ii. 326): "No one had pride in France more than Napoleon, stronger

even than his conviction of her superiority in the presence of other contemporary sovereigns and courts. He wishes that in Germany, where she will meet families with all the pride and sometimes all the haughtiness of their ancestry, Josephine will not forget that she is Empress of the French, superior to those who are about to receive her, and who owe full respect and homage to her."

No. 14.

_Austerlitz._--Never was a victory more needful; but never was the Emperor more confident. Savary says that it would take a volume to contain all that emanated from his mind during that twenty-four hours (December 1-2). Nor was it confined to military considerations. General Ségur describes how he spent his evening meal with his marshals, discussing with Junot the last new tragedy (_Les Templiers_, by Raynouard), and from it to Racine, Corneille, and the fatalism of our ancestors.

_December 2nd_ was a veritable Black Monday for the Coalition in general, and for Russia in particular, where Monday is always looked upon as an unlucky day. Their forebodings increased when, on the eve of the battle, the Emperor Alexander was thrown from his horse (Czartoriski, vol. ii. 106).

No. 17.

_A long time since I had news of you._--Josephine was always a bad correspondent, but at this juncture was reading that stilted but sensational romance--"Caleb Williams;" or hearing the "Achilles" of Paër, or the "Romeo and Juliet" of Zingarelli in the intervals of her imperial progress through Germany. M. Masson, not often too indulgent to Josephine, thinks her conduct excusable at this period--paying and receiving visits, dressing and redressing, always in gala costume, and without a moment's solitude.

No. 19.

_I await events._--A phrase usually attributed to Talleyrand in 1815. However, the Treaty of Presburg was soon signed (December 2nd), and the same day Napoleon met the Archduke Charles at Stamersdorf, a meeting arranged from mutual esteem. Napoleon had an unswerving admiration for this past and future foe, and said to Madame d'Abrantès, "That man has a soul, a golden heart."[59] Napoleon, however, did not wish to discuss politics, and only arranged for an interview of two hours, "one of which," he wrote Talleyrand, "will be employed in dining, the other in talking war and in mutual protestations."

_I, for my part, am sufficiently busy._--No part of Napoleon's career is more wonderful than the way in which he conducts the affairs of France and of Europe from a hostile capital. This was his first experience of the kind, and perhaps the easiest, although Prussian diplomacy had needed very delicate and astute handling. But when Napoleon determined, without even consulting his wife, to cement political alliances by matrimonial ones with his and her relatives, he was treading on somewhat new and difficult ground. First and foremost, he wanted a princess for his ideal young man, Josephine's son Eugène, and he preferred Auguste, the daughter of the King of Bavaria, to the offered Austrian Archduchess. But the young Hereditary Prince of Baden was in love and accepted by his beautiful cousin Auguste; so, to compensate him for his loss, the handsome and vivacious Stephanie Beauharnais, fresh from Madame Campan's finishing touches, was sent for. For his brother Jerome a bride is found by Napoleon in the daughter of the King of Wurtemberg. Baden, Bavaria, and Wurtemberg were too much indebted to France for the spoils they were getting from Austria to object, provided the ladies and their mammas were agreeable; but the conqueror of Austerlitz found this part the most difficult, and had to be so attentive to the Queen of Bavaria that Josephine was jealous. However, all the matches came off, and still more remarkable, all turned out happily, a fact which certainly redounds to Napoleon's credit as a match-maker.

On December 31st, at 1.45 A.M., he entered Munich by torchlight and under a triumphal arch. His chamberlain, M. de Thiard, assured him that if he left Munich the marriage with Eugène would fall through, and he agrees to stay, although he declared that his absence, which accentuated the Bank crisis, is costing him 1,500,000 francs a day. The marriage took place on January 14th, four days after Eugène arrived at Munich and three days after that young Bayard had been bereft of his cherished moustache. Henceforth the bridegroom is called "Mon fils" in Napoleon's correspondence, and in the contract of marriage Napoleon-Eugène de France. The Emperor and Empress reached the Tuileries on January 27th. The marriage of Stephanie was even more difficult to manage, for, as St. Amand points out, the Prince of Baden had for brothers-in-law the Emperor of Russia, the King of Sweden, and the King of Bavaria--two of whom at least were friends of England. Josephine had once an uncle-in-law, the Count Beauharnais, whose wife Fanny was a well-known literary character of the time, but of whom the poet Lebrun made the epigram--

"Elle fait son visage, et ne fait pas ses vers."

