Josephine was very anxious to join her husband who held it before her as a possibility, but never permitted it. He had written to her, November 16: "I am glad to see that my views please you. You were wrong to think I was flattering; I spoke of you as you seem to me. I am sorry to think that you are bored at Mayence. If the journey was not so long you might come here, for the enemy has left, and is beyond the Vistula; that is to say, one hundred and twenty leagues from here. I will await your decision. I shall be glad to see M. Napoleon. Good by, my dear. Ever yours." And November 22: "Be satisfied and happy in my friendship, in all I feel for you. In a few days I shall decide to summon you or to send you to Paris. Good by. You may go now, if you wish, to Darmstadt and Frankfort; that will amuse you. Much love to Hortense." After signing the decree establishing the continental blockade, Napoleon had left Berlin November 25. The next day he again held before Josephine the prospect of a speedy meeting. "I am at Custrin," he said in his letter, "to make some reconnoissances; I shall see you in two days if you are to come. You can hold yourself in readiness. I shall be glad to have the Queen of Holland come too. The Grand Duchess of Baden must write to her husband about coming. It is two o'clock in the morning; I have just got up. That is the way at war. Much love to you and every one." A letter from Meseritz, March 27, was still more explicit: "I am going to make a trip through Poland; this is the most important city here. I shall be at Posen this evening, after which I summon you to Berlin, that you may arrive there the same day. My health is good, the weather rather bad; it has been raining for three days. Matters are in a good condition. The Russians are in flight." Josephine, who had trembled with joy at the thought of seeing her husband, fell into great gloom when she saw that she had been deceived by a vain hope. The tortures of, alas! too well-founded jealousy were to be added to her sufferings!
Napoleon reached Posen November 28, and wrote the next day to his wife: "I am at Posen, the capital of Great Poland, The cold is beginning; I am well. I am going to make a trip in Poland. My troops are at the gates of Warsaw. Good by, my dear, much love. I kiss you with all my heart. To-day is the anniversary of Austerlitz. I have been at a ball given by the city. It is raining. I am well. I love you and long for you. My troops are at Warsaw. It has not yet been cold. All the Polish women are Frenchwomen, but there is only one woman for me. Do you know her? I should draw her portrait for you; but I should have to flatter it too much for you to recognize it; nevertheless, to tell the truth, my heart would have only good things to tell you. I find the nights long in my solitude. Ever yours." Perhaps Napoleon would not have been so amiable to Josephine had it not been that he was going to be very unfaithful to her in Poland, and in a movement of pity wanted to console her in advance. From there he sent her, December 3, two letters, one at noon, the other at six in the evening. This is the first: "I have your letter of November 26. I notice two things: you say, don't read your letters; that is unjust. I am sorry for your bad opinion. You tell me you are not jealous. I have long observed that people who are angry always say that they are not angry, that people who are afraid say they are not afraid; so you are convicted of jealousy; I am delighted! Besides, you are mistaken, and in the deserts of fair Poland one thinks but little about pretty women. Yesterday I was at a ball of the nobility of the province; rather pretty women, rather rich, rather ill dressed, although in the Paris fashion." Perhaps Napoleon said that to reassure the Empress; I imagine that the Polish women, with all their elegance and grace, were scarcely so ill-dressed as he pretended.
This is the second letter, dated December 3, 6 P.M.: "I have your letter of November 27, and I see that your little head is much excited. I remember the line: 'A woman's wish is a devouring flame,' and I must calm you. I wrote to you that I was in Poland, that when we should have got into winter-quarters you might come; so you must wait a few days. The greater one becomes, the less will one must have; one depends on events and circumstances. You may go to Frankfort or Darmstadt, I hope to summon you in a few days, but events must decide. The warmth of your letter convinces me that you pretty women take no account of obstacles; what you want must be; but I must say that I am the greatest slave that lives; my master has no heart, and this master is the nature of things." Napoleon should have said: Providence. Man proposes, but God disposes.
Napoleon again spoke a little of having Josephine come. He wrote to her December 10: "An officer has brought me a rug from you; it is a little short and narrow, but I am no less grateful to you for it. I am fairly well. The weather is very changeable. Everything is in good condition. I love you and am very anxious to see you. Good by, my dear: I shall write to you to come with more pleasure than you will come."
December 12 he spoke once more of this projected journey which became ever more and more remote, like a mirage in the desert: "My health is good, the weather very mild; the bad season has not begun, but the roads are bad in a country where there are no highways. So Hortense will come with Napoleon; I am delighted. I am impatient to have things settle themselves so that you can come. I have made peace with Saxony. The Elector is King and belongs to the confederation. Good by, my dearest Josephine. Yours ever. A kiss to Hortense, to Napoleon, and to Stéphanie. Paër, the famous musician, his wife, whom you saw at Milan twelve years ago, and Brizzi, are here; they give me some music every evening." Napoleon left Posen in the middle of December. The evening before his departure he wrote a letter to his wife which showed the unlikelihood of her joining him, as she hoped to do; "I am leaving for Warsaw, and shall be back in a fortnight. I hope then to have you here. Still, if that is too long I should be glad to have you return to Paris where you are needed. You know that I have to depend on events." The unhappy Josephine already had a foreboding of his devotion to a great Polish lady.
