Towards the end of February Napoleon had established his headquarters at Osterode, where he lived in a sort of barn, from which he governed his Empire and controlled Europe. He wrote to his brother Joseph, March 1, about the sufferings of this severe campaign in Poland. "The staff- officers have not taken off their clothes for two months, and some not for four, I have myself been a fortnight without taking off my boots…. We are deep in the snow and mud, without wine, brandy, or bread, living on meat and potatoes, making long marches and counter-marches, without any comforts, and generally fighting with the bayonets under grape-shot; the wounded have to be carried in open sleighs for fifty leagues…. We are making war in all its excitement and horror." It is easy to see that Josephine, who knew all this, had good grounds for anxiety. Paris was empty and gloomy; every face was sad. France is easily tired of everything, even of glory. The auditors of the Council of State, who were sent to Osterode to carry to the Emperor the reports of the different ministers, returned to Paris in deep distress at the sights they had seen, and spread alarm in official circles. Napoleon consequently decided that those reports should be brought to him by staff-officers, who were more inured to scenes of distress.
From headquarters at Osterode the Emperor sent eleven letters to the Empress between February 23 and April 1, 1807, but he said nothing of importance in them. Thus: "Try to pass your time agreeably; don't be anxious. I am in a wretched village where I shall be some time; it's not so pleasant as a large city. I tell you again, I have never been so well; you will find me much stouter…. I have ordered what you want for Malmaison; be happy and cheerful; that's what I desire. I am waiting for good weather, which must come soon. I love you, and want to hear that you are contented and cheerful. You will hear a good deal of nonsense about the battle of Eylau; the bulletin tells everything; its report of the losses is rather exaggerated than cut down." At the same time he somewhat reproved his wife: "I am sorry to hear that there is a renewal of the mischievous talk such as there was in your drawing-room at Mayence; put a stop to it. I shall be much annoyed if you don't find some clue. You let yourself be distressed by the talk of people who ought to cheer you up. I recommend to you a little firmness, and to learn how to put everybody in his place. My dear, you must not go to the small theatres in private boxes; it does not suit your rank; you ought to go only to the four large theatres and always sit in the Imperial box. If you want to please me, you must live as you did when I was in Paris. Then you did not go to the small theatres or such places. You ought always to go to the Imperial box. For your life at home, you must have regular receptions; that is the only way of winning my approval. Greatness has its inconveniences. An Empress can't go about everywhere like a commoner."
The greatness which the Emperor spoke about was no consolation to Josephine. She was unhappier beneath the gilded ceilings of the Tuileries than a peasant woman in a hovel. She besought her husband to let her join him in Poland, and wrote to him despairing letters.
Napoleon answered from Osterode, March 27: "My dear, I am much pained by your letters. You must not die: you are well and have no real cause of grief. I think you ought to go to Saint Cloud in May. but you ought to spend April in Paris…. You must not think of travelling this summer; all that is impossible. You couldn't be racing through inns and camps. I am as anxious as you can be to see you and be quiet. I understand other things than war; but duty is before everything. All my life I have sacrificed everything—peace, interest, happiness—to my destiny." These phrases in no way consoled Josephine who knew very well that her husband, in spite of his assumption of Spartan austerity; occasionally indulged in distractions.
In the month of March something occurred which somewhat moderated the Empress's sufferings. Her daughter-in-law, the Vice-Queen of Italy, gave birth at Milan, on the 17th, to a daughter who was named Josephine Maximilienne Augusta. She it was who was to marry, in 1827, Oscar, Crown Prince and later King of Sweden. "You will hear with pleasure," the Empress wrote Queen Hortense, "of the Princess Augusta's happy delivery. Eugene is delighted with his daughter; his only complaint is that she sleeps too much, so that he can't see her as much as he would like." Josephine would gladly have gone to Milan to congratulate her son and to kiss her granddaughter, but her grandeur kept her in Paris, where the prolongation of her husband's absence and the torments of too well justified jealousy plunged her into the deepest gloom.
Napoleon became tired of the monotonous and excessively disagreeable stay at Osterode, where he could not receive the Polish lady to whom he became continually more and more attached. Early in April he installed himself at Finkenstein, in a pretty castle belonging to a Prussian crown official, and there he was very comfortably quartered with his staff and military household. It was from thence that he wrote, April 2, the following short letter to Josephine: "My dear, I send you a line. I have just moved my headquarters to a very pretty castle, like that of Bessières, where I have a number of open fireplaces, which is very pleasant for me, as I get up often in the night; I like to see the fire. My health is perfect, the weather is fine, but still cold. The thermometer is but a few degrees from freezing. Good by, my dear. Ever yours." As soon as Napoleon was settled in this castle his first thought was to send for the Polish lady, for whom he had fitted up an apartment near his own. She left at Warsaw her old husband, who never consented to see her again, and spent three weeks with the Emperor. "They took all their meals together," says Constant. "I was the only one in attendance, so I was able to overhear their talk which was always amiable, lively, and eager on the part of the Emperor, always tender, affectionate and melancholy on the part of Madame V. When His Majesty was away Madame V. spent all her time in reading or looking through the blinds of the Emperor's room at the parades and drills going on in the courtyard of the castle, which he often directed in person." Constant, who felt bound to admire his master's choice, adds with some feeling: "The Emperor appeared, to appreciate perfectly the interesting qualities of this angelic woman, whose gentle, unselfish character left on me an impression that can never fade… Her life, like her nature, was calm and uniform. Her character fascinated the Emperor and bound him down to her." This loving idyl, a sort of interlude in the tragedy of war, may have suited Constant's taste, but it was hardly of a nature to please Josephine, who, like most jealous people, knew almost always what she wanted to know, and from the Tuileries found means to watch what was going on in this distant castle.
Napoleon's letters to Josephine during the reign of Madame V. were shorter and more stupid than usual. They were merely a few lines on the weather, the Emperor's health, or his desire to hear that his wife was "cheerful and happy." But, alas! cheerfulness and happiness were not for her! Too astute to be hoodwinked, she understood that her husband still had a friendly feeling for her but that his love was dead. In the eyes of a jealous woman, friendship is a slight thing. What does she care for the esteem and attentions of a friend who was once her lover? To all the good services of friendship she would a thousand times prefer the anger, fury, violence, of love.
XXII.
THE DEATH OF THE YOUNG NAPOLEON.
Queen Hortense was no happier in her Holland palaces than was the Empress in the Tuileries. She had to endure all the grief, deception, and misery of an ill-assorted marriage. The incompatibility of disposition which existed between her husband and herself from the first days of their married life, made itself continually more felt. King Louis blamed his wife not merely for her faults, but also for her good qualities. He was sometimes annoyed because she was gracious, amiable, charming; and the general sympathy she aroused in Holland, as in France, excited the fears of this irritable and sullen husband. Hortense looked upon herself as a victim. She had a lively imagination, and exaggerated her grief to herself, suffering more keenly on account of her excitement, which was often very great. One day she said to Madame de Rémusat, her intimate and admiring friend, that her life was so painful and apparently so hopeless that when she was at one of her villas near the sea, and looked out on the ocean where were the English fleets blockading her ports, she wished that chance might bring a ship to where she was, and she might be carried off a prisoner.