Stephanie was the grand-daughter of this couple, and as Grand-Duchess of Baden was beloved and respected, and lived on until 1860.

FOOTNOTES

[58] The first month of the Republican calendar.

[59] Memoirs, vol. ii. 165.

SERIES G

No. 1.

Napoleon left St. Cloud with Josephine on September 25th, and had reached Mayence on the 28th, where his Foot Guard were awaiting him. He left Mayence on October 1st, and reached Würzburg the next day, whence this letter was written, just before starting for Bamberg. Josephine was installed in the Teutonic palace at Mayence.

_Princess of Baden_, Stephanie Beauharnais. (For her marriage, see note, end of Series F.)

_Hortense_ was by no means happy with her husband at the best of times, and she cordially hated Holland. She was said to be very frightened of Napoleon, but (like most people) could easily influence her mother. Napoleon's letter to her of this date (October 5th) is certainly not a severe one:--"I have received yours of September 14th. I am sending to the Chief Justice in order to accord pardon to the individual in whom you are interested. Your news always gives me pleasure. I trust you will keep well, and never doubt my great friendship for you."

_The Grand Duke_, _i.e._ of Würzburg. The castle where Napoleon was staying seemed to him sufficiently strong to be armed and provisioned, and he made a great depôt in the city. "Volumes," says Méneval, "would not suffice to describe the multitude of his military and administrative measures here, and the precautions which he took against even the most improbable hazards of war."

_Florence._--Probably September 1796, when Napoleon was hard pressed, and Josephine had to fetch a compass from Verona to regain Milan, and thus evade Wurmser's troops.

No. 2.

_Bamberg._--Arriving at Bamberg on the 6th, Napoleon issued a proclamation to his army which concluded--"Let the Prussian army experience the same fate that it experienced fourteen years ago. Let it learn that, if it is easy to acquire increase of territory and power by means of the friendship of the great people, their enmity, which can be provoked only by the abandonment of all spirit of wisdom and sense, is more terrible than the tempests of the ocean."

_Eugène._--Napoleon wrote him on the 5th, and twice on the 7th, on which date we have _eighteen_ letters in the _Correspondence_.

_Her husband._--The Hereditary Grand Duke of Baden, to whom Napoleon had written from Mayence on September 30th, accepting his services, and fixing the rendezvous at Bamberg for October 4th or 5th.

On this day Napoleon invaded Prussian territory by entering Bayreuth, having preceded by one day the date of their ultimatum--a rhapsody of twenty pages, which Napoleon in his First Bulletin compares to "one of those which the English Cabinet pay their literary men £500 per annum to write." It is in this Bulletin where he describes the Queen of Prussia (dressed as an Amazon, in the uniform of her regiment of dragoons, and writing twenty letters a day) to be like Armida in her frenzy, setting fire to her own palace.

No. 3.

By this time the Prussian army is already in a tight corner, with its back on the Rhine, which, as Napoleon says in his Third Bulletin written on this day, is "_assez bizarre_, from which very important events should ensue." On the previous day he concludes a letter to Talleyrand--"One cannot conceive how the Duke of Brunswick, to whom one allows some talent, can direct the operations of this army in so ridiculous a manner."

_Erfurt._--Here endless discussions, but, as Napoleon says in his bulletin of this day--"Consternation is at Erfurt, ... but while they deliberate, the French army is marching.... Still the wishes of the King of Prussia have been executed; he wished that by October 8th the French army should have evacuated the territory of the Confederation which _has_ been evacuated, but in place of repassing the Rhine, it has passed the Saal."

