which it loads my family.” And in this same gallery he was marrying in triumph the daughter of the Germanic Caesars. The Palace of Saint Cloud brought him good luck. And yet it was from this palace that he set out two years later on the disastrous Russian campaign; and from there his successor, sixty years later, started for a still more ruinous war. And as for this Palace of Saint Cloud, so brilliant and radiant, what was to become of it? But in 1810 no one could have felt such fears for the future.
The marriage proclaimed, the document had to be signed. The Secretary of State of the Imperial family presented the pen to the Emperor and then to the Empress, who signed (without leaving their places or rising) on a table brought up before the throne. The Princes and Princesses then walked up to the table, and after bowing to Their Majesties, signed in the order fixed by the order of ceremonies. When, finally, the Archchancellor and the Secretary had affixed their signatures, the procession, in the same order as before, reconducted Their Majesties to the Empress’s apartments.
Possibly only one thing gave Napoleon a vague uneasiness: fourteen of the Italian cardinals had approved as regular and satisfactory the judgment of the officials of Paris concerning the invalidity of the religious marriage with Josephine; while thirteen others, among whom was Consalvi, thought that the Pope alone was competent to decide so important a matter. The rumor had spread that these thirteen recalcitrant cardinals would not be present at the nuptial benediction to be given to Napoleon and Marie Louise the next day in the _Salon Carre_ of the Louvre. But Napoleon in his wrath had exclaimed, “Bah! they will never dare to stay away!”
That evening after dinner Their Majesties went into the family drawing-room. The company that was to accompany them to the play assembled in the neighboring rooms. The orange-house, which had been converted into a court theatre, was illuminated. The piece to be given was _Iphigenia in Aulis_, one of the favorite operas of the unhappy Marie Antoinette, the new Empress’s great-aunt. The choice of this piece seemed an unhappy one; for Iphigenia recalled the idea of a sacrifice, and the aristocracy of Europe thought that Marie Louise had been sacrificed. General de Segur, in spite of his admiration for the Imperial glories, says in his Memoirs: “The feeling that prevailed in Paris, along with the general curiosity, was surprise at the presence of a princess ascending a throne reared so near the scaffold stained with the blood of one of her near relatives. This cruel memory offended the feeling of propriety peculiar to the French and especially to the Parisians. They were insensibly pained by this reminder which made too evident the sacrifice extorted from Austria, and they felt that their victory had been carried too far. They condemned the imitation of Louis XVI., whose sad fate was attributed to a similar selection.” But the fickle crowd which assembled, eager for pleasure in the park of Saint Cloud, made no such reflections. “The illumination of the park,” says the _Moniteur_, “had been arranged with infinite art; the fountains were rendered more brilliant by the lights which were thrown upon the cascades. The great waterfall especially produced a magical effect. Poets, in their description of enchanted gardens, have given but a feeble idea of such an appearance and of such an effect of light. Throughout the park sports of all kinds had been prepared. An immense crowd, from Paris and the suburbs, took part in the festival, which was most gay and animated. The arrangements were novel and far exceeded general expectations.”
At Saint Cloud, Sunday, April 1, 1810, when the civil marriage was celebrated, the weather was pleasant, while in Paris the streets were flooded by a heavy rain. The next day, that of the religious marriage, it rained at Saint Cloud, but the weather in Paris was magnificent, so that nothing was lost of the magnificence of the procession or of the brilliancy of the illuminations. The Emperor’s good fortune, it was said, had twice triumphed over the equinoctial storms. In the ever-flattering _Moniteur_ it was said: “April 2 had been chosen for Their Majesties’ entrance into the capital and the wedding rites. One strange circumstance aroused universal attention and called forth much favorable comment. A tempest had raged almost all of the previous night…. It was hence natural to suppose that all the preparations which for a month had excited general interest would have to be kept until a more favorable day; but such was not the case, and what has often happened occurred once more. The agreeable temperature which the sunshine produced was the more remarkable because it lasted only while the festivities were going on, beginning and ending with them, and never was one more strongly reminded of the two familiar lines of Virgil when, recalling the tempest in the night and the calm of the day appointed for a great entertainment, he represents the heavens under the divided control of Augustus and Jupiter:–
“‘Nocte pluit tota, redeunt spectacula mane, Divisum imperium cum Jove Caesar habet.'”
XIII.
THE ENTRANCE INTO PARIS.
Monday, April 2, 1810, as soon as day began to break, Paris and all the country round about set forth towards the Saint Cloud road. From eight in the morning the windows were filled with women. Everywhere scaffolding had been put up; fences, roofs, and trees were crowded with numberless spectators. At the base of the side openings of the great Arc de Triomphe de l’Etoile, steps had been set in the form of an amphitheatre, where a great many persons had taken their place by invitation of the Prefect of the Seine. Of the arch itself, which was to be built in stone, only the bases had been built to a height of about twenty feet, but the rest of the structure was raised in canvas over a framework for the Emperor’s formal entry into Paris. The speed with which the work had been done seemed magical; nearly five thousand laborers had been employed, and the temporary structure, imitating the real one, had been finished in less than twenty days. At the summit was this inscription: “To Napoleon and Marie Louise, the city of Paris.” The top of the arch, where the vaulting started, was decorated with bas-reliefs, and with sunk panels in the middle of which were eagles.
There were twelve medallions–six towards Passy, six on the other side; namely, the portrait of the Emperor, with this motto, “The happiness of the world is in his hands” (the address of the Senate); a laurel with many sprouts, and these words, “He has made our glory”; a roaring leopard, with this motto, “He laughed at our discords, he weeps at our reunion”; the monograms of Napoleon and Marie Louise, with this inscription, “We love her through our love for him, we shall love her for herself”; a Love placing a wreath of myrtles and roses on the helmet of Mars, with this motto, “She will charm the hero’s leisure”; the sun and a rainbow, and these words, “She announces happy days to the world”; the Empress’s portrait, and this inscription, “To her we owe the happiness of the August spouse who has set her so high in his thoughts”; the figure of the Danube, and this line, “He enriches us with what is most precious”; the Austrian coat-of-arms; the monogram of Their Majesties, and the motto, “She will be a true mother to the French”; the figure of the Seine, motto, “Our love will be grateful for the gift he makes to us”; and last, the French coat-of-arms.
The six bas-reliefs represented the following subjects: Legislation–the Emperor in his robes, seated upon the throne, points towards the tables on which is inscribed the Code, while Innocence, in the form of a young maiden, is sleeping at the foot of the Imperial throne; National Industry–merchants presenting to the Emperor various products from their warehouses; the Arrival of the Empress in Paris; the Decorations of the Capital; the Emperor’s Clemency–Napoleon seated, with his hand on his sword, is crowned by Victory, while he generously pardons his vanquished enemies; union of the Emperor and Empress–Napoleon and Marie Louise hand-in-hand, in token of alliance, before an altar placed at the foot of the statue of Peace.
The salvos of artillery were heard, announcing the departure of the Emperor and Empress from Saint Cloud. At the same moment, as if in obedience to the signal, the sun appeared on the horizon, to shine all day, and just when the procession reached the Arc de Triomphe, it appeared with greater brilliancy. The cavalry of the Imperial Guard headed the procession, the lancers in front, then the chasseurs, followed by the dragoons, with the bands in advance; the heralds-at-arms came next; and after them the carriages, the one containing the Emperor drawn by eight horses, the others by six. Napoleon and Marie Louise were in the famous coronation coach. Its four sides consisted of four large pieces of clear glass, set in slender, gilded and wrought corner-posts, giving as unimpeded view of those within as if the coach was open. The Emperor was to be seen in his cloak of red and white velvet; the Empress, in court dress and wearing the crown diamonds. The top of this magnificent coach consisted of a sort of golden dome, upheld by four eagles with outspread wings, and surmounted by a huge crown. The Marshals of France and the colonels in command of the Guard rode on each side, near the doors of the carriage, the aides near the horses, the equerries near the hind wheels. According to the etiquette prescribed for the occasions when the Emperor used this state carriage, as many pages as possible got on the footboard and on the seat near the driver.
The procession reached the Arc de Triomphe at one o’clock. Twelve cannon had been placed on the high ground near by, twelve others in the garden of the Tuileries, on the terrace by the riverside, and their salutes were repeated by the cannon of the Invalides. Bands which had been stationed along the routes played triumphal marches. All the church bells were rung at full peal. The Imperial coach stopped beneath the arch, where the Governor of Paris, the Prefect of the Seine, the Prefect of the Police, and the twelve mayors received the sovereigns.
Count Frochot, Prefect of the Seine, then pronounced the following speech: “Sire, Your Majesty has at last interested himself in his own happiness, and has succeeded in this as in all he undertakes. If never in the world’s annals did any sovereign’s marriage have such grandeur, never could love and glory better unite their interests or more happily inspire Your Majesty. From the shouts of joy which have echoed beneath the arches of the monument erected in honor of your triumphs, Your Majesty may judge that the wishes of his good city of Paris, that all the wishes of his people, are satisfied. And it is not in the vast extent of your empire alone that this joy prevails; Sire, a whole continent celebrates with equal delight the alliance made by the greatest of its monarchs, and a hundred different nations bless in unison these August bonds, secretly woven by Providence, these bonds, so dear to our hearts, since they give us at once a pledge of Your Majesty’s happiness, and of the fairest hopes of the country.”
Then turning to the Empress, the Prefect went on: “You, Madame, will realize this double hope; and, seated on the first throne of the universe, you will adorn it for the prince; you will thus make it dearer to his subjects; you will ensure its durability for posterity. The mere presence, Madame, of Your Majesty, reveals to every eye the precious gifts of the Providence who called you to this throne. No longer, in order to admire you, are we forced to content ourself with the report of fame, and already are verified those words of your immortal spouse, that loved first on his account, you will soon be loved for yourself. May it be permitted, Madame, to apply these words to the city of Paris! May you honor it at first with your good-will, and soon love for itself this great part of the immense family of Frenchmen, which on this solemn day proudly attaches itself to Your Majesty’s destiny by all the ties of its allegiance, its respect, and its love!”
The Empress replied that she loved the city of Paris because she knew how attached were its inhabitants to the Emperor. Young girls, clad in white, offered her baskets of flowers, which she accepted graciously, and the procession moved on.
Then Marie Louise, after passing between a double line of picked troops before an enthusiastic crowd, through the brilliant avenue of the Champs Elysees, reaches the fatal Place at its further end. Could all the roar of artillery, the peals of church bells, the music, so far distract the young Empress as to make her forget that here for two years stood the hideous guillotine, on which more than fifteen hundred people were murdered? Could all the happy cheers drive from her thoughts that beating of the drums which drowned the voice of Louis XVI. at the moment when that descendant of Saint Louis essayed to speak a few last words to his people? The place was full of horrid memories, haunted by gloomy ghosts. But sixteen years before, cattle would not traverse it, repelled by the smell of blood. The terraces of the Tuileries were crowded, and, as the _Moniteur_ put it, the stone images of fame above the garden gates seemed ready to fly away to proclaim the glories of that great day. Well, sixteen years and a half before, the same terraces were quite as densely crowded. Yes, a huge throng gathered in the cool, foggy morning of October 16, 1793, to get a good view of the death of a woman whose grand-niece this new Empress was in two ways: on the father’s side by her father, the son of Emperor Leopold II.; and again, on the maternal side, through her mother, the daughter of Marie Caroline, Queen of Naples. Yes, on the very spot over which the Imperial procession passed with so much pomp, in front of the gateway of the Tuileries, thirty metres from the middle of the Place, where stood the base on which had been set first the equestrian statue of Louis XIV. and then the statue of Liberty, there had been raised, sixteen and a half years before, the scaffold of Marie Antoinette. Could that gorgeous state carriage drive from her mind the memory of the martyred queen’s tumbrel? And when Marie Louise first saw the Tuileries, must she not have thought of the last glance which that queen, her near relation, cast on that fateful palace before she bowed her August and charming head upon the block? All the flattery and homage of courtiers, the hymns of poets, the marriage songs, the whole chorus of adulation, cannot drown the inexorable lamentations of the voice of history!
XIV.
THE RELIGIOUS CEREMONY.
