AFTER the battle of Eylau, both armies were forced to come to a halt, in consequence of the confusion produced by a thaw, and both went into winter quarters. Our troops were in cantonments near Marienwerder, and the Emperor established himself in a country-house near Osterode.

The Empress had returned to Paris at the end of January. She was out of spirits, vaguely anxious, and not overpleased with those members of the Court who had accompanied her to Mayence. Besides this, she was in a state of nervousness, as she always was during the Emperor’s absence, for she dreaded his disapproval of her actions. She was most gracious, and showed all her former friendship for me. It was said by some members of the Court that her low spirits were partly caused by tender feelings which she entertained toward a certain young equerry, then absent with the Emperor. I never inquired into the truth of this story, nor did she ever mention it to me; but, on the contrary, she was distressed by the stories she was told by some Polish ladies then in Paris, concerning the Emperor and a young countrywoman of theirs. Her affection for her husband was always dashed with the dread of divorce; and, of all her feelings, this was, I believe, the strongest. She would occasionally introduce a few words on the subject in her letters to Bonaparte, but he never made the least reply to them.

She tried to conform to the Emperor’s wishes. She gave and accepted invitations, and could at any time find relief from her cares in the delight of displaying a magnificent dress. She behaved to her sisters-in-law coldly, but with prudence; she received a great number of persons, and always graciously, and she never said a word that was not studiously insignificant.

I once suggested to her that she might divert her mind by going to the theatre; but she told me that she did not derive enough amusement from the plays to go incognito, and that she could not venture to go publicly. “Why, madame?” I asked her. “I think the applause you would receive would be pleasing to the Emperor.” “You do not know him, then,” was her reply. “If I was received with much cordiality, I am sure he would be jealous of any little triumph which he would not have shared. When I am applauded he likes to take part in my success; and I should only mortify him by seeking any when he can not be present.”

The uneasiness of the Empress Josephine was increased by any appearance of mutual understanding between several persons about her; she always imagined they were conspiring to injure her. Bonaparte had infected her with his habitual suspicion. She felt no fear of Mme. Joseph Bonaparte, who, although at that time Queen of Naples, was residing quietly at the Luxembourg Palace, being reluctant to exchange her peaceful life for that of a sovereign. The two Princes—one the Arch-Chancellor, the other the Arch-Treasurer of the Empire—were timorous and reserved; they paid her an assiduous court, and inspired her with no distrust.

Princess Borghese, who combined constant ill health with a life of intrigue, joined in no political schemes, excepting such as were common to the whole family. But the Grand Duchess of Berg caused her sister-in-law constant jealousy and apprehension. She lived in great splendor at the ElysÉe-Bourbon Palace. Her beauty was set off by the most exquisite dress; her pretensions were great, her manners affable when she thought it prudent, and more than affable to men whom she wished to fascinate. She was unscrupulous when intent on injuring, and she hated the Empress, yet never lost her self-control. Of such a woman Josephine might well be afraid. At this time, as I have said, Caroline was desirous of obtaining the crown of Poland, and she endeavored to make friends among the influential members of the Government who might be useful to her. General Junot, Governor of Paris, became one of her ardent admirers, and, either from a reciprocal feeling or from interested motives, she contrived to make his tender sentiments serve her purpose; so that the Governor of Paris, in his reports to the Emperor—a certain branch of police being in his charge—always gave favorable accounts of the Grand Duchess of Berg.

Another intimacy, in which there was no question of love, but which was of great use to her, was that between FouchÉ and herself. FouchÉ was on bad terms with M. de Talleyrand, who was no favorite of Mme. Murat’s. She wanted to secure her present position, and especially to elevate her husband in spite of himself. She hinted to the Minister of Police that M. de Talleyrand would contrive to have him removed, and she tried to gain his affection by a number of other little confidential communications. This intimacy gave daily recurring distress to the poor frightened Empress, who narrowly watched all her words and actions. Parisian society concerned itself little with these Court secrets, and took no interest in the members of the Court circle. We had the appearance of being, and we were in fact, merely a living puppet-show, set up to surround the Emperor with what seemed to him necessary state. The conviction that no one had any influence over him led people to concern themselves little with his surroundings. Every one knew beforehand that his will only would finally determine all things.

