Empress Josephine: An Historical Sketch of the Days of Napoleon Part 38

"I will purchase a country residence either near Paris or in Burgundy; I am thinking of pa.s.sing the winter there and of shutting myself up; I feel weary with human nature; I need solitude; I want to be alone; grandeur oppresses me, my feelings are distorted. Fame appears insipid at my twenty-nine years; I have tried every thing; nothing remains but to become an egotist." [Footnote: "Memoires du Roi Joseph." vol. i., p.

189.]

But, according to himself, "he cherished in his heart, at the same time; all manner of emotions for the same person;" that is, he hated and detested Josephine, but he also loved and admired her; was angry with her, and yet longed for her; he found her frivolous and faithless, and yet something in his heart ever spoke in her favor, and a.s.sured him that she was a n.o.ble and faithful being.

Fortunately, there was one who confirmed into full conviction these low whisperings of his heart; fortunately, Bourrienne ceased not to argue against this jealousy of Bonaparte, and to a.s.sure him again and again that Josephine was innocent, that she had committed nothing to excite his anger.

Finally, after three days of complaints and dreary accusations, love conquered in the heart of Bonaparte. He went to Josephine. She advanced to meet him with tears in her eyes, but with a soft, tender smile. The sight of her gracious appearance, her blanched cheeks, moved him, and, instead of explanations and mutual recriminations, he opened his arms to her, and she threw herself on his breast with a loud cry of exultation.

Then came the explanations. He now believed that she had left Paris hurriedly for the sake of meeting him; and, as regarded the dangerous "blond," the private secretary of Barras, M. Charles Botot, Josephine smilingly handed to her husband a letter she had received from him a few days before. In this letter Charles Botot acknowledged his long-cherished affection for her daughter Hortense, and he claimed her hand in due form.

"And you have doubtless accepted his offer?" asked Bonaparte, his face overcast again. "Since, unfortunately, you are married yourself, and he cannot be your husband, then of course he must marry the daughter, so as to be always near the mother. M. Charles Botot is no doubt to be your son-in-law? You have accepted his hand?"

"No," said she, softly, "we have refused it, for Hortense does not love him, and she will follow her mother's example, and marry only through love. Besides," continued Josephine, with a sweet smile, "I wanted him no longer."

"You wanted him no longer! How is this?" asked General Bonaparte, eagerly.

"Barras has sent him his dismissal," said she, looking at her husband with an expression of cunning roguery. "M. Botot could no longer, as he has. .h.i.therto been--without, however, being conscious of it--be my spy in the Directory; I could no longer learn from him what the Directory were undertaking against my Bonaparte, against the hero whom they envy and caluminate so much, nor in what new snares they wished to entangle him!

What had I to do with Botot, since he could not furnish me news of the intrigues of your enemies, nor afford me the chance of counteracting them? Charles Botot was nothing more to me than a mere lemon, which I squeezed for your sake; when there was nothing left in it I threw it away."

"And is such the truth?" asked Bonaparte, eagerly. "This is no invention to raise my hopes, only to be cast down again?"

Josephine smiled. "I have daily taken notes of what Charles Botot brought me," said she, gently; "I always hoped to find a safe opportunity to send this diary to you in Egypt, that you might be informed of what the Directory thought, and what was the public opinion, so that you might take your measures accordingly. But, for the last eight months, I knew not where you were, and so I have kept my diary: here it is."

She gave the diary to Bonaparte, who, with impatient looks, ran over the pages, and was fully convinced of her devotedness and care. Josephine had well served his interests, and closely watched over his affairs.

Then, ashamed and repentant, he looked at her, who, in return, smiled at him with gracious complacency.

"Josephine," asked he, quietly, "can you forgive me? I have been foolish, but I swear to you that never again will I mistrust you, I will believe no one but you. Can you forgive me?"

She embraced him in her arms, and tenderly said: "Love me, Bonaparte; I well deserve it!"

Peace, therefore, was re-established, and Josephine's enemies had the bitter disappointment to see that their efforts had all been in vain; that again the most perfect unanimity and affection existed between them; that the cloud which their enmity had conjured up, had brought forth but a few tear-drops, a few thunderings; and that the love which Bonaparte carried in his heart for Josephine was not scattered into atoms.

The cloud had pa.s.sed away; the sun of happiness had reappeared; but it had yet some spots which were never to fade away. The word "separation"

which Bonaparte, so often in Egypt, and now in Paris, had launched against Josephine, was to be henceforth the sword of Damocles, ever suspended over her head: like a dark, shadowy spectre it was to follow her everywhere; even amid scenes of happiness, joy, and glory, it was to be there to terrify her by its sinister presence, and by its gloomy warnings of the past!

CHAPTER x.x.xII. THE EIGHTEENTH BRUMAIRE.