The procession reached the entrance of the Tuileries gardens, passed beneath a triumphal arch, wound around the basin of water, by the side of the flower-beds, which the crowd had respected, and drew near to the palace walls. The central pavilion had been decorated with a large orchestra, divided by a passage leading to the vestibule. In the middle of the orchestra was an arch, on top of which was set a tribune in the shape of a tent. On all the bas-reliefs the panels and other ornaments were initials surrounded with flowers and various emblems and allegories. The carriages passed under this arch; the Emperor and Empress alighted in the vestibule and ascended the grand staircase. Marie Louise entered the bedroom of the grand apartment by the great door, which was thrown wide open. The maids-of-honor of France and Italy, as well as the ladies of the bedchamber, were shown thither from the throne-room through the dressing-room. They removed the Empress’s court cloak, and put on her the Imperial cloak. Meanwhile the procession was forming again in the Gallery of Diana, and as soon as Their Majesties had arrived, it started again, entered the long Gallery of the Louvre, passing through its entire length, to the _Salon Carre_, which had been turned into a chapel for the religious ceremony.
This magnificent gallery presented a fine appearance, divided, as it is, into nine unequal compartments by arches rising from columns of rare marble with gilded bases and capitals. It is the famous gallery in which are gathered the finest pictures of the masters of every school. The invited guests had been gathering there since ten o’clock. They ascended thither by two staircases, one leading from the quay, the other from the Place du Carrousel to the central pavilion. The Imperial party alone was to enter by the door of the Pavilion of Flora. Two rows of benches had been placed the whole length of the gallery for the ladies, and two rows of men were to stand behind them, so that there was room for about eight thousand persons without crowding. Bars had been placed in front of the first line of benches to leave an unencumbered passage-way for the Emperor and Empress. Thanks to the exertions of the officers of the Imperial Guard, who discharged their duty with perfect courtesy, four thousand women, in their most brilliant dresses, without trouble, without confusion, and as many men, all chosen from the highest society, took their places when the procession was to pass. They had to wait not less than five hours, but the order was so good that every one could easily leave and resume his place. The gallery was turned with a magnificent promenade in which Paris was treated to a display of the elegance and luxury of its leading men and most fashionable women. Refreshments of various kinds were handed about while orchestras played marches or pieces composed by Paer, the famous leader of the Emperor’s music. The waiting was thus a long entertainment. At three in the afternoon the whole company was standing in place; the doors of the Pavilion of Flora opened, and the heralds-at-arms appeared, followed by the Imperial procession. The spectacle is thus described by the _Moniteur_ with its accustomed enthusiasm:–
“The sound of the music was drowned in the roar of applause which rang through all parts of the gallery. At times the applause ceased, when the spectators silently regarded the Emperor and the Empress. This silence was eloquent; it was a respectful homage that attested the solemn thoughts which the spectacle evoked, and the deep impressions it made on every soul; this keen emotion, this silent expression of an irresistible feeling, gave way to heartfelt enthusiasm, to cries of joy, to transports of delight. Their Majesties acknowledged this enthusiasm most courteously as they passed through this long and brilliant gallery leading to the chapel, which was a sort of nave of the temple where their August union was to be consecrated anew.”
The chapel was the _Salon Carre_, which lies between the picture-gallery and the Apollo gallery. Two rows of seats had been placed all around it. The altar, which was placed in front of the picture-gallery had been adorned with a large bas-relief and many rich ornaments. The six candelabra and the crucifix were masterpieces. Thirty feet from the altar, on a platform, and beneath a canopy, were the two armchairs and the prayer desks of the Emperor and the Empress. Near the altar, on two chandeliers, had been placed the two candles designed for offerings; in each one had been set twenty pieces of gold. The Cardinal, Grand Almoner of France, assisted by the Grand Almoner of Italy, went to receive the sovereigns at the door, and to offer them holy water and incense. Their Majesties then took their places on the platform, the Empress on the Emperor’s left. The rest of the procession arranged themselves in the following order: on the Emperor’s right, below the platform, Prince Louis Napoleon, King of Holland; Prince Jerome Napoleon, King of Westphalia; Prince Borghese, Duke of Guastalla; Prince Joachim Murat, King of Naples; Prince Eugene de Beauharnais, Viceroy of Italy; the Hereditary Grand Duke of Baden; the Prince Arch-chancellor Cambaceres; the Prince Archtreasurer Lebrun; the Prince Vice-Constable Berthier; the Prince Vice-Grand Elector Talleyrand;–on the Empress’s left, below the platform, Napoleon’s mother; Princess Julia, Queen of Spain; Princess Hortense, Queen of Holland; Princess Catherine, Queen of Westphalia; Princess Elisa, Grand Duchess of Tuscany; Princess Pauline, Duchess of Guastalla; Princess Caroline, Queen of Naples; the Grand Duke of Wuerzburg; the Princess Augusta, Vice-Queen of Italy; Princess Stephanie, Hereditary Grand Duchess of Baden. The Colonel commanding the Guard on duty, the Grand Marshal, the High Chamberlain, the First Equerry, the First Almoner of the Emperor, the high officers of Italy, the French Maid-of-Honor, the Italian Maid-of-Honor, the Lady of the Bedchamber, the Knight-of-Honor, the First Equerry and the First Almoner of the Empress, stationed themselves behind Their Majesties’ chairs.
On his way through the gallery Napoleon seemed perfectly radiant with joy, but suddenly his face clouded. “Where are the cardinals?” he asked, in a tone of annoyance, of his chaplain, the Abbe de Pradt; “I don’t see them.” He saw them very well, but he noticed that they were not all there. “A great many of them are here,” timidly replied the Abbe; “besides, many of them are old and feeble.” “No, they are not there,” the Emperor repeated, casting his eye on some empty benches. “Fools! fools!” he said angrily, his face growing darker. It was true! The thirteen cardinals who had declared that they would not come, had had the singular audacity to keep their word. What! they had dared to persist in a factious opposition which he, the Emperor, had defied them to exhibit! They had dared to brave him, to offer him a public insult! They were to receive one in their turn. They did not want to be present at the marriage; very well, he would expel them in disgrace from his court on the very next day!
Nevertheless, the ceremony began, but the Emperor was absorbed, and found it difficult to forget the sudden annoyance. The Grand Almoner, after a deep bow to Their Majesties, intoned the _Veni Creator_, and then proceeded to bless the thirteen pieces of gold and the ring. Napoleon and Marie Louise arose, advanced to the altar, and clasped their bared right hands. The priest then addressed the Emperor, “Sire, do you acknowledge and swear before God and His Holy Church that you now take for your lawful wife Her Imperial and Royal Highness, Madame Marie Louise, Archduchess of Austria, here present?” Napoleon answered, “Yes, sir.” Then turning to the Empress, “Madame, do you acknowledge and swear before God and His Holy Church that you now take for your lawful husband the Emperor Napoleon here present?” “Yes, sir.” “Do you promise and swear to show to him the fidelity in all things which a faithful wife owes to her husband, according to God’s holy commandment?” “Yes, sir.” The priest then gave the Emperor the pieces of gold and the ring; he presented the pieces of gold to the Empress and placed the ring on her finger, saying, “This ring I give unto you in token of the marriage we are contracting.” The priest made the sign of the cross upon the hand of the Empress, and said, “_In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti, Amen_.” Then mass was said. After the Gospel the First Bishop carried the holy volume to Their Majesties to kiss, and waved incense before them. After the benediction, the Grand Almoner offered them holy water, and gave them the corporal kiss; then he turned towards the altar and intoned the _Te Deum_, which was sung by the chapel choir, producing a deep impression.
The procession formed anew after the ceremony, and retraced its steps. The Emperor gave the Empress his hand, and it was observed with surprise that in passing through the long gallery, his face, which had been so triumphant and joyous, no longer wore the same expression. Could the absence of the thirteen cardinals have been enough to mar this magnificent ceremony? The procession after leaving the long picture-gallery reached the Gallery of Diana by the Pavilion of Flora, and then it stopped. The sovereigns and the Imperial family entered the Emperor’s drawing-room, which opened on this gallery. Marie Louise withdrew to her own room. The maid-of-honor and the Lady of the Bedchamber removed her Imperial cloak and the crown, to give them to the Chamberlain, who had carried them in ceremony to Notre Dame. Then Their Majesties appeared on the balcony of the Hall of the Marshals and watched the infantry and cavalry of the Imperial Guard march by. Officers and men waved their weapons, and filled the air with their loud cheers, which were repeated by an enthusiastic multitude. The Imperial dinner took place at seven in the theatre of the Tuileries. The stage had been decorated like the rest of the hall, so that instead of being separate divisions, there was but one huge, unbroken room. The decoration consisted of two cupolas upheld by double arches with the intermediate vaults adorned with columns. One of the two parallel divisions contained the table destined for the Imperial banquet, which stood on a platform beneath a magnificent canopy. As soon as the dinner was ready, the Grand Chamberlain offered the Emperor a basin in which to wash his hands. The First Equerry offered him a chair. The Grand Marshal of the Palace gave him a napkin. The First Prefect, the First Equerry, and the First Chamberlain of the Empress had similar duties. The Grand Almoner stood up by the table, asked a blessing, and withdrew. During the repast the Grand Marshal of the Palace offered the Emperor wine. It was an imposing sight. According to the _Moniteur:_ “Here again it is impossible to do justice to the extraordinary magnificence of this imposing occasion. Pen and pencil can describe but faintly the majestic order, the admirable regularity, the blaze of diamonds, the beauty of a brilliant illumination, the gorgeous dresses, and above all the noble ease, the indefinable grace, and perfect elegance which have always characterized the court of France.”
After the banquet Napoleon and Marie Louise went to the Hall of the Marshals and appeared on the balcony. A vast crowd had gathered in the garden, under the walls of the palace, around the amphitheatre which had been built for the public concert. They greeted the sovereigns with repeated calls and cheers. The following cantata was given, with words by Arnault and Mehul’s music:–
WOMEN.
“Mars himself has yielded the earth
To the only god peace cannot disarm. Beneath serener skies see all revive,
All grow tender, all take fire.
On the oak, beneath the heather,
See, yielding to the call of love, The proud eagle itself forgetting his thunder.
MEN.
“See the many warriors mingling with the citizens, Hiding their old laurels beneath the new myrtles, For the first time forgetful of their conquests. See the Frenchman, see the German,
Clasping each other’s hand
And inviting you to the same festivals.
MEN AND WOMEN.
“Hear the voice resounding
From the banks of the Danube to the banks of the Seine; Hear the voice that promises
A long reign to the happiness which this day brings.”
Then was given the chorus from _Iphigenia:_ “What grace, what majesty!” a chorus which Glueck, said the _Moniteur_, “could not have made more beautiful, even if he had foreseen this occasion.” Alas! the same thing had been said, in the same words, for the unhappy Marie Antoinette; but away with these gloomy presentiments! After the concert the discharge of a rocket from the palace gave the signal for the fireworks. These had been arranged for the whole length of the Avenue of the Champs Elysees. The illumination brought out the impressiveness of the vast architectural lines of the Tuileries. The main avenues of the gardens were richly decorated; around the flower-beds were one hundred and twenty-eight porticoes and twenty-eight arches from which hung transparencies and garlands; and at the entrance of this enchanted garden there was a graceful triumphal arch with twenty-four columns and eight pilasters illuminated with colored lanterns. The Place de la Concorde was surrounded by pyramids of fire and lights arranged to resemble orange-trees; the Champs Elysees, the Garde Meuble, the Temple of Glory, the Tuileries, the Palace of the Corps Legislatif, were all ablaze. This last-named building, with a hastily constructed front to show how it was to be finished, represented on that occasion the Temple of Hymen. A transparency represented in front Peace blessing the August couple; on each side were genii carrying bucklers on which were to be seen the arms of the two Empires. Behind this group were magistrates, soldiers, and people, offering crowns, and at the ends of the transparency, the Seine and the Danube, surrounded with children, in token of fecundity. The twelve columns in front, the steps, the stone statues of Sully, of l’Hopital, of Colbert, of d’Aguesseau, as well as those of Themis and Minerva, were most brilliant. The bridge Louis XV., leading from the Place de la Concorde to the Temple of Hymen, resembled a triumphal avenue with its double row of lights, its colored glass, its obelisks, its hundreds of blazing columns, each one topped by a star. The calmness of a lovely spring night was favorable to the illuminations; all Paris seemed a sea of flame with waves of fire.
The festival continued till late into the night. “All the happy families,” says the _Moniteur_, “returned to their peaceful homes after a long absence. Every one had had the happiness of gazing at the Emperor and his August spouse, and all could feel that they too had been seen of them, so thoroughly did the feeling of the benevolence and affability with which their homage had been received by Their Majesties, repay the most enthusiastic testimonials of love and gratitude which a great nation has ever been able to present to its rulers.”