Napoleon reached Warsaw December 18, 1806. He was to stay there till the 23d, return there January 2, 1807, and not to go away till the 31st of that month. He was greeted there with enthusiasm. He had said to his soldiers in his proclamation on entering Poland: "The French eagle is soaring above the Vistula. The brave and unfortunate Pole, when he sees you, imagines that he sees the legions of Sobieski returning from their memorable expedition." No one understood better than the Emperor how to impress the imagination of a people. At sight of him the inhabitants of Warsaw were thrilled with patriotic joy. It seemed to them that their grand nation was rising from the tomb. The Polish women, with their lively, poetic, ardent nature, regarded Napoleon as a sort of Messiah. In the intoxication of their ecstatic admiration, the most beautiful of them—and Poland is the country of beauty—turned towards him, like sirens, their most seductive smiles. This coquetry they regarded as a patriotic duty. Josephine had good grounds for jealousy.
Napoleon was in the field during the last days of December. War at that time was particularly fatiguing. The dampness, worse than any cold, saddened the eyes and wearied the body. The temperature was forever changing between frost and thaw. Fighting took place in the most unfavorable conditions. But the Emperor, pitiless for himself and every one else, uttered no complaint. He wrote from Golimin to the Empress, December 29, at five in the morning: "I write but a word, from a wretched barn. I have beaten the Russians, captured thirty cannon, their baggage, and six thousand prisoners; but the weather is frightful; it pours, and we are knee deep in mud." And from Pultusk, December 31: "I have laughed a good deal over your last two letters. You have formed a very inaccurate notion of the beautiful Polish women. Two or three days I have had great pleasure in hearing Paër and two women who have given me some very good music. I received your letter in a wretched barn, with mud, wind, and straw for my only bed." In spite of what her husband said, Josephine was right about the charm of the Polish ladies, and Napoleon, on his return to Warsaw, January 2, 1807, was to become seriously interested in one of them.
Soon there was no question of sending for the Empress, who would only have been in the way. Napoleon wrote to her, January 3: "I have received your letter. Your regret touches me, but we must submit to events. It is too long a journey from Mayence to Warsaw; we must wait till events permit my going to Berlin before I can write for you to come. Meanwhile, the enemy is withdrawing, defeated, but I have a good many things to settle here. I should advise your returning to Paris, where you are needed. Send back those ladies who have anything to do there; you will be better for getting rid of people who tire you. I am well; the weather is bad. I love you much." The Emperor, utterly taken up by his love for the Polish lady, was anxious that Josephine, instead of coming to him, should at once return promptly to France. "My dear," he wrote to her, January 7, "I am touched by all you say, but the cold season, the bad, unsafe roads prevent my giving my consent to your facing so many fatigues. Return to Paris for the winter. Go to the Tuileries, hold your receptions, and live as you do when I am there: that is my wish. Perhaps I shall join you there without delay; but you must give up the plan of travelling three hundred leagues at this season, through hostile countries, in the rear of the army. Be sure that it is more painful to me than to you to postpone for a few weeks the pleasure of seeing you; but this is commanded by events and the state of affairs. Good by, my dear, be happy and brave." The next day he wrote again on the same subject: "I have yours of the 27th, with those of Hortense and M. Napoleon enclosed. I have asked you to go back to Paris; the season is too bad, the roads too insecure and detestable, the distance too great for me to allow you to come so far to me when my affairs detain me. It would take you at least a month to get here. You. would be sick when you got here, and then, perhaps, you would have to start back; it would be madness. Your sojourn at Mayence is too dull. Paris calls for you; go there; that is my desire. I am more disappointed than you; but we must bow to circumstances." In a letter of January 11, he says; "I see very few people here." But he saw the Polish lady, and that was enough.
Josephine, who suspected a rival, was in despair. Her husband wrote to console her, January 16: "I have received yours of January 5. All that you say of your disappointment saddens me. Why these tears and lamentations? Have you not more courage? I shall soon see you; do not doubt my feelings, and if you wish to be still dearer to me, show character and strength of soul. I am humiliated to think that my wife can doubt my destinies. Good by, my dear, I love you and long to see you, and want to hear that you are contented and happy." In another letter, January 18, Napoleon tried to cheer up Josephine, who was even more anxious and uneasy: "I fear you are unhappy about our separation which must last some weeks yet, and about returning to Paris. I beg of you to have more courage. I hear that you are always crying. Fie, that is very bad! Your letter of January 7 gives me much pain. Be worthy of me and show more character. Make a proper appearance at Paris, and above all, be contented. I am very well, and I love you much; but if you are always in tears, I shall think you have no courage and no character. I do not love cowards; an Empress ought to have some spirit."
Napoleon's will was not to be altered. Josephine was forced to leave her daughter and to return to Paris. Her husband wrote to her from Warsaw: "I have your letter of January 15. It is impossible for me to let women undertake such a journey: bad roads, unsafe, and a slough of mud. Go back to Paris; be happy and contented there; perhaps I shall be there soon. I laugh at what you say, that you married to be with your husband. I had thought in my ignorance that the wife was created for the husband, the husband for the country, the family, and glory. Forgive my ignorance. Good by, my dear, believe that I regret that I cannot have you come. Say to yourself, 'It is a proof how dear I am to him.'" All these fine words could not console Josephine, who knew from experience that Napoleon, like many unfaithful husbands, had a smooth, tongue when he needed forgiveness. In vain she had waited four months at Mayence for permission to rejoin her husband. She at last, found herself obliged to leave this town where she had no other pleasure than the sight of her daughter and her grandchildren, from whom she parted with pain. January 27 she was at Strassburg, and the 31st. at Paris.