"To his last moments he was kind and affectionate to us all. He did not appear to suffer so much as might have been expected from the cause of his death. When we questioned him he said that he suffered a little, but that he could bear it. His memory declined during the last five or six days. His deep sighs, and his exclamations from time to time, made us think that he was in great pain. He looked at us with the penetrating glance which you know so well. We tried to dissimulate, but he was so used to reading our faces that no doubt he frequently discovered our anxiety. He felt too clearly the gradual decline of his faculties not to be aware of his state.
"For the last two hours he neither spoke nor moved. The only sound was his difficult breathing, which gradually but regularly decreased. His pulse ceased. And so died, surrounded by only a few servants, the man who had dictated laws to the world, and whose life should have been preserved for the sake of the happiness and glory of our sorrowing country.
"Forgive, prince, a hurried letter, which tells you so little when you wish to know so much; but I should never end if I attempted to tell all. I must not omit to say that the Emperor was most anxious that his correspondence with the different sovereigns of Europe should be printed. He repeated this to us several times.[AC] In his will the Emperor expressed his wish that his remains should be buried in France; however, in the last days of his life, he ordered me, if there was any difficulty about it, to lay him by the side of the fountain whose waters he had so long drunk."
Joseph loved his brother tenderly, and he never could speak without emotion of the indignities and cruelties Napoleon suffered from that ungenerous Government to whose mercy he had so fatally confided himself. Anxious to do every thing which he thought might gratify the departed spirit of his brother, he implored permission of Austria to visit Napoleon's son, the Duke of Reichstadt, that he might sympathize with him in these hours of affliction. The Court of Austria refused his request.
Marriage of Princess Charlotte.
In 1824, Joseph's youngest daughter, the Princess Charlotte, left Point Breeze to join her mother in Europe, where she was to be married to Charles Napoleon Louis Bonaparte, the son of Louis and Hortense, and the elder brother of the present Emperor of the French. The tastes of Joseph inclined him to the country, and to its peaceful pursuits. He had, however, a city residence in Philadelphia, where he usually passed the winters. While thus residing on the banks of the Delaware, sadly retracing the memorable events of the past and recording its scenes, he received a proposition which surprised and gratified him. A deputation of Mexicans waited upon him at Point Breeze, and urged him to accept the crown of Mexico. The former King of Naples and of Spain in the following terms responded to the invitation:
The Crown of Mexico.
"I have worn two crowns. I would not take a single step to obtain a third. Nothing could be more flattering to me than to see the men who, when I was at Madrid, were unwilling to recognize my authority, come to-day to seek me, in exile, to place the crown upon my head. But I do not think that the throne which you wish to erect anew can promote your happiness. Every day I spend upon the hospitable soil of the United States demonstrates to me more fully the excellence of republican institutions for America. Guard them, then, as a precious gift of Providence; cease your intestine quarrels; imitate the United States and seek from the midst of your fellow-citizens a man more capable than I am to act the grand part of Washington."[AD]
Visit of La Fayette.
When La Fayette in 1824 made his triumphal tour through the United States, he visited Point Breeze to pay his respects to the brother of the Emperor. Upon that occasion the marquis expressed deep regret in view of the course he had pursued at the time of the abdication of Napoleon.