Tuesday, April 3, was the day for the presentation at the Tuileries to the Emperor and Empress, seated on their throne, of the great bodies of the State. The Emperor replied to the address of the Senate in these words, “I and the Empress merit the sentiments which you express by the love we nourish for our people.” The President of the deputation from the Kingdom of Italy spoke in Italian. “Our people of Italy,” replied the Emperor, “know how much we love them. As soon as possible, I and the Empress wish to go to our good cities of Milan, Venice, and Bologna, to give new pledges of our love for our Italian people.”
The thirteen Italian cardinals who were unwilling to be present at the wedding the day before were in the Hall of the Marshals, where, amid a throng of prelates, officers, functionaries, and court ladies, they were waiting for the moment to pass before their formidable master. They had been there for three hours, in great anxiety, when aides appeared, bidding them depart at once, the Emperor being unwilling to receive them. Much disconcerted, they made their way with difficulty through the crowd to their carriages. When the other cardinals, who had been present at the wedding, presented themselves in the throne-room, Napoleon stood up and violently denounced their expelled colleagues. Cardinal Consalvi, formerly Secretary of State to Pius VII., was especially attacked. “The others,” he said, “may perhaps be excused on the score of their theological prejudices, but he has offended me from political motives. He is my enemy, and he seeks to revenge himself for my driving him from the ministry. That is why he has made this deep plot against me, raising against my dynasty a pretext of illegitimacy, a pretext which my enemies will be sure to lay hold of when my death shall have freed them from the fear that restrains them to-day.” It was in vain that the offending thirteen cardinals wrote together an apologetic letter in which they said that they had never wished to judge the validity of the Emperor’s first marriage or to throw any doubts on the lawfulness of the second. Napoleon remained implacable. He turned them out of their office, stripped them of their cardinals’ robes, bade them resume their attire as simple priests, so that afterwards they were known as the black cardinals, in distinction from the others, the red cardinals. He deprived them of all their estates, ecclesiastic or inherited, and placed them under sequestration. He made them live in bands of two, in various cities of France, dependent on the charity of the faithful. The contest with the Pope began: but the Pope, though defeated in the beginning, was to conquer in the end, and the persecutor of one day was himself persecuted the next. The captive of Savona and of Fontainebleau was to re-enter the eternal city in triumph, and the all-powerful Emperor, the Pope’s jailer, was to die, a prisoner of the English, on the rock of Saint Helena.
XV.
THE HONEYMOON.
Napoleon was happy; his new wife pleased him; he found that she was what he had wanted her to be,–gentle, kindly, timid, modest. It seemed sure that she would bring him heirs. Being neither ambitious nor prone to intrigue, she did not meddle with politics. She was religious, moral, and her principles were most sound. She would never oppose her husband, whose slightest wish she regarded as a command. She would appease his few stubborn foes of the French aristocracy, and put a stop to the last surviving backbiting of the Faubourg Saint Germain. As a bond of union between the past and the present, she brought not to France alone, but to all Europe, stability and repose, and rendered the foundations of the Imperial edifice firm and indestructible. The Emperor’s marriage seemed his greatest triumph. For her part, Marie Louise was pleased with her new throne. Surrounded as she was by a chosen society, having in her service the proudest names of the French, the Belgian, the Italian nobility; flattered by the attention of a court in which elegance, wit, politeness, followed all the most brilliant traditions of the old regime, the daughter of the German Caesars could not imagine that France, with its tranquillity, its profound respect, its affection for the monarchy, in which she was treated more like a goddess than a sovereign, had, a few years earlier, been governed by the Jacobins.
Marie Louise found more luxury and pleasure at the Tuileries and at Compiegne than at the Burg or at Schoenbrunn. Modest as she was, the ingenious flattery, the delicate homage, she received from all quarters could not fail to affect her. The sympathy with which her maid-of-honor, the Duchess of Montebello, inspired her, soon grew into a warm and firm friendship.
Napoleon had particular regard for his young wife, and in his love there was a shade of fatherly protection. He was not yet forty-one. Success and glory had given to his mature face a greater beauty than it had worn in his youth. His manners, formerly harsh and almost violent, had become much softer. To the Republican general had succeeded a majestic monarch familiar with all the usages of courts, all the laws of etiquette, maintaining his rank like a Louis XIV., and playing his royal part with the ease and dignity of a great actor. Successful in everything he undertook, never exposed to contradiction, surrounded by people whose most anxious desire was to forestall his wishes, to anticipate his commands, he seldom had occasion to give way to the outbursts of anger, sometimes real, oftener assumed, in which he formerly indulged. He liked to talk, and his conversation was easy and witty, and full of an irresistible charm. His dress, which in old times he neglected, became elegant. His expression and voice acquired gentleness and an almost caressing quality. Not only did he try to fascinate the young and handsome Empress, he spared no pains to please her. Being much honored and flattered in his vanity as a Corsican gentleman,–for this man of Vendemiaire, the saviour of the Convention, always had a weakness for coats-of-arms and for titles,–he was proud as well as happy in having for his wife a woman belonging to so old and illustrious a race; and this sensation of gratified pride inspired an equability of temper, a serenity, a gayety, which delighted his courtiers, who were glad to see his happiness, for they enjoyed its agreeable results. It was in this spirit that Napoleon and Marie Louise started, April 5, 1810, from Saint Cloud for Compiegne, whence they set forth on the 27th for a triumphal progress in the departments of the North.
In short, this wedded life began under the happiest auspices. At Vienna, the Emperor Francis was perfectly satisfied. Count Otto, the French Ambassador, wrote to the Duke of Cadore, March 31, 1810, as follows: “The events of the 29th were celebrated here yesterday by a general illumination, and by a grand court levee where His Majesty received again the congratulations of the Diplomatic Body, the nobility, and of many foreigners. The Emperor seemed thoroughly contented; he spoke to me very warmly of his satisfaction, which is shared by all his subjects with but few exceptions. Both when I came in and when I was leaving, he spoke to me in the most gracious manner possible, and especially about the incomparable benefit His Majesty had rendered to European civilization by restoring France to its real basis. He praised our army, and added that he would do what he could to aid those of our soldiers who still remained in the hospitals here. ‘Henceforth,’ the Emperor continued, ‘we have but one and the same interest, to work together for the peace of Europe and the furtherance of the arts of use for society. Everything can be made good, except the loss of so many excellent men killed or maimed in the last war.’ His Majesty’s example in addressing me before any one else was followed by his brother.”
The Emperor Francis was very happy to learn that his daughter was pleased with Napoleon and the French. The French Ambassador wrote from Vienna to the Duke of Cadore, April 8, 1810: “The letters which the Emperor and Empress of Austria have received from Their Majesties have given them the greatest satisfaction, and especially those brought two evenings ago by the Count of Praslin. The Emperor was moved by them to tears. This sentence, ‘We suit each other perfectly,’ made the deepest impression, as well as two letters from Her Majesty the Empress, written in German, in which, among other things, she said, ‘I am as happy as it is possible to be; my father’s words have come true, I find the Emperor very lovable.’ Prince Metternich wept for joy when he gave me these details, and put his arms round my neck and kissed me. The court is perfectly happy since it has heard of this meeting, and of the affection and confidence each has felt for the other.”
Count Metternich sent to the Emperor Francis the minutest details about the magnificent way in which the marriage was celebrated, and the French Ambassador thus described that monarch’s satisfaction: “The Emperor of Austria received to-day from Count Metternich most circumstantial accounts of what took place in Paris, April 5, and he expressed to me his great delight. The unprecedented honors paid to his daughter did not touch him so much as the delicacy displayed by His Majesty the Emperor Napoleon. I am especially bidden to convey to Your Excellency the expression of his gratitude for the consideration His Majesty showed in relieving the Empress of the ceremony of the first interview. By urging Her Majesty to talk freely with Count Metternich, the Emperor has also delighted his August father-in-law, who thoroughly appreciates his noble conduct. The Empress said that on this occasion she received from the Emperor not only the most delicate consideration, but also the attentions and instructions of an affectionate father. That report called forth many happy tears, and I cannot too strongly express to Your Excellency the happiness that exists here, and the desire that it should be known in Paris…. The Emperor of Austria is much flattered by the marked distinction with which his Minister of Foreign Affairs [Metternich] is treated in Paris, and he certainly seems to deserve it by his unflagging zeal and his unbounded devotion to the principles of the alliance.” (Count Otto’s despatch of April 15, 1810.)
The famous Prince Metternich, who was then only a count, and had left his father the Prince in charge of the ministry in Vienna, had intended to stay only four weeks in Paris, but he was detained there nearly six months. “I went thither,” he states in his Memoirs, “not to study the past, but to try to forecast the future, and I was anxious to succeed speedily. I said one day to the Emperor Napoleon that my stay in Paris could not be a long one. ‘Your Majesty,’ I said to him, ‘had me carried to Austria, almost like a prisoner; now I have come back to Paris of my own free will, but with great duties to perform. To-day I am recalled to Vienna and entrusted with an immense responsibility. The Emperor Francis wanted me to be present at his daughter’s entry into France; I have obeyed his orders; but I tell you frankly, Sire, that I have a loftier ambition. I am anxious to find the line to follow in politics in a remote future.’ ‘I understand you,’ the Emperor replied; ‘your wishes coincide with mine. Remain with us a few weeks longer, and you will be perfectly satisfied.'”
Metternich held a privileged position at the French court; for he was very amiable and charming, a perfect man of the world, an accomplished diplomatist, and thoroughly familiar with France and the French, moreover, very intimate with Napoleon and the whole Imperial family. “Napoleon asked me one day,” he says in his Memoirs, “why I never went to see the Empress Marie Louise except on reception days and other more or less formal occasions. I answered that I had no reason for doing otherwise, and indeed had many good reasons for doing as I had done.”
“By breaking the customary rule,” Metternich continued, “I should arouse comment; people would say that I was intriguing; I should do harm to the Empress and injustice to my own character. ‘Bah!’ interrupted Napoleon, ‘I want you to see the Empress; call on her to-morrow morning; I will tell her to expect you.’ The next day I went to the Tuileries and found the Emperor with the Empress. We were talking commonplaces when Napoleon said to me, ‘I want the Empress to talk to you freely, and to tell you what she thinks of her position; you are her friend, and she ought to have no secrets from you.’ Therewith Napoleon locked the drawing-room door, put the key in his pocket, and went out by another door. I asked the Empress what this meant, and she asked me the same question. Since I saw that she had not been primed by Napoleon, I conjectured that he evidently wished me to receive from her own lips a satisfactory idea of her domestic relations, in order to give a favorable account to her father, the Emperor, The Empress was of the same opinion. We remained closeted together more than an hour. When Napoleon came back, laughing, he said, ‘Well, have you had a good talk? Has the Empress been abusing me? Has she been laughing or crying? But I don’t ask you to tell me; those things are your secrets, which do not concern any third person, not even if that third person is her husband.’ We carried on the conversation in that vein, and I took my leave. The next day Napoleon sought for an opportunity to talk with me. ‘What did the Empress say yesterday?’ he asked. ‘You told me,’ I replied, ‘that our interview did not concern any third person; let me keep my secret.’ ‘The Empress told you,’ Napoleon interrupted, ‘that she is happy with me, that she has nothing to complain of. I hope you will tell the Emperor, and that he will believe you more than any one else.'”
In fact, Metternich told the Emperor Francis, and he believed Metternich. Moreover, he had every reason to believe him; for the Empress Marie Louise was then perfectly happy, and no clouds were yet to be seen on the sky which was later to be torn by terrible tempests.
We will end this chapter by copying the curious letter which Marie Louise’s step-mother, the Empress of Austria, wrote to Napoleon, April 10, 1810, which expresses in a tone almost of familiarity the favorable impressions of the Viennese court: “My brother,–I cannot express to Your Majesty the feeling of gratitude I have experienced on receiving your last letter, which has filled me with joy by the assurance it contains of your satisfaction with the being we have confided to you. My maternal heart was the more open to this emotion because I had felt doubtful about the result. Now, however, that I am reassured by Your Majesty, I have no further fear, and I cheerfully share my daughter’s happiness. She has described it to me with touching sincerity, and is never tired of telling me how gratified she is by the many attentions she has received since your meeting. Her sole desire is to make Your Majesty happy, and I venture to flatter myself that she will succeed; for I know her character well, and it is excellent. Louise promises to write to me regularly, and this somewhat consoles me for a real loss. It is pleasant to be able to keep up one’s relations with a person one loves, and I am sure that I feel for her the tenderness of a mother, so kind has she been to me, treating me like a real friend. Your Majesty is good enough to say that your wife has spoken about me. I am not surprised; for I know that she, like me, has a very loving heart. But with due regard to truth, I cannot leave Your Majesty under any mistake with regard to her obligations towards me. From what she says you may form a favorable opinion of her candor. If I can boast of anything, it is that I have tried to preserve this candor, which may at first have made her seem timid, while in fact it renders her only the more worthy of Your Majesty’s esteem and friendship.
