“Madame, I thank you for your obliging offer, which I have the honor to inform you it is not in my power to accept,” replied Madame de Genlis, rising with the courtly manner of a grande dame of the court of the Grand Monarque.
“You refuse it!” cried Madame Privas in astonishment. “Why, I offer much more than you can get for your books. And besides, you would have friends in us;—friends with a fortune of five millions. C’est beau, ca! eh?”
“Madame,” replied Madame de Genlis, “I have answered you. It is impossible.”
“Well, adieu then, my bonne dame. Privas and I made sure you would jump at the offer. In case you should change your mind, I’ll leave you my address. Write me, if you think better of it.” And with her plumes waving in ruffled pride, and her velvets and satins rustling in their gorgeous costliness, Madame Privas bounced out of the room, forgetting her assumed elegance of manner at the affront offered to her darling dollars.
Josephine’s manners, “en representation,” were charming. She appeared a very queen at the emperor’s public receptions. Her air and attitude were dignified, graceful, and yet natural. She conversed with ease and fluency, employing the choicest terms of expression; and the spectator could not resist a pleased astonishment at the gracious bearing which charmed all classes of society, and at her alluring tact which enabled her to address crowds of persons in quick succession, and yet with a pleasing and appropriate word to each, turning with equal ease from a tradesman to a monarch.
The emperor was one day about to undertake some important business, when Josephine besought him to put it off for a time, remarking that it was Friday, which was regarded as an unlucky day. Napoleon replied: “’Tis so perhaps to you, Madame, but it is the most fortunate in my life. I never shall forget that it was the day of our marriage.” The empress was deeply touched at this mark of devotion from her husband, and she ceased to enforce her request.
The time for the coronation ceremony had arrived. Josephine felt the solemnity as well as the grandeur of the occasion, as is evinced from these few lines written to Pope Pius VII. at this time:—
“Ah! truly do I feel, that in becoming empress of the French, I ought also to become to them as a mother at the same time. What would it avail to bear them in my heart, if I proved my affections for them only by my intentions? Deeds are what the people have a right to demand from those who govern them.”
And truly, Josephine exemplified her words by her actions.
On the 2d of December, 1804, all was stir in Paris and the Tuileries from an early hour.