"If you should, sire," said Duroc, in a voice quivering with emotion,—"if you repudiate the empress, you would thereby sign your own death-warrant, and Josephine would not survive it."
"She will have to survive it like myself," exclaimed the emperor, impetuously. "I shall suffer no less—nay, I shall suffer more than she, for she never loved me as I love her. Her tears will fall for the lost splendor of the throne—not for her husband. But I shall bewail the beloved wife."
"No, sire," said Duroc, almost indignantly, "you are unjust. The empress loves you—you alone. She accepted the crown reluctantly and with tearful eyes, and will not weep when she loses it. She will mourn for her husband only, whom she adores, and not for the crown which adorns but also oppresses her brow."
"Ah, what a warm advocate the empress has!" exclaimed Napoleon, smiling. "Do you really believe that she loves me so disinterestedly?"
"Sire, I am convinced of it, and so is your majesty. The empress loves in you her dear Bonaparte, and not the emperor. She loves you more ardently than any other woman could do. Sire, permit an old, well-tried friend and servant to warn you. Do not banish Josephine from your heart, for she is your guardian angel."
Napoleon did not reply immediately, but looked melancholy and abstracted.
"It is true," he said, after a long pause, "Josephine brought success; until I married her every thing around me was forbidding and dark. She appeared like a sun by my side, and we rose together."
"Sire, all will darken again, if you suffer your sun to set."
"Ah, bah! these are nothing but fantastic dreams!" exclaimed Napoleon, after a brief silence. "I am the architect of my fortune—I alone. Josephine did not assist me in erecting my edifice; she only adorned it with her smiling grace. I shall do what fate and my people have a right to expect of me, but I do not say that it must be done immediately. I have time enough to wait; for as yet I do not stand on the pinnacle to which I am aspiring. My plans are not yet accomplished. I hope that I shall not die at so early an age as my father. I need ten years more to carry out my purposes. A sovereign ought not to set too narrow limits to his wishes; but mine—they are boundless. Like the conqueror of Darius, I must rule the world, and I hope that my desire will one day be fulfilled. Nay, I feel convinced that I and my family will occupy all the thrones of Europe. Then it will be time for me to have a wife who will give an heir to my empire, and a son to my heart. Until then, my friend, keep the matter secret; do not mention what I have told you. The portraits of the old kings, with their surly faces, have impressed me very disagreeably, and it is in defiance of them that I say, I will one day have a wife—a daughter of the Cæsars—who will think it an honor to bear a son to the modern Cæsar! When the time comes, however, I shall remind you of this hour, and then request you, in the name of the confidence which I have reposed in you, to prepare my poor, beloved Josephine for the blow that is menacing her and myself, and which I then shall ward off no longer. But a truce to these matters! Let us go to Sans-souci. Come!"
"Sire, before your majesty has dined?"