“Some may blame me because my daughter has so few ideas, such a meagre education. I acknowledge it; but as to the world and its perils, one learns them only too soon, and I will say frankly she was only eighteen, and I wanted to preserve her innocence, and cared only that she should have a loving heart, an honest nature, and clear ideas about what she did know. I have entrusted her to Your Majesty. I beg you, as her mother, to be my daughter’s friend and guide, as she is your devoted wife. She will be happy if Your Majesty will always confidently appeal to her; for, I say once more, she is young and too inexperienced to face the world’s dangers and to fill her position understandingly. But I perceive that I am wearying Your Majesty with this long letter. You will pardon this outpouring of a mother’s heart, which knows no bounds when a beloved daughter’s happiness is concerned. I must say one thing more. Your Majesty sets too high a value on my eagerness to satisfy you by letting you have the portrait of my dear Louise. I was too anxious to please you as soon as possible, not to be selfish in this matter, but I shall certainly thoroughly appreciate the portrait you promise me. It will have this advantage, that it will show me how happy she is.”
It must be said that seldom has a step-mother spoken of her step-daughter in a more tender and more touching way. No letter could have better pleased Napoleon; it was not written in official style, with all the formal compliments, but rather with affectionate sincerity. When he read it, Napoleon must have felt that he had at last really entered the brotherhood of kings. Everything she had said of her step-daughter was true. The young Empress of the French had a candor, a simplicity, a freshness of mind and body, which delighted her husband. Doubtless the feeling she inspired was not a fiery, romantic passion such as he had felt for his first wife; and Marie Louise, with her northern beauty, had not the same charm as Josephine, the bewitching creole. Napoleon certainly would not have written to his second wife burning letters, in the style of the _Nouvelle Heloise_, such as he sent to Josephine during the first Italian campaign. His love for Marie Louise was less fervent, but he esteemed her more highly. He thought that the society of the Austrian court was after all a better school for a wife than the society of the Directory, and he had found in Marie Louise, a girl worthy of all regard, one invaluable blessing, one treasure which a widow, charming, it is true, but a coquette, lacked; namely, innocence.
XVI.
THE TRIP IN THE NORTH.
“Napoleon and Marie Louise left Compiegne April 27, 1810, at seven o’clock in the morning, to make a journey in several of the northern departments, which was one long ovation. In their suite were the Grand Duke of Wuerzburg, brother of the Emperor of Austria, the Queen of Naples, the King and Queen of Westphalia, Prince Eugene de Beauharnais, Prince Schwarzenberg, and Count Metternich. The last-named says in his Memoirs: ‘I was an eye-witness of the enthusiasm with which the young Empress was everywhere greeted by the populace. At Saint Quentin Napoleon formally expressed his desire that I should be present at an audience to which he had summoned the authorities of the city. ‘I should like to show you,’ he said, ‘how I am accustomed to speak to these people.’ I saw that the Emperor was anxious to let me see the extent and variety of his knowledge of matters of administration.'”
Those who care to know the adulation offered to Napoleon and Marie Louise on this expedition should read the following passage from M. de Bausset’s Memoirs: “Their Majesties went off to visit some of the northern departments, in order to give Paris and all the great bodies of the State the time required for preparing the festivities which circumstances made necessary. It was a triumphal march. The provinces greeted their young and beautiful Empress with enthusiasm. Amid all the brilliant tokens of respect, one attracted especial notice. It was a little hamlet, with a triumphal arch, bearing the simplest inscriptions. On the front was written _Pater Noster_; on the reverse, _Ave Maria, gratia plena_. The mayor and the village priest presented wild-flowers. Flattery could have devised no more delicate attention.” Thus we have M. de Bausset finding it simple to compare the Emperor to the Almighty and the Empress to the Blessed Virgin. Was not this a sign of the times?
Thiers says of this journey: “The populace, glad of a break in their monotonous lives, hasten to meet their princes, whoever they may be, and are often lavish of their applause on the very brink of a catastrophe. Whenever Napoleon appeared anywhere, curiosity and admiration were strong enough to gather a multitude; and when he had rounded out his wonderful destiny by marrying an archduchess, the interest and enthusiasm were all the greater. Indeed, everywhere he appeared, their raptures were warm and unanimous.”
Starting from Compiegne April 27, the Emperor and Empress reached Saint Quentin the same day. The canal connecting the Seine with the Scheldt was illuminated, and Napoleon and his court sailed over it in gondolas richly decked with flags. On the 30th of April they embarked on the canal which goes from Brussels to the Ruppel, and by the Ruppel to the Scheldt. The First Lord of the Admiralty and Admiral Missiessy were in command of the Imperial flotilla. When they arrived in sight of the squadron of Antwerp, which Napoleon had created, all the ships, frigates, corvettes, gunboats, were drawn up in line, and Marie Louise passed under the fire of a thousand cannon thundering in her honor. When the sovereigns entered the city, the throng was most dense. “It expressed,” the _Moniteur_ tells us, “the gratitude of the inhabitants for its second founder. It was impossible not to make a comparison between the present condition of the port and city of Antwerp with its condition seven years before, on His Majesty’s first visit.”
At Antwerp they made a stay of five days, which the Emperor, who was on his horse at sunrise, spent in visiting the works of the port, the arsenal, the fortifications, in holding reviews, in inspecting the fleet. May 2 there was launched a ship of eighty guns, the largest ship that had ever been built on the stocks of this port. It was blessed by the Archbishop of Mechlin. According to the Baron de Meneval, “the Empress was affable, simple, and unpretentious. Possibly the memory of Josephine’s charm and earnest desire to please was a misfortune to Marie Louise. Her reserve might have been attributed to German family pride, but that would have been a mistake; no one was ever simpler or less haughty. Her natural timidity and her unfamiliarity with the part she had to play, alone gave her an air of stiffness. She was so thoroughly identified with her new position and so touched by the regard and affection with which the Emperor was treated, that when he proposed to her to stay at Antwerp while he was visiting the islands of the Zuyder Zee, she besought him to take her with him, undeterred by any fear of the fatigues of the journey.” Consequently Napoleon started with her to visit Bois-le-Duc, Berg-op-Zoom, Breda, Middelburg, Flushing, and the island of Walcheren, which the English had evacuated four months before.
At Breda the Emperor soundly abused a deputation of the Catholic clergy whom he knew to be opposed to him. “Gentlemen,” he broke out, “why are you not in sacerdotal garments? Are you attorneys, notaries, or physicians? … Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s. The Pope is not Caesar; I am. It is not to the Pope, but to me, that God has given a sceptre and a sword…. Ah, you are unwilling to pray for me. Is it because a Roman priest has excommunicated me? But who gave him any such power? Who has the power to release subjects from their oath of allegiance to the legally appointed ruler? No one; and you ought to know it…. Renounce the hope of putting me in a convent and of shaving my head, like Louis the Debonair, and submit yourselves; for I am Caesar! If you don’t, I shall banish you from my empire, and scatter you over the surface of the earth like the Jews…. You belong to the diocese of Mechlin; go to your bishop; take your oath before him, obey the Concordat, and then I will see what commands I shall have to give you.”
After visiting the towns on the frontier, as well as the islands of Tholen, Schomven, North and South Beveland, and Walcheren, Napoleon, constantly accompanied by Marie Louise, ascended the Scheldt once more, merely passed through Antwerp, made a brief stop at Brussels, spent three days at the castle of Lacken, and hastily ran through Ghent, Bruges, Ostend, Dunkirk, Lille, Calais, Dieppe, Havre, and Rouen.
June 1, 1810, they were back at Saint Cloud. The Baron de Meneval tells us that Marie Louise was extremely delighted with the way she had been greeted throughout this journey. Everywhere she had been received under arches of triumph, with countless festivities, balls, illuminations, and every token of the popular enthusiasm and affection, so that “she was able to appreciate the French character, and to decide that she would readily grow accustomed to a country where the devotion of the people to their sovereign, the enormous influence he wielded, and the affection he bore to them, as well as theirs for his cause, filled her with hopes for a happy life.” Napoleon’s life at that time was one long deification. Louis XIV. himself, the Sun-King, had never received more flattery in prose and verse. All the official poets had tuned their lyres to sing his marriage, and the _Moniteur_ was full of dithyrambs. It also published a translation of an Italian cantata entitled, “_La Jerogamia di Creta, Inno del Cavaliere Vincenzo Monti_,” which began thus: “The silence of Olympus is broken up by the noisy neighing of coursers and by the prolonged and disturbing rattle of swift chariots. The Immortals descend to the banks of the Gnossus to celebrate with fitting rites the new marriage of the ruler of the gods.” It ended thus: “The waves of two seas, in motion, though no wind blows, roar in terror, and Neptune, alarmed, feels with surprise his trident tremble in his hand. If such is the sport of the monarch of thunder when he yields to the sweets of Hymen, what will it be when he again grasps the thunderbolt? Divine nurses of Jove, bees of Mount Panacra, ah! distil upon my verses, from the summit of Dicte, one drop of the sweet-savored honey, food of the King of Heaven, that my August sovereign, whose soul is like Jupiter’s, may find some pleasure in hearing them!”
Napoleon seemed to rule the present and the future. Even those who had fought against him had become his courtiers. The most illustrious of these, the Archduke Charles, to whom he had just sent the broad ribbon of the Legion of Honor, as well as a simple cross of a knight, which was more precious because he himself had worn it, wrote to him: “Sire, Your Majesty’s Ambassador has transmitted to me the decorations of the Legion of Honor, and the affectionate letter with which you have honored me. Being deeply impressed by these tokens of your goodwill, I hasten to express to Your Majesty my sincere gratitude, which is only equalled by my admiration for Your Majesty’s great qualities. The esteem of a great man is the fairest flower of the field of honor, and I have always jealously desired, Sire, to merit yours.”
A stranger thing yet: even the Spanish Bourbons, the victims of the Bayonne treachery, the princes whom Napoleon had ousted, set no limits to their adulation. Nowhere was the Emperor’s marriage with Marie Louise celebrated with greater show of enthusiasm than at the castle of Valencay, where Ferdinand III. was living. The Spanish Prince had a _Te Deum_ sung in the chapel; he gave a banquet, at which he proposed this toast: “To the health of our August Sovereigns, the great Napoleon and Marie Louise, his August spouse.” In the evening there were magnificent fireworks. He chose that moment when his subjects were exposing themselves to every danger, welcoming every sacrifice in their bitter war in his name, against the French, to beg Napoleon to adopt him as his son and to concede to him the honor of letting him appear at court.
XVII.
THE MONTH OF JUNE, 1810.
The whole month of June was filled with a succession of brilliant festivities. Under the Empire things were not done by halves; battles or balls, everything was on a vast scale. “Never,” says Alfred de Musset, “were there so many sleepless nights as during this man’s lifetime; never was there such a silence when any one spoke of death: and yet, never was there so much joy, so much life, so much warlike feeling in every heart; never had there been a brighter sun than that which dried so much blood. It was said that God had created it for this man, and it was called the sun of Austerlitz; but he made it himself with his ever-roaring cannon, that dispelled the clouds on the morrow of his victories.”
