The Girls' Book of Famous Queens

Thus Josephine’s influence was always on the side of mercy and justice. She possessed the most perfect tact, which rendered her address irresistibly winning when partisans were to be gained for Napoleon. She was entirely engrossed in the welfare and glory of him to whom her heart was most unselfishly devoted and loyal. She gained for him friends on every side; as Napoleon himself acknowledged, saying, “I conquer empires; but Josephine wins hearts.” Bonaparte was never so prosperous, so well-served, and so well-beloved, as during the years when he was blessed with the counsels and aided by the adoring love of the faithful woman, who was always his best adviser and most constant friend.

When on one occasion Josephine warned Napoleon to be on his guard against the advice which might be given him by his flatterers, he replied: —

“You are right, Madame, I know how to guard myself against all their influences. You are my wife and friend. I want none other. Your lot is bound to mine forever; and woe to that one of us who shall be the first to break our oath.”

And yet in 1809, he could not guard himself against the “bees” of his court, who hummed in his ears: —

“You must separate from the Empress Josephine. A princess of the blood of the Cæsars will esteem it a glory to give heirs to the great Napoleon. Then will his dynasty be established forever.”

The divorce in 1809 was brought about by the joint efforts of all the members of the Bonaparte family, aided by some of Napoleon’s most confidential servants, whom Josephine, either as Madame Bonaparte, or empress, had failed to make her friends, notwithstanding her ceaseless endeavors to harmonize all the hostile elements around her. Even as early as the time when Napoleon was in Egypt, these intriguers first tried to lay snares for the unsuspicious and magnanimous Josephine, and various scandals were originated and reported to the absent Bonaparte.

Junot was made their tool either willingly or unwillingly, and the evil whispers became louder and louder. During the first months of the Egyptian expedition, Bonaparte’s letters to his wife were affectionate and confiding. But the poison was soon at work, and the rumors which Junot had repeated to Bonaparte roused his jealous anger.

Poor Josephine knew naught of these dread scandals, until the letters received from her husband, accusing her of errors of which she was guiltless, stabbed her to the heart. Her appeals against these injurious aspersions were in accordance with her own noble nature. We can only quote a few lines from her letter to Napoleon: —

“Can it be possible, my friend? Is the letter indeed yours which I have just received? Scarcely can I give it credence, on comparing the present with those now before me, and to which your love gave so many charms! My eyes cannot doubt that those pages which rend my heart are too surely yours; but my soul refuses to admit that yours could have dictated those lines, which to the ardent joy experienced on hearing from you have caused to succeed the mortal grief of reading the expressions of a displeasure, the more afflicting to me that it must have proved a source of fearful pain to you.

“I am entirely ignorant in what I have offended, to create an enemy so determined to ruin my repose by interrupting yours; but surely it must be a great reason which can thus induce some one unceasingly to renew against me calumnies of such a specious nature as to be admitted, even for a moment, by one who hitherto has deemed me worthy of his entire affection and confidence.

“Oh, my friend! in place of lending an ear to impostors, who, from motives which I cannot explain, seek to ruin our happiness, why do you not rather reduce them to silence by the recital of your benefits to a woman whose character has never incurred the suspicion of ingratitude? On hearing what you have done for me and for my children, my traducers would be silent. Your conduct, admired as it has been throughout the whole of Europe, has in my heart but awakened deeper adoration of the husband who made choice of me, poor as I was, and unhappy. Every step which you take adds to the splendor of the name I bear – and is such a moment seized to persuade you that I no longer love you? What absurdity, or rather what vileness, on the part of your companions, jealous as they are of your marked superiority! I tremble when I think of the dangers which surround you. God knows when or where this letter may reach you. May it restore to you a repose which you ought never to have foregone, and more than ever give you an assurance, that while I live you will be dear to me as on the day of our last separation. Farewell, my only friend! Confide in me, love me, and receive a thousand tender caresses.”