Meanwhile, the sovereigns who were either related or allied to the Emperor sent deputations to Poland, to congratulate him on his victories. From Naples, Amsterdam, and Milan came envoys to Warsaw, offering homage from the various states. The kingdom of Naples was disquieted by disturbances in Calabria only, but this was enough to keep it in agitation. The new King, a lover of pleasure, did not carry out with sufficient firmness the plan which the Emperor had laid down for the kingdoms he had called into existence. The Emperor also found fault with his brother Louis; but those reproaches did honor to the latter.

Louis’s domestic affairs became every day more deplorable. Mme. Louis, who had enjoyed some liberty at Mayence, no doubt found it hard to return to the dreary bondage in which she was held by her husband; and the depression, which she did not sufficiently conceal, embittered him, perhaps, still more. The division between them increased until they lived apart in the palace—she in retirement with two or three of her ladies, and he immersed in affairs, and making no secret of his dissatisfaction with his wife. He would not allow the Dutch to impute all the blame of the notorious domestic troubles to him. Who can say to what such a position of affairs might have led, but for the common misfortune which shortly fell upon the unhappy pair, and which drew them together in a common sorrow?

Toward the end of the winter an order from the Emperor reached Paris, to the effect that the newspapers were to remind persons distinguished either in art or science that the decree, dated from Aix-la-Chapelle, 24th Fructidor, year 12, concerning the decennial prizes, was to come into effect at the expiration of one year and eight months from the then date. This decree promised considerable rewards to every author of an important work, of any kind whatsoever. The prizes were to be assigned at intervals of ten years, dating from the 18th Brumaire, and the jury which was to allot them was to consist of members of the Institute. This project has real greatness in it; we shall see, hereafter, how it fell to pieces in consequence of a fit of ill humor on the part of the Emperor.

In March the Vice-Queen of Italy gave birth to a daughter, and the Empress was much pleased at being grandmother to a little princess related to all the greatest powers in Europe.

During the suspension of war on both sides, from the inclemency of the season, the Emperor took every means to insure that in the spring his army should be more formidable than ever. The kingdoms of Italy and Naples had to furnish further contingents. Men born under the smiling skies of those beautiful lands were suddenly transported to the wild banks of the Vistula; and they might wonder at the change, until others were seen marching from Cadiz, to perish beneath the walls of Moscow, thus affording a proof of the courage and strength of which men are capable, and also of what can be done by the strength of the human will. The army was reorganized; our newspapers were filled with columns of promotions, and it is curious, among these military decrees, to come upon one dated, like the rest, from Osterode, appointing bishops to vacant sees both in France and in Italy.

But, notwithstanding our victories, or perhaps because of them, our army had suffered considerable loss. The extreme humidity of the climate caused sickness among the troops. Russia was evidently about to make an immense effort. The Emperor felt that this campaign must be decisive; and, not feeling satisfied that the numerous troops furnished to him were sufficient to insure victory, he put his own power and our submission to the test. After having, at the end of December, 1806, levied the conscription for 1807, he demanded from the Senate in April the levy for 1808. The Prince of NeufchÂtel’s report, which was published in the “Moniteur,” announced that during the year the army had been augmented by one hundred and sixty thousand men, levied by the conscriptions of 1806 and 1807; sixteen thousand men were non-combatants either from sickness or superannuation, and, without troubling himself with calculations, which it was too certain no one would venture to make, because it was our system to conceal our losses, he put down the “casualties” of the campaign at fourteen thousand men. As our army had been increased by only a hundred and thirty thousand efficient soldiers, prudence required that the eighty thousand men of the conscription of 1808 should be raised, and drilled, each in his own department. “Were this delayed,” said the report, “the men would have to march at once to the seat of war; but, by making the levy six months in advance, they will acquire strength and knowledge, and will be better able to defend themselves.”

State Councilor Regnault de St. Jean d’Angely, who was the bearer of the Imperial message to the Senate, paused when he came to this portion of the report, and called the attention of the Senators to the paternal goodness of the Emperor, who would not allow the new conscripts to brave the dangers of war without some previous preparation. The Emperor’s letter announced that the whole of Europe was again in arms—that two hundred thousand recruits had been raised in England; and declared his own desire for peace, on condition that the English were not prompted by passion to seek their own prosperity in our abasement.

