"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 Htel 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 faade 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 Branger's Memories of the People, the weather was perfect, the Emperor radiant:—

"I, a poor woman, Being in Paris one day, Saw him with his court; He was going to Notre Dame— All hearts were happy; Every one admired the procession. Every one said: What fine weather! Heaven is always favorable to him. His smile was very gentle; God had made him father of a son." And the little villagers all sing in chorus:—

"What a great day for you, grandmother! What a great day for you!"

At a little before seven the Imperial procession reached Notre Dame. The sovereigns were met at the door by the Cardinal Grand Almoner, who gave them holy water. Then the procession advanced in the following order: ushers, heralds-at-arms, the Chief Herald, the pages, the aides, the orderly officers on duty, the masters of ceremonies, the prefects of the Palace on duty, the officers of the King of Rome, the Emperor's equerries, ordinary and extraordinary, in attendance, the chamberlains, ordinary and extraordinary, in attendance, the equerries of the day, the chamberlains of the day, the First Equerry, the grand eagles of the Legion of Honor, the high officers of the Empire, the ministers, the High Chamberlain, the First Equerry, and the Grand Master of Ceremonies;—the various objects to be used, to wit: the Prince's candle, carried by the Princess of Neufchtel; the chrisom cloth, by the Princess Aldobrandini; the saltcellar, by the Countess of Beauvau;—then the objects belonging to the godfather and godmother, to wit: the basin, carried by the Duchess of Alborg; the ewer, by the Countess Vilain XIV.; the towel, by the Duchess of Dalmatia;—in front of the King of Rome, to the right, the Grand Duke of Wrzburg, representing the Emperor of Austria, godfather; to the left, the mother of Napoleon, godmother, and Queen Hortense, representing the Queen of Naples, the second godmother; the King of Rome, carried by his governess, in a coat of silver tissue embroidered with ermine, with his two assistant governesses and nurse on each side (the train of his coat was carried by Marshal, the Duke of Valmy); the Empress, beneath a canopy upheld by canons, her First Equerry holding Her Majesty's train; the lady-in-waiting and tirewoman, the Knight of Honor and the First Almoner, to the right and left;—behind the canopy Princess Pauline, an officer of her household carrying her train; the ladies of the Palace; Cambacrs, Duke of Parma, Archchancellor of the Empire; Marshal Berthier, Prince of Neufchtel and of Wagram, Vice-Constable; Talleyrand, Prince of Benevento, Vice Grand Elector; Prince Borghese, Duke of Guastalla; Prince Eugene, Viceroy of Italy; the Hereditary Grand Duke of Frankfort; Prince Joseph Napoleon, King of Spain; Prince Jerome Napoleon, King of Westphalia;—the Emperor under a canopy, upheld by canons: to the right and left of the canopy, his aides; behind the canopy the Colonel commanding the Guard on duty, the Grand Marshal of the Palace, and the First Almoner; the ladies-in-waiting of the Princesses, the ladies and officers of Their Imperial Highnesses on duty.

When the procession had taken their places according to their rank, the Grand Almoner intoned the Veni Creator, and the governess having carried the child to the railing of the choir, he went through the preliminary rites, and then took place the baptism. As soon as the Imperial child had been baptized, the governess placed him in the hands of the Empress; the First Herald-at-Arms advanced to the middle of the choir and called out three times, "Long live the King of Rome!" Cheers and applause, which till that moment had been restrained by the sanctity of the ceremony and the solemnity of the place, then broke forth on all sides. While they lasted, Marie Louise stood with the child in her arms; the Emperor then took him and held him aloft, that all might see him.

Thiers thus comments in a page of real eloquence on this imposing spectacle: "What a solemn mystery surrounds human life! What a painful surprise it would have been, if beyond this scene of power and greatness, one could have seen the ruin, the blood, the flames of Moscow, the ice of the Beresina and Leipsic, Fontainebleau, Elba, Saint Helena, and finally the death of this prince at the age of twenty, in exile, without one of the crowns he wore that day upon his head, and the many revolutions once more to raise his family after overthrowing it! What a blessing that the future is hidden from man! But what a stumbling-block for his prudence, charged to conjecture the morrow and to guard against it with all one's wisdom."

