A house vacant in Paris.—This seems a hint for Josephine. She wishes to come to Paris, to the Élysée, and to try a little diplomacy of her own in favour of the Austrian match, and she sends secretly to Madame de Metternich—whose husband was absent. Eugène more officially is approaching Prince Schwartzenberg, the ambassador. Josephine, like Talleyrand, wished to heal the schism with Rome by an Austrian alliance; while Cambacérès, foreseeing a war with the power not allied by marriage, would have preferred the Russian match.
No. 9.
Thursday, January 4th.
Hortense.—Louis had tried to obtain a divorce. Cambacérès was ordered on December 22nd to summon a family council (New Letters of Napoleon I., No. 234); but the wish of the King was refused (verbally, says Louis in his Historical Documents of Holland), whereupon he refused to agree to Josephine's divorce, but had to give way, and was present at what he calls the farewell festival given by the city of Paris to the Empress Josephine on January 1st. The ecclesiastical divorce was pronounced on January 12th.
No. 10.
January 5th. He duly visits Josephine the next day.
No. 11.
January 7th is the date.
What charms your society has.—Her repertoire of small talk and scandal. He had also lost in her his Agenda, his Journal of Paris. Still the visits are growing rarer. This long kind letter was doubtless intended to be specially so, for two days later the clergy of Paris pronounced the annulment of her marriage. This was far worse than the pronouncement by the Senate in December, as it meant to her that she and Napoleon had never been properly married at all. The Emperor, who hated divorces, and especially divorcées, had found great difficulty in breaking down the barriers he had helped to build, for which purpose he had to be subordinated to his own Senate, the Pope to his own bishops. Seven of them allowed the annulment of the marriage of 1804 on account of (1) its secrecy, (2) the insufficiency of consent of the contracting parties, and (3) the absence of the local parish priest at the ceremony. The last reason was merely a technical one; but with respect to the first two it is only fair to admit that Napoleon had undoubtedly, and perhaps for the only time in his life, been completely "rushed," i.e. by the Pope and Josephine. The coronation ceremony was waiting, and the Pope, secretly solicited by Josephine, insisted on a religious marriage first and foremost. The Pope suffered forthwith, but the other bill of costs was not exacted till five years after date.
No. 12.