The Senate passed the required decree, and voted an address of congratulation and thanks to the Emperor. He must have smiled on receiving it.

The minds of men who wield absolute power need to be very generous, in order to resist the temptation to despise the human species—a temptation which is only too well justified by the submission that is accorded to them. When Bonaparte beheld a whole nation giving him its life-blood and its treasure in order to satisfy his insatiable ambition, when educated men of that nation consented to veil his acts of invasion on the human will in plausible phrases, how could he fail to regard the whole world as a vast field, open to the first person who would undertake to occupy and till it? Heroic greatness of soul alone could have discerned that the adulatory words and the blind obedience of the citizens who were isolated by the tyranny of his institutions, and then decimated at his command, were dictated by constraint only.

And yet, although Bonaparte had none of those generous feelings, reasonable observation might have shown him that the alert obedience with which the French marched to the battle-field was but a misdirection of that national spirit which a great Revolution had aroused in a great people. The cry of liberty had awakened generous enthusiasm, but the confusion that ensued had rendered men afraid to complete their work. The Emperor skillfully seized on this moment of hesitation, and turned it to his own advantage. For the last thirty years the French character has been so developed that the bulk of our citizens of every class have been possessed by the desire to live, or, if to live were impossible, by the desire to die, for some particular object. Bonaparte did not, however, invariably mistake the bent of the genius of the people whom he had undertaken to rule, but he felt within himself the strength to control it, and he directed it, or rather misdirected it, to his own advantage.

It was becoming hard to serve him; feelings which seemed instinctively to warn us of what was to come were not to be repressed. Many were the sad reflections of my husband and myself—I remember them well—in the midst of the splendor and luxury of a position for which we were no doubt envied. As I have said, our means were small when we joined the First Consul’s Court. His gifts, which were sold rather than freely bestowed, had surrounded us with luxury on which he insisted. I was still young, and I found myself enabled to gratify the tastes of youth and to enjoy the pleasures of a brilliant position. I had a beautiful house; I had fine diamonds; every day I might vary my elegant dress; a chosen circle of friends dined at my table; every theatre was open to me; there was no fÊte given in Paris to which I was not invited; and yet even then an inexplicable cloud hung over me. Often on our return from a splendid entertainment at the Tuileries, and while still wearing our garb of state—or shall I say, of servitude?—my husband and I would seriously discuss all that was passing around us. A secret anxiety as to the future, an ever-growing distrust of our master, oppressed us both. Without distinctly knowing what we dreaded, we were aware that there was something to dread. “I am unfitted,” my husband used to say, “for the narrow and idle life of a Court.” “I can not admire,” I would say to him, “that which costs so much blood and misery.” We were weary of military glory, and shocked at the fierce severity it often inspires in those who have gained it; and perhaps the repugnance we felt for it was a presentiment of the price which Bonaparte was to make France pay for the greatness that he forced upon her.

To these painful feelings was added the fear of being unable to feel any affection for him whom we must still continue to serve. This was one of my secret troubles. I clung with the enthusiasm of youth and imagination to the admiration for the Emperor that I desired to retain; I sincerely tried to deceive myself with regard to him; I eagerly recalled cases when he had acted up to my hopes. The struggle was painful and vain, but I suffered more after I had relinquished it. In 1814 numbers of people wondered at my ardent desire for the fall of the founder of our fortune, and for the return of those who would ruin it; they accused us of ingratitude in so promptly forsaking the cause of the Emperor, and honored us with their surprise because of the patience with which we endured our heavy loss. They were unable to read our hearts; they were ignorant of the impressions that had been made on us long before. The return of the King ruined us, but it set our hearts and minds at liberty. It promised a future in which our child might freely yield to the noble inspirations of his youth. “My son,” said his father, “will perhaps be poor, but he will not be shackled and hampered as we have been.” It is not sufficiently known in the world—that is, in the regulated and factitious society of a great city—that there is happiness in a position which allows of the complete development of one’s feelings and of freedom in all one’s thoughts.