_If she wants to see a battle._--_Queen Louise_, great-grandmother of the present Emperor William, and in 1806 aged thirty. St. Amand says that "when she rode on horseback before her troops, with her helmet of polished steel, shaded by a plume, her gleaming golden cuirass, her tunic of cloth of silver, her red buskins with golden spurs," she resembled, as the bulletin said, one of the heroines of Tasso. She hated France, and especially Napoleon, as the child of the French Revolution.

No. 4.

_I nearly captured him and the Queen._--They escaped only by an hour, Napoleon writes Berthier. Blucher aided their escape by telling a French General about an imaginary armistice, which the latter was severely reprimanded by Napoleon for believing.

No battle was more beautifully worked out than the battle of Jena--Davoust performing specially well his move in the combinations by which the Prussian army was hopelessly entangled, as Mack at Ulm a year before. Bernadotte alone, and as usual, gave cause for dissatisfaction. He had a personal hatred for his chief, caused by the knowledge that his wife (Désirée Clary) had never ceased to regret that she had missed her opportunity of being the wife of Napoleon. Bernadotte, therefore, was loth to give initial impetus to the victories of the French Emperor, though, when success was no longer doubtful, he would prove that it was not want of capacity but want of will that had kept him back. He was the Talleyrand of the camp, and had an equal aptitude for fishing in troubled waters.

_I have bivouacked._--Whether the issue of a battle was decisive, or, as at Eylau, only partially so, Napoleon never shunned the disagreeable part of battle--the tending of the wounded and the burial of the dead. Savary tells us that at Jena, as at Austerlitz, the Emperor rode round the field of battle, alighting from his horse with a little brandy flask (constantly refilled), putting his hand to each unconscious soldier's breast, and when he found unexpected life, giving way to a joy "impossible to describe" (vol. ii. 184). Méneval also speaks of his performing this "pious duty, in the fulfilment of which nothing was allowed to stand in his way."

No. 5.

_Fatigues, bivouacs ... have made me fat._--The Austerlitz campaign had the same effect. See a remarkable letter to Count Miot de Melito on January 30th, 1806: "The campaign I have just terminated, the movement, the excitement have made me stout. I believe that if all the kings of Europe were to coalesce against me I should have a ridiculous paunch." And it was so!

_The great M. Napoleon_, aged four, and the younger, aged two, are with Hortense and their grandmother at Mayence, where a Court had assembled, including most of the wives of Napoleon's generals, burning for news. A look-out had been placed by the Empress some two miles on the main-road beyond Mayence, whence sight of a courier was signalled in advance.

No. 7.

_Potsdam._--As a reward for Auerstadt, Napoleon orders Davoust and his famous Third Corps to be the first to enter Berlin the following day.

No. 8.

Written from Berlin, where he is from October 28th to November 25th.

_You do nothing but cry._--Josephine spent her evenings gauging futurity with a card-pack, and although it announced Jena and Auerstadt before the messenger, it may possibly, thinks M. Masson, have been less propitious for the future--and behind all was the sinister portion of the spae-wife's prophecy still unfulfilled.

No. 9A.

_Madame Tallien_ had been in her time, especially in the years 1795-99, one of the most beautiful and witty women in France. Madame d'Abrantès calls her the Venus of the Capitol; and Lucien Bonaparte speaks of the court of the voluptuous Director, Barras, where the beautiful Tallien was the veritable Calypso. The people, however, could not forget her second husband, Tallien, from whom she was divorced in 1802 (having had three children born while he was in Egypt, 1798-1802); and whilst they called Josephine "Notre Dame des Victoires," they called Madame Tallien "Notre Dame de Septembre."

