Josephine, in her remonstrances with Napoleon against assuming the crown, predicted, with almost prophetic accuracy, the consequences which would ensue. "Will not your power," she wrote to him, "opposed, as to a certainty it must be, by the neighboring states, draw you into a war with them? This will probably end in their ruin. Will not their neighbors, beholding these effects, combine for your destruction? While abroad such is the state of things, at home how numerous the envious and discontented! How many plots to disconcert, and how many conspiracies to punish."
Josephine's forebodings fulfilled.
Desires to forget her title.
Josephine's regrets.
Soon after the coronation, Josephine was one morning in her garden, when an intimate friend called to see her. She saluted the empress by the title of Your Majesty. "Ah!" she exclaimed, in tones deeply pathetic, "I entreat that you will suffer me, at least here, to forget that I am an empress." It is the unvarying testimony of her friends, that, while she was receiving with surpassing gracefulness the congratulations of France and of Europe, her heart was heavy. She clearly foresaw the peril of their position, and trembled in view of an approaching downfall. The many formal ceremonies which her station required, and upon which Napoleon laid great stress, were exceedingly irksome to one whose warm heart rejoiced in the familiarity of unrestrained friendship. She thus described her feelings: "The nearer my husband approached the summit of earthly greatness, the more dim became my last gleams of happiness. It is true that I enjoyed a magnificent existence. My court was composed of gentlemen and ladies the most illustrious in rank, all of whom were emulous of the honor of being presented to me. But my time was no longer at my command. The emperor was receiving from every part of France congratulations upon his accession to the throne, while I myself sighed in contemplating the immense power he had acquired. The more I saw him loaded with the gifts of Fortune, the more I feared his fall."
Corruption of the court of France.
Napoleon scrupulous in forming his court.
The court of France had for ages been the scene of the most voluptuous and unblushing vice. The whole nation had been corrupted by its influence. Dissipation had been rendered attractive by the grace with which it had been robed. The dissolute manners which had prevailed at Versailles, the Tuilleries, and St. Cloud no pen can describe. Napoleon determined that, at all hazards, his court should be reputable at least in outward morality. He was more scrupulous upon this point even than Josephine herself. Believing that the downfall of the Bourbons was caused, in no inconsiderable degree, by the dissolute lives of the nobles and the courtiers, he would give no one an appointment among the royal retinue whose character was not, in his judgment, above reproach.
The Duchess d'Aiguillon.
The Duchess d'Aiguillon had been a fellow-captive of Josephine, and, after their liberation from prison, had greatly befriended her. During the license of those times, in which all the restraints of Christian morality had been swept away, her character had not remained perfectly spotless. She and her husband had availed themselves of the facile liberty of divorce which the laws had encouraged, and had formed other unions. Josephine felt grateful for the many favors she had received from the duchess, and wished to testify this gratitude by receiving her at court. Napoleon peremptorily refused. Josephine wrote to her in the following terms:
Letter from Josephine to the Duchess d'Aiguillon.
Josephine not her own mistress.
"My dear Friend,—I am deeply afflicted. My former friends, supposing that I am able to obtain the fulfillment of all my wishes, must suppose that I have forgotten the past. Alas! it is not so. I remember it too well, and my thoughts dwell upon it more than I would have them. The more I think of what my friends did for me, the greater is my sorrow at being unable to do now what my heart dictates. The Empress of France is but the first slave in the empire, and can not pay the debts of Madame de Beauharnais. This constitutes the torture of my life, and will explain why you do not occupy a place near me. The emperor, indignant at the total disregard of morality, and alarmed at the progress it might still make, is resolved that the example of a life of regularity and of religion shall be presented in the palace where he reigns. Desirous of strengthening more and more the Church re-established by himself, and unable to change the laws appointed by her observances, his intention is, at least, to keep at a distance from his court all who may have availed themselves of the opportunity for a divorce. Hence the cause of his refusing the favor I asked of having you with me. The refusal has occasioned me unspeakable regret, but he is too absolute to leave even the hope of seeing him retract. I am thus constrained to renounce the pleasure I had promised myself of being constantly with you, studying to make you forget the sovereign in the friend. Pity my lot in being too public a personage to follow my own inclination, and cherish for me a friendship, the remembrance of which gives me now as much pleasure as its reality afforded consolation in prison. Often do I regret that small, dark, and dismal chamber which we shared together, for there, at least, I could pour out my whole heart, and was sincerely beloved in return."