TRIUMPHAL ARCH OF THE STAR.
The Madeleine shows the classic influence, as does the Bourse, whose heavy columns, while decorative, do not seem to be especially appropriate for an Exchange. Victor Hugo scornfully says that so far as any apparent adaptation to its purpose is to be seen the Bourse might be a king’s palace, a House of Commons, a city hall, a college, a riding school, an academy, a storehouse, a court house, a museum, barracks, a tomb, a temple or a theater.
And it might!
The Bourse makes itself known at some distance by the noise which rises from its coulisses or “wings”—our “curb”—where a constant fury of chatter is going on.
The pillared façade on the Seine side of the present Palace of Deputies was designed to harmonize with the façade of the Madeleine at the northern end of the rue Royale. This front, conspicuous from the Place de la Concorde, is not the real front of the Palais Bourbon whose main entrance is on the rue de l’Université.
While anything in Europe remained apart from his control Napoleon was not happy, so after the Peace of Tilsit he turned his attention to the south once more. Portugal yielded to him through sheer terror. He compelled the abdication of the king of Spain, but here England interfered, and the Peninsular War brought him its reverses. Renewed war with Austria, however, added the battle of Wagram to the list of the great fighter’s victories. He was at the summit of his power and his very successes made him increasingly conscious that he had no son to inherit the fruits of his life work. He realized fully that Josephine’s tact and diplomacy had won him many a bloodless victory, and he had an almost superstitious belief that she brought him luck. However, ambition conquered affection. Eugène Beauharnais, Josephine’s son, was compelled to approve before the Senate the divorce which the pope would not confirm but which the clergy of Paris were forced to grant. Josephine, though stricken with grief, bore herself bravely before the court during her last evening at the Tuileries where the divorce was pronounced. She withdrew to Malmaison, some six miles out of the city, where she died in 1814, Napoleon’s name the last word on her lips.
Failing to arrange a Russian match Napoleon married Marie Louise of Austria, first by proxy in Vienna, then by a civil ceremony after the bride reached France, and lastly by the religious ceremony in the great hall of the Louvre. Cardinal Fesch gave the benediction, for the new marriage was not approved at Rome. Indeed, thirteen of the cardinals refused to be present at the ceremony and were thereafter called the “black cardinals” because they were forbidden by the emperor to wear their red robes.
Marie Louise came to Paris a frightened girl, for Napoleon had no reputation for gentleness, but she seems to have found him endurable. It is even related that at one time when he caught her experimenting with the making of an omelette he gave yet one more instance of his omniscience by playfully teaching her how to prepare it. That he dropped it on the floor would seem to prove that Jove occasionally nods.
In the following March enthusiastic crowds about the Tuileries listened anxiously for the cannon which should announce by twenty-one reports the birth of a daughter to the empress, by one hundred and one the coming of a son. Their joy rose to frenzy when the twenty-second boom announced an heir who received the title of the King of Rome, and for days the city was given over to rejoicing. Napoleon himself told the news to Josephine in a letter dated