Bonaparte's journey from Frejus to Paris, on his return from Egypt, had been a continued triumph. All France had applauded him. Everywhere he had been welcomed as a deliverer and savior; everywhere he had been hailed as the hope of the future, as the man from whom was to be expected a.s.sistance in distress, the restoration of peace, help, and salvation.

For France was alarmed; she stood on the edge of a precipice, from which only the strong hand of a hero could save her. In the interior, anarchy prevailed amongst the authorities as well as the people. In La Vendee civil war raged, with all its sanguinary horrors, and the authorities endeavored to protect themselves against it by tyrannical laws, by despotic measures, which threatened both property and freedom. There existed no security either for person or for property, and a horrible, fanatical party-spirit penetrated all cla.s.ses of society. The royalists had been defeated on the 18th Fructidor, but that very fact had again given the vantage-ground to the most decided opponents of the royalists, the red republicans, the terrorists of the past, who now intrigued and formed plots and counterplots, even as the royalists had done. They sought to create enmity and bitterness amongst the people, and hoped to re-establish on the ruins of the present administration the days of terror and of the guillotine.

These red republicans, ever ready for the struggle, organized themselves into clubs and "const.i.tutional circles," where the ruin of the actual state of things, and the severe and b.l.o.o.d.y republic of Robespierre, formed the substance of their harangues; and their numbers were constantly increased by new members being sworn in.

The ballot in May, 1799, had been in favor of the Directory, and unfavorable to the moderate party, for only fanatical republicans had been elected to the Council of Five Hundred.

Against these factions and republican clubs the Directory had to make a perpetual war: but their power and means failed to give them the victory in the strife. It was a constant oscillation and vacillation, a constant compromising and capitulating with all parties--and the natural consequence was, that these parties, as soon as they had secured the ear of the Directory, and gained an advantage, strove hard to obtain the ruling authority. Corruption and mistrust universally prevailed.

Every thing had the appearance of dissolution and disorder. Highwaymen rendered the roads unsafe; and the authorities, instead of carrying out the severity of the law, were so corrupt and avaricious as to sell their silence and indulgence. The upright citizen sighed under the weight of tyrannical laws from which the thief and the seditious knew how to escape.

The nation, reduced to despair by this arbitrary rule and corruption, longed for some one to deliver it from this dreadful state of dissolution; and the enthusiasm which was manifested at the return of General Bonaparte, was a confession that in him the people foresaw and recognized a deliverer. Exhausted and wearied, France sought for a man who would restore to her peace again--who would crush the foes within, and drive away the enemy from without.

Bonaparte appeared to the people with all the prestige of his former and recent victories; he had planted the victorious French tricolor upon the summit of the capitol, and of the pyramids; he had given to France the most acceptable of presents, "glory;" he had adorned her brow with so many laurels, that he himself seemed to the people as if radiant with glory. All felt the need of a hero, of a dictator, to put an end to the prevailing anarchy and disturbances, and they knew that Bonaparte was the only one who could achieve this gigantic work.

Bonaparte understood but too well these applauding and welcoming voices of the people, and his own breast responded favorably to them. The secret thoughts of his heart were now to be turned into deeds, and the ambitious dreams of his earlier days were to become realities. All that he had hitherto wanted was a bridge to throw over the abyss which separated the republicans, the defenders of liberty, equality, and fraternity, from rule, power, and dictators.h.i.+p. Anarchy and exhaustion laid down this bridge, and on the 18th Brumaire, General Bonaparte, the hero of "liberal ideas," pa.s.sed over it to exalt himself into dictator, consul, emperor, and tyrant of France.

But the Directory also understood the voices of the applauding people; they also saw in him the man who had come to deprive them of power and to a.s.sume their authority. This was secretly yet violently discussed by the Directory, the Council of the Elders, and of the Five Hundred.

One day, at a dinner given to a few friends by the Abbe Sieyes, one of the members of the Directory, the abbe, Cabanis, and Joseph Bonaparte, were conversing together, standing on the side of the drawing-room, near the chimney. It was conceded that undoubtedly a crisis was near at hand, that the republic had now reached its limit, and that, instead of five directors, only three would be elected, and that, without any doubt, Bonaparte would be one of the three.

"Yes," cried Sieyes, with animation, "I am for General Bonaparte, for of all military men he is the most civil; but then I know very well what is in reserve for me: once elected, the general, casting aside his two colleagues, will do as I do now." And Sieyes, standing between Canabis and Joseph, placed his two arms on their shoulders, then, pus.h.i.+ng them with a powerful jerk, he leaped forward and bounded into the middle of the room, to the great astonishment of his guests, who knew not the cause of this gymnastic performance of the abbe. [Footnote: "Memoires du Roi Joseph," vol. i., p. 77.]