When the governess had again taken the Prince, she courtesied to the Emperor, and the King of Rome, with his retinue, left the church, to be taken to the Archbishop's, whence he returned to the Tuileries. Then the Grand Almoner intoned the Te Deum, which, was performed by the choir, and followed by the Domine, fac salvum imperatorem. The Emperor and the Empress were conducted with the same ceremonies as at their entrance, to the church door, where they got into their carriage amid the cheers of the crowd, and drove to the entertainment at the Htel de Ville.

"The people of Paris admitted to this festivity," says Thiers, "were able to see Napoleon at table, his crown on his head, surrounded by the kings of his family and a number of foreign princes, eating in public, like the old Germanic Emperors, the successors of the Emperors of the West. The Parisians applauded in their delight at this brilliant spectacle, imagining that durability was united with grandeur and with glory! They did well to rejoice, for these joys were the last of the reign. Henceforth our story is but one long lamentation."

Napoleon and Marie Louise reached the Htel de Ville at eight in the evening. The Prefect of the Seine, after welcoming them with an address, led them to the rooms prepared for them, and the Emperor received four sets of presentations. The Grand Marshal of the Palace announced that dinner was ready. The Imperial banquet was thus arranged: in the middle of the table, the Emperor; on his left, the Empress, the Queen of Holland, Princess Borghese, the Grand Duke of Wrzburg, the Grand Duke of Frankfort; on his right, his mother, the King of Spain, the King of Westphalia, Prince Borghese, the Viceroy of Italy. The table was on a dais. A canopy overhung the chairs of the Emperor and Empress. The ladies of the Palace and the Imperial retinue sat below the platform, opposite the table, The officers of the Emperor's household waited on the table. The hall was decorated with the coats-of-arms of the forty-nine chosen cities, Paris, Rome, and Amsterdam being the first; the rest were in alphabetical order. After the dinner, the sovereigns went into the record-room, where a concert was given, in which was sung a cantata, called "Ossian's Song," with words by Arnault, and music by Mhul. Then, after talking to a number of people in the throne-room, Napoleon and Louise went into the garden which had been constructed about the courtyard of the Htel de Ville, where the Tiber was represented by abundant streams of cool water. They left at eleven, and thereupon was opened a ball which lasted till daybreak. In the morning poor young girls, with dowries given by the city, had been married to soldiers in every arrondissement. The whole city was alive with enthusiasm. Food had been given away on the Champs lyses, there had been sports in the square of Marigny, tournaments, greased poles, public balls, balloon ascension, fireworks, a general illumination, and everything of the sort for the amusement of the populace.

On the 9th of June there were grand festivities in the large towns of the Empire, in honor of the baptism of the King of Rome. At Antwerp all the arts and trades contributed to making six chariots, which made an imposing procession. The first represented France crowned by Immortality; the second, the marriage of the Emperor and Empress; the third, the birth of the King of Rome; the fourth, his cradle; the fifth, Religion, Innocence, and Charity praying Heaven for a long life to the sovereigns and their son; the sixth, France representing the young Prince as King to the city of Rome. This procession of chariots was preceded by the giant, the whale, the frigate, the car of Neptune, that of Europe, and other figures called in their language den grooten hommegang.

At Rome, the city of the Prince, festivities began in the night of June 8, being announced by guns of the fleet of Civita Vecchia, which had sailed up the Tiber, all beautifully decorated. The Capitol, the Forum, the Coliseum, the arches of Septimius and Constantine, the temples of Concord, of Peace, of Antoninus, and Fausta, the Column of Jupiter Stator, were all brilliantly illuminated. In the morning of the 9th all the authorities went to Saint Peter's to hear the Te Deum sung before an immense multitude. In the course of the day there was a horse-race, and in the evening the dome of Saint Peter's and the Colonnade were illuminated, and there were fireworks at the Castle of Saint Angelo. The Rome of the Csars and the Popes, the Eternal City, celebrated the baptismal day of its young King with great splendor.



XXII.

SAINT CLOUD AND TRIANON.

