At last the moment had come which was to give to Josephine her most sacred and glorious reward. The cannon of the Invalides, with their one hundred and one thunders, announced that Maria Louisa had given birth to a son, and Prince Eugene was the first who brought this news to his mother in Navarra.
Josephine’s countenance beamed with satisfaction and joy when she learned from the lips of her son this news of the birth of the King of Rome; she called her whole court together to communicate herself this news to the ladies and gentlemen, and to have them listen to the descriptions which Eugene, with all heartiness, was making of the scenes which had taken place in the imperial family circle during the mysterious hours of suspense and expectation.
But when Eugene repeated the words of Napoleon’s message which he sent through him to Josephine, her countenance was illumined with joy and satisfaction, and tears started from her eyes—tears of purest joy, of most sacred love!
Napoleon had said: “Eugene, go to your mother; tell her that I am convinced no one will be more pleased with my happiness than she. I would have written to her, but I should have had to give up the pleasure of gazing at my son. I part from him only to attend to inexorable duties. But this evening I will accomplish the most agreeable of all duties—I will write to Josephine.” [Footnote: Ducrest, vol. i., p. 236.]
The emperor kept his word. The same evening there came to Malmaison an imperial page, with an autograph letter from Napoleon to Josephine. The empress rewarded this messenger of glad tidings with a costly diamond-pin, and then she called her ladies together, to show them the letter which had brought so much happiness to her heart, and which also had obscured her eyes with tears.
It was an autograph letter of Napoleon; it contained six or eight lines, written with a rapid hand; the pen, too hastily filled, had dropped large blots of ink on the paper. In these lines Napoleon announced to Josephine the birth of the King of Rome, and concluded with these words: “This child, in concert with our Eugene, will secure the happiness of France, and mine also.”
These last words were to Josephine full of delight. “Is it, then, possible,” exclaimed she, joyously, “to be more amiable and more tender, thus to sweeten what this moment might have of bitterness if I did not love the emperor so much? To place my son alongside of his is an act worthy of the man who, when he will, can be the most enchanting of men.” [Footnote: Ducrest, vol. i., p. 238.]
And this child, for which so much suffering had been endured, for which she had offered her own life in sacrifice, was by Josephine loved even as if it were her own. She was always asking news from the little King of Rome, and no deeper joy could be brought to her heart than to speak to her of the amiableness, the beauty, the liveliness of this little prince, who appeared to her as the visible reward of the sacrifice which she had made to God and to the emperor.
One intense, craving wish did Josephine cherish during all these years—she longed to see Napoleon’s son; she longed to press to her heart this child who was making her former husband so happy, and on which rested all the hopes of France.
Finally Napoleon granted her desire. Privately, and in all secrecy, for Maria Louisa’s jealousy was ever on the watch, and she would never have consented to allow her son to go to her rival; without pomp, without suite, the emperor took a drive with the little three-year-old King of Rome to the pleasure-castle of Bagatelle, whither he had invited the Empress Josephine through his trusty chamberlain Constant.