The people, however, had made known their wishes only through the voice of the senate; it was the senators who had converted Bonaparte into the Emperor Napoleon; but the people were also to make their will known in a solemn manner; they were, through a universal public suffrage, to decide whether the imperial dignity should be given only for life to Napoleon the First, Emperor of the French, or whether it should be hereditary in his family.
France, wearied with storms and divisions, decided with her five millions of votes for the hereditary imperial dignity in Bonaparte’s family, and thus the people of France created their fourth dynasty.
Meanwhile Josephine received this new decision of the nation, not with that disquietude and care which she had formerly experienced. Bonaparte had given her the deepest and strongest proof of his love and faithfulness. He had not only withstood the pressure of his whole family, which had conjured him before his election to the empire to be divorced from his childless wife, but he had in the generosity of his love appointed his heirs and successors, and these were to be the sons of Hortense. The senate had decreed that the imperial dignity should be transmitted as a heritage to Napoleon’s two brothers Joseph and Louis, and moreover they had given to Napoleon the right to choose his successors and heirs from the families of the two brothers.
Napoleon had given to Josephine the strongest proof of affection—he had declared the son of her daughter Hortense and of his brother Louis, the little Napoleon Louis, to be his successor and heir, and the idea of a divorce no longer caused apprehensions before which Josephine need tremble.
Bonaparte had appointed the sons of his brother and of Josephine’s daughter as his heirs, and the heir of the new imperial throne was already born. Hortense’s youth made it hopeful that she would add to the new branch of the Napoleonic dynasty new leaves and new boughs.
Josephine could now rejoice in her happiness and her glory; she could abandon herself to the new splendors of her life with all the enjoyment of her sensitive and excitable nature. She could now receive with smiles and with affable condescension the homage of France, for she was not only empress by a nation’s vote, but she was also empress by the choice of Napoleon her husband.
The brilliancy of this new and glorious horizon was soon overhung by a sombre cloud. The execution of the Duke d’Enghien threw its dark shadows from the last days of the consulate upon the truly royalist heart of Josephine; and now that heart was to receive fresh wounds through the royalists, to whom she had remained true with all the memories of youth, and in whose behalf she had so often, so zealously, and so warmly interceded with her husband.
A new conspiracy against Napoleon’s life was discovered, and this time it was the men of the highest ranks of the old aristocracy who were implicated in it. George Cadoudal, the unwearied conspirator, had, while in England, planned with the leaders of the monarchical party residing in France, or who were away from it, a new conspiracy, whose object was to destroy Bonaparte and to re-establish the monarchy.
But Fate was again on the side of the hero of Arcola. His good star still protected him. The conspiracy was discovered, and all those concerned in it were arrested. Among them were the Generals Pichegru and Moreau, the Counts de Polignac, Riviere, Saint Coster, Charles d’Hozier, and many others of the leading and most distinguished royalists. They were now under the avenging sword of justice, and the tribunal had condemned twenty of the accused to death, among whom were the above named. The emperor alone had the power to save them and to extend mercy. But he was this time determined to exhibit a merciless severity, so as to put an end to the royalists, and to prove to them that he was the ruler of France, and that the people without a murmur had given him the power to punish, as guilty of high-treason, those who dared touch their emperor.
Josephine’s heart, however, remained true to her memories and her piety; and, according to her judgment, those who, with so much heroic loyalty, remained true to the exiled monarchy, were criminals only as they had imperilled her husband’s life, but criminals who, since their plans were destroyed, deserved pardon, because they had sinned through devotion to sacred principles.