The Emperor had determined that there could not be too much rejoicing at his son's baptism; consequently he gave an entertainment himself, June 23,1811, in the palace and park of Saint Cloud. The palace, with its magnificent halls, its drawing-rooms of Mars, Venus, Truth, Mercury, and Aurora, its Gallery of Apollo, and Room of Diana, adorned with Mignard's frescoes; the park, with its fine trees, its wonderful stretches, its greensward, and abundant flowers; the two grand views from the upper windows, one towards Paris, the other towards the garden; the waterfalls, set in a tasteful frame, and rushing down step by step, breaking into a white foam, sparkling in the sunlight or with the reflection of a thousand torches, formed a marvellous setting for a festival both by night and by day. More than three hundred thousand persons went to Saint Cloud; they began to arrive in the morning, and filled every avenue, covered every bit of rising ground. Food was publicly distributed; the fountains ran wine. Games and sports of all kinds were played, and the Imperial Guard gave an open-air banquet to the garrison of Paris.

At six in the evening Napoleon and Marie Louise drove in an open barouche through the park, without guard or escort, to the great delight of the applauding multitude. The orange house, which had been stripped of its contents for the decoration of the front of the palace, was adorned with stuffs of fine colors. Temples and kiosks had been set up in the shrubbery. At nightfall six illuminated launches, manned by sailors of the Imperial Guard, performed various evolutions and discharged fireworks, which made a brilliant show upon the river. Meanwhile the illuminations began throughout the park, along the terraces, and the amphitheatre, and in the palace. It was a most fairy-like sight; the large cascade with its half-lying statues of the Seine and the Loire; the lower cascade beneath; the fountain rising twenty-seven metres; the large square basin with the ten little shell-shaped basins and the nine fountains spurting from gilded masques; the green lawns, the flower-beds, the shrubbery,—all lit up by the blazing fireworks. At nine o'clock Madame Blanchard went up in a balloon, discharging fireworks from the car, which formed a starlike crown set at a great height; she seemed like a magician in a fiery chariot. Fireworks were then set off by the artillery of the Imperial Guard from the middle of the Plain of Boulogne; they were visible from Paris as from Saint Cloud, and from all the hills bordering the Seine from Calvaire to Meudon. Next to the row of columns opened the illuminated garden, with waterfalls, trees, and porticoes, forming a most brilliant spectacle. The Emperor and Empress walked through the park, and Marie Louise was continually reminded of her beloved Austria, of Schoenbrunn, of the Burg, of Laxenburg, by the wonderful panorama. There were many bands stationed among the trees, playing waltzes, and dancers from the opera, dressed as German shepherds and shepherdesses, were dancing. An interlude, "The Village Festival," words by tienne, set to music by Nicolo, was given in the open air, on the grass. When the Empress came to a column supporting a basket of flowers, a dove alit at her feet and offered her an ingenious motto.

The weather had been tolerably pleasant all day; but it became stormy in the evening; the air grew heavy: there could be seen neither moon nor stars. There had just been illuminated, opposite the grand cascade, a model of the palace intended for the King of Rome,—this palace the Emperor meant to build on the high ground of Chaillot, with the Bois de Boulogne for its park,—when suddenly the storm that had been slowly gathering burst upon the heads of the vast crowd in the park. There were there deputations from all the large towns of the vast empire which reached from Cuxhaven to Rome; the men in costly velvet coats, the women in dresses of embroidered silk. The Emperor at the moment happened to be talking in the doorway between the drawing-room and the garden; near him was the Mayor of Lyons, to whom he said, "I am going to benefit your manufactures." Then he remained standing in the doorway. The courtiers received the shower with bare heads and smiling faces. Possibly some might have said that the rain of Saint Cloud, like the rain of Marly, did not wet.

Of course no one had an umbrella. Prince Aldobrandini, the Empress's First Equerry, managed to procure one, which he held over her. Count Rmusat found another, and for an hour he was coming and going, between the park and the palace, to bring as many ladies as possible under shelter. The entertainment could not go on; every one was wet through. The musicians could not play on their dripping instruments. The Emperor and the Empress withdrew at eleven, and both the court and the people had gloomy memories of this festivity which began so well and ended so badly. Superstitious and ill-disposed persons fancied that they saw an evil omen in this; they recalled the disastrous ball at the Austrian Embassy, and said that the storm broke just at the very moment when the palace of the King of Rome was illuminated. But what difference could a simple shower make to a people accustomed to streams of blood?

