XXIII.

THE TRIP TO HOLLAND.

A short time after Wagram Napoleon had been heard, in a levee at which his generals were present, to lament the bloody campaigns in which he always lost some of his early companions. "I have been a soldier long enough," he went on; "it's time for me to be a king." During 1811 he seemed faithful to this new programme. The soldier had become a monarch, and the hero of so many battles seemed to be desirous of the glories of peace. He determined to make a trip in Belgium and Holland and along the banks of the Rhine, where he should see for himself what the happiness of the people required. The Empress made the journey with him, but Napoleon started from Compiègne without her, September 19; she was to join him on the 30th at Antwerp. At this time she was so attached to him that she could not endure a separation of only a few days, and she wrote to her father: "My husband has left to-night to go to the island of Walcheren, which has the worst climate in the world, so that I could not go with him, for which I am extremely sorry." While the Emperor was visiting Boulogne, Ostend, and Flushing, the Queen made her way, with a magnificent court, to Belgium. She left Compiègne, September 22, and took up her residence at the castle at Laeken, near Brussels. She often visited the Belgian capital, which then was only the chief town of a French department,—the department of the Dyle. Napoleon made a great point of her appearing in all splendor in the provinces which had previously been governed by the house of Austria. She went to the theatre, where she was warmly greeted, and purchased a hundred and fifty thousand francs' worth of lace to revive the manufactures of the city. September 30 she joined her husband at Antwerp. The Moniteur thus spoke of the way the Emperor had transformed this city: "Antwerp may be considered as a fortress of the rank of Metz and Strasbourg. The work which has been done there is enormous. On the left bank of the Scheldt, where two years ago there was only a redoubt, there has risen a city twelve thousand feet long, with eight bastions…. The view from the dockyard is unparalleled; twenty-one men-of-war, eight of them three-deckers, are building. The arsenal is fully provided with provisions of all sorts brought down the Rhine and the Meuse.

"Seven years ago," continues the Moniteur, "there was not a single quay in Antwerp, and the houses came down to the river's edge. To-day, in the place of these houses, are superb quays, of service to the commerce and to the defence of the place. Six years ago there was no basin, but only a few canals where boats drawing ten or twelve feet could scarcely enter. To-day there is a basin twenty-six feet deep at the bank, able to hold ships-of-the-line, with a lock for the admission of ships carrying a hundred and twenty guns."

The formal entrance into Amsterdam took place October 9, 1811. The former capital of Holland was merely the chief town of a French department,—the department of the Zuyder Zee. The Dutch were suffering a good deal from the Embargo, and sorely missed King Louis Bonaparte, who had in vain tried to alleviate their sufferings. When they came under the dominion of the Emperor, he had appointed Lebrun, Duke of Piacenza, their governor general. Of him, Count Beugnot says in his Memoirs, "He was doubtless a superior man, but he found it easier to translate Homer and Tasso, and to treat with wonderful ease the most difficult questions of political economy, than to console a Dutchman for the loss of ten florins."

The discontent of the Dutch only strengthened Napoleon's desire to please and win them. "It seemed at that time," M. Beugnot goes on, "as if Heaven had given him every means of securing happiness. A son had just been born to him, whose future the poets were justified in foretelling in their own way. The child who inspired the Mantuan poet with the idyl, or rather with the magnificent prophecy, Sicelides Musae, etc., was but an humble creature by the side of this infant, who to the most impressive pride of race added enormous, newly acquired glory, such as the world had never seen." The happy Emperor fancied that by showing himself with the mother of the King of Rome to the Dutch and Germans, he should silence their complaints, wipe out their memories of national independence, and arouse an enthusiasm that would make them forget their sufferings and losses. Their welcome was of a sort to confirm him in this belief. The peaceful populace of Amsterdam forgot their usual phlegm, and cheered the mighty monarch and his young wife. The Empress entered the city in a gilded carriage with glass sides, and she was met by a guard of honor composed of young men belonging to the first families of Holland. The Emperor followed on horseback, surrounded by a brilliant staff. Their stay at Amsterdam was marked by extraordinary pomp; the company of the Théâtre Français was brought thither from Paris, and Talma appeared as Bayard and as Orosmane. The court made a stay of a fortnight, the Emperor making short excursions to Helder, one of his creations, to Texel, and to the dykes of Medemblik, which protect the country against the Zuyder Zee.

General de Ségur, who went on the journey, thus describes it: "It might naturally be supposed, that in going through Holland, after the last two attempted assassinations, Napoleon would have taken precautions against such frequent attacks; but, far from it, he was full of confidence, and went about alone among these worst victims of the continental system, mingling every day with the dense crowd that gathered about him. His sole thought was to study their needs, their manners, and habits, anxious to see for himself and trusting thoroughly in them. These northern people hide warm hearts beneath a cold exterior; they are impressed by greatness, and give it their confidence. Their feelings are slow, but for that reason surer when once aroused. The Emperor's enormous fame had preceded him; and the appearance among them of this genius, all fire and flame, who had come, as he said, to adopt them, warmed their phlegmatic nature. They were at once filled with admiration; his presence, his trust in them, his consoling and encouraging words, the good works at once begun by his active and able administration, filled them with enthusiasm."

During the three days of the Emperor's absence Marie Louise visited the neighborhood of Amsterdam. She went to the village of Broek, which lies a league from the port, on the shores of a little basin surrounded with flowers and grass, and is in communication with the Zuyder Zee by means of a small canal. This village is famous as a perfect model of the attractive luxury and the over-zealous neatness of the Dutch. It is of a circular shape. The houses, of wood and one story high, are built around and upon a lake, and are decorated outside with frescoes. Through the window-glass, which is remarkably clear, it is easy to see the curtains of Chinese figured silk or of Indian stuff. Within the houses are large Gothic sideboards, full of costly Japanese porcelain. There are no signs of use or of wear upon the furniture; every house looks as if it were the house of the Sleeping Beauty. There are no barns, or stables, or granaries, or kitchens. Everything connected with animals is banished from this fairy-like enclosure. Posts at the ends of every street bar the way against carriages. The pavement is in mosaic, and is covered with a fine sand, on which are designs of flowers. The inhabitants carry their sense of neatness so far that they compel every visitor to take off his shoes and put on slippers on entering a house. One day, when the Emperor Joseph II. happened to appear in a pair of boots before one of these curious houses, he was told that he would have to take them off before he could go in. "I am the Emperor," he said. "Well, if you were the burgomaster of Amsterdam, you couldn't come in with boots on," was the reply. Another time Hortense, then Queen of Holland, was not allowed to enter one of the houses, and King Louis approved, because the Queen had not sent word that she was coming.

When Marie Louise visited this famous village, the burgomaster, in view of the importance of the occasion, consented to break the rigid rules and to permit the Imperial carriage to drive over the mosaic pavement to his house, where he presented his respects to the Empress. At this house, as in every one in the village, there are two doors,—one for daily use, the other opened only for baptisms, marriages, and funerals. This door, which is called the fatal door, opens into a room which is always kept shut except on these three occasions. "The Empress," says M. de Bausset, "asked to have the fatal door opened. We crossed the threshold with gratified vanity, in the presence of many inhabitants, who feared to follow us, but who were almost tempted to admire the ease and courage with which we went in and out. After visiting, admiring, and praising everything, we left these worthy people delighted with the touching graces and amiable kindness of their young sovereign."

The Emperor and Empress visited Saardam, where Peter the Great spent ten months as a workman, to study shipbuilding. Napoleon fell into meditation before the hut of the famous Czar, as he had done before the tomb of Frederick the Great. "That is the noblest monument in Holland!" he said; and in memory of Peter the Great he ordered Saardam to be made a city.

Napoleon and Marie Louise also spent a few hours at Harlem, a half-Gothic, half-Japanese town, celebrated by the passion of its inhabitants for flowers, especially for tulips. October 26, they arrived at Rotterdam, at Loo on the 27th, and spent the night of the 28th at The Hague, whence they went to visit the banks of the Rhine. The Emperor carried away with him a most favorable impression of the Dutch, whose seriousness, morality, love of order, and industry had continually struck him, so that he shared his brother Louis's partiality for a nation as interesting in the present as in the past.

November 2, Napoleon and his wife reached Düsseldorf. This pretty town, which is picturesquely placed at the junction of the Düssel with the Rhine, was at that time the capital of the Grand Duchy of Berg, and had been under the rule of Murat before he was appointed King of Naples; on this visit the Emperor assigned it to the oldest son of Louis Bonaparte. Count Beugnot was then ruling the principality, which contained less than a million inhabitants. He it was who said in his curious and witty Memoirs: "How easy it would have been to secure the allegiance of the Germans, who are unable to withstand the attraction of military glory, for whom an oath of allegiance is a mere nothing, and who felt for France an affection which we cruelly drove out of them!… Germany, which always admires the marvellous, long preserved its admiration for the Emperor. At that time this was so general, that a breath would have blown over the Prussian monarchy, which neither the armies nor the memories of the great Frederick, together with the invincible legion of the successor of Peter the Great, could defend."