On the feast of St. Joseph, Princess Borghese and Princess Caroline gave a little fÊte in honor of the Empress. A large party was invited. A comedy or vaudeville was acted, full of verses in honor of the Emperor and in praise of Josephine. The two Princesses represented shepherdesses, and looked exquisitely lovely. General Junot took the part of a soldier just returned from the army, and in love with one of the young girls. The position seemed to suit them perfectly, whether on the stage or elsewhere. But Bonaparte’s two sisters, although Princesses, sang out of tune; and, as each could detect this in the other, she ridiculed her sister’s performance. Both my sister and I took part in the piece. I was greatly amused at the rehearsals by the mutual spitefulness of the two sisters, who had little love for each other, and the vexation of the author and the composer. Both thought a good deal of the production; they were annoyed at hearing their verses and songs badly rendered; they dared not complain, and, when they ventured on timid remonstrance, every one hastened to silence them.

The play was ill performed. The Empress cared little for the insincere homage of her sisters-in-law, and remembered that on this same stage, a few years before, she had seen her own children, young, gay, and loving, touch even Bonaparte’s heart by offering him flowers. She told me that during the whole evening this recollection had been present with her. She was now away from her husband, anxious about him, uneasy about herself, far from her son and daughter. Ever since the day she ascended the throne she had regretted her happier past.

On the occasion of her fÊte-day the Emperor wrote affectionately to her: “I dislike very much being so far away from you. The chill of the climate seems to lay hold of my heart. We are all longing for Paris, that Paris which one regrets in every place, and for whose sake we are always in pursuit of glory, and after all, Josephine, only that we may be applauded on our return by the crowd at the OpÉra. When spring comes, I hope to beat the Russians thoroughly, and then, mesdames, we will go home, and you shall crown us with laurel.”

During the winter the siege of Dantzic was begun. Bonaparte took it into his head to give some glory (as he called it) to Savary. The military reputation of the latter did not stand very high with the army; but he was useful to the Emperor in other ways, and covetous of reward. The Emperor foresaw that some day he would be obliged to give him a decoration, in order to be able to use him as occasion might arise; so he chose to say that Savary had obtained an advantage of some kind over the Russians, and bestowed on him the grand cordon of the Legion of Honor. Military men disapproved, but Bonaparte cared as little for them as for others, and to bestow reward independently of merit or desert was a favorite exercise of his independence.

He seldom left his headquarters at Osterode, except for the purpose of inspecting the various cantonments. He issued decrees on a great number of subjects. He wrote a letter to M. de Champagny, the Minister of the Interior, which was mentioned in the “Moniteur,” ordering him to announce to the Institute that a statue would be presented to it in honor of D’Alembert, the French mathematician, who, more than any other, had contributed to the advancement of science.

The bulletins contained statements of the position of the army only, and of the Emperor’s health, which continued to be excellent. He often rode forty leagues in a day. He continued to make numerous promotions in his army, which were published in the “Moniteur” indiscriminately, and under the same date with the appointment of certain bishops.

The Empress of Austria’s death occurred at this time. She was only thirty-four years of age. She left four sons and five daughters. The Princes of Bavaria and Baden, and some others belonging to the Confederation of the Rhine, were staying with the army and paying court to the Emperor. When the day’s work was over, he attended concerts, given for him by PaËr the musician, whom he had met at Berlin, and whom he engaged in his service and brought back with him to Paris. M. de Talleyrand’s society was no doubt a great resource to the Emperor, but he frequently left him, in order to pass some days in great state at Warsaw, where he conversed with the nobles, and kept up the hopes which it was thought desirable they should not abandon. It was at Warsaw that M. de Talleyrand negotiated on the Emperor’s behalf with ambassadors from the Porte and from Persia. Bonaparte permitted them to witness some manoeuvres by a part of his army. At Warsaw also a suspension of arms between France and Sweden was signed.

The difficulty about the Monseigneur having been settled, Cardinal Maury was admitted to the Institute, and delivered a panegyric on the AbbÉ de Radovilliers as the usual reception speech. An immense crowd was present, but the Cardinal disappointed public expectation. His discourse was long and tedious, and it was justly inferred that his abilities were absolutely worn out. His pastorals and some Lenten sermons which he preached subsequently confirm that impression.

