43. The Divorced

Josephine had accepted her fate, and, descending from the imperial throne whose ornament she had long been, retired into the solitude and quietness of private life.

But the love and admiration of the French nation followed the empress to Malmaison, where she had retreated from the world, and where the regard and friendship, if not the love of Napoleon himself, endeavored to alleviate the sufferings of her solitude. During the first days after her divorce, the road from Paris to Malmaison presented as animated a scene of equipages as in days gone by, when the emperor resided there with his wife. All those whose position justified it, hastened to Malmaison to pay their respects to Josephine, and through the expressions of their sympathy to soften the asperities of her sorrow. Doubtless many came also through curiosity, to observe how the empress, once so much honored, endured the humiliation of her present situation. Others, believing they would exhibit their devotedness to the emperor if they should follow their master's example, abandoned the empress, as he had done, and took no further notice of her.

But the emperor soon undeceived the latter, manifesting his dissatisfaction by his cold demeanor and repelling indifference toward them, whilst he loudly praised all those who had exercised their gratitude by visiting Malmaison, and in expressing their devotedness to the empress.

He himself went beyond his whole court in showing attention and respect to Josephine. The very next day after their separation, the emperor went to Malmaison to visit her, and to take with her a long walk through the park. During the following days he came again, and once invited her and the ladies of her new court to a dinner in Trianon.

Josephine might have imagined that nothing had been altered in her situation, and that she was still Napoleon's wife. But there were wanting in their intercourse those little, inexpressible shades of confidence which her exquisite tact and her instinctive feelings felt yet more deeply than the more important and visible changes.

When Napoleon came or went, he no longer embraced her, but merely pressed her hand in a friendly manner, and often called her "madame" and "you;" he was more formal, more polite to her than he had ever been before.

And then his daily visits ceased; in their place came his letters, it is true, but they were only the letters of a friend, who tried to comfort her in her misfortune, but took no sympathetic interest in her distress.

Soon these letters became more rare, and when they did come they were shorter. The emperor had to busy himself with other matters than with the solitary, rejected woman in Malmaison; he had now to occupy his thoughts with his young and beautiful bride--with Maria Louisa, the daughter of the Emperor of Austria, who was soon to enter Paris as the wife of Napoleon, the Emperor of France.

Bitter and painful indeed were those first days of resignation for Josephine; harsh and unsparing were the conflicts she had to fight with her own heart, before its wounds could be closed, and its pains and its humiliations cease to torment her!

But Josephine had a brave heart, a strong will, and a resolute determination to control herself. She conquered herself into rest and resignation; she did not wish that the emperor, the happy bridegroom, should ever hear of her red, weeping eyes, of her lamentations and sighs; she did not wish that, in the golden cup which the husband of the emperor's young daughter was drinking in the full joyousness of a conqueror, her tears should commingle therein as drops of gall.

She controlled herself so far as to be able with smiling calmness to have related to her how Paris was celebrating the new marriage festivities, how the new Empress of the French was everywhere received with enthusiasm. She was even able to inquire, with an expression of friendly sympathy, after Maria Louisa, the young wife of sixteen, who had taken the place of the woman of forty-eight, and from whom Josephine, in the sincerity of her love, required but one thing, namely, to make Napoleon happy.

When she was told that Napoleon loved Maria Louisa with all the passion of a fiery lover, Josephine conquered herself so as to smile and thank God that she had accepted her sacrifice and thus secured Napoleon's happiness.

But the emperor, however much he might be enamored of his young wife, never forgot the bride of the past, the beloved one of his youth, of whom he had been not only captivated, but whom he had loved from the very depths of his soul. He surrounded her, though from a distance, with attentions and tokens of affection; he would often write to her; and at times, when his heart was burdened and full of cares, he would come to Malmaison, and visit this woman who understood how to read in his face the thoughts of his heart, this woman whose soft, gracious, and amiable disposition--even as a tranquillizing and invigorating breeze after a sultry day--could quiet his excited soul; to this woman he came for refreshment, for a little repose, and sweet communion.

It is true those visits of the emperor to his divorced wife were made secretly and privately, for his second wife was jealous of the affection which Napoleon still retained for Josephine; she listened with gloomy attention to the descriptions which were made to her of the amiableness, of the unwithered beauty of Josephine; and one day, after hearing that the emperor had visited her in Malmaison, Maria Louisa broke out into tears, and complained bitterly of this mortification caused by her husband.

Napoleon had to spare this jealous disposition of his young wife, for Maria Louisa was now in that situation which France and its emperor had expected and hoped from this marriage; she was approaching the time when the object for which Napoleon had married her was to be accomplished, when she was to give to France and the Bonaparte dynasty a legitimate heir. It was necessary, therefore, to be cautious with the young empress, and, on account of her interesting situation, it was expedient to avoid the gloomy sulkiness of jealousy.

By the emperor's orders, and under pain of the punishment of his wrath, no one dared speak to Maria Louisa of the divorced empress, and Napoleon avoided designedly to give her an occasion of complaint. He went no longer to Malmaison; he even ceased corresponding with his former wife.

Only once during this period he had not been able to resist the longing of visiting Josephine, who, as he had heard, was sick. The emperor, accompanied only by one horseman, rode from Trianon to Malmaison. At the back gate of the garden he dismounted from his horse, and, without being announced, walked through the park to the castle. No one had seen him, and he was about passing from the front-room into the cabinet of the empress by a side-door, when the folding-doors leading from this front-room into the cabinet opened, and Spontini walked out.

Napoleon, agitated and vexed at having been surprised, advanced with imperious mien toward the renowned maestro, who was quietly approaching him.

"What are you doing here, sir?" cried Napoleon, with choleric impatience.

Spontini, however, returned the emperor's haughty look, and, measuring him with a deep, flaming glance, asked, With a lofty assurance: "Sire, what are you doing here?"

The emperor answered not--a terrible glance fell upon the bold maestro, without, however, annihilating him: then Napoleon entered into Josephine's cabinet, and Spontini walked away slowly and with uplifted head.

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