of the Mouths of the Scheldt, on annexing the whole country to France for ever. But whilst conversing with Louis Buonaparte, his Holland king-brother at Antwerp, he suddenly stumbled on a discovery of some daring proceedings of Fouché, his Minister of Police, which sent him back to Paris in haste, and ruined that subtle diplomatist with him. The arbitrary disposition displayed in this arrangement very soon produced consequences between Napoleon and his brothers which made more than ever manifest to the world that no law or consideration could any longer influence Napoleon; that his self-will was, and must be, his only guide. His brother Lucien, who had from the first refused to become one of his puppets, and who was leading a private life in Italy, received an intimation from Fouché that Napoleon meant to arrest and shut him up. In consequence of this friendly hint, Lucien fled from the Continent, and ultimately took refuge in England, where he purchased an estate near Ludlow, and there resided till 1814, when the fall of his brother permitted him to return to France. Lucien Buonaparte (the ablest of the family next to Napoleon), now styled the Prince of Canino, from an estate which he purchased in Italy, and which the Pope raised to a principality, spent the three years in England in writing a poem entitled "Charlemagne; or, the Church Delivered."

But if Lucien, who had rendered Napoleon such essential services in enabling him to put down the French Revolution, could not escape this meddling domination as a private man, much less could his puppet-kings, whether brothers or brothers-in-law. He was beginning to have violent quarrels with Murat and his sister Caroline, king and queen of Naples; nor could the mild and amiable temper of Louis, king of Holland, protect him from the insults and the pressure of this spoiled child of fortune.

Louis was a conscientious man, who was sincerely desirous of studying the comfort and prosperity of the people over whom he was placed. But the system of Buonaparte went to extinguish the welfare of Holland altogether. To insist upon the Dutch shutting out the manufactures of Great Britain, upon which the large trade of Holland subsisted, was to dry up the very means by which Holland had made itself a country from low-lying sea-marshes and sand-banks. Louis knew this, and winked, as much as possible, at the means by which the trade of his subjects was maintained with England. This produced extreme anger on the part of Napoleon, who used terms towards his brother of rudeness and even brutality. Relations between Louis, and his queen, Hortense, the daughter of Josephine, had grown unbearable. In fact, they had made a mutual, though not a legal separation; and in 1809 they each demanded that a legal separation should take place. There was such an intimate connection between Buonaparte and Queen Hortense that Louis deemed it a matter that concerned his honour as well as his quiet. But Napoleon bluntly refused to allow such a legal dissolution of the marriage, and insulted his brother by calling him an ideologist—a man who had spoiled himself by reading Rousseau. He did not even return a written answer to Louis's demand, but satisfied himself with a verbal one. Champagny, the Duke of Cadore, who had succeeded Talleyrand as Minister, stated in a report that the situation of Louis was become critical from the conflicting sentiments in his heart of duties towards France and duties towards his own subjects; and Buonaparte intimated his intention to recall Louis to France, and to unite Holland, as a province, to the empire. Louis, on his part, intimated that unless the Dutch were allowed to avoid universal ruin by the prosecution of their commerce, he would abdicate. Buonaparte had already annexed Zealand to France, and Louis displayed a remarkable indifference to retaining the remainder. On this, Buonaparte seemed to pause in his menaces; but for all that he did not suspend his resolution to compel an utter exclusion of British goods. The Dutch, who esteemed Louis for his honest regard for their rights, were alarmed at the idea of losing him; for it could only be for Holland to be united to France, and put under the most compulsory system. For some time they and Louis contemplated laying the whole country under water, and openly repudiating the influence of Napoleon. But cool reflection convinced them that such resistance was useless; and in March of this year Louis submitted to a treaty by which the Continental system was to be strictly enforced. Not only Zealand, but Dutch Brabant and the whole course of the Rhine on both its banks were made over to France. Louis signed the treaty on the 1st of July, but significantly added, "as far as possible."

But no such easy rendering of the contract was contemplated by Buonaparte. He did not even adhere to the letter of it. French officers were to be placed in all the Dutch garrisons, and eighteen thousand troops were to be maintained, of whom six thousand were to be French. Instead of six thousand soldiers, General Oudinot appeared at the head of twenty thousand at Utrecht. These, Buonaparte informed Louis, were to occupy all the strong posts of the country, and to have their headquarters at Amsterdam, his capital. Louis determined to be no party to this utter subjugation of the country, nor any longer to play the part of a puppet sovereign. On the 1st of July he executed a deed of abdication in favour of his son, Napoleon Louis, expressing a hope that, though he had been so unfortunate as to offend the Emperor, he trusted he would not visit his displeasure on his innocent family. He then drew up a vindication of his conduct, saying that he was placed in an impossible situation, and that he had long foreseen this termination of it. He sent this to be published in England, the only place in which it could appear; and he then gave an entertainment to a number of his friends at his palace at Haarlem, and at midnight entered a private carriage and drove away. He proceeded to Graz, in Styria, where he devoted his leisure to the instruction of his children, and to literature, and wrote "Documens Hìstoriques et Réflexions sur le Gouvernement de la Holland"—being an account of his administration of the government of that country—and also a novel, called "Marie, ou les Hollandaises." His wife, Hortense, went to Paris, where she became a great leader in the world of fashion. On the 9th of July, only eight days after the abdication of Louis, Buonaparte issued a decree declaring Holland "re-united to France!" Oudinot marched into Amsterdam, and took possession of it in the name of his master. It was declared the third city of the French empire. The French Ministers issued reports to vindicate this annexation, which was a disgraceful breach of Napoleon's pledge to the Senate—that the Rhine should be the boundary of France—and also of his repeated assurances that Holland should remain an independent kingdom.

NAPOLEON I. (From the Portrait by Paul Delaroche.)

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