At Düsseldorf, Napoleon, in accordance with his usual custom, received all the authorities, civil and military, as well as representatives of all sects. Among these last was an old white-bearded rabbi a hundred years old, who was so anxious to see the Emperor that he had himself carried to the reception. He entered, supported on one side by the parish priest, on the other, by the Protestant clergyman. This union of the three creeds in homage to their sovereign did not displease the Emperor, strange as it was. Count Beugnot's Memoirs must be consulted for a full account of the activity, the interest in details, the minuteness of the administrative investigations which, at Düsseldorf as everywhere else, characterized Napoleon in these laborious journeys, on which, under pretext of seeking distraction, he kept himself in almost as active movement as if he were at war. The Count who once played whist at Düsseldorf with Marie Louise for his partner, against the Duchess of Montebello and the Prince of Neufchâtel, says in speaking of the occasion: "As often happens, the game was carelessly played; all watched the cards only with their eyes, and gave their attention to what was going forward about the table, to which the Emperor came every few minutes to say a few pleasant words to the Empress or to joke with the Prince of Neufchâtel and me. I was too busy, both during the dinner and while we were playing, to make any study of the Empress's tastes or to form from them a judgment about her character. The journey had been long; she seemed tired and out of sorts. She answered the Emperor only in monosyllables, and the other by a somewhat monotonous nod of the head. I may be mistaken, but I am inclined to believe that Her Majesty is not free from the awe which her August husband inspires in all who approach him."

After resting for two days at Düsseldorf, Napoleon and Marie Louise went on to Cologne, when they visited the Chapel of the Eleven Thousand Virgins, and a grand Te Deum was sung in the famous Cathedral, They returned by Liège, Givet, Mézières, and Compiègne, reaching Saint Cloud after an absence of nearly three months,—the longest visit that the Emperor had made in the provinces of either the old or the new France. Everywhere he had met with the expression of two distinct but somewhat different sentiments: for the Empress, an affectionate respect; for himself, the sort of violent sensation that a man who is a living wonder always produces. XXIV.

NAPOLEON AT THE HEIGHT OF HIS POWER.

At the beginning of 1812 Napoleon had reached the height of his power. Before we watch his decline, it may be well to consider him at the summit of his fortune, in the fulness of his force, might, and glory. In his career there were two distinctly marked periods,—the democratic and the aristocratic. In the early days of the Empire the first one had not yet come to an end. The coins of that time still bore the stamp, "French Republic. Napoleon Emperor." He himself resembled Caesar rather than Charlemagne: he granted no hereditary titles, and associated with but few of the émigrés; he was still, in many ways, a man of the Revolution. In 1812, on the other hand, he had given his authority a sort of feudal character, and revived many points of resemblance with the Carlovingian epoch. Charlemagne had become his model, his ideal. The saviour of the Convention, the friend of the young Robespierre, was busily introducing much of the imperial and military splendor of the Middle Ages. The continental sovereigns treated him with so much consideration that he regarded himself as their superior rather than as an equal. He called them his brothers; but he thought that he was more than a brother—something like the head of a family of kings. The Kings of Bavaria, of Würtemberg, of Saxony, of Spain, of Naples, of Westphalia, who all owed their crowns to him, were indeed his subordinates. As the Princes of the Confederation of the Rhine, the vassals of their protector, they despatched their contingents to him with as much zeal and punctuality as if they had been plain prefects of the Empire.

The émigrés crowded the drawing-rooms of the Tuileries. One might have thought one's self at Coblenz. Those men who belonged to the old régime were especially appreciated. The one of his aides-de-camp who most pleased the Emperor was perhaps the Count of Narbonne, knight of honor of one of the daughters of Louis XV., Minister of War under Louis XVI. The most rigid, the most precise etiquette prevailed in the Imperial residences. The high dignitaries and marshals concealed their plebeian names under pompous titles of princes and dukes. Madame de Mailly, the widow of a marshal of the royal period, had been admitted to the rank and privileges of the wives of the grand officers of the crown, and had figured as a marshal's widow, at the reception of January 1, 1811. The court of Versailles appeared to have revived.

Napoleon preferred to derive his power from divine right than from the will of the nation. "He was much struck," Metternich says in his Memoirs, "by the idea of ascribing the origin of supreme power to divine choice. One day at Compiègne, soon after his marriage, he said to me, 'I notice that when the Empress writes to her father, she addresses him as His Holy Imperial Highness. Is that your usual way?' I told him he was so addressed from the tradition of the old Germanic Empire, and because he also wore the apostolic crown of Hungary. Napoleon then said with some solemnity, 'It is a noble and excellent custom. Power derives from God, and that is the only way it can be secure from human assault. Some time or other I shall adopt the same title.'"

At about the same time, in conversation with M. Molé about the houses building in Paris, on being asked when he intended to give his attention to the Church of the Madeleine, the Emperor said, "Well, what is expected of me?" M. Molé told him that he had heard that it was intended for a Temple of Glory. "That's what people think, I know," said Napoleon; "but I mean it for a memorial in expiation of the murder of Louis XVI." He said to Metternich: "When I was young I favored the Revolution out of ignorance and ambition. When I came to the age of reason I followed its counsels and my own instinct, and crushed the Revolution." At another time he said: "The French throne was empty. Louis XVI. had not been able to hold it. If I had been in his place, in spite of the immense progress it had made in men's minds during the previous reigns, the Revolution would not have triumphed. When the King fell, the Republic took its place; and I set that aside. The former throne was buried under the ruins; I had to make a new one."

According to Prince Metternich, "One of Napoleon's keenest and most persistent regrets was that he could not appeal to the principle of legitimacy as the foundation of his power. Few men have felt like him the fragility and precariousness of authority without this basis, and its vulnerability to attacks." One day, in speaking to the Austrian statesman about the letter he wrote when First Consul to Louis XVIII., he said: "His answer was dignified and rich in impressive traditions. In Legitimists there is something which lies outside of their intelligence. If he had consulted his intellect alone, he would have come to terms with me, and I should have treated him most generously."

The Emperor had come to regard himself as the glorious personification of divine right, and as the defender of all the monarchies. In his eyes the King of Prussia was only a revolutionary monarch. If we may believe Chateaubriand, "Frederick William's great crime, according to Bonaparte the Republican, was this, that he abandoned the cause of the kings. The negotiations of the Berlin court with the Directory indicated, Bonaparte used to say, a timid, selfish, undignified policy, which sacrificed his own position and the general monarchical interests to petty advantages. When he used to look at the new Prussia on the map he would say, 'Is it possible that I have left that man so much territory?'"

The philosophers aroused as much horror in Napoleon as the Jacobins. In his eyes strong minds were weak minds; and though he persecuted the Pope, he denounced with equal severity attacks on the throne and attacks on the Church. He especially detested the Voltairian irony, regarding it as both blasphemous and treasonable. To quote once more from Prince Metternich: "He had a profound contempt for the false philosophy as well as for the false philanthropy of the eighteenth century. Of all the founders of the doctrine it was Voltaire who was his pet aversion, and he carried his hate so far as to attack on every occasion his general literary reputation."

Napoleon thought, spoke, and acted as if he had always been Emperor and King. In the whole world there was no court so magnificent and brilliant as his. Many kings were admitted to it only as French princes, high dignitaries of the Empire: Joseph, King of Spain, was a Great Elector; Murat, King of the Two Sicilies, Lord High Admiral; Louis Bonaparte, deprived of the throne of Holland, figures in the Imperial Almanac of 1812 in his capacity of Constable. The other high dignitaries at this epoch were Cambacérès, Duke of Parma, Lord High Chancellor of the Empire; Lebrun, Duke of Piacenza, Lord High Treasurer, Governor General of the Departments of Holland; Prince Eugene de Beauharnais, Viceroy of Italy, Lord High Chancellor of State; Prince Borghese, Governor General of the Departments beyond the Alps; Marshal Berthier, Prince of Neufchâtel and of Wagram, Vice Constable; Talleyrand, Prince of Benevento, Vice Great Elector. At the head of his military household, the Emperor had four colonel-generals of the Imperial Guard, all four marshals of France, Davoust, Duke of Auerstadt and Prince of Eckmühl; Soult, Duke of Dalmatia; Bessières, Duke of Istria; Mortier, Duke of Treviso. Moreover, there were ten aides-de-camp, nine of whom were generals of divisions, and thirteen orderly officers. For Grand Almoner he had Cardinal Fesch, Archbishop of Lyons, aided by four ordinary almoners, two archbishops, and two bishops; for Grand Marshal of the Palace, Duroc, Duke of Frioul; for High Chamberlain, the Count of Montesquiou Fezensac; for First Equerry, General de Caulaincourt, Duke of Vicenza; for Chief Huntsman, Marshal Berthier, Prince of Neufchâtel and of Wagram; for Grand Master of Ceremonies, the Count of Ségur, formerly the Ambassador of Louis XVI. to the great Catherine of Russia. The Emperor had no fewer than ninety chamberlains, among whom figured these among other great names of the old régime: an Aubusson de la Teuillade, a Galard de Béarn, a Marmier, a d'Alsace, a Turenne, a Noailles, a Brancas, a Gontaut, a Gramont, a Beauvau, a Sapicha, a Radziwill, a Potocki, a Choiseul-Praslin, a Nicolay, a Chabot, a La Vieuville. This aristocratic court knew no lack of amusements. The winter of 1811-12 was one long succession of pleasures. "It was in the whirl of these entertainments and festivities of all sorts," says Madame Durand, first lady-in-waiting to the Empress, "that Napoleon formed his plan for the conquest of Russia. The spoiled child of fortune, intoxicated with flattery, never dreaming of the possibility of defeat, seemed to be calculating his victories in advance, and to regard pleasures as the preparations for war. Not a day passed without a play, a concert, or a masked ball at court." The theatrical representations on the Tuileries' stage were most impressive. The Emperor and Empress occupied a box opposite the stage. The princes and princesses sat on each side of them or behind; on the right was the box of the foreign ambassadors; on the left, that of the French Ministers. A large gallery was reserved for the ladies of the court, who all dressed magnificently and wore sparkling jewels. A number of distinguished men filled the pit, all in court dress, with small-sword, and ribbons and orders. During the entr'actes the Emperor's liveried footmen carried about ices and refreshments of various kinds. The hall was most brilliantly lit. The balls in the great rooms of the first floor, and the dinners in the Diana Gallery, were equally sumptuous. The Emperor, however, especially delighted in the masked balls, when, changing his Imperial robes for a simple domino, he whose police system was so perfect, who knew and saw everything, used to baffle the women, and tease or surprise their husbands and lovers.