August 15, 1811, there was a brilliant celebration at Saint Cloud and Paris, as well as throughout the Empire, of the festival of the great and the small Napoleon. August 25 was the birthday of the Empress Marie Louise, and this was celebrated at the two Trianons, which were full of memories of Louis XIV. and of Marie Antoinette. The Grand Trianon, graceful and majestic, though but a single story high, and the Little Trianon, charming, though but a simple small square, of no regal aspect, were enchanted palaces on Marie Louise's birthday. The two buildings, the belvedere, the little lakes, the island and Temple of Love, the village, the octagonal pavilion, the theatre, were all aglow. It seemed as if Marie Antoinette were alive again, and to the Empress Delille's lines could have applied as well as to the Queen:—

"Like its August and youthful deity, Trianon combines grace with majesty: For her it adorns itself, is by her adorned."

It was only twenty-two years since Marie Antoinette had been there, and many of the lords and ladies who adorned Napoleon's court as they had adorned that of Louis XVI. could not see without emotion this fairy-like recall of the brilliant days of the old rgime. The French nobility had an opportunity to make many reflections on revisiting the Little Trianon which aroused many memories. It was less than eighteen years since there had perished on the scaffold the charming sovereign who had been the idol, the goddess, of this little temple; and now new festivities were beginning; another Austrian archduchess occupied the place of the martyred Queen. There was the Swiss village, of which Louis XVI. had been the miller, the Count of Provence the schoolmaster, the Count of Artois the gamekeeper, the village with its merry mill, the dairy where the cream filled porphyry vessels on marble tables, the laundry where the clothes were beaten with ebony sticks, the granary to which led mahogany ladders, the sheep-house where the sheep were shorn with golden shears. They saw once more the grass sprinkled with flowers, the clear water, the trees of all colors from dark green to cherry-red; larches and pink acacias, cedars of Lebanon, sophoras from China, poplars from Athens, and they said that Time, which shatters a sceptre, respects a shrub. Everything else had changed; the garden was still the same.

All day long the gloomy solitude of Versailles had been crowded anew as if by magic. A countless multitude thronged its long, wide avenues, which had been almost deserted since October, 1789. The festivities of the former monarchy appeared to have begun again. At three in the afternoon a rather heavy shower had fallen, and it seemed as if the day and evening would end gloomily; but on the contrary, the rain was but brief and only freshened the air, and made the festival pleasanter. The setting sun lit up the great king's town, and at night many-colored lamps decorated the Grand Trianon. Six hundred women in rich dresses, and ablaze with jewelry, gathered in the gallery of that palace. The Empress spoke to many of them, and it was noticed how well she had become acquainted with French society, although she had been in the country but fifteen months; and with what kindness and dignity she addressed them.

Then they went to the theatre of the Little Trianon, a perfect jewel, a gem, with its two Ionic columns, its pediment in which Love is holding a lyre and a laurel wreath; and its ceiling representing Olympus, the work of Lagrene; and its curtain, on which are two nymphs supporting Marie Antoinette's coat-of-arms. It was there that, August 19, 1785, the Queen played Rosina, in "The Barber of Seville," and that the Count of Artois uttered those ominous words as Figaro, "I try to laugh at everything, lest I should have to weep at everything." Before Napoleon and Marie Louise there was given a piece composed for the occasion by Alissan de Chazet: it was called "The Gardener of Schoenbrunn." After it was a pretty ballet given by the dancers of the Opera.

When this was over, the Emperor and Empress walked through the gardens of the Little Trianon, which were illuminated. Napoleon, with his hat in his hand, gave his arm to Marie Louise. They visited the island and the marble Temple of Love, in which is Bouchardon's statue of Love carving his bow into the club of Hercules. There was soft music from concealed performers, which seemed to rise from the bottom of the lake, on which floated illuminated boats full of children disguised as cupids. Then they walked further in the garden, and watched a tableau vivant, representing Flemish peasants. This was succeeded by groups representing the people of the different provinces of the Empire in their national dress, from the Tiber to the North Sea. The celebration ended with a supper in the gallery of the Grand Trianon. All those who had known the place in the old rgime agreed that the festival was a perfect success; and Marie Louise, who was becoming more and more at home in France, was sure that her birthday had never been celebrated with anything like such magnificence.



XXIII.

THE TRIP TO HOLLAND.