The entertainment given to the Emperor and Empress by the city of Paris, June 10, was magnificent. There were great rejoicings in the capital on that day. In the afternoon there were public sports in the Champs Elysees, and dancing in the open places and the long walks. With nightfall the illuminations began. A troupe of mountebanks performed on a huge stage a ballet in pantomime, called the “Union of Mars and Flora.” There were as many as five hundred performers. There were bands playing in every direction, and food was distributed to the contented multitude. From the Arc to the Tuileries, from the Tuileries to the Louvre, from the Louvre to the Hotel de Ville, the spectacle was really fairy-like. Napoleon and Marie Louise, starting from Saint Cloud at eight in the evening, made their way, in torchlight, through a countless multitude. Their approach was announced to the people by the sudden ascent of a balloon, from which fireworks were discharged. At half-past nine they reached the Hotel de Ville. Nearly a thousand persons had gathered in the concert hall, almost three thousand in the record room, the Hall of Saint John, and in the semicircular place in front, opposite the spot, on the left bank of the Seine, where the fireworks were to be set off at a signal of Napoleon and Marie Louise. These fireworks were divided into three parts, representing a military scene, the Temple of Peace, and the Temple of Hymen. In the first there were two forts which soldiers were assaulting, firing their guns amid the sound of trumpets and the rattle of drums. The forts were discharging shells and bullets, which burst into flame, and were reflected in the water before they fell into the river. When the two forts were captured, they disappeared in a great blaze. Then the ship, the symbol of the city of Paris, appeared and took its station between two columns of light. The decoration changed, and first the Temple of Peace was seen, then that of Hymen–a real pyrotechnic masterpiece. After the fireworks the Emperor and Empress went first into the record room, then into the concert hall, where was sung a cantata, with words by Arnault and music by Mehul, which began with this apostrophe to the Empress:–
“From the throne where our homage rises to you, From the throne where beauty reigns by the side of courage, And Minerva by the side of Mars,
On these shores of which love has made you sovereign, On these happy shores adorned by the Seine, Louise, cast thy glance.”
After the cantata a ball began. Napoleon did not dance, but Marie Louise did. The first quadrille was thus made up: the Empress and the King of Westphalia, the Queen of Naples and the Viceroy of Italy, Princess Pauline Borghese and Prince Esterhazy, Mademoiselle de Saint-Gilles and M. de Nicolai. The second quadrille: the Queen of Westphalia and Prince Borghese, the Princess of Baden and Count Metternich, the Princess Aldobrandini and M. de Montaran, Madame Blaque de Belair and M. Mallet. The Emperor descended from his throne and walked through the room, exchanging a few words with a great many people. About midnight he withdrew with the Empress. At two o’clock supper was served: at this fifteen hundred ladies were present, and the ball went on till daybreak.
Princess Pauline Borghese gave a very brilliant entertainment June 14, at the castle of Neuilly. At the end of an illuminated lawn appeared the Austrian palace of Laxenburg, and the ballet consisted of dancers arrayed like peasants of the neighborhood of Vienna. June 21, another great ball was given by the Duke of Feltre, the Minister of War. But the finest, the most original, the grandest ball, was that given by the Imperial Guard at the Champ de Mars and the Military School, at that time called the Napoleon quarter. Marie Louise was thoroughly delighted with it; she said she had never seen anything so magnificent. Never had Rome under the Caesars seen a more gorgeous spectacle. For many months the public had been watching the vast preparations for this event. Two wings had been added to the Military School, large enough to hold eight thousand persons. The main courtyard had been transformed into a garden in which were set out numberless orange-trees, shrubs, and flowers. The officers of the Guard, who were models of French politeness, received the ladies at the entrance of this garden, offering each one a bouquet, and escorted them to the galleries which led to the two newly constructed buildings, one of which was the ball-room; the other, the supper-room. The ball-room was shaped like a tent, and the ceiling was decorated with the signs of the Zodiac and allegorical representation of a triumph. A throne was set there, above seven rows of seats. All around the room hung muslin draperies, on which were embroidered gold bees and branches of myrtle and laurel. When the Emperor and Empress appeared at seven o’clock, three thousand women, each with a bouquet in her hand, rose at once. It seemed like a living flower-garden. The wives of the most illustrious officers of the Guard, the Duchess of Dalmatia, of Treviso, of Istria, Countess Walter, Dorsenne, Curial, Saint-Sulpice, Lefebore, Desnonettes, Krasenska, Baronesses Kirgener, Lubenska, Guiot, Gros, Delaistre and Lepic, had been chosen to escort the Empress. Marshal Bessieres, Duke of Istria, presented her with a magnificent bouquet.
Meanwhile the Champ de Mars, which was covered with flags, was filled with three or four hundred thousand spectators, who had assembled quietly, without crowding, on the terrace, the amphitheatres, and in the walks. When Napoleon and Marie Louise showed themselves on the balcony of the Military School, there broke out loud applause. Afterwards dinner was served to the Imperial family. When that was finished, they gave the signal for the horse and chariot races. Franconi’s equestrian troupe gave performances in the intervals. When all the prizes had been given, a balloon, carrying a woman, Madame Blanchard, made an ascent. She saluted the Imperial pair, waved a flag, threw down flowers, and speedily attained a great height. Then there were fireworks. Amid rockets, bombs, and shooting-stars, two pretty young women walked up and down on the tight rope, like magical apparitions, amid the encircling flames. After the fireworks a ballet was performed by the dancers from the Opera, under the direction of Gardel; it represented the different nations of Europe in their national dress. After the ballet came the ball, which was most animated. Napoleon and Marie Louise left towards midnight, escorted to their carriage by most of the guests, who cheered, and did not return to the ball-room until the Emperor and Empress had gone out of sight. This exceptional entertainment was favored by pleasant weather and a bright night; the moon and the stars seemed to rival the illuminations. The main courtyard, filled with trees and flowers, was like the enchanted garden of Armida, where one walked amid delicious music. At two in the morning the doors of the supper-room were opened, a large bower of gilded trellis work, with Corinthian columns, and a roof covered with frescoes representing groups of children sporting in the air amid flowers and garlands. About fifteen hundred people sat down to table.
The Imperial Guard had every reason to be proud of its entertainment. The officers, young, brilliant, devoted to pleasure as to glory, found their life more joyous as war threatened to make it short. They displayed the same ardor, the same enthusiasm, in the ball-room as on the battle-field. They loved the smell of flowers as much as the smell of gunpowder. Every form of conquest tempted them, and they revived the customs of chivalry. In the language of the time, there flourished the twofold reign of Mars and Venus. In those heroic days courage was set higher than wealth. The women, with few exceptions, were indifferent to money; they did not think that an honorable scar disfigured a soldier’s face, and the disinterested kindness of a beauty was the reward of bravery.
XVIII.
THE BALL AT THE AUSTRIAN EMBASSY.
The series of grand entertainments which had been given in Paris was to be concluded by a ball, which Prince Schwarzenberg, the Austrian Ambassador, was to give at the Embassy, July 1, 1810, to the Emperor and Empress; it had been announced that this was to be a marvel of luxury, elegance, and good taste. The Ambassador lived in the rue de la Chaussee d’Antin, in a mansion formerly belonging to the Marchioness of Montesson, widow of the Duke of Orleans, to whom this lady had been united by a morganatic marriage. Great preparations had been made with extraordinary magnificence. Since the ground floor of the house was too small, a large ball-room of wood had been built, reached by a gallery, also of wood, leading from the body of the house. The ceiling of this gallery was covered with varnished paper, decorated and painted; the floor-boards, which were supported on a framework, were raised to the same height as the floors of the house. A large chandelier hung from the ceiling of the ball-room. The sides and the circuit of the gallery were lit by candelabra fastened to the walls. A high platform was reserved for the Imperial family, in the centre of the right-hand side of the ball-room, directly opposite a large door opening on the garden. Behind the platform was a small door reserved for the sovereigns. The Ambassador and his wife had staying with them his brother and sister-in-law, Prince Joseph and Princess Pauline Schwarzenberg, who were to help him in doing the honors of the ball.
Napoleon and Marie Louise, who started from Saint Cloud, reached the gates of Paris at quarter to ten; there they got into another carriage, and soon after ten were at the door of the Embassy, where the Ambassador received them. The Emperor wore over his coat the broad Austrian ribbon of Saint Stephen.
The grand ball was opened; a troupe of musicians in the court of honor sounded a flourish of trumpets at the entrance of Their Majesties, who passed through the concert hall into the garden, where they stopped a moment before the Temple of Apollo. There women, dressed to resemble the Muses, sang a joyous chorus. Napoleon and Marie Louise passed slowly along a water-walk, where hidden music issued from a subterranean grotto, to a vine-clad arbor adorned with mirrors, monograms, flowers, and wreaths, and listened to a concert of vocal and instrumental music, French and German; then they went further into the garden, stopping before a Temple of Glory, where were four handsome women representing Victory, the muse Clio, and Renown; then trumpets sounded, triumphal songs were sung, and perfumes were burning on golden tripods. Then they turned to see a delightful ballet danced on the greensward, with a view of the Palace of Laxenburg–so dear to Marie Louise–in the background; that done, they entered the wooden gallery just put up before the front of the mansion, and finally entered the ball-room, which was large enough to hold about fifteen hundred people.
It was midnight, and so far everything had gone on without a hitch. The Emperor and Empress seemed delighted; the Ambassador was radiant; every one was enchanted with the magic of the spectacle. The ball was opened with a quadrille, in which the Queen of Naples danced with Prince Esterhazy, and Prince Eugene de Beauharnais with Princess Pauline de Schwarzenberg. When that was over, the Emperor descended from his throne to walk through the room; while the Empress, the Queen of Naples, and the Vice-Queen of Italy remained in their places on the platform. Napoleon had just come up to Princess Pauline de Schwarzenberg, who had presented to him the princesses, her daughters, when suddenly the flame of a candle set fire to the curtains of a window. Count Dumanoir, the Emperor’s chamberlain, and several officers tried to tear the curtains down; but the flames continued to spread, and in less than three minutes they had reached the ceiling, and all the light decorations which hung from it were ablaze. Count Metternich, who happened to be at the foot of the platform, at once ran up to tell the Empress what had happened, and to persuade her to follow him as soon as possible. As to the Emperor, who was as cool as if he were on the battle-field, he was able to reach the platform to join Marie Louise, and to escape with her to the garden, urging every one to be calm in order to avoid disorder.
Fortunately the means of exit were wide, and the greater part of the guests were able to find refuge in the garden; but, alas! there were many accidents and many victims. It so happened that just when the fire started a great many young girls had left their mothers to dance a schottische; their mothers tried to find them, and they tried to find their mothers, amid wild shrieks and the most desperate confusion. Wives called for their husbands, parents for their children. The officers of the Imperial Guard gathered about Napoleon with drawn swords, for at first they suspected treachery and waited for some further development of a malicious plot. Prince Schwarzenberg, who did not leave the Emperor, said to him: “I know how this room is built; it is doomed; but there are so many exits that every one can escape. Sire, I shall cover you with my body.” Napoleon, under his protection, reached the platform with composure, took the Empress by the hand, and succeeded in going out with her. They passed through the garden, got into a carriage, and drove to the Place Louis XV., where they separated, the Empress pushing on to Saint Cloud, while the Emperor, retracing his steps, went back to the Austrian Embassy, where he hoped to be able to help extinguish the fire.
The Ambassador, who had accompanied Napoleon and Marie Louise to their carriage, went back to the house, then a hideous scene of destruction. A storm had arisen, and a violent wind had spread the ravaging flames in every direction. The Queen of Westphalia had fainted and had been rescued by Count Metternich; the Queen of Naples, Prince Eugene, and his wife, who was in a delicate condition, had remained on the platform. The Queen tried to escape by the main door, by which the Emperor and the Empress had left; but this was speedily so blocked up by the crowd that she, who was behind every one, would certainly have been caught by the flames, like many others, had it not been for the assistance of the Grand Duke of Wuerzburg and of Marshal Marcey, who seized her and forced a way for her. Prince Eugene saw the chandelier fall, and the passage across the room wholly blocked; but, fortunately, he noticed the little door which led into the house, and through that he escaped with his wife. The Ambassador beheld the calamity with despair. His wife was brought out senseless, but untouched by the flames. He saw his brother, Prince Joseph de Schwarzenberg, running to and fro, wild with grief and disquiet; he was looking for his wife, Princess Pauline de Schwarzenberg, and could not find her. What had become of the unhappy mother? When the fire broke out, knowing her eldest daughter, Eleonore, to be safe, she had run to the assistance of her second daughter, Pauline, who was dancing the schottische, and led her speedily to the steps of the entrance, where the crowd was surging amid the flames. A moment more, and mother and daughter were safe: they had but a few steps to take to be on the staircase and then in the garden, but suddenly a falling beam separated mother and child, and the staircase broke down beneath the weight of the struggling crowd. Missing her daughter, the courageous princess plunged once more into the ballroom. No one knew what had become of her; in the cruel, heart-wringing uncertainty the stern face of the Ambassador was wet with tears.
Napoleon returned to the Embassy, and directing everything, supervising everything as on a battlefield, there he stayed more than two hours, exposed to a heavy rain which began after the fire, and to all the heat and smoke. Alone, unguarded, evidently anxious to dispel all misinterpretation which malevolence could draw from the unhappy event, he displayed great energy and perfect self-possession.