The latter was, however, celebrated both for her beauty and her intrigues;[60] and when, in 1799, Bonaparte seized supreme power the fair lady[61] invaded Barras in his bath to inform him of it; but found her indolent Ulysses only capable of ejaculating, "What can be done? that man has taken us all in!" Napoleon probably remembered this, and may refer to her rather than to the Queen of Prussia in the next letter, where he makes severe strictures on intriguing women. Moreover, Napoleon in his early campaigns had played a ridiculous part in some of Gillray's most indecent cartoons, where Mmes. Tallien and Josephine took with Barras the leading rôles; and as Madame Tallien was not considered respectable in 1796, she was hardly a fit friend for the Empress of the French ten years later. In the interval this lady, divorced a second time, had married the Prince de Chimay (Caraman). Napoleon knew also that she had been the mistress of Ouvrard, the banker, who in his Spanish speculations a few months earlier had involved the Bank of France to the tune of four millions sterling, and forced Napoleon to make a premature peace after Austerlitz. The Emperor had returned at white heat to Paris, and wished he could build a gallows for Ouvrard high enough for him to be on view throughout France. Madame Tallien's own father, M. de Cabarrus, was a French banker in Spain, and probably in close relation with Ouvrard.

No. 10.

Written from Berlin.

_The bad things I say about women._--Napoleon looked upon this as a woman's war, and his temper occasionally gets the mastery of him. No war had ever been so distasteful to him or so personal. Prussia, whose alliance he had been courting for nearly ten years, was now worthless to him, and all because of petticoat government at Berlin. In the Fifteenth Bulletin (dated Wittenburg, October 23rd) he states that the Queen had accused her husband of cowardice in order to bring about the war. But it is doubtless the Sixteenth Bulletin (dated Potsdam, October 25th) to which Josephine refers, and which refers to the oath of alliance of the Emperor Alexander and the King of Prussia in the death chamber of Frederick the Great. "It is from this moment that the Queen quitted the care of her domestic concerns and the serious occupations of the toilet in order to meddle with the affairs of State." He refers to a Berlin caricature of the scene which was at the time in all the shops, "exciting even the laughter of clodhoppers." The handsome Emperor of Russia was portrayed, by his side the Queen, and on his other side the King of Prussia with his hand raised above the tomb of the Great Frederick; the Queen herself, draped in a shawl nearly as the London engravings represent Lady Hamilton, pressing her hand on her heart, and apparently gazing upon the Emperor of Russia." In the Eighteenth Bulletin (October 26th) it is said the Prussian people did not want war, that a handful of women and young officers had alone made this "tapage," and that the Queen, "formerly a timid and modest woman looking after her domestic concerns," had become turbulent and warlike, and had "conducted the monarchy within a few days to the brink of the precipice."

As the Queen of Prussia was a beautiful woman, she has had nearly as many partisans as Mary Stuart or Marie Antoinette, but with far less cause. Napoleon, who was the incarnation of practical common sense, saw in her the first cause of the war, and considered that so far as verbal flagellation could punish her, she should have it. He had neither time nor sympathy for the "Please you, do not hurt us" attitude of a bellicose new woman, who, as Imogen or Ida, have played with edged tools from the time of Shakespeare to that of Sullivan.

As an antidote, however, to his severe words against women he put, perhaps somewhat ostentatiously, the Princess d'Hatzfeld episode in his Twenty-second Bulletin (Berlin, October 29th). A year later (November 26th, 1807), when his Old Guard return to Paris and free performances are given at all the theatres, there is the "Triumph of Trajan" at the Opera, where Trajan, burning with his own hand the papers enclosing the secrets of a conspiracy, is a somewhat skilful allusion to the present episode.

No. 11.

Magdeburg had surrendered on November 8th, with 20 generals, 800 officers and 22,000 men, 800 pieces of cannon, and immense stores.

_Lubeck._--This capitulation was that of Blucher, who had escaped after Jena through a rather dishonourable ruse. It had taken three army corps to hem him in.

No. 13.

Written from Berlin, but not included in the _Correspondence_.

_Madame L----_, _i.e._ Madame de la Rochefoucauld, a third or fourth cousin (by her first marriage) of Josephine, and her chief lady of honour. She was an incorrigible Royalist, and hated Napoleon; but as she had been useful at the Tuileries in establishing the Court, Napoleon, as usual, could not make up his mind to cause her dismissal. In 1806, however, she made Josephine miserable and Mayence unbearable. She foretold that the Prussians would win every battle, and even after Jena she (to use an expression of M. Masson), "continued her music on the sly" (_en sourdine_). See Letters 19 and 26 of this Series.

No. 17.

