Not only did Josephine receive money and property; Napoleon took care that her suite was in keeping with her rank. It was as large, indeed, as that of many of the reigning sovereigns of Europe, and included some of the cleverest and wittiest men and women of France. To the Emperor’s honor, the persons chosen were all of them in sympathy with the Empress and loved by her. More than one of those in Josephine’s household, indeed, would have been welcomed in the suite of Marie Louise; but being offered their choice, remained with Josephine. Mme. de Remusat was a notable example. She stayed with Josephine solely because of her affection and sense of loyalty and in spite of the fact that her husband was the First Chamberlain of Napoleon.
If Josephine had any idea that her divorce was going to separate her from Paris and the society of her friends, she immediately found out her mistake. The day after her arrival at Malmaison, in spite of a heavy shower, the road from Paris was one long line of carriages of persons hastening to the chateau to pay her their respects. Those persons who did stay away because uncertain whether the Emperor was sincere in his declaration that Josephine was to keep her rank as Empress had to submit to severe reproofs. “Have you been to see the Empress Josephine?” he began to ask, after a day or two, and if the courtier said no, the Emperor frowned and said, “You must go, sir!” And as a result everybody did go, and continued to go. Indeed, later in the winter, when Josephine came to the Elysée for a short time, her house was a veritable court.
But Josephine had received a blow which wealth, rank, and friends could not cure. The man who once had wearied her by his passion and who had had to beg and threaten to persuade her to pass a week with him in Italy, had in turn become the object of as passionate affection as she was capable of feeling. She had for years now regarded his slightest wish. In devoting herself to Napoleon in order to save her position she had learned to love him. Her pain now was the greater because she could not believe that Napoleon meant it when he said that he still should love and protect her and that he should honor her for her sacrifice as never before. She seemed to feel that, after she had said good-by to him at the Tuileries, she would never see him again. She gave way utterly to her grief, weeping night and day. Napoleon kept his word, however. Two days after her arrival at Malmaison he came to see her and frequently in the days that followed, up to the time of his marriage with Marie Louise, at the end of March, he made her little visits. They were always formal, in the presence of attendants, but they did much to persuade the Empress that Napoleon intended to keep his promises to her. After every visit however, came paroxysms of weeping. Napoleon kept himself informed of Josephine’s state, and wrote her frequent notes, chiding her for this weakness, assuring her of his love, and begging her to have courage.
“I found you weaker than you should have been,” he wrote one day. “You have shown some courage; you must find a way of keeping it up. You must not give up to melancholy, you must try to be contented, and above all, take care of your health, which is so precious to me. If you love me, you ought to try to be strong and happy. You must not doubt my constant and tender friendship. You misunderstand entirely my feelings if you suppose that I can be happy when you are not happy, and above all, when you are not contented.”
“Savary told me that you were weeping yesterday,” he wrote another day. “I hope that you have been able to go out to-day. I am sending you the results of my hunt yesterday. I will come to see you just as soon as you will promise me that you have regained your self-control and that your courage has the upper hand. Good-by, dear; I am sad to-day, too, for I have need of knowing that you are satisfied and courageous.”
After returning to the Tuileries, he wrote her:—“Eugène told me that you were sad yesterday. That is not well, dear; it is contrary to what you promised me. It has been a sorrow to me to see the Tuileries again; the great palace seems empty, and I am lost here.”
The visits, the gifts, the letters of the Emperor really made the Empress worse rather than better; and finally Mme. de Remusat took the matter in hand.
“The Empress passed a most unhappy morning,” she wrote to her husband; “she received a few visits which only increased her grief, and then every time anything comes from the Emperor she goes off into a terrible paroxysm. Some way must be found to persuade the Emperor to moderate his expressions of regret and affection, for whenever he gives a sign of his own sadness she falls into despair, and really her head seems turned. I take care of her as well as I can, but she causes me the greatest sorrow. She is sweet, suffering, affectionate; in fact, everything that is calculated to tear one’s heart. In showing his affection, the Emperor only makes her worse. However she suffers, there is never a complaint escapes her; she is really as gentle as an angel.... Try, if you can, to have the Emperor write to her so as to encourage her, and let him never send anything in the evening, because that gives her a terrible night. She cannot endure his expressions of regret. Doubtless, she could endure coldness still less, but there must be a medium way. She was in such a state yesterday after the last letter of the Emperor that I was on the point of writing him myself at the Trianon.”
As time went on and Josephine found that she really had no reason to suspect the Emperor of withdrawing the friendship he had promised, she began to imagine that he meant to keep her always at Malmaison, never to allow her to go again to Paris. This alarm probably was due to gossip that reached her. She no doubt would have preferred remaining at Malmaison if this fear had not arisen. She was so overcome by suspicion that she tested his sincerity by asking permission to go to Paris. She did this in spite of the fact that the talk of the forthcoming marriage—not yet settled, but in full negotiation—was in everybody’s mouth. The Emperor’s reply to her request was kind. “I shall be glad to know that you are at the Elysée, and happy to see you oftener, for you know how much I love you.” In the course of this correspondence about her coming he could not help scolding her a little, however. “I have just told Eugène that you would rather listen to the gossip of the town than to what I tell you.”
And yet, even in this period of distress, Josephine was not idle; nor was she so selfish in her grief that she forgot her friends. Napoleon’s letters to her record more than one promise of a favor she had asked for somebody. She even interested herself actively in securing a princess for the Emperor. Summoning the Countess de Metternich of Austria, just arrived in Paris, she told her frankly that she should consider the sacrifice she had made a pure waste if the Emperor did not marry the Archduchess of Austria. At that time Napoleon had not decided on his future Empress; but the negotiations thus opened by Josephine enabled Metternich to prepare the way in Austria so that, when the time came, there were none of the delays which had irritated Napoleon in applying for the hand of the Russian princess as he did first. The negotiations for the hand of Marie Louise terminated favorably, and the wedding was set for March.