This touching letter, from which we have only quoted a few lines, was probably not received by Bonaparte until after his return to France. And Napoleon returning to Paris found Josephine absent, for she had started to meet him in wild impatience to welcome him; but missing him on the road, he arrived home first and found his house deserted: but his mother, sisters, and sisters-in-law, and in short every member of his family, except Louis, who had attended Madame Bonaparte to Lyons, came to him immediately, and insinuated the basest scandals about his devoted wife, who was only absent because she had flown to meet him. But the impression made upon him by his deserted home and the false accusations of his family were profound and terrible; and nine years afterwards, when the tie between himself and Josephine was broken, he showed that he had not forgotten that time. From not finding his wife with his family, he inferred that she felt herself unworthy of his presence and feared to meet the man she had wronged; and he considered her journey to Lyons a mere pretence, – so cruelly had these evil slanderers blackened her lovely and devoted character. After the reconciliation which followed, Bonaparte seemed for a time to have forgotten these evil lies; but his family were intensely chagrined.

Madame Pauline Le Clerc was most vexed at the pardon which Napoleon had granted his wife. Bonaparte’s mother was also very ill-pleased, for she had never liked Josephine. Madame Bacchiocchi gave free vent to her ill-humor and disdain, and Bonaparte’s brothers were at open war with Josephine. No wonder that with such a host of evil-minded, envious relations, poor Josephine was most terribly maligned! Bonaparte’s brothers, desirous of obtaining entire dominion over Napoleon, strenuously endeavored to lessen the influence which Josephine possessed over him.

Napoleon would probably have adhered to his first idea of adopting Eugène de Beauharnais as his successor, had it not been for his own family, all eager for wealth and honors, all jealous of any favors shown to Josephine or her children, all of them constantly urging a divorce.

“Divorce her at once,” Joseph Bonaparte exclaimed; “you are not married to her. The woman may die, and it will then be said you have poisoned her, – that you found it to your interest to do so.”

Napoleon was staggered at these monstrous suggestions. His countenance became of a deathlike paleness as these terrible insinuations fell upon his ear. After a moment or two of silence he murmured: —

“You have forced on me an idea which would never have occurred to me, and with it the possibility of a divorce.”

Thus was the evil working, which should end in the cruel blow to Josephine and the downfall of Napoleon. Years elapsed before Napoleon was induced to act upon these suggestions, but the tempters had begun their diabolical work.

As Napoleon’s marriage with Josephine had at first been only a civil ceremony, – the religious service having been only performed at the time of the coronation, when religious worship had been reinstated in France, – Joseph Bonaparte basely insinuated that the tie between them was not binding; and as by some mistake the necessary witnesses had not been present at the after religious ceremony, and a signature was said to be wanting to make the certificate of marriage complete, these circumstances were afterwards laid stress upon, in declaring that their marriage had been irregular and could therefore be annulled. And either by evil intent or inadvertence a notice of the religious ceremony did not appear in the Moniteur, which described the coronation at great length. Thus was the web spun by the political spiders closer and closer around their poor innocent victim, Josephine, and she became the subject of their vilest plots.

Napoleon’s attachment to Josephine withstood all suggestions during the period preceding the Empire, and Josephine herself afterwards declared, “that unless urged by others, he would not of himself have thought of a separation.”

But at length, instigated by Fouché and his own relations and other evil advisers, Napoleon determined to divorce Josephine. This same wily Fouché hinted to Josephine her coming doom, and advised that she should first broach the subject to the emperor; but Josephine indignantly refused.

“It was on Sunday, on returning from church, that Fouché, the minister of the police, leading Josephine to the embrasure of a window in the château at Fontainebleau, gave her the first shock on the subject of the divorce, which did not take place until two years after.”

The family of Bonaparte became more openly hostile to Josephine. One of the writers of her memoirs says: —

“Joseph could not endure her, while on the other hand, his wife rendered her the fullest justice. As to Madame Murat, she was by no means careful to conceal her thoughts, and on many occasions sought to humiliate Napoleon’s wife. Madame Bacchiocchi, Napoleon’s eldest sister, considered Josephine as the earliest instrument of her brother’s greatness. ‘But,’ said she, ‘the moment her power becomes too great it must be broken down, and that without pity.’ She was one of the first to advise that unrighteous separation, which worked so much prejudice to the emperor and his whole family. Madame Letitia, Napoleon’s mother, occasioned real trouble and vexation to her daughter-in-law. Their feelings were in perpetual opposition. The one was remarkable for her acts of benevolence; the other for her extreme parsimony. The mother loudly disapproved of the luxury which reigned at her son’s court, and charged the fault to Josephine.”