Everywhere Napoleon used to make himself feared, at a ball as well as in a meeting of his Ministers. At an entertainment he won as much glory as on the battle-field. Even those who hated him had to admire him, for he had a most wonderful power of astounding and fascinating every one. His aide, General de Narbonne, had an old mother, who maintained her allegiance to the old royalty. "See here, my dear Narbonne," the Emperor said one day, "it's a bad thing for me that you see your mother so often. I understand that she doesn't like me." "True," replied the crafty courtier, "she hasn't got beyond admiration." This same Count de Narbonne had been off to preside at an electoral meeting in a department some distance from Paris. "What do they say about me in the different departments you have been through?" asked the Emperor. "Sire," replied M. de Narbonne, "some say you are a god, and others say you are a devil; but all agree that you are something more than a human being."

A witty observer, who was inclined to witticism rather than to enthusiasm, said of the Napoleon of 1811: "His genius controlled every one's thoughts. I believed that he was born to rule Fortune, and it seemed to be natural enough that people should prostrate themselves before his feet; that became, in my eyes, the normal way of the world." Count Beugnot, who was at that time ruling the Grand Duchy of Berg, adds: "I worked all night with extraordinary zeal, and thereby surprised the inhabitants, who did not know that the Emperor performed for all his officers, at whatever distance they might be, the miracle of real presence. I imagined that I saw him before me, when I was working alone in my room, and this impression, which sometimes inspired me with ideas far beyond my powers, more often preserved me from lapses due to negligence or carelessness. An ancient writer has said that it was of great service for a man's conduct of life, if he could feel himself in the presence of a superior being; and I am inclined to believe, that the Emperor was generally so well served, because, whether through the precautions he took, or through the influence of his name, which was uttered everywhere and all the time, every one of his servants saw him continually at his side."

If Napoleon produced such an effect even at a distance, what an impression he must have made on those who were near him! Count Miot de Mélito thus describes an Imperial reception in 1811: "Never had the Tuileries displayed more pomp and magnificence. Never had a greater number of princes, ambassadors, distinguished foreigners, generals, splendid in gold, and purple, and jewels, ablaze with orders and ribbons of every color, offered more obsequious homage or sought with more eagerness at Versailles for the favor of a word or of a glance. The Emperor alone seemed free and unconstrained. With an assured step he passed through the throng of courtiers, who respectfully made way before him. With a look he transported with rapture or crushed those who approached him; and if he deigned to speak to any one, the happy mortal thus honored stood with bowed head and attentive ear, scarcely daring to breathe or to reply."

Napoleon had then given France so much glory that the loss of liberty was hardly perceived.

December 19, 1832, Victor Hugo, in a speech before the Court of Commons, where he was trying to compel the government to let "Le Roi s'amuse" be given, spoke thus of the Imperial government: "Then, sirs, it is great! The Empire, in its administration and government, was, to be sure, an intolerable tyranny, but let us remember that our liberty was largely paid for with glory. At that time France, like Rome under Caesar, maintained an attitude at once submissive and proud. It was not the France we desire, free, ruling itself, but rather a France, the slave of one man, and mistress of the world. It used to be said, 'On such a day, at such an hour, I shall enter that capital,' and they entered that day and at that hour. All sorts of kings used to elbow one another in his ante-chambers. A dynasty would be dethroned by a decree in the Moniteur. If a column was wanted, the Emperor of Austria used to furnish the bronze. The control of the French comedians was, I confess, a little arbitrary, but their orders were dated from Moscow. We were shorn of all our liberties, I say; there was a rigid censorship, our books were pilloried, our posters were torn down; but to all our complaints a single word sufficed for a magnificent reply; they could answer us with Marengo! Jena! Austerlitz!"

And the poet thus ended his speech: "I have but a few more words to say, and I hope that you will remember them when you proceed to your deliberations. They are these: 'In this century there has been only one great man—Napoleon; and only one great thing—Liberty. We no longer have the great man; let us try to have the great thing.'"

Certainly he exceeded the common measure, that man of whom Chateaubriand, his implacable foe, said: "The world belongs to Bonaparte. What that destroyer could not finish, his fame has seized. Living, he missed the world; dead, he possesses it. You may protest, but generations pass by without hearing you." When some one asked the illustrious author why, after so violently attacking Napoleon, he admired him so much, the answer was, "The giant had to fall before I could measure his height."

Those who were nearest to Napoleon regarded him as an almost supernatural being. The Baron of Méneval, who, before he was the private secretary of Marie Louise, when regent, had been secretary of the First Consul and Emperor, thus writes: "By the influence which Napoleon exercised on his age he was more than a man. Never perhaps will a human being accomplish greater things than did this privileged creature in so few years, in the face of so many obstacles; yet these were inferior to those of which the plans lay in his mighty head. The memory of that time, of the hours I spent with this wonderful man, seems to me a dream. In the deep feeling which he arouses in me, I have to bow before the impenetrable decrees of Providence, which, after inspiring this wonderful instrument of its plans, tore him from his uncompleted work. Possibly God did not wish him to anticipate the time He had established by an invariable order. Possibly He did not wish a mortal to exceed human proportions!"

If Napoleon was thus admired, even after the terrible catastrophes which wrought his ruin, even after the retreat from Russia, after the two invasions, after Waterloo, what an impression he must have made on his enthusiastic partisans when he was the incarnation of success and glory, when there was no spot on the sun of his omnipotence, and, protected by some happy fate, he had disarmed envy, discouraged hate, and so far bound Fortune that she seemed to tremble before him like an obedient slave!

In spite of the glory which surrounded him in 1812, Napoleon, who is often represented as infatuated with himself and his glory, yet even at this moment of colossal power and unheard-of prosperity, had moments when he judged himself with perfect impartiality. He knew human nature thoroughly, and he indulged in no illusions about his family, which he distrusted, or about his marshals, whose desertion he seemed to anticipate, or about his courtiers, whose flatteries did not deceive him. Being convinced that interest is generally the sole motive of human actions, he expected neither devotion nor gratitude. "One day, in speaking to my father," says General de Ségur, "he asked him what he thought people would say about him after his death, and my father began to enlarge on the way we should mourn for him. 'Nothing of the sort!' interrupted the Emperor; 'you would all say, "Ah!"' and he accompanied this word with a consolatory gesture which expressed 'at last we can take a long breath and be at peace.'" It was not after his defeats that the Emperor said this, but in 1811, when still mighty and successful.

"The Emperor," says General de Ségur again, "was not so blind as some have thought, as to the fate that awaited his gigantic work. He was often heard to say that his heir would be crushed by the vast bulk of his empire. 'Poor child!' he said, as he gazed on the King of Rome, 'what a snarl I leave to you.' … Every one knows the gloomy impression it makes, when to the vigor and activity of youth there succeeds, with advancing years, the benumbing influence of stoutness. This transition, a melancholy warning, came over Napoleon at the end of 1810. Doubtless this warning of physical decline and weakness rendered him anxious about the future of a work founded on force. This was apparent when he told my father: 'The shortest ride now tires me;' and to M. Mollier: 'I am mortal, and more so than many men;' and again, 'My heir will find my sceptre very heavy.' As he regarded the future, the only power that seemed to threaten this sceptre and this heir was Russia, and it may be that as he began to feel himself grow old, he repented that he had enlarged its territory both on the north and the south, to the Gulf of Bothnia and to the Danube. Hence, possibly, this eager desire to deal the country a blow arose from a spirit of preservation rather than from one of conquest, and the charge of an overweening and uncontrollable ambition is thus somewhat refuted." This observation is not wholly inaccurate. It may be that if the Emperor had had no son, he would not have made the Russian campaign, and possibly it was more by a mistaken calculation than by pride, that he was drawn into this colossal war which, he hoped, would bring the whole continent, and consequently England, under his control.

