The next day Alexander kindly called to inquire for her health. Hour after hour she seemed to be slowly failing. On the morning of the 28th she fell into a lethargic sleep, which lasted for five hours, and her case was pronounced hopeless. Eugene and Hortense were at her side. The death-hour had come. The last rites of religion were administered to the dying. The Emperor Alexander was also in this chamber of grief. Josephine was perfectly rational. She called for the portrait of Napoleon, and, gazing upon it long and tenderly, breathed the following prayer:
"O God, watch over Napoleon while he remains in the desert of this world. Alas! though he hath committed great faults, hath he not expiated them by great sufferings? Just God, thou hast looked into his heart, and hast seen by how ardent a desire for useful and durable improvements he was animated. Deign to approve this my last petition, and may this image of my husband bear me witness that my latest wish and my latest prayer were for him and for my children."
Death of Josephine.
Her last words were "Island of Elba—Napoleon." It was the 29th of May, 1814. For four days her body remained laid out in state, surrounded with numerous tapers. "Every road," writes a French historian, "from Paris and its environs to Ruel was crowded with trains of mourners. Sad groups thronged all the avenues; and I could distinguish tears even in the splendid equipages which came rattling across the court-yard."
More than twenty thousand persons—monarchs, nobles, statesmen, and weeping peasants—thronged the chateau of Malmaison to take the last look of the remains of one who had been universally beloved. The funeral took place at noon of the 2d of June. The remains were deposited in the little church of Ruel. A beautiful mausoleum of white marble, representing the Empress kneeling in her coronation robes, bears the simple inscription:
EUGENE AND HORTENSE
TO
JOSEPHINE.