The Court of the Empress Josephine

by Imbert de Saint-Amand

The Empress Josephine naturally held the highest place in this brilliant court of Fontainebleau, and was the object of untiring homage; few, however, suspected the anxieties that tormented her, so calm happy did she appear, with a kind word and a gracious smile for every one.

M. de Metternich, the Austrian Ambassador who was then at Fontainebleau, took pains to ascertain the causes of her secret sorrow, and sent the details to his government. He wrote to von Stadion: "In many of my previous reports I have had the honor of speaking to Your Excellency about the long current rumors regarding the approaching divorce of the Emperor. After circulating vaguely in the last two months, they have become the subject of general and public discussion. It is true of these rumors, as of all not stamped out at their birth, that they rest on some foundation of truth, or they would be promptly silenced, if they were not directly tolerated." Then the clear-sighted ambassador reported in the same despatch what he had learned, thanks to his relations with persons to whom the Empress had made revelations: "Since his return from the army, the Emperor's bearing towards his wife has been cold and embarrassed. He no longer lives in the same apartment with her, and many of his daily habits have undergone a change. Rumors of the Empress's divorce began at that moment to assume a more serious form; when they reached her ears she simply waited for some direct information, without letting the Emperor see the slightest anxiety."

Josephine was sorely stricken, and her sufferings were all the more intense because she had to hide them from every one, especially from her husband, and they made a marked contrast, by the irony of fate, with the pleasures and amusements that surrounded her. She was too clear-sighted and intelligent to proceed to question the Emperor. She feared light and dreaded the truth. She hesitated before the abyss that awaited her, and shuddered before the Emperor's glance. She suffered on the throne, as if it were an instrument of torture. It was then that Fouché took some steps which doubled her anguish. The incident is thus recounted, by Prince Metternich in the despatch already cited: "One day the Minister of Police visited her at Fontainebleau. and after a short preamble, told her that the public good, and, above all, the strengthening of the existing dynasty requiring that the Emperor should have children, she ought to ask the Senate to join with her in demanding of the Emperor a sacrifice most painful to his heart. The Empress, who was prepared for the question, asked Fouché, with great coolness, if he took this step by the Emperors orders. 'No,' he replied: 'I speak to Your Majesty as a minister charged with a general supervision, as a private citizen, as a subject devoted to his country's glory,' 'In that case I have nothing to say to you,' interrupted the Empress; 'I regard my union with the Emperor as written in the book of Fate, I shall never discuss the matter with any one but him, and never will do anything but what he orders,'" Josephine, when she mentioned this conversation to her confidant, M. de Lavalette, who had married a Mademoiselle de Beauharnais, said to him in great perplexity; "Is it not clear that Fouché was sent by the Emperor and that my fate is settled? Alas! To leave the throne is nothing to me. Who knows better than I do how many tears I have shed there? But to lose at the same time the man to whom I have given my best love, that sacrifice is beyond my strength."

But to return to Prince Metternich's despatch: "Many days passed without incident, when suddenly the Emperor began to share again the Empress's apartment and took a favorable moment to ask why she had been so sad for some days. The Empress then told him of her interview with Fouché. The Emperor confirmed his statement that he had never given him any such orders. He added that she ought to know him well enough to be sure that he had no need of any go-between to manage matters with her, and made her promise to report to him anything further she might hear about the matter." Josephine was not at all comforted. Napoleon's explanation was very embarrassed, and who could think that so crafty and ambitious a man as Fouché could assume the responsibility of such a negotiation if he supposed that thereby he exposed himself to his master's wrath?

The Minister of Police did not confine himself to mere spoken words. A few days after his interview with the Empress, he wrote to her a long letter on large paper, in which he set forth all the arguments he had already brought forward, to urge upon her the spontaneous sacrifice which would be the more meritorious, the more painful it was. Josephine, who received this letter in the evening, summoned M. de Rémusat at midnight to show it to him. "What shall I do," she asked, "to ward off this storm?" "Madame," replied the First Chamberlain, "my advice is to go this very moment to the Emperor, if he has not gone to bed, or else the very first thing to-morrow morning. Remember, you must seem to have consulted no one. Make him read this letter; watch him as closely as you can; but, whatever happens, show that you hate these roundabout methods, and tell him again that you will never listen to anything but a direct order from him."

The Empress did as he said, Napoleon, to use a common expression, was "cornered." He pretended to be much surprised, and very angry; promised "to comb Fouché's head," and even added that if she desired he would take away his portfolio; and to calm her he went so far as to write to the Minister of Police this letter, dated Fontainebleau, November 5, 1807:—

"MONSIEUR FOUCHÉ: In the last fortnight I have heard of your foolish actions; it is time for you to put an end to them, and to stop interfering, directly or indirectly, in a matter which in no way concerns you; that is my wish."