A great deal has been said about Napoleon's pride; but in discussing the matter it is necessary to distinguish between two very different personages,—the man as he appeared in public, and the man as he was in private. In public, he was obliged to display more majesty than any other sovereign. The novelty of his grandeur made additional formality necessary. When the general became Emperor, he was compelled to keep at a distance his old fellow-soldiers who had formerly been his equals and intimates, for familiarity would have lowered his glory and have lessened his authority. He had to appear before his court like a living statue that never descended from its pedestal. It was hard to detect a human heart beating under the sovereign's Imperial robes. Yet in private life he was by no means what he seemed in public; when he returned to his own rooms, he laid aside his official seriousness as if he were taking off a fatiguing uniform, and became affable and familiar. He used to joke, and sometimes even noisily. He was no longer a haughty potentate, a terrible conqueror, but rather a good husband who was kind to his wife, and a good father who played with his child. He used to tease the companions of Marie Louise wittily, and without malice; he would take an interest in their dresses, and often give them bits of good advice in the gentlest manner. He took as much interest in the minutest details as in the greatest questions. He was indulgent and generous to his officials, and knew how to make himself loved by them. He and Marie Louise lived most happily together, as his valet de chambre, Constant, tells us, "As father and husband he might have been a model for all his subjects." He simply adored his son, and knew how to play with him better than did the Empress. As Madame Durand says: "Being without experience with children, Marie Louise never dared to hold or pet the King of Rome; she was afraid of hurting him: consequently, he became more attached to his governess than to his mother—a preference which at last made Marie Louise a little jealous. The Emperor, on the other hand, used to take him in his arms every time he saw him, play with him, hold him before a looking-glass, and make all sorts of faces at him. At breakfast, he used to hold him on hi knees, and would dip one of his fingers in a sauce, and let the child suck it, and rub it all over its face. If the governess complained, the Emperor would laugh, and the child, who was almost always merry, seemed to like his father's noisy caresses. It is a noteworthy fact that those who had any favor to ask of the Emperor when he was thus employed were almost sure of a favorable reception. Before he was two years old the young Prince was always present at Napoleon's breakfast."

At this period of his life Napoleon was really happy. The two years that he spent in the society of the young Empress formed a blessed rest in his stormy career; he loved his wife and thought that she loved him. He was grateful to her for being an archduchess, for her beauty, youth, and health; for having given him an heir to the Empire. He continually rejoiced in a marriage which, to be sure, inspired him with many illusions, but yet gave him at least some moments of moral repose and domestic calm, which are of importance in the life of such a man. Why was he not wise enough to stop and give thanks to Providence, instead of continuing his perilous course and forever tempting fortune? How many evils he would have spared France, Europe, and himself! A few concessions would have disarmed his adversaries, have satisfied Germany, have consolidated the Austrian alliance, strengthened the thrones, and brought about a lasting and general peace. We may say that Napoleon was his own worst enemy, and that when he held his happiness in his hand he willingly let it drop on the ground. It was not his second marriage that ruined him, but rather the over-bold combination which led him to extend the line of his military operations from Cadiz to Moscow.

XXV.

MARIE LOUISE IN 1812.

Empress Marie Louise was twenty, December 12, 1811. Early in 1812 she, like Napoleon, was at the summit of her fortune. During the two years of her reign she had received nothing but homage in France, and no woman in the whole world held so lofty a position. We will try to draw a portrait of her at this time when she had reached the top of the wave of human prosperity.

Rather handsome than pretty, Marie Louise was more impressive than charming. Her most striking quality was her freshness; her whole person bespoke physical and moral health. Her face was more gentle than striking; her eyes were very blue and full of animation; she had a rich complexion; her hair was light yellow, but not colorless; her nose, slightly aquiline; her red lips were a trifle thick, like those of all the Hapsburgs; her hands and feet were models of beauty; she had an impressive carriage, and was a little above the medium height. When she arrived in France, she was a little too stout, and her face was a little too red; but after the birth of her child these two slight imperfections disappeared. With a more delicate figure she became more graceful, and no woman ever had a finer complexion. Being endowed with a most sturdy constitution, she owed all her beauty to nature and nothing to artifice; her face needed no paint, her wit no coquetry; with no fondness for luxury or dress, possessing simple and quiet tastes, never striving for effect, always preferring half-tints to a blaze of light, her expression and demeanor always had a quality of simplicity and directness which fascinated Napoleon, who was very glad to turn from experienced coquettes to a really natural person.

Those who had supervised Marie Louise's education rightly thought that the greatest charm in a young girl was innocence. She had been brought up with the most scrupulous care. The books to be placed in the hands of the archduchesses were first carefully read, and any improper passages or even words were excised; no male animals were admitted into their apartments, but only females, these being endowed with more modest instincts. Napoleon, who was accustomed to the women of the end of the eighteenth century and to the heroines of the court of Barras, was delighted to find a girl so pure and so carefully trained.

On grand occasions Marie Louise bore no resemblance to the Marie Louise in private life; she assumed a coldness which was mistaken for disdain. She became imposing; she weighed every word; and careless observers attributed to haughtiness what was really due to reserve and timidity. The young Empress had every reason to distrust the French court. She knew what it had cost her great-aunt, Marie Antoinette, to try to live on the throne like a private person, and to carry kindliness even to familiarity. The best way for the Empress to escape malevolence and criticism was by saying very little. She knew French very well, but it was not her mother-tongue, and however well acquainted with its grammar, she could not know perfectly the fine shades of the language. Her fear of employing possibly correct but unusual expressions made her timid about speaking. Besides, her husband would not have liked to see her taking part in long conversations. Political subjects were forbidden to her, and her great charm in Napoleon's eyes was that she did not interfere in such matters. She never tried to pass for a witty woman. Although she was well-read, she lacked the delicate observation, the ingenious comparisons, the jingling of brilliant phrases or words which compose what in France is called wit. She had no confidence in the character of the prominent Frenchwomen, of the romantic but unsentimental beauties who always expressed more than they felt, who knew how to faint when fainting would be of use to them, and who in their drawing-rooms, and especially in their boudoirs, bore too close a resemblance to actresses upon the stage. Marie Louise never assumed any feelings or ideas which were not genuine. She was always natural. Comparing his two wives, Napoleon at Saint Helena said: "One was art and grace; the other, innocence and simple nature. My first wife never, at any moment of her life, had any ways or manners that were not agreeable and attractive. It would have been impossible to find any fault with her in this respect; she tried to make only a favorable impression, and seemed to attain her end without study. She employed every possible art to adorn herself, but so carefully that one could only suspect their use. The other had no idea that there was anything to be gained by these innocent artifices. One was always a little inexact; her first idea was to deny everything: the other never dissimulated, and hated everything roundabout. My first wife never asked for anything, but she ran up debts right and left; my second always asked for more when she needed it, which was seldom. She never bought anything without feeling bound to pay for it on the spot. But both were kind, gentle, and devoted to their husband."

Marie Louise did not shine in a drawing-room like Josephine; that would have required a French tact which she did not in the least possess. The first Empress was thoroughly familiar with French society, which the second did not know at all. Josephine had seen the last brilliancy of the old regime and the golden days of the Revolution; she had been a conspicuous figure in that brilliant but, above all, amusing period, of which Talleyrand said, "No one who did not live before 1789 knows how charming life can be." As Viscountess of Beauharnais, she was intimate with the most intelligent persons in Paris. Though far less educated than Marie Louise, her conversation was more animated and had a wider range. No subject was too deep for her; and although she never said anything very important, she always could give what she had to say an agreeable turn. Her most ardent desire was to make people forget, by her fascinations, that she was not born to the throne, and she seemed always endeavoring to be pardoned for her elevation into the society of the Faubourg Saint Germain. The names of the great French families always made much more impression on her, who had risen from the people, than on Marie Louise, who by birth as well as position could look down on all the French ladies without exception. It was not those who had belonged to the old régime whom she preferred; Madame Lannes was far more congenial to her than the Princess of Beauvau or the Countess of Montesquieu. She never sought to flatter the Faubourg Saint Germain, but rather kept it at a distance, making none of the advances to which it was accustomed at the hands of the first Empress. She felt that the Royalists secretly blamed her for attaching her old coat-of-arms to the new fortune of Bonaparte. She belonged to a race which had never felt a warm love for the Bourbons; while Josephine, who was born in a family of Royalists, had remained faithful, even when on the Imperial throne, to her devotion to the old Royalty. Marie Louise indulged in no illusions. She knew that the courtiers, under the appearance of adoration which amounted to servility, were really concealing a depth of malice and ill-will, which was the more dangerous the more it was hidden, and that the very ones who were burning incense before her would be the most delighted to catch her tripping. Hence she was always on her guard, and in public steadily maintained an attitude of cold benevolence and discreet reserve. Napoleon loved her, for the very reason that her qualities were the exact opposite of those of Josephine; and if she had striven to copy the former Empress, she would only have sunk in her husband's estimation. He had bidden her never to forget that she was a sovereign, as he was always Emperor: she obeyed him, and she did right to obey him. Strong in her husband's approval,—for he never had occasion for the slightest reproach,—she persisted in the very prudent and dignified line of conduct that she had adopted on entering France. She had every reason to be proud of her success; for so long as she lived with Napoleon, no whisper of calumny attacked her, no faintest insinuation was breathed against her morality. At Saint Helena, the Emperor said, "Marie Louise was virtue itself."