When Joseph Bonaparte became king of Naples, his sister Caroline, then Grand Duchess of Berg, avoided as much as possible her modest sister-in-law, the queen of Naples. But finding herself obliged to give her the title of “Your Majesty,” she dared at length to complain to Napoleon that he had not yet given her a crown. Napoleon replied: “Your complaint astonishes me, madame! To hear you, one might suppose I had deprived you of your right of succession to the throne of your ancestor.”

No one of Napoleon’s evil advisers was more crafty, insidious, and unscrupulous than Fouché. Like a Mephistopheles, with sardonic smile he held his fingers on the keys which played the tune of politics. Through his minions, the police, he entered even the closed doors of his Majesty’s cabinet, and caught the rumors which dropped in idle gossip from the rosy lips of the beauties of the court.

After his cool affront to Josephine, in endeavoring to persuade her that she should herself suggest to Napoleon the divorce, she begged the emperor to remove Fouché from his office of minister of police; but Bonaparte, with strange blindness, kept the wily serpent near him, and banished from his presence his own guardian angel. And when at last he had been stung himself by the treacherous fangs of the insidious viper, and Napoleon became at length convinced that Fouché was maintaining a correspondence with England, through his spies, the emperor dismissed him; but it was too late.

The same Fouché who had thrust the dagger into the heart of Josephine, afterwards proved to be one of the chief instigators of the plots which caused the second abdication of Napoleon. Bourrienne thus pithily describes him: —

“Fouché had opinions, but he belonged to no party; and his political success is explained by the readiness with which he always served the party he knew must triumph, and which he himself overthrew in its turn. He maintained himself in favor, from the days of blood and terror until the time of the second restoration, only by abandoning and sacrificing those who were attached to him. In all things he looked only to himself; and to this egotism he sacrificed both subjects and governments.

“Such were the secret causes of the sway exercised by Fouché during the Convention, the Directory, the Empire, and after the return of the Bourbons. He helped to found and to destroy every one of these successive governments.”

Napoleon afterwards realized some of the treachery of this archtraitor, and thus spoke of him at St. Helena: —

“Fouché is a miscreant of all colors; – a priest, a Terrorist, and one who took an active part in many bloody scenes of the Revolution. He is a man who can worm all your secrets out of you with an air of calmness and of unconcern.”

What wonder that poor unsuspicious Josephine was betrayed by such a Judas!

This smiling Mephistopheles might thus have counselled with his crafty soul: —

“And so her Majesty beseeches that I be dismissed! We’ll see, my lady, whether you or I shall conquer in this contest! You think you hold your husband’s heart; but I hold the ear of his proud ambition. Which, think you, will prevail? You are surrounded by his relations, who hate you with envious and jealous hatred, than which there is none more bitter. I am their confidant. Ha! methinks my cards in hand shall win the game, even against the Queen of Hearts!”

Bourrienne relates the following conversation with Fouché, which bears upon this point: —

“I said a few words to him about Bonaparte’s regret at not having children. My object was to learn Fouché’s opinion on this subject; and it was not without a feeling of indignation I heard him say, ‘It is to be hoped the empress will soon die. Her death will remove many difficulties. Sooner or later he must take a wife who will bear him a child; for as long as he has no direct heir, there is every chance that his death will be the signal for a revolution. His brothers are perfectly incapable of filling his place, and a new party would rise up in favor of the Bourbons, which must be prevented above all things.’”

And yet this same Fouché afterwards intrigued for the return of the Bourbons.

Just before Napoleon signed his second abdication, a provisional government was established with Fouché at the head. This crafty schemer was at that time the agent of Louis XVIII. and of the Duke of Wellington; and so it was Fouché, who, as a leader in the Chamber of Deputies, forced Napoleon to sign the second abdication. The Marquis de Bonnay wrote concerning his intrigues: —

“I know for a certainty that M. de M., who was sent to Vienna by Fouché, has taken part in a dialogue to the following effect: —

“‘Do not go to war with us, and we will rid you of that man.’