It was not till four in the morning that he returned to Saint Cloud, where he had been most anxiously awaited. “From the time that the Empress arrived,” we read in Constant’s Memoirs, “we had felt the keenest anxiety; every one in the palace had been most uneasy about the Emperor. At last he arrived, unharmed, but very tired; his dress in disorder, his face scorched, his clothes and stockings all blackened and singed by the fire. He went straight to the Empress’s room, to console her for the fright she had had; then he went to his own room, flung his hat on the bed, dropped into an easy-chair, saying, ‘Heavens! what a festivity!’ I noticed that his hands were all blackened; he had lost his gloves at the fire. He was overwhelmed with sadness, and he spoke with an emotion such as I had seen in him only two or three times in his life, and never about his own misfortunes. I remember that he expressed a fear that the terrible event of that night betokened future calamities. Three years later, in the Russian campaign, he was told one day that Prince Schwarzenberg’s army corps had been destroyed, and that the Prince himself had perished. It happened that the news was false; but when it was brought to the Emperor, he said, as if in accordance with a thought that had long haunted him, ‘It was he then whom that evil omen threatened!'”
The morning of the next day Napoleon sent his pages to learn the news. The accounts they brought back were most gloomy: the Princess de la Leyen had died from her injuries; General Touzart was in a desperate condition, as well as his wife and daughter, who, in fact, died the same day. Prince Kourakine, the Russian Ambassador, was seriously injured; he had made a misstep on the staircase leading to the garden, and had fallen senseless into the flames, which, fortunately, had been unable to get through his coat of cloth of gold and the decorations which covered him like a cuirass; nevertheless, it was many months before he recovered. “Prince Joseph de Schwarzenberg,” says the _Moniteur_ of July 3, 1810, “spent the night in looking for his wife, whom he could not find at the Embassy or at Madame Metternich’s. He was still ignorant of his loss when at daybreak there was found in the ball-room a corpse which Dr. Gall thought that he recognized as that of the Princess Pauline de Schwarzenberg. Further doubt was impossible when her jewels with her children’s initials, which she wore about her neck, were recognized. Princess Pauline de Schwarzenberg was the daughter of the Senator von Avenberg, and the mother of eight children. She was as renowned for her personal charms as for the distinction of her mind and heart. The act of devotion which cost her her life shows how much her loss is to be regretted, for death was certain amid the fury of the flames. Only a mother would have dared to face the danger.”
The _Moniteur_ adds to this pathetic account: “The Austrian Ambassador during the whole night displayed the zeal, the activity, the calmness, and the presence of mind to be expected of him. The members of the Embassy and the Austrians who were present were tireless in their courage and devotion. The public has been most grateful to the Ambassador for insisting on accompanying the Emperor and the Empress to their carriage, without regard to the dangers to which his family was exposed. The Emperor left the spot at about three in the morning. During the rest of the night he sent several times for information about the fate of the Princess Schwarzenberg. It was not until five o’clock that he received word of her death. His Majesty, who held this princess in the highest esteem, sincerely regrets her sad lot. The Empress exhibited the most perfect calmness throughout the evening. When she heard this morning of the death of Princess Pauline de Schwarzenberg, she burst into tears.”
The young Princess Pauline, the daughter of the woman who had perished, was for a long time in a state that caused the utmost anxiety. Her mother’s death was concealed from her, but she became uneasy at her absence, and read on her father’s face the marks of the grief which he tried to conceal. At last she recovered; later she married Prince Schoenburg; but her wounds reopened, and she died a few years later, a victim, like her mother, of the fatal ball.
The day after these occurrences Marie Louise wrote a letter in German to her father, in which she said: “I did not lose my head. Prince Schwarzenberg led the Emperor and me out of the place, through the garden. I am the more grateful because he left his wife and son in the burning room. The panic and confusion were terrible. If the Grand Duke of Wuerzburg had not carried the Queen of Naples away, she would have been burned alive. My sister-in-law Catherine, who thought her husband was in the midst of the fire, swooned away. The Viceroy had to carry his wife off. Not a single one of my ladies or of my officers was by me. General Lauriston, who adores his wife, cried out in the most lamentable way, and impeded us in our flight. I was calmer then than when the Emperor left me again. We sat up with Caroline until four in the morning, when he came back, wet through with the rain. The Duchess of Rovigo, one of my ladies, is seriously burned. The Countesses Bucholz and Loewenstein, the Queen of Westphalia’s ladies, are also injured…. Lauriston, in saving his wife, had his hair and forehead singed. Prince Kourakine was so severely injured that he lost consciousness; in the panic the crowd trampled upon him, and he was dragged out half dead. Prince Metternich is hardly hurt at all. Prince Charles Schwarzenberg, who insisted on staying until every one had got out, is badly burned. The poor Ambassador is beside himself, though he is in no way responsible for the calamity.”
Marie Louise, who had been interrupted at this point, continued as follows: “I have just come from the Emperor, where I heard a terrible piece of news. Princess Pauline Schwarzenberg has been found, burned to a crisp…. Her diamonds were lying near her. She wore on her neck a heart in brilliants, on which were engraved the names of her two daughters, Eleonore and Pauline, and it was by this that she was recognized. She leaves eight children, and was expecting another. Her family is inconsolable. Kourakine is very low; so is Madame Durosnel, the general’s wife. I am so distressed that I cannot stir.”
The Emperor Francis wrote to his son-in-law about this distressing event: “July 15. My Brother and very dear Son-in-law,–It is with the greatest satisfaction that I have heard that Your Imperial Majesty, as well as the Empress, my beloved daughter, has escaped the melancholy accidents that occurred at the ball of my Ambassador, Prince Schwarzenberg. I cannot express to you, my brother, my gratitude for the tokens of your interest which you manifested on that occasion, and for your personal exertions, as noble as they were courageous, to arrest the progress of the disaster. Count Metternich and Prince Schwarzenberg cannot find words to express their profound gratitude for your kindness and anxiety, and I beg Your Majesty to receive this expression of all that I have experienced in reading their reports.”
The calamity produced a most melancholy impression. It recalled to every one the disasters that attended the festivities given to Marie Antoinette forty years before. This ball, followed by a horrid catastrophe, this grand drawing-room, vanishing in flames, were they not omens of evil? Was not the great empire to perish in the same way? This fire, bursting forth in a night of revelry and triumph, was it not like a prophecy of a still more terrible fire, that which laid Moscow in ashes? But nations have short memories; gloomy presentiments soon vanish. The Empire was then so glorious that a passing incident could not seriously disturb it, and a few days after the catastrophe it was forgotten. Every one, even the enemies of France, felt the fascination of this most wonderful career which formed the strangest and most improbable of romances.
XIX.
THE BIRTH OF THE KING OF ROME.
Napoleon and Marie Louise grew fonder and fonder of each other as time went on. The Empress wrote to her father: “I assure you, dear papa, that people have done great injustice to the Emperor. The better one knows him, the better one appreciates and loves him.” Napoleon’s satisfaction was even greater when he learned that his young wife was to bring him an heir; he redoubled his solicitous attention and regards; he never blamed her, he uttered only words of praise and tenderness. This extract from Metternich’s Memoirs will serve to show how anxious the Emperor was at this time to spare his wife every form of annoyance: “In the summer of 1810, Napoleon asked me to wait after one of his levees at Saint Cloud. When we were alone, he asked me, with some embarrassment, if I would do him a great favor. ‘It’s about the Empress,’ he said; ‘you see she is young and inexperienced, and she does not understand the ways of this country or the French character. I have given her the Duchess of Montebello for a companion; she is an excellent woman, but sometimes a little indiscreet. Yesterday, for example, when she was walking with the Empress in the park, she presented one of her cousins to her. The Empress talked with him, and that was a mistake. If she is going to have young men, and second and third cousins, presented to her, she will become the tool of intrigues. Every one in France has always some favor to ask. The Empress will be besieged, and will be exposed to a thousand annoyances, without being able to do anything for anybody.’ I told Napoleon that I quite agreed with him, but that I did not see why he confided this matter to me. ‘It is,’ said Napoleon, ‘because I want you to speak about it to the Empress.’ I expressed my surprise that he did not do that himself. ‘Your opinion is sound and wise, and the Empress is too intelligent not to regard it.’ ‘I prefer,’ said Napoleon,’that you should do this. The Empress is young, and she might think that I am merely a cross husband; you are her father’s minister and an old friend; what you may say will have a great deal more weight with her than any words of mine.'”
Napoleon manifested great regard, not for his wife alone, but also for his father-in-law, of whom he always spoke with warm sympathy. When Count Metternich came to bid farewell before returning to Vienna, at the end of September, 1810, Napoleon charged him to convey to the Emperor Francis the most positive assurances of his friendship and devotion. “The Emperor must be sure,” he said, “that my only wish is for his happiness and prosperity. He must reject any idea of my encroaching on his monarchy. That cannot fail to grow, and speedily too, through our alliance. Assure him that anything which he may hear to the contrary is false. I had rather have him than any one of my own brothers on the Austrian throne, and I don’t see any cause for quarrel between us.”
Early in July, when their hopes were still vague, Marie Louise wrote to her father: “Heaven grant that they may prove true! The Emperor would be so happy!” And later she wrote: “I can assure you, dear papa, that I look forward without dread to this event, which will be a great happiness.” The official notification of her condition was not made till November, when Napoleon sent the Baron de Mesgrigny to Vienna with two letters, one from himself and one from the Empress, to the Emperor Francis. “This letter,” Marie Louise wrote, “is to announce to you, dear papa, the great news. I take this opportunity to ask your blessing for me and for your grandchild. You may imagine my delight. It will be complete if the event shall bring you to Paris.” The hope of seeing her father soon was continually present with her, and Napoleon encouraged it. As she wrote to her father, “My husband often speaks of you and is anxious to see you again.”
The Emperor Francis answered his son-in-law, December 3, 1810, in these terms: “My Brother and very Dear Son-in-law,–The letter which M. de Mesgrigny has handed to me fills me with the liveliest joy. The happy event which it mentions arouses my fullest sympathy. My best wishes go out to you, my brother, and the present condition of things which your letter announces, is too intimately connected with our reciprocal satisfaction for me not to set the greatest store, as friend and father, by the news you give me. Everything which Your Majesty says about your domestic happiness is corroborated by my daughter; in no way can you, my brother, contribute more directly to my own. I knew the excellent traits of my daughter when I entrusted her to you, and Your Imperial Majesty must be sure that my only consolation for the separation is her happiness, which is inseparable from that of her husband.”
Napoleon asked of the Bishops and Archbishops special prayers in behalf of the Empress. December 2, the anniversary of his coronation, and of the battle of Austerlitz, he gave an audience to the Senate, who came to thank him for the notification of the Empress’s expectations. At the Tuileries that day was celebrated by mass a _Te Deum_, an illumination, and a play. Twelve young girls, who were dowered by the Empress, were married in the Cathedral, and there was a generous distribution of alms.
The Emperor founded a society of Maternal Charity, to aid poor women during their confinement. The Empress was appointed patroness of the society, and Mesdames de Segur and de Pastoret Vice-Presidents; a thousand ladies joined it, and fifteen held offices; there was a Grand Council which sat in Paris, and administrative councils were appointed for the provinces. The Grand Almoner was made secretary, and there was a general treasurer. The capital of the society amounted to five hundred thousand francs, raised in part from the public funds, and in part by voluntary subscriptions, which soon furnished the required sum.
New Year’s Day was approaching, and Marie Louise desired a set of Brazilian rubies, costing forty-six thousand francs. As she wanted to make some presents to her sisters, and these cost twenty-five thousand francs, she saw that only fifteen thousand francs would be left of her December allowance. Consequently she denied herself the rubies, and forbore to say anything about them to the Emperor. But Napoleon happened to hear of it, and was delighted with his wife’s economy and sense of order, which he rewarded in the most delicate manner. He secretly ordered of the crown-jeweller a set of rubies like the one she had wanted, but worth between three and four hundred thousand francs, and surprised her with these, an attention by which she was highly gratified. He asked her at the same time if she had thought of sending any New Year’s presents to her sisters, the Archduchesses. She answered yes, and that she had ordered for the young Princesses presents worth together something like twenty-five thousand francs. Napoleon thought that a rather small sum; but she told him that they were not so spoiled as she was, and that they would think their presents superb. Then the Emperor presented her with a hundred thousand francs.
In January, 1811, the Emperor thus thanked Napoleon for a portrait of his daughter, the Empress:–
“My Brother,–The delicate way in which Your Imperial Majesty has fulfilled my wishes by sending me the portrait of the Empress, your dear wife, lends a new value to the letter you have written to me. I hasten to give expression to the joy which I feel in seeing the features of my beloved daughter, which seem to add to a perfect likeness the merit of expressing her happiness in a congenial marriage.”
