"You have Eugene!" said Josephine.
"He's my son by proxy," said Napoleon, with a weary smile.
All motives, like ores, are found mixed, and counting the whole at one hundred, Napoleon's desire for a son after the flesh should stand as ten—other reasons ninety. All men wish to be thought young. Napoleon was forty, and his wife was forty-seven. Talleyrand had spoken of them as Old Mr. and Mrs. Bonaparte.
A man of forty is only a giddy youth, according to his own estimate. Girls of twenty are his playfellows. A man of sixty, with a wife forty, and babies coming, is not old—bless me! But suppose his wife is nearly seventy—what then! Napoleon must have a young wife. Then by marrying Marie Louise, Austria could be held as friend: it was very necessary to do this. Austria must be secured as an ally at any cost—even at the cost of Josephine. It was painful, but must be done for the good of France. The State should stand first in the mind of every loyal, honest man: all else is secondary.
So Josephine was divorced, but was provided with an annuity that was preposterous in its lavish proportions. It amounted to over half a million dollars a year. I once knew a man who, on getting home from the club at two o'clock in the morning, was reproached by his wife for his shocking condition. He promptly threw the lady over the banisters. Next day he purchased her a diamond necklace at the cost of a year's salary, but she could not wear it out in society for a month on account of her black eye.
Napoleon divorced Josephine that he might be the father of a line of kings. When he abdicated in Eighteen Hundred Fifteen, he declared his son, the child of Marie Louise, "Napoleon the Second, Emperor of France," and the world laughed. The son died before he had fairly reached manhood's estate. Napoleon the Third, son of Hortense, Queen of Holland, the grandson of Josephine, reigned long and well as Emperor of France. The Prince Imperial—a noble youth—great-grandson of Josephine, was killed in Africa while fighting the battle of the nation that undid Napoleon.
Josephine was a parent of kings: Napoleon was not.
When Bonaparte was banished to Elba, and Marie Louise was nowhere to be seen, Josephine wrote to him words of consolation, offering to share his exile.
She died not long after—on the Second of June, Eighteen Hundred Fourteen.
After viewing that gaudy tomb at the Invalides, and thinking of the treasure in tears and broken hearts that it took to build it, it will rest you to go to the simple village church at Ruel, a half-hour's ride from the Arc de Triomphe, where sleeps Josephine, Empress of France.