_December 2_, the anniversary of Austerlitz (1805) and of Napoleon's coronation (1804). He now announces to his soldiers the Polish campaign.

No. 18.

Not in the _Correspondence_.

_Jealousy._--If Josephine's letters and conduct had been a little more worthy of her position, she might have saved herself. Madame Walewski, who had not yet appeared on the scene.

No. 19.

_Désir de femme est un feu qui dévore._--The quotation is given in Jung's "Memoirs of Lucien" (vol. ii. 62). "Ce qu'une femme desire est un feu qui consume, celui d'une reine un vulcan qui dévore."

No. 23.

_I am dependent on events._--He says the same at St. Helena. "Throughout my whole reign I was the keystone of an edifice entirely new, and resting on the most slender foundations. Its duration depended on the issue of my battles. I was never, in truth, master of my own movements; I was never at my own disposal."

No. 26.

_The fair ones of Great Poland._--If Berthier and other regular correspondents of Josephine were like Savary in their enthusiasm, no wonder the Mayence coterie began to stir up jealousy. Here is the description of the Duke of Rovigo (vol. ii. 17): "The stay at Warsaw had for us something of witchery; even with regard to amusements it was practically the same life as at Paris: the Emperor had his concert twice a week, at the end of which he held a reception, where many of the leading people met. A great number of ladies from the best families were admired alike for the brilliancy of their beauty, and for their wonderful amiability. One may rightly say that the Polish ladies inspired with jealousy the charming women of every other civilised clime. They united, for the most part, to the manners of good society a fund of information which is not commonly found even among Frenchwomen, and is very far above anything we see in towns, where the custom of meeting in public has become a necessity. It seemed to us that the Polish ladies, compelled to spend the greater part of the year in their country-houses, applied themselves there to reading as well as to the cultivation of their talents, and it was thus that in the chief towns, where they went to pass the winter, they appeared successful over all their rivals." St. Amand says: "In the intoxication of their enthusiasm and admiration, the most beautiful among them--and Poland is the country of beauty--lavished on him, like sirens, their most seducing smiles...." Josephine was right to be jealous, for, as the artist Baron Lejeune adds, "They were, moreover, as graceful as the Creole women so often are."

_A wretched barn_, reached over still more wretched roads. The Emperor and his horse had nearly been lost in the mud, and Marshal Duroc had a shoulder put out by his carriage being upset.

_Such things become common property._--So was another event, much to Josephine's chagrin. On this date Napoleon heard of a son (Léon) born to him by Eléanore, a former schoolfellow of Madame Murat. M. Masson thinks this event epoch-making in the life of Napoleon. "Henceforth the charm is broken, and the Emperor assured of having an heir of his own blood."

No. 27.

_Warsaw, January 3._--On his way from Pultusk on January 1, he had received a Polish ovation at Bronie, where he first met Madame Walewski. The whole story is well told by M. Masson in _Napoléon et les Femmes_; but here we must content ourselves with the mere facts, and first, for the sake of comparison, cite his love-letters to the lady in question:--(1.) "I have seen only you, I have admired only you, I desire only you. A very prompt answer to calm the impatient ardour of N." (2.) "Have I displeased you? I have still the right to hope the contrary. Have I been mistaken? Your eagerness diminishes, while mine augments. You take away my rest! Oh, give a little joy, a little happiness to a poor heart all ready to worship you. Is it so difficult to get a reply? You owe me one.--N." (3.) "There are moments when too high rank is a burden, and that is what I feel. How can I satisfy the needs of a heart hopelessly in love, which would fling itself at your feet, and which finds itself stopped by the weight of lofty considerations paralysing the most lively desires? Oh, if you would! Only you could remove the obstacles that lie between us. My friend Duroc will clear the way. Oh, come! come! All your wishes shall be gratified. Your native land will be dearer to me when you have had pity on my poor heart,--N." (4.) "Marie, my sweet Marie! My first thought is for you, my first desire to see you again. You will come again, will you not? You promised me to do so. If not, the eagle will fly to you. I shall see you at dinner, a friend tells me. Deign, then, to accept this bouquet; let it become a mysterious link which shall establish between us a secret union in the midst of the crowd surrounding us. Exposed to the glances of the crowd, we shall still understand each other. When my hand presses my heart, you will know that it is full of thoughts of you; and in answer you will press closer your bouquet. Love me, my bonny Marie, and never let your hand leave your bouquet.--N." In this letter, in which he has substituted _tu_ for _vous_, there is more passion than we have seen since 1796. The fair lady now leaves her decrepit old husband, nearly fifty years her senior, and takes up her abode in Finckenstein Castle, for nearly two months of the interval between Eylau and Friedland. "In order," says Pasquier, "that nothing should be lacking to characterise the calm state of his mind and the security of his position, it was soon known that he had seen fit to enjoy a pleasurable relaxation by calling to him a Polish gentlewoman of excellent birth, with whom he had contracted a _liaison_ while passing through Warsaw, and who, as a consequence of this journey, had the honour of bearing him a son." Repudiated by her husband, she came to Paris, where she was very kindly treated by Josephine, who, having once seen her, found in her no rival, but an enthusiastic patriot, "sacrificed to Plutus," as Napoleon told Lucien at Mantua a few months later, adding that "her soul was as beautiful as her face."