“‘Well, then; rid us of him at once.’

“‘Would you like the king of Rome, or a regency?’

“‘No!’

“‘The Duke of Orleans?’

“‘No!’

“‘Well, Louis XVIII.? – since it must be so. But no nobility, no priestcraft, and above all, no Blacas.’

“‘Begin by ridding us of Bonaparte and all his race.’”

And rid them of Bonaparte, Fouché did; and again this wily diplomat, or base traitor, – according as the reader sides with one or the other party, – came once more to the front, and received again the office of minister of police under Louis XVIII. Thus Fouché had played his cards and won, and Josephine and Napoleon had lost. Surely the title which Lanfrey applies to Napoleon would most fittingly describe Fouché, – “an incorrigible gambler.”

During their private conferences, previous to the direct announcement of his determination, Napoleon endeavored to persuade Josephine of the political necessity of a separation; veiling his real intentions, so that they should appear only hints of the measure. Sometimes these vague hints would be met by Josephine with tears and supplications; at other times she would rise in calm dignity and defend her claims with unanswerable facts and predictions. There are several most interesting accounts given of various conversations between them at different times, before the final announcement. The following is perhaps the most impressive.

On one occasion Josephine dared predict to him, that the day he separated himself from her his bright star of destiny should fade, and that their parting hour would be the beginning of his downfall.

“You need,” she said, “a friend, and you have nothing but flatterers. Do you believe that your generals are truly attached to you? No! the most of them only wait a propitious moment to turn their arms against you. Do you think they will, with unconcern, see the Emperor Napoleon searching for a wife among the daughters of kings? No! they have been bred in the same school as yourself; they have earned true nobility, at the price of their blood; and the blazonry upon their armor, of which they are so justly proud, is but the evidence of valor which has given them the prodigious power they now enjoy in Europe.

“But remember! in you they but behold their equal. If they sustain the glory of your throne, it is only because your elevation seems their work. They believe you great, because the rays of your grandeur are reflected by themselves. If they burn incense to you, they breathe with delight the incense of a power which they share. But the moment a foreign wife shall come and seat herself at your side, the court will cease to be directed by the same influence. You are too new a man to attach to your person the ancient families. You may load them with favors; you have it in your power, and it is your duty to make them forget the wrongs inseparable from the Revolution. But beware you do not humble the old generals who served their country before you. Banish from your halls that too severe etiquette which was not made for them. Their wives and children ought not to be made to blush, either in your presence or in that of your future companion. The sword of the brave will ever be your surest safeguard. I myself have ever been careful to conciliate all parties, and to be indulgent to all opinions; so much so, that, since your fortunes have become so wonderful, I have in a manner taught your officers to forget the immense distance which exists between General Bonaparte and the Emperor Napoleon.”

Some days before the divorce, Josephine is reported to have thus addressed Napoleon: —

“Bonaparte, even now you have no confidence in the stability of your power. You want an ally; and the very sovereign whom you have lately vanquished, the sovereign who has just grounds to hate you, sees himself flattered by the very man who has so lately overrun his country. If such an enormous sacrifice as the giving his daughter to you in marriage be necessary to give peace to his subjects, you cannot but know that he will secretly despise you, and say to himself: —

“‘The man who so lately made me tremble, who imposed such cruel conditions upon me, is on the eve of some dreadful catastrophe. Did he suppose himself firmly seated upon his throne, he would not need to resort to a foreign alliance; and the very circumstance that the mighty conqueror is so anxious to obtain a companion of illustrious birth, is evidence that he intends, should a storm ever arise, to lean upon that foreign support.’”

It was indeed strange that the cry of the Revolution, “Down with the Autrichienne!” did not warn Napoleon that it would be an impolitic action to place another Austrian woman upon the throne of France.