The death of her little grandson, Napoleon, on the 5th of May, was a severe blow to the Empress. The child, after a few days’ illness, died of croup. The despair of the Queen of Holland surpassed description. She clung to the body of her son, and had to be removed by force. Louis Bonaparte, who was terrified as well as grieved at the state of his wife, treated her with great tenderness, and their loss brought about a sincere, though only temporary, reconciliation between them. At intervals the Queen became completely delirious, shrieking, calling on her son, and invoking death; and she was unable to recognize those who approached her. When reason partly returned, she remained buried in profound silence, and was indifferent to all around. At times, however, she would gently thank her husband for his care, in a manner which showed her deep regret that such a misfortune had been needed to change their mutual feelings. On one of these occasions, Louis, true to his strange and jealous temper, while standing beside his wife’s bed, and promising her that in future he would do all he could to make her happy, insisted on her confessing the faults he imagined she had committed. “Confide your errors to me,” he said; “I will forgive them all. We are about to begin a new life which will for ever efface the past.” With all the solemnity of grief, and in the hope of death, the Queen assured him that, ready as she was to appear before the throne of God, she had not even the semblance of a guilty thought of which to accuse herself. The King, still unconvinced, asked her to swear this; but, even after she had taken an oath of her truth, he could not believe her, but recommenced his importunities, until his wife, exhausted by her grief, by the answers she had made, and by this dreadful persecution, felt herself about to faint, and said: “Leave me in peace; I shall not escape from you. We will resume the subject to-morrow.” And with these words she again lost consciousness.

When the young Prince’s death was made known in Paris, a courier was dispatched to the Emperor, Mme. Murat started for the Hague, and a few days later the Empress went to Brussels, whither Louis himself brought his wife and their surviving little son, in order to place them under the care of the Empress. He seemed to be in great grief, and to be very anxious about Queen Hortense, who remained in a state approaching delirium. It was settled that, after a few days’ repose at Malmaison, she was to pass several months in the Pyrenees, where her husband would subsequently join her. After staying one day at the palace of Lacken, near Brussels, the King returned to Holland, and the Empress, her daughter, the latter’s second son, thenceforth of necessity called Napoleon, and the Grand Duchess of Berg, who was ill calculated to console two persons whom she so greatly disliked, came back to Paris. M. de RÉmusat, who was in attendance on the Empress on this melancholy journey, told me on his return of the attention with which Louis had treated his wife, and that he had observed that Mme. Murat was displeased by it.

Mme. Louis Bonaparte remained at Malmaison for a fortnight in profound retirement and deep dejection. Toward the end of May she left for Cauterets. She was indifferent to all things, tearless, sleepless, speechless. She would press the hand of any one who spoke to her, and every day, at the hour of her son’s death, she had a violent hysterical attack. I never beheld grief so painful to witness. She was pale, motionless, her eyes rigidly fixed—one could not but weep on approaching her; then she would utter these few words: “Why do you weep? He is dead—I know it well; but I do not suffer. I assure you I feel nothing.”

During her journey to the south, a tremendous storm roused her from this state of lethargy. There had been a storm on the day that her son died. When the thunder roared this time, she listened to it attentively; as it increased in violence, she was seized with a terrible nervous attack, followed by a flood of tears; and from that instant she regained the power of feeling and of suffering, and gave herself up to a profound grief which never completely subsided. Although I can not continue her history without anticipating dates, I will nevertheless conclude this episode in her life at once. She took up her abode among the mountains with a small suite, and tried to escape from herself by continually walking, so as to exhaust her strength. In a state of constant painful excitement, she wandered through the valleys of the Pyrenees, or climbed the rocks, attempting the most difficult ascents, and seemed, I have been told by others, as if only bent on wearing herself out.

At Cauterets she met by chance with M. Decazes, who was then young, unknown to fame, and, like the Queen, in deep grief. He had lost his young wife, and was in bad health. These two met and understood each other’s grief. It is extremely probable that Mme. Louis, who was too unhappy to restrict herself to the conventionalities of her rank, and refused to receive unsympathetic persons, was more accessible to a man suffering from a sorrow like her own. M. Decazes was young and handsome; the idle sojourners at a watering-place and the inconsiderate tongue of scandal pretended there was something more than friendship in this. The Queen was too much absorbed in her sorrow to take notice of anything that was going on around her. Her only companions were young friends devoted to her, anxious about her health, and eager to procure her the least alleviation. Meanwhile letters were written to Paris full of gossip about the Queen and M. Decazes.