The Countess of Montesquiou, a most worthy woman, was appointed Governess of the Imperial children, with two assistants, Mesdames de Mesgrigny and de Boubers, and later a third, Madame Soufflot. A nurse was chosen,–a sturdy, healthy woman, wife of a joiner at Fontainebleau; and two cribs were prepared,–a blue one for a prince, a pink one for a princess. The baby-linen, which was valued at three hundred thousand francs, aroused the admiration of all the ladies of the court.
In January and February, 1811, Marie Louise still went about. She drove to the hunt in the forest of Vincennes, in that of Saint Germain, and at Versailles. She used to walk in the Bois de Boulogne with Napoleon. Towards the middle of February great preparations began to be made for the happy event. Dr. Dubois was installed at the Tuileries, in the apartments of the Grand Marshal of the Palace, and the Duchess of Montebello, lady-in-waiting, took up her quarters in the palace. Marie Louise, who had gone to a fancy ball at the Duchess of Rovigo’s, February 10, was present on the 25th at a quiet ball given at the Tuileries, at which were present only two strangers,–Prince Schwarzenberg, the Austrian Ambassador, and Prince Leopold of Coburg.
March 5 Count Frochot, Prefect of the Seine, came to the Tuileries, at the head of the Municipal Council, to present, in the name of the city of Paris, a magnificent red cradle, shaped like a ship, the emblem of the capital. This cradle, a real masterpiece, had been designed by Prudhon the artist, and is now in the Imperial Treasury of Vienna, to which it was given by the King of Rome when Duke of Reichstadt. The ornamentation, which is in mother-of-pearl and vermilion, is set on a ground of orange-red velvet. It is formed of a pillar of mother-of-pearl, on which are set gold bees, and is supported by four cornucopias, near which are set the figures of Force and Justice. At the top there is a shield with the Emperor’s initials, surrounded by three rows of ivy and laurel. A figure representing Glory overhanging the world, holds a crown, in the middle of which shines Napoleon’s star. A young eagle at the foot of the cradle is gazing at the conqueror’s star, with wings spread as if about to take flight. A curtain of lace, covered with stars and ending in rich gold embroidery, hangs over each side.
When Marie Louise’s walks were limited to the terrace of the Tuileries, by the side of the sheet of water that bounds the garden, a small doorway with an iron grating was thrown open into the first floor of the palace, to make easier her access to the spot. Around the grating the crowd used to gather to watch the Empress and respectfully to offer her their best wishes.
At nine o’clock in the evening of March 19th, 1811, the great bell of Notre Dame and all the church bells sounded, bidding the faithful spend the night in prayer and to invoke the blessings of Heaven on their Empress and the child which was about to enter the world. With Marie Louise there were M. Dubois, the Duchess of Montebello, the Countess of Lucay, Mesdames Durand and Ballant, ladies-in-waiting, ladies of the bedchamber, etc., and Madame Blaise. The Emperor, his mother and sisters, and two physicians, Drs. Corvisart and Bourdier, were in the next room. Napoleon kept going in and out of his wife’s chamber, encouraging her with kind and cheery words. At five in the morning Dubois thought that the birth was not immediate, and the Emperor sent away the princesses, and, tired out by anxiety and his prolonged watch, went to take a bath. But Dubois soon found that he was mistaken, and ran to get Napoleon. He was trembling with anxiety when he burst open the door of the Emperor’s room, finding him in his bath, and told him that he feared that he should not be able to save both the mother and the child. “Come, come, Mr. Dubois,” exclaimed Napoleon, “don’t lose your head; save the mother; think only of the mother…. Imagine she’s some shopkeeper’s wife in the Rue Saint Denis, that’s all I ask of you; and, in any case,–I repeat it,–save the mother…. I shall be with you in a moment.” Thereupon he sprang out of his bath, threw himself into a dressing-gown, and hastened to Marie Louise’s bedside. He found her in great suffering, and grew very pale. Never on the field of battle had he displayed such emotion; but he tried to hide his anguish, and kissed his wife very gently, reassuring her with tender words. But, unable to control himself, and fearful of adding to her already excessive alarm, he hurriedly went into the next room, and there, listening to every sound, as pale as death, trembling from head to foot, he passed a quarter of an hour in intense anxiety. At last, and with difficulty, the child was born; at first it was supposed to be dead, and for seven minutes it gave no sign of life. The Emperor hastened to Marie Louise and kissed her most tenderly. He thought only of her; he did not give a look to the child. He had decided to care for nothing if only the Empress was saved. A few drops of brandy were poured into the prince’s mouth; he was gently slapped all over and wrapped in hot towels, and he came to life with a little cry. Napoleon, wild with joy, kissed him. The thought that he had a son filled him with rapture such as none of his triumphs had given him. “Well, gentlemen,” he said, when he went back to his own room, “we have got a fine, healthy boy. We had to urge him a little, to persuade him to come, but there he is at last!” And then he added, with deep emotion: “My dear wife! What courage she has, and how she has suffered! I had rather never have any more children than see her suffer so much again.”
All this while the people of Paris were in a state of expectancy, wondering whether the child was to be a boy or a girl. If a boy, he would have a fine-sounding name. According to a decree calling the Eternal City the second city of the French Empire, which had become the capital of a simple department,–the department of the Tiber,–and in accordance with old usages of the Holy German Empire, by which the prince destined to succeed the Germanic Caesar, was called King of the Romans before bearing the title of Emperor, Napoleon’s son was to be called the King of Rome. But would Napoleon have a son? Would Heaven crown his unexampled prosperity with this new favor? That was the subject of conversation everywhere, in the grandest mansions as in the humblest garrets. From daybreak of March 20th the Tuileries garden was crowded with people of all ages and conditions. The courtyards and quays were thronged. In the garden, along the terrace, in front of the palace, a rope was stretched from the grating by the Pont Royal to the Pavilion de l’Horloge. The crowd was so fearful of disturbing the Empress that this frail barrier, this simple rope, was more respected than would have been a lofty wall. The assemblage, which had been growing ever since six o’clock, remained at some distance from the rope, and only spoke in a low voice. They waited in extreme impatience, yet in perfect quiet, for the sound of the cannon of the Invalides. If it was a girl, only twenty-one guns would be fired; if a boy, there would be a hundred and one…. Every window was opened; in the squares and streets everything stood still,–foot-passengers, horses, carriages. The cannon of the Invalides was heard, and the anxious multitudes in deep emotion began to count, at first very low, but gradually louder–one, two, three, four, and so on up to twenty. Then the excitement was tremendous. Twenty-one. Is that all? No; there is the twenty-second, and the rest of the hundred and one are to follow; but there was no more need of counting: Napoleon had a son! At once the enthusiasm of the multitude broke forth like a volcano. Cheers, hats tossed in the air, loud cries of joy, universal, noisy delight, what a sight for the Emperor, as he stood at one of the Empress’s windows, gazing in silence at the rapturous crowd! Tears flowed down his cheeks. “Never had his glory brought a tear to his eyes,” Constant informs us; “but the happiness of fatherhood softened this soul which the most brilliant victories, the sincerest tributes of public adoration, had left untouched. Indeed, if Napoleon ever had reason to believe in his good fortune, it was on the day when the Archduchess of Austria made him the father of a king, him who had begun as the younger son of a Corsican family. In a few hours the event which France and Europe had been awaiting was a festival in every family.”
At half-past ten the aeronaut, Madame Blanchard, set forth in a balloon from the Champ de Mars, to throw down papers announcing the great news to the populace. The telegraph, unimpeded by any mist,–for it was a lovely spring day,–began to work in every direction, and by two o’clock answers had been received from Lyons, Brussels, Antwerp, Brest, and other large towns of the Empire. All of course gave expression to the wildest enthusiasm. In the course of the day Napoleon wrote to his father-in-law, the Emperor of Austria, to inform him of the happy event. “These are very good letters,” he said; “I have never written better ones.” Officers of the Emperor’s household, pages, and couriers were despatched with letters and messages for the great bodies of the State, for the towns and cities, for the Ambassadors and Ministers of France and other powers. The Empress Josephine was not forgotten; Napoleon sent a page to her in her castle of Navarre, in Normandy.
On the very day of his birth the King of Rome was privately christened at nine o’clock in the evening, in the chapel of the Tuileries, surrounded by his family and the court; the Emperor took his place in the middle of the chapel, on a chair with a prayer desk before it, beneath a canopy. Between the altar and the rail, on a granite base covered with white velvet, had been set a superb vermilion vase which served for the baptismal font. When Napoleon approached to present his son, there was a moment of religious silence, which contrasted with the noisy gayety of the vast crowd which had gathered near the Tuileries from every quarter of the city to see the fireworks and the magnificent illumination. “The houses,” Constant says in his Memoirs, “were illuminated voluntarily. Those who try to make out from the outside appearance the real thoughts of a people on occasions like this, observed that the highest stories in the remotest quarters were as bright as the most sumptuous mansions. The public buildings, which are generally most brilliant in contrast with the darkness of the neighboring houses, now were scarcely to be distinguished in the profusion of lights which the rejoicing public had set in every window. The boatmen improvised a festival which lasted nearly all night, and attracted a huge and happy crowd to the banks of the river. The populace who had been through so many emotions, had celebrated so many victories in the last thirty years, displayed as much enthusiasm as if this were the first of its festivities in honor of a happy change in its destiny,”
March 22, Napoleon received in the throne-room at the Tuileries the great bodies of the State.
“Your people,” said the President of the Senate, “greet with unanimous applause this new star rising above the horizon of France, whose first ray scatters every shadow of future gloom.”
When we think of the end of this matter, and reflect that this King of Rome was to be deprived not merely of his title of Prince Imperial and of King, but of the name of Napoleon and of Bonaparte, that he was destined to be known as Francis, Duke of Reichstadt, and to be buried in the Church of the Capuchins in Vienna, in Austrian uniform, is it possible to repress a sad smile at the simple optimism of courts? In 1811 illusions were universal. “Amid all our triumphs,” says General de Segur, “when even our enemies, at last resigning themselves to their fate, seemed hopeless, or had rallied to the side of our Emperor, what pretext was there for gloom, or for any foreboding of a total or partial eclipse? It was pleasanter to trust in his star, which dazzled us from its height, so many wonders had it wrought!… And how many of us, despite the ever-shifting sky of France, when we see it clear, are tempted to think that no change threatens, and are every day surprised by some sudden storm! Who, when he hears that some apparently healthy person has dropped dead, is not astonished? We were in just such case, when, March 20, 1811, Heaven, feeding our pride to make our humiliation deeper, vouchsafed the conclusion of the fairy-show and completed the illusion with the birth of the King of Rome.” Napoleon, in the enjoyment of every happiness and of every triumph, had reached the lofty summit of glory and prosperity; from this he was soon to fall in a swift, giddy flight, at the end of which opened a terrible abyss, full of blood and tears.
XX.
THE RECOVERY.
Marie Louise made a quick recovery, and her restoration to health delighted both her husband and herself. Her father, the Emperor of Austria, sympathized with their happiness, as is shown by the following letter of his to Napoleon, dated March 27, 1811: “My Dear Brother and Son-in-Law,–It is impossible for me to express in a formal letter of this sort the satisfaction I feel at the good news you have sent to me about my daughter. Your Majesty must already know my keen interest in an event of such importance, both for her and for France, as the birth of a prince, and the fact that this is safely over only augments my joy. May Heaven preserve this new pledge of the ties uniting us! Nothing could be more precious or surer to unite firmly the happy bonds existing between the two Empires.”
Napoleon, on the 20th of March, had despatched to Vienna Count Nicolai, who arrived there on the 28th. On that day Francis wrote to his son-in-law: “My Brother and Dear Son-in-Law,–Count Nicolai has this moment delivered to me the two letters of Your Majesty. Since I am unwilling to delay a courier, who is on the point of departure, and will carry to Your Majesty and to the Empress the first expressions of my delight at the happy event, I postpone my formal answer to Your Majesty’s invitation to hold his son at the baptismal font, but I hasten to take this opportunity to say that I accept so agreeable a duty.