A short time after Wagram Napoleon had been heard, in a levee at which his generals were present, to lament the bloody campaigns in which he always lost some of his early companions. "I have been a soldier long enough," he went on; "it's time for me to be a king." During 1811 he seemed faithful to this new programme. The soldier had become a monarch, and the hero of so many battles seemed to be desirous of the glories of peace. He determined to make a trip in Belgium and Holland and along the banks of the Rhine, where he should see for himself what the happiness of the people required. The Empress made the journey with him, but Napoleon started from Compigne without her, September 19; she was to join him on the 30th at Antwerp. At this time she was so attached to him that she could not endure a separation of only a few days, and she wrote to her father: "My husband has left to-night to go to the island of Walcheren, which has the worst climate in the world, so that I could not go with him, for which I am extremely sorry." While the Emperor was visiting Boulogne, Ostend, and Flushing, the Queen made her way, with a magnificent court, to Belgium. She left Compigne, September 22, and took up her residence at the castle at Laeken, near Brussels. She often visited the Belgian capital, which then was only the chief town of a French department,—the department of the Dyle. Napoleon made a great point of her appearing in all splendor in the provinces which had previously been governed by the house of Austria. She went to the theatre, where she was warmly greeted, and purchased a hundred and fifty thousand francs' worth of lace to revive the manufactures of the city. September 30 she joined her husband at Antwerp. The Moniteur thus spoke of the way the Emperor had transformed this city: "Antwerp may be considered as a fortress of the rank of Metz and Strasbourg. The work which has been done there is enormous. On the left bank of the Scheldt, where two years ago there was only a redoubt, there has risen a city twelve thousand feet long, with eight bastions.... The view from the dockyard is unparalleled; twenty-one men-of-war, eight of them three-deckers, are building. The arsenal is fully provided with provisions of all sorts brought down the Rhine and the Meuse.

"Seven years ago," continues the Moniteur, "there was not a single quay in Antwerp, and the houses came down to the river's edge. To-day, in the place of these houses, are superb quays, of service to the commerce and to the defence of the place. Six years ago there was no basin, but only a few canals where boats drawing ten or twelve feet could scarcely enter. To-day there is a basin twenty-six feet deep at the bank, able to hold ships-of-the-line, with a lock for the admission of ships carrying a hundred and twenty guns."

The formal entrance into Amsterdam took place October 9, 1811. The former capital of Holland was merely the chief town of a French department,—the department of the Zuyder Zee. The Dutch were suffering a good deal from the Embargo, and sorely missed King Louis Bonaparte, who had in vain tried to alleviate their sufferings. When they came under the dominion of the Emperor, he had appointed Lebrun, Duke of Piacenza, their governor general. Of him, Count Beugnot says in his Memoirs, "He was doubtless a superior man, but he found it easier to translate Homer and Tasso, and to treat with wonderful ease the most difficult questions of political economy, than to console a Dutchman for the loss of ten florins."

The discontent of the Dutch only strengthened Napoleon's desire to please and win them. "It seemed at that time," M. Beugnot goes on, "as if Heaven had given him every means of securing happiness. A son had just been born to him, whose future the poets were justified in foretelling in their own way. The child who inspired the Mantuan poet with the idyl, or rather with the magnificent prophecy, Sicelides Musae, etc., was but an humble creature by the side of this infant, who to the most impressive pride of race added enormous, newly acquired glory, such as the world had never seen." The happy Emperor fancied that by showing himself with the mother of the King of Rome to the Dutch and Germans, he should silence their complaints, wipe out their memories of national independence, and arouse an enthusiasm that would make them forget their sufferings and losses. Their welcome was of a sort to confirm him in this belief. The peaceful populace of Amsterdam forgot their usual phlegm, and cheered the mighty monarch and his young wife. The Empress entered the city in a gilded carriage with glass sides, and she was met by a guard of honor composed of young men belonging to the first families of Holland. The Emperor followed on horseback, surrounded by a brilliant staff. Their stay at Amsterdam was marked by extraordinary pomp; the company of the Thtre Franais was brought thither from Paris, and Talma appeared as Bayard and as Orosmane. The court made a stay of a fortnight, the Emperor making short excursions to Helder, one of his creations, to Texel, and to the dykes of Medemblik, which protect the country against the Zuyder Zee.