The other directors were also conscious of this movement of Bonaparte, and they secretly resolved to save themselves by causing his ruin.

Either the Directory or Bonaparte had to fall! One had to perish, that the other might have the power! In order that the Directory might exist, Bonaparte must fall.

The Directory had secretly come to this conclusion on Bonaparte's return. They were fully aware that a daring act alone could save them, and they were determined not to shrink from it.

The deed was to take place on the 2d Brumaire. On that day he was to be arrested, and accused of having premeditated a coup d'etat against the Directory. Indeed, one M. de Mounier had come to Director Gohier and had denounced Bonaparte, whom he positively knew was conspiring to destroy the existing government. Gohier received these accusations with much gravity, and sent at once for the other directors to hasten to him, but only one, Moulins, was then in Paris to answer Gohier's summons. He came, and after a long conference both directors agreed that the next day they would have Bonaparte arrested on his return to Paris from Malmaison, where they knew he was to give a large banquet that day. They sent for the chief of police, and quietly gave him the order to station himself the next day with twelve resolute men on the road to Malmaison, and to arrest Bonaparte as he should drive that evening toward Paris.

On this very day Josephine, who did not wish to be present at the banquet of gentlemen in Malmaison, had come to Paris to attend a party at the house of one of her friends. The conversation went on; they talked and jested, when a gentleman near Josephine told a friend that some striking event would probably take place that day in Paris, for he had just now met a friend who held an important office in the police. He had invited him to go to the theatre, but he declined, stating that he was to be on duty this evening, as some important affair was about being transacted--the arrest, as he thought, of some influential personage.

Josephine's heart trembled with horrible misgivings at these words.

Love's instinct convinced her that her husband was the one to be arrested, and she thought within herself that it was Destiny itself which sent her this intelligence, that she might save her husband from the fearful blow which awaited him. Thus persuaded, she gathered all her strength and presence of mind, and determined to act with energy, and battle against the enemies of her husband. Without betraying the slightest emotion, or exciting any suspicion that she had heard or noticed what was said, Josephine rose from her seat with a cheerful and composed countenance, and pleasantly took leave of the lady of the house. But once past the threshold of the house, once in her carriage, her anxious nature woke up again, and she began to act with energy and resolution. She pulled the string, to give her directions to the driver.

As fast as the horses could speed, he was to drive his mistress to Colonel Perrin, the commanding officer of the guards of the Directory.

In ten minutes she was there, and knowing well how devoted a guard he and all his soldiers would be to Bonaparte, she communicated to him her fears, and requested from him immediate and speedy a.s.sistance to remove the danger.

Colonel Perrin was prepared to enter into her plans, and he promised to send to Malmaison a company of grenadiers, provided she would, as soon as possible, have General Murat send him an order to that effect.

Josephine at once went to one of her true, reliable friends, who belonged to the Council of the Elders, and, making him acquainted with the danger which threatened her husband, requested him to gather a few devoted friends, and to attend to the orders which Murat would send them.

After having made all these preparations, Josephine drove in full gallop toward Malmaison.

The dinner, to which Bonaparte had invited gentlemen from all cla.s.ses of society, was just over, and the guests were scattered, some in the drawing-rooms, and some in the garden, where Bonaparte was walking up and down in animated conversation with the secretary, Roger Ducos.

At this moment the carriage of Josephine drove into the yard; and Murat, who, with a few gentlemen, stood under the porch, hastened to offer his hand so as to help Josephine to alight. An eye-witness who was present at this scene relates as follows:

"'Where is the general?' asked Josephine, hastily, of General Murat.

"'I do not know,' was the answer; 'he is gone with Roger, but Lucien is here.'

"'Look at once for the general!' exclaimed Josephine, breathless, 'I must speak to him immediately.'

"I approached her and said that he was in the garden. She ran--she flew! I placed myself at a window in the first story, from which I could easily see into the garden-walks. My expectations had not deceived me.

"No sooner did Bonaparte see Josephine approach, than he left Roger Ducos and hurried to meet her. Both then walked into a path near by. I could see them well. Josephine spoke with animation; the general walked on; now and then she held him back. At last they took the path leading to the castle. I went down to meet them on the steps near the door.

"Madame Bonaparte held her husband by the left hand. Her animated, expressive features had a bewitching pride and softness; it was a most delightful admixture of tenderness and heroism. Bonaparte looked around, pale and grave, but his eyes ever rested with pleasure on his wife. She refused to enter into the large hall, and retired to her room. Bonaparte called for Roger, and entered the saloon with him. His guests were awaiting his arrival, to take their leave. The carriages drove up, and the gentlemen left Malmaison to return to Paris. Only Lucien and Murat remained with Bonaparte; Madame Bonaparte joined them as they entered the vestibule. When she saw Murat, she exclaimed: