It is written in a bad style.—M. Masson, however, is loud in its praises, and adds, "Voilà donc le protocol du tutoiement" re-established between them in spite of the second marriage, and their correspondence re-established on the old terms.
No. 2.
This letter seems to have been taken by Eugène to Paris, and thence forwarded to the Emperor with a letter from that Prince in which he enumerates Josephine's suggestions and wishes—(1) that she will not go to Aix-la-Chapelle if other waters are suggested by Corvisart; (2) that after stopping a few days at Malmaison she will go in June for three months to the baths, and afterwards to the south of France; visit Rome, Florence, and Naples incognito, spend the winter at Milan, and return to Malmaison and Navarre in the spring of 1811; (3) that in her absence Navarre shall be made habitable, for which fresh funds are required; (4) that Josephine wishes her cousins the Taschers to marry, one a relative of King Joseph, the other the Princess Amelie de la Leyen, niece of the Prince Primate. To this Napoleon replies from Compiègne, April 26th, that the De Leyen match with Louis Tascher may take place,[89] but that he will not interest himself in the other (Henry) Tascher, who is giddy-headed and bad-tempered. "I consent to whatever the Empress does, but I will not confer any mark of my regard on a person who has behaved ill to me. I am very glad that the Empress likes Navarre. I am giving orders to have £12,000 which I owe her for 1810, and £12,000 for 1811 advanced to her. She will then have only the £80,000 from the public treasury to come in.... She is free to go to whatever spa she cares for, and even to return to Paris afterwards." He thinks, however, she would be happier in new scenes which they had never visited together, as they had Aix-la-Chapelle. If, however, the last are the best she may go to them, for "what I desire above all is that she may keep calm, and not allow herself to be excited by the gossip of Paris." This letter goes far to soothe the poor châtelaine of Navarre.
No. 2a.
Two letters.—The other, now missing, may have some reference to the pictures to which he refers in his letter to Fouché the next day. "Is it true that engravings are being published with the title of Josephine Beauharnais née La Pagerie? If this is true, have the prints seized, and let the engravers be punished" (New Letters, No. 253).
No. 3.
Probably written from Boulogne about the 25th. His northern tour with Marie Louise had been very similar to one taken in 1804, but his entourage found the new bride very cold and callous compared to Josephine. Leaving Paris on April 29th Napoleon's Correspondence till June is dated Laeken (April 30th); Antwerp (May 3rd); Bois-le-Duc; Middleburg, Gand, Bruges, Ostend (May 20th); Lille, Boulogne, Dieppe, Le Havre, Rouen (May 31st). He takes the Empress in a canal barge from Brussels to Malines and himself descends the subterranean vault of the Escaut-Oise canal, between St. Quentin and Cambrai. He is at St. Cloud on June 2nd.
Josephine has felt his wanderings less, as she has the future Emperor, her favourite grandson, with her, the little Oui-Oui, as she calls him, and for whom the damp spring weather of Holland was dangerous. She was also at Malmaison from the middle of May to June 18th. The original collection of Letters (Didot Frères, 1833) heads the letter correctly to the Empress Josephine at Malmaison, but the Correspondence, published by order of Napoleon III., gives it erroneously, to the Empress Josephine, at the Château of Navarre (No. 16,537).
I will come to see you.—He comes for two hours on June 13th, and makes himself thoroughly agreeable. Poor Josephine is light-headed with joy all the evening after. The meeting of the two Empresses is, however, indefinitely postponed, and Josephine had now no further reason to delay her departure. Leaving her little grandson Louis behind, she travels under the name of the Countess d'Arberg, and she is accompanied by Madame d'Audenarde and Mlle. de Mackau, who left the Princess Stephanie to come to Navarre. M. Masson notes that Madame de Rémusat needs the Aix waters, and will rejoin Josephine (within a week), under pretext of service, and thus obtain her cure gratuitously. They go viâ Lyons and Geneva to Aix-les-Bains. M. Masson, who has recently made a careful and complete study of this period, describes the daily round. "Josephine, on getting out of bed, takes conscientiously her baths and douches, then, as usual, lies down again until déjeuner, 11 A.M., for which the whole of the little Court are assembled at The Palace—wherever she lives, and however squalid the dwelling-place, her abode always bears this name. Afterwards she and her women-folk ply their interminable tapestry, while the latest novel or play (sent by Barbier from Paris) is read aloud. And so the day passes till five, when they dress for dinner at six; after dinner a ride. At nine the Empress's friends assemble in her room, Mlle. de Mackau sings; at eleven every one goes to bed." This programme, however, varies with the weather. Here is St. Amand's version (Dernières Années de l'Impératrice Joséphine, p. 237): "A little reading in the morning, an airing (le promenade) afterwards, dinner at eight on account of the heat, games afterwards, and some little music; so passed existence."