At length the fatal day arrived for the announcement to Josephine. It was the last day of November, 1809. The emperor and empress dined at Fontainebleau alone. She seems to have had a presentiment that her doom was sealed, for all that day she had been in her retired apartment, weeping bitterly. As the dinner-hour approached, she bathed her swollen eyes, and tried to regain composure. They sat down at the table in silence. Napoleon did not speak. Josephine could not trust her voice to utter a word. Neither ate a mouthful. Course after course was brought in and removed untouched. A mortal paleness revealed the anguish of each heart. Napoleon, in his embarrassment, mechanically, and apparently unconsciously, struck the edge of his glass with his knife, while lost in thought. A more melancholy meal probably was never witnessed. The attendants around the table seemed to catch the infection, and moved softly and silently in the discharge of their duties, as if they were in the chamber of the dead. At last the ceremony of dinner was over, the attendants were dismissed, and Napoleon, rising, and closing the door with his own hand, was left alone with Josephine. Another moment of most painful silence ensued, when the emperor, pale as death, and trembling in every nerve, approached the empress. He took her hand, placed it upon his heart, and in faltering accents said, "Josephine! my own good Josephine! you know how I have loved you. It is to you alone that I owe the only few moments of happiness I have known in the world. Josephine! my destiny is stronger than my will. My dearest affections must yield to the interests of France."
Effects thereof.
Agitation of Napoleon.
A night of anguish.
Josephine's brain reeled; her blood ceased to circulate; she fainted, and fell lifeless upon the floor. Napoleon, alarmed, threw open the door of the saloon, and called for help. Attendants from the ante-room immediately entered. Napoleon took a taper from the mantel, and uttering not a word, but pale and trembling, motioned to the Count de Beaumont to take the empress in his arms. She was still unconscious of every thing, but began to murmur, in tones of anguish, "Oh, no! you can not surely do it. You would not kill me." The emperor led the way, through a dark passage, to the private staircase which conducted to the apartment of the empress. The agitation of Napoleon seemed now to increase. He uttered some incoherent sentences about a violent nervous attack; and, finding the stairs too steep and narrow for the Count de Beaumont to bear the body of the helpless Josephine unassisted, he gave the light to an attendant, and, supporting her limbs himself, they reached the door of her bed-room. Napoleon then, dismissing his male attendants, and laying Josephine upon her bed, rang for her waiting-women. He hung over her with an expression of the most intense affection and anxiety until she began to revive. But the moment consciousness seemed returning, he left the room. Napoleon did not even throw himself upon his bed that night. He paced the floor until the dawn of the morning. The royal surgeon, Corvisart, passed the night at the bed-side of the empress. Every hour the restless yet unrelenting emperor called at her door to inquire concerning her situation. "On recovering from my swoon," says Josephine, "I perceived that Corvisart was in attendance, and my poor daughter, Hortense, weeping over me. No! no! I can not describe the horror of my situation during that night! Even the interest he affected to take in my sufferings seemed to me additional cruelty. Oh! how much reason had I to dread becoming an empress!"
Anniversary of the victory at Austerlitz.
A fortnight now passed away, during which Napoleon and Josephine saw but little of each other. During this time there occurred the anniversary of the coronation, and of the victory of Austerlitz. Paris was filled with rejoicing. The bells rang their merriest peals. The metropolis was refulgent with illuminations. In these festivities Josephine was compelled to appear. She knew that the sovereigns and princes then assembled in Paris were informed of her approaching disgrace. In all these sounds of triumph she heard but the knell of her own doom. And though a careful observer would have detected indications, in her moistened eye and her pallid cheek, of the secret woe which was consuming her heart, her habitual affability and grace never, in public, for one moment forsook her. Hortense, languid and sorrow-stricken, was with her mother.
Eugene summoned from Italy.
Interview with Napoleon.
Eugene was summoned from Italy. He hastened to Paris, and his first interview was with his mother. From her saloon he went directly to the cabinet of Napoleon, and inquired of the emperor if he had decided to obtain a divorce from the empress. Napoleon, who was very strongly attached to Eugene, made no reply, but pressed his hand as an expression that it was so. Eugene immediately dropped the hand of the emperor, and said,
"Sire, in that case, permit me to withdraw from your service."
"How!" exclaimed Napoleon, looking upon him sadly; "will you, Eugene, my adopted son, leave me?"