The Empress Josephine, after having long dreaded the terrible misfortune which at length overwhelmed her, was totally unprepared for the shock when it fell. She had for a time been lulled into a fancied security, and had regained tranquillity just as the blow came. Nothing had been done to prepare her for it. Even when all Europe was talking of this probable event, and after negotiations had been entered into regarding her successor, still no direct word had been spoken to the poor victim of this atrocious cruelty and perfidious crime.

The letter in which Napoleon told her of his approaching arrival at Fontainebleau still exists. Its tone is particularly affectionate; and he thus wrote: “I am feasting on the thought of seeing thee again;– I embrace thee. Ever thine.” These were his words sent from Nymphenburg, Oct. 21, 1809. When he arrived at Fontainebleau, however, Josephine perceived that he was constrained and cold, which alarmed her; and the triumphant airs of her sworn enemies, his sisters and brothers and mother, who hastened to greet him with officious homage, betokened that some new effront would soon be offered her.

While she was obliged to conceal beneath a smiling countenance her consuming anxieties, in the midst of the brilliant fêtes of the court, she found that the communication between her suite of apartments and those of the emperor had been closed by his orders, which announced to her that her dreaded doom was nigh.

The Duchesse D’Abrantes gives this account of a visit to Josephine just previous to the public announcement of the divorce: “I had an interview with the empress at Malmaison. I had sent her a plant from the Pyrenees, and she wished me to see it in the hot-house. But in vain she attempted to employ herself with those objects which pleased her the most; her eyes were frequently suffused with tears; she was pale, and her whole manner marked indisposition. ‘It is very cold!’ she said, drawing her shawl about her; but, alas! it was the chill of grief creeping about her heart, like the cold hand of death. ‘Madame Junot,’ she said, ‘remember what I say to you this day here, in this hot-house, – this place which is now a paradise, but which may soon become a desert to me, – remember that this separation will be my death, and it is they who will have killed me! I shall be driven in disgrace from him who has given me a crown! Yet God is my witness that I love him more than my life, and much more than that throne, that crown, which he has given me.’ The empress may have appeared more beautiful, but never more attractive than at that moment. If Napoleon had seen her then, surely he could never have divorced her.” Lanfrey thus comments upon this event: “On the evening of Nov. 30, the prefect of the palace was on duty in an apartment adjoining the drawing-room where the emperor and Josephine were sitting, when he heard piercing cries, and with amazement recognized the voice of the empress. A few moments afterwards the door opened, and Napoleon having called him in, he beheld the empress suffering from a violent nervous attack, and uttering exclamations of distress and despair. He then helped Napoleon to carry her into her own apartment. In fact, the much-dreaded explosion had taken place. The emperor had at first determined to await the arrival of the Prince Eugène in Paris, in order that the presence and consolations of the son whom Josephine so tenderly loved might soften the bitterness of his intended communication. When he announced the terrible news to her who alone was ignorant of it, – to the woman who, by having brought him among her wedding presents the chief command of the army in Italy, had so eminently contributed towards his exalted fortune, – eight days had already elapsed since he had desired Champagny to ask for him the hand of the Emperor Alexander’s sister. It was Russia, his ally, not Austria, whom he thought it better to address first.

“As the sad scene which had revealed the domestic trouble in the imperial family was soon publicly known, the divorce became the subject of conversation at the court and throughout the nation. The unfortunate Josephine was supported, it is true, by the affection of her children, who felt the blow scarcely less keenly than herself; but being convinced of the absolute futility of resistance, she had, after the deepest anguish, submitted, rather than resigned herself to that strong will which henceforward became inflexible.

“In order to feign consent, it was necessary that she should show herself in public. Hence she was dragged about to all the grand official receptions, and the scandal-loving public watched her closely, in order to note the extent and progress of her misfortune. The echoes of the palace more than once repeated her sobs and complaints; but it was desirable that this victim of pride and policy should appear content to sacrifice herself, and she was not allowed the satisfaction even of a display of grief. In the fêtes given at the commencement of December, to celebrate the anniversary of the coronation, Paris beheld her, with death in her heart and a smile on her lips, bearing the despair which was a torture to her, with grace playing her part of sovereign for the last time; surrounded by her children, who, to use the expression of a contemporary, were dancing at their mother’s funeral.”