The untiring precision of her demeanor and of her words protected the Empress from criticism, but aroused no enthusiastic praise. She was more esteemed than loved; and, in spite of her precocious wisdom, she aroused no fervent sympathy, none of the enthusiastic admiration which less reserved, more amiable queens have inspired. Still, no one found fault with her. Count Miot de Mélito, in describing a reception at the Tuileries in 1811, says: "The Empress entered…. Her face wore a dignified but somewhat disdainful expression. She walked round the room, accompanied by the Duchess of Montebello, and spoke agreeably and pleasantly with a number of people whom she had introduced to her, and all were gratified by their kindly reception."

The Duke of Rovigo, the Minister of Police, speaks thus in his Memoirs: "Marie Louise aroused enthusiasm whenever she opened her mouth. Her success in France was entirely her own work; for I declare, on my honor, the authorities never adopted any particular methods to secure for her a warm welcome from the public. When she was to appear in a procession or at the theatre, all the authorities did was to provide against the slightest breach of order or propriety; beyond that, nothing was done. For example, when I was told that she was going to the theatre, I used to take all the boxes opposite the one she was to occupy, and all others from which people might stare at her. Then I took the precaution of sending the tickets for these boxes to respectable families, who were very glad to use them. In this way I filled the balcony on the days when the Empress meant to be present. As to any steps towards insuring a warm welcome from the pit, I simply did not take any. The Empress Marie Louise was accustomed, when she came before the public, to make three courtesies, and so gracefully that the applause always broke out with great warmth before the third. It was she herself who bade me take no active steps on such occasions." After thus greeting the audience, the Empress used to sit modestly in the back of the box. To be gazed at through all the opera-glasses always annoyed her. Her lofty rank, the pride of her position, which would have filled other women with rapture, left her almost indifferent.

Marie Louise was certainly attached to Napoleon, but we may doubt whether she was really in love with him. He was twenty-two years her senior; and if she was a wife who suited him in every particular, probably he was not the husband of whom she had dreamed. He possessed too much power, too much genius, too much majesty; a quiet home would have pleased her better than the Imperial Olympus, of which he was the Jupiter, and she the Juno. Doubtless his glory was unrivalled, but he had won the best part of it through Austrian defeats. Arcola and Marengo, Austerlitz and Wagram, were names that wounded Austrian ears. Had she been free to choose, she would perhaps have preferred to this all-powerful Emperor any petty German prince, who possessed neither great wealth nor vast territories, but who shared her memories, ideas, and hopes. Yet she had resolved to love her husband, and she easily succeeded in so doing. She was grateful for his kindness, his consideration, his respect; and in her affectionate but not passionate devotion there was no trace of reluctance. She sincerely thought that she would always be faithful to him. She was not only attached to him, she was also jealous of him; the proximity of Josephine annoyed and disturbed her. In fact, there was something singular in the simultaneous presence in France of two empresses sharing almost equally the official honors. Marie Louise knew how popular Josephine was; and this offended her, although she pitied a woman of whom the rigid laws of public policy had required so cruel a sacrifice. Possibly, too, she feared that she could not count too absolutely on the feelings of a man who, for reasons of state, had abandoned a wife whom a short time before he had really loved. Who knows, indeed, but what she dreaded the same fate for herself, in case she should bear no children? She felt really sure only when she had borne a son. Before that she was so jealous that one day when she heard that Napoleon had made a visit to Josephine, she was seen to shed tears, for the first time since her arrival in France. Another time, when the Emperor had suggested to her to take advantage of the absence of the first Empress, who had gone to Aix, in Savoy, and to visit Malmaison, her face suddenly became so sad that Napoleon at once abandoned the plan. But after the birth of King of Rome, Marie Louise was no longer jealous. Under the conviction that she had finally reconciled Austria and France, and that her son was the pledge of the peace and happiness of all Europe, she thought that she had so well accomplished her destiny that she could always count on her husband's affection and gratitude.

Judging by the words of Cardinal Maury, who had been so famous in the Constituent Assembly, and had been made Archbishop of Paris by the Emperor, Napoleon was very much in love with his young wife. "It would be impossible," he wrote to the Duchesa of Abrantes, "to make you understand how much the Emperor loves our charming Empress. It is love, but a good love this time. He is in love with her, I tell you, and as he never was with Josephine; for, after all, he never knew her when she was young. She was over thirty when they married, while this wife is young and as fresh as the spring. You will see her, and you will be delighted with her…. And then if you knew how gay she is, how pleasant, and, above all, how thoroughly at her ease with all those whom the Emperor honors with his intimacy! You will see how lovable she is. People used to talk about the soirées of the Queen of Holland. I assure you the Empress is very charming for those whom the Emperor admits informally into the Tuileries. They go there of an evening to pay their court, they play with Their Majesties reversis or billiards; and the Empress is so charming, so fascinating, that it is easy to see from the Emperor's eyes that he is dying to kiss her."

Probably there is some exaggeration in Cardinal Maury's enthusiasm. Doubtless Marie Louise pleased Napoleon very much, but had she been a young woman of humble rank, he probably would not have noticed her. What he especially admired in her was the Archduchess, the daughter of the German Caesars, and in the feeling she aroused in him there was perhaps more gratified vanity than real love. He certainly was not attracted to her by one of those tempests of passion which had drawn him towards Josephine; he would not have written to his second wife burning letters like those he wrote to Josephine during the first campaign in Italy. In his affection for Marie Louise there was something calm and reasonable, almost paternal; it was the reflection of maturity succeeding to the impetuous ardor of youth. Yet he had more deference and regard for the second Empress than for the first. Shortly after her marriage Marie Louise said to Metternich: "I am sure that in Vienna people think a great deal about me, and imagine that I live in continual anguish. The truth often seems improbable. I am not afraid of Napoleon, but I am beginning to think that he is afraid of me."

It has been said that the Emperor was not perfectly constant to Marie Louise; but even if he was ever unfaithful, he kept the fact from her knowledge, and never made his second wife as unhappy as he had made his first. He used to boast that he cared only for honest men and virtuous women, and he was anxious that no one should be able to charge him with setting a bad example. His court had become very strict, at least in appearance. Decorum prevailed there as rigidly as etiquette.

Marie Antoinette had in fact known less happiness than Marie Louise. From the moment she entered France she encountered a sullen enmity which Marie Louise never experienced. The Empress was never denounced for her Austrian birth as the Queen had been by the opposition. Marie Antoinette was surrounded by snares and pitfalls which were never prepared for Marie Louise. Who would have dared to treat Napoleon's wife as the Cardinal de Rohan treated the wife of Louis XVI.? What could there have been under the Empire to compare with the affair of the necklace? The Queen was attacked by pamphlets of all sorts. The Empress was not once insulted or slandered. The bitterest foes of her husband respected her. Moreover, Napoleon was far more attractive than Louis XVI., and Marie Louise was soon a mother, while Marie Antoinette long endured a barrenness for which she was not to blame.

The happiness of Marie Louise lasted but little more than two years, but it was all without a cloud. The mistake that historians always make in discussing celebrities is that they try to make a single portrait instead of a series of portraits, according to the different ages and circumstances. What was true in 1812 was no longer true in 1813, still less so in 1814. Human life has its seasons like the year. Is anything less like a brilliant spring day than a gloomy winter's day? In his history of the Restoration, Lamartine has drawn a picture of the Empress Marie Louise which seems tolerably exact for the period after the calamities that befell the Empire, but inapplicable to the happy days of the mother of the King of Rome. "Marie Louise," he writes, "sought refuge in ceremony, in retreat and silence from the ill-will that pursued her at every step…. Napoleon loved her from a feeling of superiority and pride. She was a sign of his alliance with great races; the mother of his son; and thus she perpetuated his ambition. … The public did wrong to demand of Marie Louise passionate returns and devotion when her nature could inspire her only with a feeling of duty and respect for a soldier who had regarded her only as a German hostage and a pledge of posterity. Her constraint lessened her natural charms, darkened her expression, dimmed her wit, and burdened her heart. She was looked upon as a foreign decoration attached to the columns of the throne. Even history, written in ignorance of the truth, and inspired by the resentment of Napoleon's courtiers, has slandered this sovereign. Those who knew her will restore, not the stoical, theatric glory which was demanded of her, but her real nature…. The alleged emptiness of her silence hid feminine thoughts and mysteries of feeling which transported her far from this court. Magnificent though cruel exile!… She could not pretend anything, either during the days of her grandeur, nor after her husband's overthrow; that was her crime. The theatrical world of the court wanted to see a pretence of conjugal affection in a victor's captive. She was too natural to simulate love where she felt only obedience, terror, and resignation. History will blame her; nature will pity her…. She was expected to play a part; she failed as an actress, but as a woman she has survived."

The Marie Louise who is thus described by Lamartine is not the Marie Louise of the beginning of 1812; then the young Empress did not regard herself as "a victor's captive," nor as "a foreign decoration attached to the columns of the throne." Napoleon did not inspire her with terror, and she knew none of the constraint which "lessened her natural charms, darkened her expression, dimmed her wit, and burdened her heart." She did not look upon her court as a "magnificent but rude exile." These thoughts may have occurred to her in misfortune, but hardly, we think, before the Russian campaign. If Lamartine had read the letters which she wrote to her father in 1810, 1811, and the beginning of 1812, he would doubtless have acknowledged that for some time Napoleon's second wife was happy on the French throne.

