The day following this scene, the necessary formalities were gone through in the Senate. Eugène, then Viceroy of Italy, took the oath of Senator that day, and later spoke on the divorce. The interpretation he gave of the separation was that which Napoleon had devised. “You have just listened to the reading of the project which the Senate submits to you for deliberation,” Eugène said. “Under the circumstances, I think that it is my duty to express to you the feelings of my family. My mother, my sister, and myself owe everything to the Emperor; he has been a veritable father to us; he will find in us at all times devoted children and submissive subjects. It is essential to the happiness of France that the founder of this fourth dynasty should be surrounded by direct descendants who will be a guarantee to everybody, a safeguard of the people, of the country. When my mother was crowned before the whole nation by the hands of her august husband, she contracted the obligation to sacrifice all her affections to the good of France; she has fulfilled her duty with courage, nobility, and dignity; her heart has often been wrung by the painful struggles of a man accustomed to conquer fortune and to march forward always with a firm step toward the accomplishment of great designs. The tears that this resolution has cost the Emperor are sufficient to glorify my mother. In her new situation she will not be a stranger to the new prosperity that we expect, and it will be with a satisfaction mingled with pride that she will look upon the happiness that her sacrifices have brought to the country and to the Emperor.”
The articles annulling the marriage and fixing Josephine’s future state were passed at the same session. They read:—
Article I. The marriage contracted between the Emperor Napoleon and the Empress Josephine is hereby dissolved.
Article II. The Empress Josephine will preserve the title and the rank of a crowned Empress.
Article III. Her annual income is fixed at two million francs [$400,000], to be paid from the treasury of the State.
Article IV. All the obligations taken by the Emperor for the Empress Josephine out of the public treasury are obligatory upon his successors.
Article V. The present senatus-consulte shall be sent by a messenger to Her Majesty, the Empress Queen.
That afternoon Napoleon, after a heart-breaking scene with Josephine, left the Tuileries for the Trianon. A few hours later Josephine, exhausted by weeping, entered her carriage, and in a heavy storm was driven to Malmaison.
CHAPTER IX
AFTER THE DIVORCE—NAVARRE—JOSEPHINE’S SUSPICIONS OF THE EMPEROR—HER GRADUAL RETURN TO HAPPINESS
Although divorced, Josephine was still Empress of the French People, and her income and her position were in keeping with her title. By the decree of the Senate, her income was fixed at 2,000,000 francs ($400,000), but the Emperor found means of increasing this, by making her many splendid presents, and by ordering that any unusual outlay, such as that for repairs at Malmaison, be paid from the civil list. She was to have three separate homes: Malmaison, always her favorite residence, upon the chateau and grounds of which she had for years lavished money, and in which she had carried out every fantasy of building, decoration and gardening, that entered her head; the Elysée Palace in Paris, at present the residence of the presidents of the French Republic; and Navarre, a chateau near Evreux.