The Best of the Bureau/The_Best_of_the_Bureau_Bureau_Development_Inc._1992.iso/dp/0006/00063.txt

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$Unique_ID{bob00063}
$Pretitle{}
$Title{Life Of Napoleon Bonaparte And Life Of Josephine
Chapter VII}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Tarbell, Ida M.}
$Affiliation{}
$Subject{josephine
napoleon
emperor
empress
divorce
paris
hortense
little
time
days}
$Date{1906}
$Log{}
Title:       Life Of Napoleon Bonaparte And Life Of Josephine
Book:        Life Of Josephine
Author:      Tarbell, Ida M.
Date:        1906

Chapter VII

Josephine Not Allowed To Go To Poland - Fear Of Divorce - The Reconciliation
Of 1807-1808 - The Campaign Of 1809 And Its Effect On Napoleon

     For two years after she mounted the throne, Josephine felt tolerably
secure in its possession.  It was not until the winter of 1806-1807, when
Napoleon was busy with war against Russia and Prussia, that the spectre which
had alarmed her at the beginning of the Life Consulate and again at the
proclamation of the Empire, arose again.  Her first alarm came from the fact
that when she wanted to go to the Emperor from Mayence, whither she had taken
her household, he put her off.  Sometimes he even rebuked her for her
persistence in clinging to the idea.  "Talleyrand comes, and tells me that you
do nothing but cry," he wrote her on November 1st.  "But what do you want?
You have your daughter, your grandchildren, and good news; certainly you have
the materials for happiness and contentment." More often he flattered and
petted, as when, on November 28th, he wrote from Warsaw: "All the Polish women
are Frenchwomen, but there is only one woman for me.  Do you know her?  I
could draw her portrait for you; but I should have to flatter it too much for
you to recognize it; nevertheless, to tell the truth, my heart would have only
good things to tell you." And again, a few days later: "I have your letter of
November 26th.  I notice two things: you say, 'I don't read your letters';
that is unjust.  I am sorry for your bad opinion.  You tell me you are not
jealous.  I have long observed that people who are angry always say that they
are not angry, that people who are afraid say they are not afraid; so you are
convicted of jealousy; I am delighted!  Besides, you are mistaken, and in the
deserts of fair Poland one thinks but little about pretty women. Yesterday I
was at a ball of the nobility of the province; rather pretty women, rather
rich, rather ill dressed, although in the Paris fashion." He continued all
through December to try to dissuade her.  "I have your letter of November
27th, and I see that your little head is much excited. I remember the line: 'A
woman's wish is a devouring flame,' and I must calm you.  I wrote to you that
I was in Poland, that when we should have got into winter quarters you might
come; so you must wait a few days.  The greater one becomes, the less will one
must have; one depends on events and circumstances.  You may go to Frankfurt
or Darmstadt.  I hope to summon you in a few days, but events must decide.
The warmth of your letter convinces me that you pretty women take no account
of obstacles; what you want must be; but I must say that I am the greatest
slave that lives; my master has no heart, and this master is the nature of
things."

     Josephine would not give up her plan, however, and in Napoleon's
arguments that the trip from Mayence to Warsaw was too long - the roads too
bad, the weather too cold, for her to venture it, that she was needed in
Paris, she saw only a desire to be free from her presence; and when finally he
ordered her to "go back to Paris to be happy and contented there," she obeyed
with tears and lamentations.  Josephine's jealousy at this time was more than
justifiable.  For many months, in fact, she had known beyond question of
Napoleon's various infidelities, and she suspected that the real reason he
refused her request to be allowed to go to him was that he had found a new
mistress.  Or might it not be, she asked herself, that he was planning a
divorce and re-marriage.  The first supposition was true.  It was Madame
Walewski who was the chief obstacle to Josephine going to Warsaw, although the
reasons Napoleon gave - the danger of the journey and the need of Josephine in
Paris - were plausible enough at the moment.

     It was not until July, 1807, that the Emperor took up the subject of a
divorce, as a political necessity, with his counsellors.  While at Tilsit with
the Emperor of Russia and the King of Prussia, the divorce was discussed, and
Napoleon ordered that a list of the marriageable princesses of Europe be made
out for him.  No doubt vague rumors of the transactions at Tilsit reached
Josephine.  She took them the more to heart because in May of that year (1807)
Hortense's eldest son, Napoleon-Charles, had died. The death of the boy
destroyed one of her chief hopes.  It removed the child whom she knew Napoleon
so loved that he would have been well satisfied to have made him his
successor.  Hortense had a second child, Napoleon-Louis; but the Emperor did
not have the same feeling for him.

     When Napoleon returned to Paris after the meeting at Tilsit, Josephine
was prepared to do all that was possible to reconquer the place in her
husband's heart, which many months' absence had certainly weakened. She even
had Hortense's little son Louis with her, a constant reminder to the Empire
that here was an heir of Bonaparte and Beauharnais blood.  Her hopes were soon
shattered by Fouche, who made an appeal to her.  For the sake of the country,
the dynasty, Napoleon, would she not herself voluntarily offer to withdraw.
Panicstricken, yet not daring to go directly to her husband to know if this
was his will, Josephine could only weep.  Napoleon saw her sorrow, but had not
the courage to talk with her. Finally Talleyrand, taking the case in hand,
persuaded Josephine to speak first to Napoleon.  Overcome completely, the
Emperor feigned amazement, stormed at the baseness of Fouche, wept over
Josephine, swore he could not leave her; but he did not deceive her - or
himself.  Josephine took a clever course - she told him she would consent to
his will quietly for love of him and for the sake of the throne - if he
commanded her.  But that Napoleon could not do.  He ordered that the question
of divorce be dropped, gave Fouche such treatment as perhaps a man never
before received for carrying out his superior's will, and for a time bestowed
upon Josephine lover-like attentions so marked that the whole court looked on
and wondered.

     The fall of 1807 the Emperor strove to make very gay, and during the
sojourns at Rambouillet for the hunt and the month at Fontainebleau the
Empress was really at the height of her power.  He could not give her up,
could not, in spite of his dynasty, in spite of Mme. Walewski, the woman who
had sacrificed herself to him for the sake of Poland, and for whom he had a
great respect as well as ardent passion.  Josephine was necessary to him.  It
was a tenderness born of association - of all of the thousand sweet ties which
twelve years of life together had wrought.  What matter if she was growing
old; what matter that he might have a royal princess for his wife - that his
heart was with Mme. Walewski, it was Josephine, and no one ever had aroused
such a wealth of tenderness as she - no one could again.  The court could only
look on and wonder to see the weakness of the tyrant before this woman.  They
even noted how jealous he was of her that fall, when the young German prince
of Mecklenburg-Schwerin fell in love with her and did not hesitate to show it.
Josephine herself laughed at the young man's ardor, but Napoleon looked
askance and doubled his tenderness.

     The winter of 1807 and 1808 was spent in Paris, and the shadow was not
large.  It was true that Mme. Walewski was now in the city; but if Josephine
knew anything of this liaison, she ignored it completely.  So long as she was
Empress infidelities had little effect on her.  Mme. de Remusat says that not
only did Josephine shut her eyes to them, but she "pushed her complacency to
the point of granting particular favors to some of his mi