To this portrait drawn by the great poet we prefer the one we find in Méneval's Memoirs: "The better Napoleon learned to know the Empress, the more he applauded his choice. Her character seemed made for him; she brought him happiness and consolation amid the cares of his stormy career. In ordinary life she was simple and kindly, yet with no loss of dignity. No word of complaint or blame ever crossed her lips. Gentle, but reserved and discreet, she never expressed her feelings with any vivacity. She was kind and generous, simple and astute at the same time; her gayety was gentle, her wit without malice. Though well-informed, she made no parade of her acquirements, fearing to be accused of pedantry. Her wifely devotion had won the Emperor's affection, and her unfailing gentleness had attracted all his friends. In this estimate I am confirmed by my recollections, and I am not inspired by any partiality, by what has happened, or by any present interest. It would be a mistake to suppose that her duty and her inclinations were at variance; she was perfectly natural and could not conceal her real impressions; but events have shown that while she inclined to virtue when it was easy, she yet lacked the strength to practise it when it was hard."

Marie Louise did not have the character of her great-grandmother Marie Thérèse, or that of her great-aunt Marie Antoinette. She rather resembled the wife of Louis XIV. or that of Louis XV. She would have led a calm, modest, harmless life, like those two queens, if her fate had not placed her amid unforeseen and terrible events, the shock of which she could not endure. In 1812 we see her a loving mother, a faithful wife, a worthy sovereign. If Napoleon had adopted a less imprudent policy, all that would have lasted. Doubtless that is what he said to himself when, at Saint Helena, he impartially examined his career, and he had no angry thought, no bitter word, for the woman who has been so severely judged by others.

XXVI.

THE EMPRESS'S HOUSEHOLD.

We have just tried to draw a picture of the appearance and character of Marie Louise in 1812, when at the summit of her fortune; let us turn our attention to the organization of her household at this epoch, and to the details of her daily life. Her first almoner was Count Ferdinand de Rohan, formerly Archbishop of Cambrai; her knight-of-honor was the Count of Beauharnais, who had held the same position to the Empress Josephine, a relative of his. Napoleon had at first meant to appoint the Count of Narbonne to this place, but Marie Louise had dissuaded him. M. Villemain says in his Life of M. de Narbonne: "The Empress Marie Louise, generally so yielding to her husband, on this occasion manifested great opposition. Whether through womanly kindness or through her pride as a sovereign, possibly through some superstitious scruple as a second wife, she insisted on the retention in this post of the Count of Beauharnais; she was unwilling on any terms to seem to exclude, in the person of this relative of Josephine, the first name of the Princess whom she succeeded on the French throne. On the other hand, it is fair to suppose that in the dashing and attractive Count of Narbonne she was willing to keep away certain things which were unfamiliar and so alarming to her, such as the lighter graces, the jesting spirit of the old court, and doubtless too the melancholy presentiments attached, in her mind, to everything that recalled Versailles and the daughters of Louis XV., who had become the aunts of Marie Antoinette. In a word, Marie Louise, cold and calm, was inflexible in her opposition to the choice which the Emperor announced to her. He at once yielded the point, and smoothed matters over by appointing M. de Narbonne one of his aides, an odd favor for a man fifty-five years old, a relic of the former court, suddenly made a member of the most warlike and most active staff in Europe." For first equerry Marie Louise had Prince Aldobrandini, and for master of ceremonies, the Count de Seyssel d'Aix.

The maid-of-honor was Madame Lannes, Duchess of Montebello, the widow of the famous marshal who was killed in Austria in the first war. Méneval tells us that Napoleon in making this appointment hesitated between this lady and the Princess of Beauvau. "The fear of introducing into his court influences hostile to the national ideas, such as a German princess might have favored, with the prejudices of her birth and position, made him give up this idea. He decided for the Duchess, thinking this an honor due to the memory of one of his oldest and bravest comrades." It was a most happy choice. Madame de Montebello was ten years older than the Empress; very handsome, stately, above reproach, of whom the Emperor said when he appointed her, "I give the Empress a real lady-of-honor."

In the purity of her features, the Duchess of Montebello recalled Raphael's Virgins. There was in her appearance, and in her life, a quality of calmness, of regularity, which greatly pleased Marie Louise, who was also much touched by her untiring devotion at the time of her child's birth, when for nine whole days Madame de Montebello remained in the Empress's room, sleeping at night on a sofa, and the Empress was grateful to her for having rigorously performed what could be demanded only of affection or devotion.

Madame Durand says that Marie Louise felt the need of a friend, and that the Duchess won her confidence and good graces to such an extent that the Empress could not do without her; she got to love her like a sister, and tried to prove her affection by great confidence to her and to her children. She was always delighted to choose presents that the Duchess would like, and offered them to her with charming amiability. Naturally a preference of this sort aroused a great deal of jealousy, especially among the ladies of the palace, most of whom belonged to older families than did the Duchess, and were somewhat annoyed that she was preferred to them. Whenever the Emperor was away, Madame de Montebello used to stay with the Empress, and every morning Marie Louise used to go to her room to chat with her, and in order to avoid passing through the drawing-room, where the other ladies had assembled, she used to go through a dark passage, which greatly offended these ladies. According to Madame Durand, Madame de Montebello scorned to hide her real opinions about any one of whom she was talking, and gave her opinion clearly and frankly. This openness—a virtue rare in courts—inspired the Empress's confidence, but earned her many enemies; but they, in spite of their ill-will, could not injure her reputation. The lady of the bedchamber to the Empress was the Countess of Luçay, who had been a lady-in-waiting since the beginning of the Consulate. She was a gentle, modest, distinctly virtuous person, who enjoyed general esteem and sympathy. The Emperor set great store by her. "In private life," says General de Ségur, "Napoleon was gentle and confiding, and especially fond of honorable people, whose delicacy and uprightness were above suspicion, and of women of the best reputation; he was a good judge, and he demanded a great deal. This was undeniably true, and the exceptions were very few: the way he chose his council and the officers attached to his person, shows it. In corroboration I will quote first the Grand Marshal Duroc with all the household of the palace, whose affairs were managed more honestly and better than those of any private house that can be named. As to the ladies of the court, it will be enough to name Madame de Luçay, my mother-in-law, the Lady of the Bedchamber, and Madame de Montesquiou, governess of the King of Rome, whom the Emperor chose when my mother declined the position from ill-health. His confidence, when once given, was unlimited."

The Countess of Montesquiou, the governess of the King of Rome, was the wife of the Emperor's Grand Chamberlain. The Baron de Méneval thus speaks of her: "Madame de Montesquiou, who was of high birth, received the highest consideration and thoroughly deserved it. She was forty-six years old when she was appointed governess of the Imperial children; her reputation was above reproach. She was a woman of great piety, yet indifferent to petty formalities; her manners had a noble simplicity, her whole nature was dignified but benevolent, her character was firm, and her principles were excellent. She combined all the qualities that were required for the important position which the Emperor, of his own choice, had given her." Madame Durand speaks as warmly about the Countess of Montesquiou: "It would have been hard to make a better choice. This lady, who belonged to an illustrious family, had received an excellent education; to the manners of the best society she added a piety too firmly fixed and too wise to run into bigotry. Her life had been so well ordered that she escaped any breath of calumny. Some were inclined to call her haughty, but this haughtiness was tempered by politeness and the most gracious consideration for others. She took the most tender and constant care of the young Prince, and there could be nothing nobler and more generous than the devotion which led her later to leave the country and her friends, to follow the lot of this young Prince whose hopes had been destroyed. Her sole reward was bitter sorrow and unjust persecution.

"The Duchess of Montebello and the Countess of Montesquieu had little sympathy for each other, but they never betrayed any coolness. Even had they desired it, they would have been held in awe by fear of Napoleon, who insisted on harmony in his court. Still, there could be distinguished at the Tuileries two parties in occult opposition, belonging respectively to the old and to the new nobility. At the head of the first stood the Count and the Countess of Montesquieu; of the second, the Duchess of Montebello, to whom the Empress's preference gave great authority. Madame Durand says that all the influence which the Grand Chamberlain and his wife, the governess of the King of Rome, enjoyed was exercised in obtaining pardon, favors, pensions, and places for the nobles, whether they had left France or not; they assured the Emperor that this was the best way of attaching them to his person, of making them love his government. They said this because they really thought it; and since they believed that the destiny of France was firmly fixed, they were anxious to secure for the ruler of this Empire those men whom they regarded as its strongest support. Since he had seen Madame de Montesquiou's unwearying devotion to his son, it was seldom that he refused her whatever she asked."

The new nobility, which was jealous of the old, had a representative in the Duchess of Montebello, who was very proud, and did not admit the superiority of the old aristocracy to the illustrious plebeians, who, like her husband, had no ancestors, but were destined to become ancestors themselves. She thought that the title of Duke was not enough for her valiant husband, and that the Emperor, in not making him a prince like Davout, Masséna, and Berthier, had been unjust, and that Marshal Lannes was of more account than all the dukes and marquises of the Versailles court.

