After a moment's reverie, he added, "My good Louise is gentle and submissive. I can depend on her. Her love and fidelity will never fail me. In the current of events there may arise circumstances which will decide the fate of an empire. In that case I hope that the daughter of the Cæsars will be inspired by the spirit of her grandmother, Maria Theresa."
The struggle which ensued was short but awful. In the midst of these terrific scenes Napoleon kept up an almost daily correspondence with Josephine. On one occasion, when the surgings of the battle brought him within a few miles of Malmaison, he turned aside and sought a hurried interview with his most faithful friend. It was their last meeting. Napoleon took the hand of Josephine, and, gazing tenderly upon her, said:
Napoleon's last interview with Josephine.
"Josephine, I have been as fortunate as ever was man upon the face of this earth. But in this hour, when a storm is gathering over my head, I have not in this wide world any one but you upon whom I can repose."
Josephine goes to Navarre.
Soon after this, as the seat of war approached nearer to Paris, Josephine found it necessary to retire to Navarre. She wrote to Hortense, on the 28th of March: "To-morrow I shall leave for Navarre. I have but sixteen men for a guard, and all wounded. I shall take care of them; but in truth I have no need of them. I am so unhappy in being separated from my children that I am indifferent respecting my fate."
At eight o'clock in the morning of the 29th Josephine took her carriage for Navarre. The Allies were rapidly approaching Paris, and a state of indescribable consternation filled the streets of the metropolis. Several times on the route the Empress was alarmed by the cry that the Cossacks were coming. The day was dark and stormy, and the rain fell in torrents. The pole of the carriage broke as the wheels sunk in a rut. Just at that moment a troop of horsemen appeared in the distance. The Empress, in her terror, supposing them to be the barbarous Cossacks, leaped from the carriage and fled through the fields. Was there ever a more cruel reverse of fortune? Josephine, the Empress of France, the admired of all Europe, in the frenzy of her alarm, rushing through the storm and the rain to seek refuge in the woods! The troops proved to be French. Her attendants followed and informed her of the mistake. She again entered her carriage, and uttered scarcely a word during the rest of her journey. Upon entering the palace of Navarre, she threw herself upon a couch, exclaiming:
"Surely Bonaparte is ignorant of what is passing within sight of the gates of Paris, or, if he knows, how cruel the thoughts which must now agitate his breast."
In a hurried letter which the Emperor wrote Josephine from Brienne, just after a desperate engagement with his vastly outnumbering foes, he said:
Letter from Napoleon.