No. 28.

_Be cheerful--gai._--This adjective is a favourite one in letters to his wife, and dates from 1796.

No. 29.

_Roads unsafe and detestable._--The French troops used to say that the four following words constituted the whole language of the Poles: _Kleba?_ _Niema._ _Vota?_ _Sara._ ("Some bread? There is none. Some water? We will go and fetch it.") Napoleon one day passed by a column of infantry suffering the greatest privations on account of the mud, which prevented the arrival of provisions. "Papa, kleba?" exclaimed a soldier. "Niema," replied the Emperor. The whole column burst into a fit of laughter; they asked for nothing more. Baron Lejeune, Constant, and Méneval have variants of the same story.

No. 35.

Written from Warsaw, and omitted from the _Correspondence_.

_I hope that you are at Paris._--Madame Junot hints that her husband, as Governor of Paris, was being sounded by Bonaparte's sister, Murat's wife (with whom Junot was in love), if he would make Murat Napoleon's successor, in lieu of Eugène, if the Emperor were killed. If Napoleon had an inkling of this, he would wish Josephine to be on the spot.

_T._--Is probably Tallien, who had misconducted himself in Egypt. Madame Junot met him at Madrid, but she and others had not forgotten the September massacres. "The wretch! how did he drag on his loathsome existence?" she exclaims.

No. 36.

_Paris._--Josephine arrived here January 31st; Queen Hortense going to the Hague and the Princess Stephanie to Mannheim.

No. 38.

Probably written from Arensdorf, on the eve of the battle of Eylau (February 9th), on which day a great ball took place in Paris, given by the Minister of Marine.

No. 39.

_Eylau._--The battle of Preussich-Eylau was splendidly fought on both sides, but the Russian general, Beningsen, had all the luck. (1) His Cossacks capture Napoleon's letter to Bernadotte, which enables him to escape all Napoleon's plans, which otherwise would have destroyed half the Russian army. (2) A snowstorm in the middle of the day in the faces of the French ruins Augereau's corps and saves the Russians from a total rout. (3) The arrival of a Prussian army corps, under General Lestocq, robbed Davoust of his glorious victory on the right, and much of the ground gained--including the village of Kuschnitten. (4) The night came on just in time to save the rest of the Russian army, and to prevent Ney taking any decisive part in the battle. Bernadotte, as usual, failed to march to the sound of the guns, but, as Napoleon's orders to do so were captured by Cossacks, he might have had an excuse rather better than usual, had not General Hautpoult,[62] in touch both with him and Napoleon, advised him of his own orders and an imminent battle. Under such circumstances, no general save the Prince of Ponte-Corvo, says Bignon, would have remained inactive, "but it was the destiny of this marshal to have a rôle apart in all the great battles fought by the Emperor. His conduct was at least strange at Jena, it will not be less so, in 1809, at Wagram." The forces, according to Matthieu Dumas (_Précis des Evénements Militaires_,