There was at court, between these two groups of the old and the new nobility, a third party, the military party, headed by the Grand Marshal of the Palace, Duroc, Duke of Frioul, who, seeing honor and glory only in the career of a soldier, looked down on all other occupations. The Emperor secretly favored him, but he nevertheless remained true to his usual system of neutralizing all opinions, by trying to balance their forces. Each one of the three rival parties kept an eye on the other two, and thus everything of interest came to the Emperor's ears.

In 1812, the ladies-in-waiting were the Duchess of Bassano, the Countess Victor de Mortemart, the Duchess of Rovigo, the Countesses of Montmorency, Talhouet, Law de Lauriston, Duchâtel, of Bouillé, Montalivet, Perron, Lascaris Vintimiglia, Brignole, Gentile, Canisy, the Princess Aldobrandini, the Duchesses of Dalberg, Elchingen, Bellune, Countesses Edmond de Périgord and of Beauvau, Mesdames de Trasignies, Vilain XIV., Antinori, Rinuccini, Pandolfini Capone, and the Countesses Chigi and Bonacorsi. They accompanied the Empress in her walks and drives and at the theatre. They were real women-chamberlains, always at her side when she appeared in public, but they had no part in her domestic life and did not reside in the Imperial palaces. This privilege belonged to only six other women, who occupied a humbler position in the court hierarchy, but yet saw much more of the Empress.

In her time Josephine had four other ladies who held a position of something like female ushers, and whose duty it was to announce the persons who came to her apartments. These four ladies had numerous squabbles with the ladies-in-waiting over points in etiquette; and Napoleon, to put a stop to these heart-burnings, decided to substitute for them four new ladies, who should be chosen from those who had charge of Madame Campan's school at Ecouen for the daughters of members of the Legion of Honor.

Among those thus appointed was the widow of a general, Madame Durand, whose curious Memoirs we have often consulted. Some months later the Emperor raised their number to six, and appointed two of the pupils of this school, a daughter and a sister of distinguished officers, Mesdemoiselles Malerot and Rabusson.

These six ladies had an important position. Not only did they announce all the Empress's visitors; they also had actual charge of the domestic service, with six chambermaids under their orders, who only entered the Empress's rooms when she rang for them, while they, four, being in attendance every day, spent all their time with Marie Louise. They went to the Empress as soon as she was up, and did not leave her till she had gone to bed. Then all the doors of the Empress's room were locked, except one, leading into the next room, where slept the one of the ladies in charge, and Napoleon himself could not go into Marie Louise's room at night without passing through this room. No man, with the exception of the Empress's private secretary, her keeper of the purse, and her medical attendants, could enter her apartment without an order from the Emperor. Even ladies, other than the Lady of Honor and the Lady of the Bedchamber, were not received there except by appointment. The six ladies we have mentioned had charge of the enforcement of these rules, and were responsible for their observance. One of them was present at the Empress's drawing, music, and embroidery lessons. They wrote at her dictation, or under her orders. The same etiquette prevailed when the court was on its travels. Always one of these six ladies slept in the next room to the Empress, and that was the only approach to her chamber.

Madame Durand tells vis the goldsmith Biennais had made for the Empress a letter-case with a good many secret drawers which she alone could know, and he asked to be allowed to explain it to her. Marie Louise spoke about it to the Emperor, who gave her permission to receive him. Biennais was consequently summoned to Saint Cloud and admitted into the music-room, where he stood at one end with the Empress, while Madame Durand was in the same room, but so far off that she could not overhear his explanation. Just when this was finished the Emperor came in, and seeing Biennais, he asked who that man was; the Empress hastened to tell him, to explain the reason of his coming, mentioning that he had himself given him permission. This the Emperor absolutely denied, and pretended that the lady-in-waiting was to blame; he scolded her so severely that the Empress could scarcely stop him, although she said, "But, my dear, it is I who ordered Biennais to come." The Emperor laughed, and told her that she had nothing to do about it; that the lady was responsible for every one she admitted, and was alone to blame; and that he hoped that nothing of the sort would ever happen again.

Another time, when M. Paër was giving Marie Louise a music-lesson, the lady, who was present as usual at the lesson, had an order to give. She opened the door and was leaning half out to give the order, when Napoleon came in. At first he did not see her, and thought she was not present. The music-master went out. "Where were you when I came in?" the Emperor asked. She called his attention to the fact that she had not left the room. He refused to believe her, and gave her a long sermon in the course of which he said that he was unwilling that any man, no matter what his rank, should be able to flatter himself that he had been two seconds alone with the Empress. He added with some warmth: "Madame, I honor and respect the Empress; but the sovereign of a great empire must be placed above any breath of suspicion."

The gynæceum of Marie Louise was thus guarded with the greatest care and submitted to a very severe discipline. Napoleon entered freely into his wife's room whenever he pleased, and she never complained; for having absolutely nothing to conceal from him, she had no desire to be unfaithful to him even in her thoughts.

Madame Durand tells us that the Emperor, who desired to rule in important matters, endured, and even liked to be contradicted on minor matters. "When he was with Marie Louise, he used to be forever teasing her ladies about a thousand things; it often happened that they stood up against him, and he would carry on the discussion and laugh heartily when he had succeeded in vexing the young girls, who, in their frankness and ignorance of the ways of the world and the court, made very lively and unaffected answers which were amusing for those to whom they were addressed."

The nearness of these six ladies to the Empress aroused much jealousy. The name by which they were to be called was often changed. For some time they were allowed to call themselves First Ladies of the Empress; but this title offended the ladies of the palace, who wanted to call them First Chambermaids, which made them very angry. The Emperor at last gave them the name of Lectrices. They had under them six ordinary chambermaids who had no position in the court; these dressed the Empress, put on her shoes and stockings, and did her hair every morning; they were, in fact, chambermaids.

This is the way in which Marie Louise passed the day: At eight in the morning her window shutters were thrown open, and the curtains of her bed pushed back. The newspapers were brought to her, and she took her first breakfast in bed. At nine she dressed, and received intimate friends. At twelve she ate her second breakfast. Then she would practise a little, or draw, or sew, or play billiards. At two, if the weather was pleasant, she would drive out with the Duchess of Montebello, the Knight of Honor, and two ladies-in-waiting. Sometimes she rode on horseback; it was Napoleon who had given her lessons at Saint Cloud. "He used to walk by her side, holding her hand, while an equerry led the horse by the bridle; he allayed her fear and encouraged her. She profited by her lessons, became bolder, and at last rode very well. When she did credit to her teacher, the lessons went on, sometimes in the avenues of the private park just outside of the family drawing-room, so called because it was adorned with portraits of the Imperial family. When the Emperor had a moment's leisure after breakfast, he used to have the horses brought around, would get on one himself in his silk stockings and silver-buckled shoes, and ride by the Empress's side. He would urge her horse on, get it to gallop, laughing heartily at her terrified cries, although all danger was guarded against by the presence of a line of huntsmen ready to stop the horse and prevent a fall."

On returning, Marie Louise often took a lesson in music or painting. She was a real musician, and had a real talent for the piano. Prudhon and Isabey, who taught her drawing and painting, praised her talents. As Lamartine says: "When she entered her own rooms or the solitude of the gardens, she was once more a German woman. She cultivated poetry, drawing, singing. Education had perfected these talents in her, as if to console her, far from her country, for the absence and the sorrows to which the young girl would be one day condemned. She excelled in these things, but for herself alone. She used to read and recite from memory the poets of her own language and country." Marie Louise busied herself with charities, but without ostentation, almost secretly; hence she never won the credit for it that she deserved. Her generosity did not limit itself to the ten thousand francs which she set aside out of her allowance of fifty thousand francs a month; she never heard of a case of suffering without at once trying to relieve it.

In private life Marie Louise was kind and amiable. She was very polite and gentle; unlike many princesses, she was not given to fickle preferences and to infatuations as intense as they were brief; she was not unjust, violent, or capricious. She was never angry; she did not give empty promises, or affect any excessive interest, but she could always be depended on; she never distressed or humiliated any one. Having been trained from her infancy to court life, she was a kind mistress, for she had learned to combine two qualities that are often irreconcilable—dignity and gentleness. All who were thrown into her society agree in this. Sometimes, according to Madame Durand, when she was in company her face had a melancholy expression inspired by the demands of etiquette that were made upon her; but "when she had returned to her own quarters, she was gentle, merry, affable, and adored by all who were with her every day…. Nothing was more gracious, more amiable, than her face when she was at her ease, quietly at home in the evening, or among those to whom she was particularly attached."

Marie Louise gave a great deal of care to her son, whom she tenderly loved. She had him brought to her every morning, and she kept him with her until she had to dress. In the course of the day, in the intervals of her lessons, she used to visit the little King in his apartment, and sit by his side and sew. Often she took him and his nurse to the Emperor; the nurse would stop at the door of the room in which Napoleon was, and Marie Louise would enter, with the child in her arms, always afraid that she was going to drop him. Then the Emperor would run up, take the child, and cover him with kisses.