At the end of the summer King Louis rejoined his wife in the south of France. It would seem that the sight of the sorrowing mother and of his only surviving son softened his heart. The interview was affectionate on both sides, and the married pair, who for long had lived in estrangement, were once more reconciled. Had Louis returned immediately to the Hague, it is probable that the reconciliation would have been lasting; but he accompanied his wife to Paris, and their domestic union displeased Mme. Murat. I was told by the Empress that at first, on their return to Paris, her daughter was deeply touched by the grief of her husband, and said that, through suffering, a new bond had been formed between them, and that she felt she could forgive the past. But Mme. Murat—or so the Empress believed on what appeared to be good grounds—began once more to disturb her brother’s mind. She related to him, without appearing to believe them herself, the stories told of the Queen’s meetings with M. Decazes. Less than this would have sufficed to rekindle Louis’s jealousy and suspicion. I can not now remember whether he had himself met M. Decazes in the Pyrenees, or whether he had merely heard him spoken of by his wife; for, as she attached not the least importance to her acquaintance with him, she often said, before other persons, how much she had been touched by the similarity of their sorrows, and how deeply she felt, in her own grief, for the desolation of the bereaved husband.

The Empress, who was alarmed at the emaciated condition of her daughter, and who feared for her the fatigue of another journey, as well as the climate of Holland, entreated the Emperor, who had then returned to Paris, to persuade Louis to allow his wife to remain in Paris for her confinement. The Emperor obtained permission for her by commanding Louis to grant it. The latter, who was angry, embittered, and no doubt ill pleased at being forced to return alone to the gloomy mists of his kingdom, and who was beset by his own bad temper, resumed his suspicions and his ill humor, and once more vented both on his wife. At first she could hardly believe him to be in earnest; but, when she found herself again being insulted, when she began to understand that even in her sorrow she was not respected, and that she had been thought capable of an intrigue at a time when she had been only longing for death, she fell into a state of utter dejection. Indifferent to the present, to the future, to every tie she felt contempt for her husband, which perhaps she allowed to be too plainly perceptible, and she thought only of how she might contrive to live apart from him. All this took place in the autumn of 1807. When I shall have reached that date, I may have more to say about this unhappy woman.

The Empress shed many tears over the death of her grandson. Besides the ardent affection she had cherished for this child, who was of a lovable disposition, her own position was, she felt, endangered by his death. She had hoped that Louis’s children would make up to the Emperor for her lack of offspring, and the terrible divorce, which cost her so often such agonizing dread, seemed after this sad loss once more to threaten her. She spoke to me at the time of her secret fears, and I had much difficulty in soothing her.

Even at the present day the impression produced by M. de Fontanes’ fine speech on this misfortune, into which he contrived to introduce a remarkable description of Bonaparte’s prosperity, is not yet forgotten. The Emperor had ordered that the colors taken from the enemy in this last campaign and the sword of Frederick the Great should be borne in state to the Invalides. A Te Deum was to be sung, and an oration delivered in the presence of the great dignitaries, the Ministers, the Senate, and the pensioners themselves. The ceremony, which took place on the 17th of May, 1807, was very imposing, and the speech of M. de Fontanes will perpetuate for us the remembrance of those sacred spoils, which have since been restored to their former owners. The orator was admired for aggrandizing his hero, and yet for refraining from insult to the vanquished, and for reserving his praise for what was really heroic. It was added that, strictly speaking, his praise might be taken for advice; and such was the state of submission and fear in those days that M. de Fontanes was held to have displayed remarkable courage.

In his peroration he described his hero surrounded with the pomp of victory, but turning from it to weep over a child. But the hero did not weep. He was at first painfully affected by the boy’s death, then shook off the feeling as soon as possible. M. de Talleyrand told me afterward that the very next day after hearing the news the Emperor was conversing freely and just as usual with those around him, and that when he was about to grant an audience to some of the great nobles from the Court of Warsaw, who came to offer their condolence, he (M. de Talleyrand) thought himself obliged to remind him to assume a serious expression, and ventured to offer a remark on his apparent indifference, to which the Emperor replied that “he had no time to amuse himself with feelings and regrets like other men.”