Fouché was not at all disturbed by his master's reproach. He was at heart convinced that he had not displeased him; he kept his portfolio, and was sure that the divorce, though postponed, was irrevocably decided on by the Emperor. Josephine had no more illusions. It was in vain that Napoleon spoke to her kindly, and tried to console her with kisses and even tears, —for Napoleon used to cry sometimes,—after Fouché had made his overtures she had no more peace of mind. The end of the stay at Fontainebleau was very gloomy. All became tired of this life of empty show, of the perpetual constraint, of the pleasures which by dint of repetition became dull and monotonous. Every one longed for home, to escape from this master's glances; for his presence inspired an admiration tempered with dread. The women had spent vast sums in their dress. The men had indulged in ambitious plans almost always futile. The German princelings had suffered in their lordly pride and German patriotism by having to bow their heads before the formidable man whose humble vassals they were, and these men, vain of their coat-of-arms, had not seen without a secret spite the crushing superiority of a poor Corsican gentleman. This great conqueror himself was not happy in all his splendor. Although he was no longer in love with his wife, it was not without sadness that he had seen her uneasiness and grief. Anxiety about the condition of Spain, which was so fatal to him, cast a cloud on his brow. When hunting in the forest, he was often seen to lose himself in thought and to let his horse wander as he pleased. At the theatrical performances it was noticed that, absorbed and distracted, he appeared to think less of the play than of his vast plans.

Not long since I visited the palace and the forest of Fontainebleau, in one of those cold but bright autumn days when the half bare trees have a strange appearance, when some leaves are as red as blood, others as yellow as gold, and nature wears all the countless hues which defy the artist's brush. The forest is wonderfully beautiful with its marvellous combination of trees and rocks. All the kings of France since Louis VII. have inhabited this palace. The holy head of Louis IX. appears there with his aureola on his head, In the gallery of Francis I., with its nymphs and fauns, amid garlands, fruits, and emblems, one recalls that King and Charles V. who entered the palace by the glided door, and who took part in the great festival in the forest, when nymphs, fauns, and gods seemed to issue from the trunks of oaks to the sound of tambourines, and a band of maidens flung flowers before the feet of the Spanish court. One recalls, too, Catharine de' Medici with her squadron, of young and brilliant amazons—Catharine de' Medici who In this palace brought forth her two sons, Francis II, and Henry III. At the end of the oval court is a dome of rich and picturesque construction, called the baptistery of Louis XIII, because that king was baptized there. Then there are the apartments of the queen mothers; Catharine de' Medici, Maria de' Medici, Anne of Austria, and those of Pius VII., a captive at Fontainebleau, In the bedroom of the queen mothers an altar was raised where the Vicar of Christ said mass. The hangings of embroidered satin in this room were a wedding-gift from the city of Lyons to Marie Antoinette. The room is a model of luxury and elegance, and is called the Chamber of the Five Maries because it has been inhabited by five sovereigns bearing that name, Maria de' Medici, Maria Theresa, Marie Antoinette, Marie Louise, and Marie Amélie. It was also the Empress Eugénie's chamber.

This marvellously picturesque palace of Fontainebleau is full of interesting reminiscences, but of all the figures it recalls, no figure is more impressive than that of Napoleon. There is much gorgeous furniture in the palace of various sorts, in the style of the renaissance, of Louis XIV., Louis XV., and Louis XVI.; but no piece attracts more attention than the plain mahogany table on which Napoleon signed his abdication. Then how impressive is the bedroom where he spent terrible nights, unable to sleep, and at last seeking in suicide a cure for his despair! Consider the contrast between 1807 and 1814! Meanwhile there had been changes of face, many apostasies. "Ah! Caulaincourt, mankind, mankind!" exclaimed the deserted Emperor. Every one left him, promising him a speedy return, but no one thought of it. Fontainebleau became a desert. If the sound of wheels was heard, it was never of carriages arriving, but only of carriages going away. It was at Fontainebleau that Napoleon's pride triumphed, and there that his pride suffered its cruelest humiliations. What anguish he endured, this man of destiny, in that room where he wrote: "To finish my career by signing a treaty in which I have not been able to stipulate a single general interest, nor even one moral interest, such as the preservation of our colonies, or the maintenance of the Legion of Honor! To sign a treaty by which money is given to me!" What anguish tore his mind and body when, having taken too small a dose of poison, he said between his spasms: "How hard it is to die, and it is so easy on the battle-field! Why didn't I die at Arcis-sur-Aube!" Did he then recall the splendor of his return from Jena, from Friedland, from Tilsitt? Did he remember the crowd of courtiers who resembled priests whose God he was? The only courtiers left were those to whom he had given neither money nor honors, the old soldiers of his guard, with, their gray mustaches, who could not restrain their sobs and tears when, in the Court of the White Horse, he bade them farewell, saying, "I should like to embrace you in my arms, but let me embrace this flag which represents you."