The Baron de Méneval writes thus: "Sometimes he was seated on his favorite sofa, near the mantel-piece, on which stood two magnificent bronze busts, of Scipio and Hannibal, and was busily reading an important report; sometimes he went to his writing-desk, hollowed in the middle, with two projecting shelves, covered with papers, to sign a despatch, every word of which had to be carefully weighed; but his son, sitting on his knees, or held close to his chest, never left him. He had such a marvellous power of concentration that he could at the same time give his attention to important business and humor his son. Again, laying aside the great thoughts which haunted his mind, he would lie down on the floor by the boy's side, and play with him like another child, eager to amuse him and to spare him every annoyance."

M. de Méneval also tells us that the Emperor had had made little blocks of mahogany, of different lengths and various colors, with one end notched, to represent battalions, regiments, and divisions, and that when he wanted to try some new combination of troops, he used to set out these blocks on the floor. "Sometimes," adds M. de Méneval, "we used to find him seriously occupied in arranging these blocks, rehearsing one of the able manuvres with which he triumphed on the battle-field. The boy, seated at his side, delighted by the shape and color of the blocks, which reminded him of his toys, would stretch out his hand every minute and disturb the order of battle, often at the decisive moment, just when the enemy was about to be beaten; but the Emperor was so cool and so considerate of his son, that he was not disturbed by the confusion introduced into his manoeuvres, but he would begin again, without annoyance, to arrange the blocks. His patience and his kindness to the boy were inexhaustible."

Napoleon was also very kind to Marie Louise. He did everything that he could to make his wife happy and respected. He arranged matters in such a way that etiquette should not interfere with her favorite occupations. She dined alone with him every evening, and when he was absent, she dined with the Duchess of Montebello. After dinner there was generally a small reception or a little concert. At eleven Marie Louise withdrew to her own apartment, and her life was monotonous, but agreeable. She generally spent the summer at Saint Cloud and the winter at the Tuileries. At Saint Cloud, where the park was a great attraction to her, she slept in a room on the first floor, which had been occupied by Marie Antoinette and Josephine. (In the time of Napoleon III. it was the Council Hall of the Ministers.) At the Tuileries, her rooms were on the ground floor, between the Pavilion of the Clock, and that of Flora, and had also been occupied by the Queen and the first Empress. They looked out on the garden, and consisted of a gala apartment and a private one. The first consisted of an ante-chamber, a first and second drawing-room, a drawing-room of the Empress, a dining-room, and a concert-room; the second, of a bedchamber, the library, the dressing-room, the boudoir, and the bathroom. A rigid etiquette controlled the entrance to the Empress's as well as the Emperor's apartment. Napoleon lived on the first floor, where he had the bedroom which had been previously occupied by Louis XV. and by Louis XVI.; but there was a little private staircase, which he used constantly, leading to his wife's apartment.

Marie Louise was on good terms with the princes and princesses of the Imperial family, who were less offended by the superiority of an archduchess than they had been by that of a woman of humble origin, like Josephine. In accordance with her husband's directions, the second Empress was always polite and affable in her relations with his family, but she was never too familiar. No one of her sisters-in-law was as intimate with her as was the Duchess of Montebello. One incident, for which Marie Louise was in no way responsible, threw a little coolness on her relations with the princesses, although it was of but brief duration. Soon after the birth of the King of Rome the Emperor noticed that near the bed on which the Empress was to lie there had been placed three armchairs,—one for his mother, the other two for the Queens of Spain and of Holland. He found fault with this arrangement, saying that since his mother was not a queen, she ought not to have an armchair, and that none of them should have one. Accordingly, for the armchairs he had three handsome footstools substituted. When the three ladies came in, they noticed, with some annoyance, the change that had been made, and soon left. They would have done wrong to blame the Empress; for it was the Emperor who was responsible, and when Napoleon gave an order, no one, not even his wife, could have thought of saying a word. In matters of etiquette he controlled the minutest details and regarded them as very important. Nothing came of this little incident, and in general the members of the Emperor's family got on better with the second Empress than with the first.

In short, what did Marie Louise lack in the beginning of 1812? She had a husband, at the height of his fame and glory, who gave her more affection, regard, and consideration than any one else in the world. She was the mother of a superb child, whom every one admired. Around her she saw respect on every face. For maid-of-honor she had a real friend, a woman whom she would herself have chosen, so highly did she value her character and manners. Her household consisted of the flower of the French aristocracy. She followed her own tastes, studied with the best masters, distributed alms as she pleased, lived in the handsomest palaces in Europe. There were no discomforts, no difficulties, in her position. She had no conflicting duties, no occasion to decide between her father and her husband, between the country of her birth and that of her adoption, none of those struggles and heartrending perplexities which so cruelly beset her afterwards. At that time the Emperor Francis was well contented with his son-in-law, and corresponded with him in a most friendly way. At that happy moment the Frenchwoman could be an Austrian without injury to her mission and her duty. The path she was to follow was clearly traced. Alas! it was not for long that she was to enjoy this calm and equable happiness, so well suited to her timid nature, which was made to obey, not to rule. She had then no cause to blame her fate or herself. As a young girl, as a wife, as a mother, she had nothing to ask for. Her satisfaction was furthered by the thought that she was soon to see again her father, her family, her country; and apart from the matter of feeling, she must have been gratified by the thought that she was to appear again in Austria with a brilliancy and splendor such as no other woman in the world could show. Her stay in Dresden was the crowning point of her brief grandeur, the end of the swift but dazzling period of prosperity and good fortune which may be described as the happy days of the Empress Marie Louise.

XXVII.

DRESDEN.

The Moniteur of May 10, 1812, contained the following announcement: "Paris, May 9. The Emperor left to-day to inspect the Grand Army assembled on the Vistula. Her Majesty the Empress will accompany His Majesty as far as Dresden, where she hopes to have the pleasure of seeing her August family. She will return in July at the latest. His Majesty the King of Rome will spend the summer at Meudon, where he has been for a month. He has finished his teething, and enjoys perfect health. He will be weaned at the end of the month."

It will be acknowledged that it was a somewhat singular thing to announce thus in the same article the speedy weaning of a baby and the beginning of the most colossal campaign of modern times. Not a word had been said about war. Never had the departure for an army seemed more like a pleasure trip. Followed by a great part of his court, Napoleon, like a Darius or a Louis XIV., had left Saint Cloud, May 9, in the same carriage as the Empress. The Republican general had disappeared before a magnificent monarch surrounded by Asiatic pomp. The possibility of defeat occurred to no one. One would have supposed that he was starting on a long ovation, a triumphal progress.

At every step the all-powerful Emperor and his young wife seemed to be tasting the onsets of grandeur and glory. May 9 he slept at Châlons; the 10th he entered Metz, where he at once got on horseback, reviewed the troops, and visited the fortifications. The 11th he was at Mayence, where he received the Grand Duke and the Grand Duchess of Hesse Darmstadt, as well as the Prince of Anhalt-Köthen. The 13th he crossed the Rhine, stopped a moment to see the Prince Primate at Aschaffenburg, met in the course of the day the King of Würtemberg and the Grand Duke of Baden, and spent the night at Würzburg, the sovereign of which was the former Grand Duke of Tuscany, the brother of the Emperor of Austria. Marie Louise was delighted to see her uncle again, who was to join her at Dresden. The 14th they slept at Bayreuth, the 15th at Plauen, and on the 16th they reached Dresden.

As Thiers says, Napoleon had passed through Germany amid an unprecedented throng of the populace, whose curiosity equalled their hatred. "Never, indeed, had the potentate whom they abhorred appeared more surrounded with glory. People talked with mingled surprise and terror of the six hundred thousand men who had gathered at his command from all parts of Europe. They ascribed to him plans far more extraordinary than those he had formed. They said he was going by Russia to India. They spread abroad a thousand fables far wilder than his real designs, and almost believed them accomplished, so much had his continual success discouraged hatred from hoping for what it desired. Vast heaps of wood were prepared along his path, and at nightfall these were set on fire to light his road; so that what was really curiosity produced almost the same effect as love and joy."

The Emperor's intention in going to Dresden was to spend two or three weeks there before taking command of his armies, and to dazzle all Europe by the sumptuous court which he should hold in the Saxon capital. For some weeks Marie Louise had been hoping to meet her father at Dresden, and the thought filled her with joy. She had written to him, March 15: "The Emperor sends all sorts of kind messages to you. He bids me tell you also that if we have war, he will take me to Dresden, where I shall spend two months, and where I hope soon to see you too. You cannot imagine, dear father, the pleasure I take in this hope. I am sure that you will not refuse me the great pleasure of bringing my dear mamma and my brothers and sisters. But I beg of you, dear papa, don't say anything about it, for nothing is decided." Marie Louise was at the height of happiness when she reached Saxony. At that moment she was very proud of being Napoleon's wife. She entered Dresden with him, May 16, 1812, at eleven in the evening, escorted by the King and Queen of Saxony, who had gone to Freiberg to meet them.

The next morning at eight, Napoleon, who was staying in the grand apartment of the royal castle, received the sovereign princes of Saxe-Coburg, Saxe-Weimar, and Dessau, as well as the high officials of the Saxon court. The King of Westphalia and the Grand Duke of Würzburg arrived in the course of the day, and at once presented their respects.