“All the details which Your Majesty gives me about the birth of the prince arouse my sincerest interest. Your letter proves your kindness towards a wife who returns it with affection as deserved as it is sincere, and for this I hereby express all my gratitude. I thank you, too, for the full details you have written to me. I know the Empress well enough to be sure that, though her sufferings were great, the happiness of satisfying the wishes of Your Majesty and of your people is an ample compensation. I am sure that Your Majesty’s presence must have given her strength and her attendant confidence in difficult circumstances. Your Majesty has already so many claims upon my friendship that these details were not needed to induce me to cherish more and more the bonds that unite us, and which I charge my daughter and her son to make even closer.”
The health of Marie Louise and of the King of Rome was perfect. In order to respond to the eagerness of the crowd that was ever thick at the doors of the Tuileries in search of news about the Empress and the young prince, it had been decided that one of the chamberlains should be present all day in the first drawing-room of the grand apartment, to receive all who came and report to them the bulletin issued twice a day by the physicians. But soon that was stopped, and there were no more bulletins, the mother and child being perfectly well. April 6, Marie Louise got up and wrote six lines to her father. The 17th she walked on the terrace by the water, amid the applause of the crowd. The next day Prince Clary, whom the Emperor of Austria had sent from Vienna, was received. Napoleon spoke for a long time about the courage, the virtue, the kindness, the excellent education, the exquisite tact, and the perfect dignity of the Empress. “Moreover,” he added, “every one admires her.” The same day, April 18, the Empress drove in the Bois de Boulogne, and was present at a reception to receive the congratulations of the Diplomatic Body. The churching took place the next day, the 19th, in the chapel of the Tuileries. Prince Rohan officiated.
April 21, Marie Louise and the Emperor went to Saint Cloud, whence, two days later, she wrote to her father the following letter, published by M. von Helfert in German: “My dear Father,–You may imagine my great bliss. I never could have imagined that I could be so happy. My love for my husband has grown, if that is possible, since my son’s birth. I cannot think of his tenderness without tears. It would make me love him now, if I had never loved him before, for all his kind qualities. He tells me to speak to you about him. He often asks after you, and says, ‘Your father ought to be very happy to have a grandson.’ When I tell him that you already love my child, he is delighted. I am going to send you a portrait of the boy. I think you will see how much he looks like the Emperor. He is very strong for only five weeks. When he was born he weighed nine pounds. He is very well, and is in the garden all day long. The Emperor takes the greatest interest in him. He carries him about in his arms, plays with him, and tries to give him his bottle, but he does not succeed. You know from my uncle’s letter how much I suffered for twenty-two hours, but my happiness in being a mother makes me forget it. The baptism is set for the month of June. I am sorry that you are too busy to come. Heaven grant that you may come soon! I was glad to hear from Prince Clary that you are well. I hope that God will hear my prayers, and that dear mamma will soon be quite recovered. You may imagine how many questions I asked about you; for talking about you, about your kindness, is my greatest pleasure.”
The return of summer induced Napoleon to go to Rambouillet for a few days with the Empress, for the hunt. In this residence, which was simpler and smaller than the other Imperial castles, the Emperor had a taste of domestic life. He reached there May 13, and left on the 22d, to make a trip through Normandy. Marie Louise was so urgent that at last he decided to take her with him. The departments of Calvados and La Manche greeted them with the utmost enthusiasm. The Emperor celebrated his stay at Caen by granting favors and conferring benefits. Many young men of good family were appointed ensigns; one hundred and thirty thousand francs were distributed in charity. From Caen the Emperor and Empress went to Cherbourg to visit the works in the harbor, which had just been dug out of the granite rocks to the depth of fifty feet.
“What delight,” General de Segur writes in his Memoirs concerning this trip, “What delight, what admiration was ours! Great must have been Napoleon’s pride, judging from our own satisfaction which we received as old and trusted companions of so great a man!… I saw Cherbourg for the first time. This port, which Louis XVI. had designed simply for one of refuge, had been transformed by Napoleon into one from which an attack could be made. In those days of prodigies, however incapable of amazement I might have been, this roadstead, won by superhuman exertion from the ocean, this vast basin hewn to a depth of fifty feet in the granite, with accommodations for fifty men-of-war, for their building, for their repair, for their armament, filled me with an admiration such as I had felt at the first sight of the grandeur of the Alps.”
The day after his arrival at Cherbourg, Napoleon rode out early, visited the heights about the town and inspected different ships. The next day he presided at several meetings and visited the works of the navy-yard; then he went down to the bottom of the basin hewn out of the rock, which was to contain the ships-of-the-line, and to be covered by the water to a depth of fifty-five feet. “During our stay,” says M. de Bausset, “the Emperor wanted to breakfast on the dyke, or jetty, which had been begun in the unhappy reign of the most virtuous of kings. I got there before Their Majesties, on a most lovely day, and had everything arranged. The table was set in view of the sea; the English ships were plainly visible on the distant horizon; certainly they were far from suspecting Napoleon’s presence. There was still a strong battery on the breakwater to protect the roadstead and the harbor. I do not think that our neighbors would have ventured to salute us at closer quarters, even if they had been better informed. At a signal from the Emperor the squadron lying in the roadstead, consisting of three large ships, under the command of Admiral Tronde, put out under full sail and passed in front of the jetty on which we were…. The Admiral’s ship came up as close as it could; the Rear-Admiral came in his gig to fetch Their Majesties and their suite, and took us on board, amid the cheers of the crew, who were all in full uniform. While the Empress and her ladies were resting in the ward-room, Napoleon inspected the rest of the ship. Just when we least expected it, he ordered all the cannon to be fired together; never in my life did I hear such a noise: I thought that the ship was blowing up.”
Napoleon and Marie Louise were back at Saint Cloud June 4, 1811. The Empress, then in the full flower of her beauty, and radiant with happiness, had responded to the profuse manifestations of public enthusiasm by her gracious reception of the authorities and the people of the departments.
It would be hard to imagine all the homage paid at this time to the Imperial pair. Dithyrambs upon the birth of the King of Rome were composed in every language of Europe except the English. There was a real avalanche of poems, odes, epistles; in less than a week the Emperor received more than two thousand of these tributes. Probably he read very few of these extravagant compositions, which were crammed panegyrics and allegories of the Greek mythology. The sum of one hundred thousand francs was divided among the authors of these official poems. “Of all these memorials, the most curious that flattery ever elevated,” Madame Durand writes, “is a collection of French and Latin verses, entitled, ‘The Marriage and the Birth,’ which was printed at the Imperial press, and appointed by the University to be given as a prize to the pupils of the four grammar schools of Paris, and of those in the provinces, thereby assuring a ready sale. In this heap of trash figures the names of all the authors who, when the giant had fallen, insulted his remains and burned their incense before the new deity who took his place.
“As Beranger said about those poets:– “They are, like the confectioners,
Friends of every baptism.”
The _Moniteur_, in its number of June 9, 1811, the day of the King of Rome’s baptism, spoke as follows: “The happy event which, at the moment of writing these lines, is throughout this vast Empire the object of the thanksgivings which a great people can offer to Heaven; which inspire songs of happiness in our temples, our public places, our peaceful cities, our fertile fields, and in the camps of our invincible warriors; which fulfils at once the wishes of the people for the happiness of their Sovereign, and those of the Sovereign for the firm establishment of the institutions he has consecrated to the prosperity of his people, ought more than any other to kindle the fervor of our poets and fill them with a lively and noble inspiration. Yet no one of them has been able to disguise the difficulty of his task; all have recognized that their greatest efforts would be required, not only to rise to the height of a subject of which its greatness is the first peril, but even to attune their lyre to the pitch of the enthusiasm that fires us, an enthusiasm of which the mighty voice, filling all France and heard in the remotest corner of Europe, is itself the grandest hymn of poetry and the most harmonious music. But no such obstacle has discouraged their muse; admiration, gratitude, love, furnish a happy inspiration, and our poets have felt it; they have faithfully transcribed the language of the populace in the language ascribed to the gods.”
In proof of this we quote some of the verses inserted in the official organ:–
“Sion, rejoice! The voice of the prophets Announces again the days of the Eternal One. Before a young child, dear hope of Israel, The cedars of Lebanon will bow their heads. Of the oppressed he will become the support: He will punish crime, and will brand vice; His words will be the voice of justice, And the Spirit of the Lord will march before him.”
That is the Biblical style, which was used freely a few years later to celebrate the baptism of the Duke of Bordeaux. Mythology, too, was called in:–
“Do you see the leopard, weary of carnage, Sated with blood, towards his savage lair Run roaring?
Seized by an invincible, unknown terror, He announces his death, and flees at the sight Of a new-born Alcides.”
The poet Millevoye exclaimed:–
“With your head encircled with laurel and flowers, Come to reopen henceforth the progress of the year, Month long since consecrated to the lover of Venus! Triumph, and seize again thy faded garland, Which the friend of Egeria placed
On the double brow of Janus.”
M. Le Sur spoke about the Tiber in these terms:–
“The Tiber, too long drowsing on its urn, Lets grow in its bosom the silent reed. It awakens at the resonant noise of brass, And with a proud wave washing its shore’ Of its old heritage
It offers the remains to the Young Sovereign.”
A poet who was destined to become famous, and at that time was a scholar in the Lycee Napoleon, Casimir Delavigne, tried his muse, a youthful muse, according to the _Moniteur_:–
“Receive, royal child, the vows of the country. May thy father’s laurel shadow thy cradle! May glory and the arts, adorning thy life, Consecrate forever the happiest reign!
Child beloved of heaven, awaited by the earth, Promised to posterity,
May thou, under the eyes of thy August father, Grow to immortality!”
A professor famous for his Latin verses, M. Lemaire, was so fired by his lyrical enthusiasm that he compared Marie Louise to another Mary, the Queen of Heaven. Of the two queens,–one, he said, rules in Heaven; the other on earth:–
“Haec coelo regina micat; micat altera terris.”
XXI.
THE BAPTISM.
The baptism of the King of Rome was celebrated with great pomp, Sunday, June 7, 1811, at Notre Dame. The festivities began the evening before, when, at seven o’clock, Napoleon and Marie Louise and their son arrived from Saint Cloud with a grand retinue. The courtyard of the palace, the garden, and the terraces were filled with applauding spectators. Free performances were given at all the theatres, at which songs referring to the event were loudly cheered. Paris was illuminated, and in all the public places food was given away to the populace. Wine flowed in the fountains, and everywhere was drunk the health of the young king and of his happy parents.
The baptism took place at seven o’clock the next evening; at two in the afternoon troops of the line and the Imperial Guard formed a double row from the Tuileries to Notre Dame. Many public buildings and private houses were decorated with tapestry, leaves, and designs.
At four the Senate started from the Luxembourg, the Council of State from the Tuileries, the Court of Appeal, the Court of Accounts, the Council of the University, from their respective places of meeting. From the Hotel de Ville started the Prefect of the Seine, the Mayors and the Municipal Council of Paris, the Mayors and Deputies of forty-nine more or less important cities of the Empire. It was said that the Mayor of Rome and the Mayor of Hamburg happened to be placed side by side, and greeted one another with, “Good day, neighbor!”
Before the facade of Notre Dame had been built a large, tent-shaped portal, supported by columns and decorated with draperies and garlands. The interior of the Cathedral was brilliantly lit, and adorned with flags. The seats in the choir to the right had been reserved for foreign princes; those to the left, for the Diplomatic Body; the outer edge, for the wives of the ministers of the high crown officers, as well as for the households of the Imperial family; the sanctuary, for the twenty cardinals, and the hundred archbishops and bishops; the choir, for the Senate, the Council of State, the Mayors and Deputies of the forty-nine cities; the upper part of the nave, for the civil and military authorities; the rest of the nave, and the triforiums, for invited guests.
At five o’clock the mounted chasseurs of the Guard, who were at the head of the procession, began to move. But let us rather yield to the _Moniteur_, which is always lyrical and enthusiastic, whatever the Prince, imperial or royal, who is to be baptized: “At half-past five,” says the official organ, “the cannon, which had been firing at a certain distance ever since the evening before, announced the departure of Their Majesties from the Palace of the Tuileries, accompanied by their suite in the order prescribed by the programme. For the first time the public was able to behold the August infant whose royal name was to be consecrated under the auspices of religion. The effect that this sight produced upon every soul defies description. ‘Long live the King of Rome!’ was the uninterrupted acclamation all along the route. Their Majesties were greeted in the same way; their August names united in every mouth, with accents of love, respect, and gratitude. They seemed to appreciate this double homage, which was, in fact, but one alone, and they deigned to express their feeling in the most touching way to the attendant multitude.”
As the legendary grandmother says in Beranger’s _Memories of the People_, the weather was perfect, the Emperor radiant:–