General de Sgur, who went on the journey, thus describes it: "It might naturally be supposed, that in going through Holland, after the last two attempted assassinations, Napoleon would have taken precautions against such frequent attacks; but, far from it, he was full of confidence, and went about alone among these worst victims of the continental system, mingling every day with the dense crowd that gathered about him. His sole thought was to study their needs, their manners, and habits, anxious to see for himself and trusting thoroughly in them. These northern people hide warm hearts beneath a cold exterior; they are impressed by greatness, and give it their confidence. Their feelings are slow, but for that reason surer when once aroused. The Emperor's enormous fame had preceded him; and the appearance among them of this genius, all fire and flame, who had come, as he said, to adopt them, warmed their phlegmatic nature. They were at once filled with admiration; his presence, his trust in them, his consoling and encouraging words, the good works at once begun by his active and able administration, filled them with enthusiasm."

During the three days of the Emperor's absence Marie Louise visited the neighborhood of Amsterdam. She went to the village of Broek, which lies a league from the port, on the shores of a little basin surrounded with flowers and grass, and is in communication with the Zuyder Zee by means of a small canal. This village is famous as a perfect model of the attractive luxury and the over-zealous neatness of the Dutch. It is of a circular shape. The houses, of wood and one story high, are built around and upon a lake, and are decorated outside with frescoes. Through the window-glass, which is remarkably clear, it is easy to see the curtains of Chinese figured silk or of Indian stuff. Within the houses are large Gothic sideboards, full of costly Japanese porcelain. There are no signs of use or of wear upon the furniture; every house looks as if it were the house of the Sleeping Beauty. There are no barns, or stables, or granaries, or kitchens. Everything connected with animals is banished from this fairy-like enclosure. Posts at the ends of every street bar the way against carriages. The pavement is in mosaic, and is covered with a fine sand, on which are designs of flowers. The inhabitants carry their sense of neatness so far that they compel every visitor to take off his shoes and put on slippers on entering a house. One day, when the Emperor Joseph II. happened to appear in a pair of boots before one of these curious houses, he was told that he would have to take them off before he could go in. "I am the Emperor," he said. "Well, if you were the burgomaster of Amsterdam, you couldn't come in with boots on," was the reply. Another time Hortense, then Queen of Holland, was not allowed to enter one of the houses, and King Louis approved, because the Queen had not sent word that she was coming.

When Marie Louise visited this famous village, the burgomaster, in view of the importance of the occasion, consented to break the rigid rules and to permit the Imperial carriage to drive over the mosaic pavement to his house, where he presented his respects to the Empress. At this house, as in every one in the village, there are two doors,—one for daily use, the other opened only for baptisms, marriages, and funerals. This door, which is called the fatal door, opens into a room which is always kept shut except on these three occasions. "The Empress," says M. de Bausset, "asked to have the fatal door opened. We crossed the threshold with gratified vanity, in the presence of many inhabitants, who feared to follow us, but who were almost tempted to admire the ease and courage with which we went in and out. After visiting, admiring, and praising everything, we left these worthy people delighted with the touching graces and amiable kindness of their young sovereign."

The Emperor and Empress visited Saardam, where Peter the Great spent ten months as a workman, to study shipbuilding. Napoleon fell into meditation before the hut of the famous Czar, as he had done before the tomb of Frederick the Great. "That is the noblest monument in Holland!" he said; and in memory of Peter the Great he ordered Saardam to be made a city.

Napoleon and Marie Louise also spent a few hours at Harlem, a half-Gothic, half-Japanese town, celebrated by the passion of its inhabitants for flowers, especially for tulips. October 26, they arrived at Rotterdam, at Loo on the 27th, and spent the night of the 28th at The Hague, whence they went to visit the banks of the Rhine. The Emperor carried away with him a most favorable impression of the Dutch, whose seriousness, morality, love of order, and industry had continually struck him, so that he shared his brother Louis's partiality for a nation as interesting in the present as in the past.

November 2, Napoleon and his wife reached Dsseldorf. This pretty town, which is picturesquely placed at the junction of the Dssel with the Rhine, was at that time the capital of the Grand Duchy of Berg, and had been under the rule of Murat before he was appointed King of Naples; on this visit the Emperor assigned it to the oldest son of Louis Bonaparte. Count Beugnot was then ruling the principality, which contained less than a million inhabitants. He it was who said in his curious and witty Memoirs: "How easy it would have been to secure the allegiance of the Germans, who are unable to withstand the attraction of military glory, for whom an oath of allegiance is a mere nothing, and who felt for France an affection which we cruelly drove out of them!... Germany, which always admires the marvellous, long preserved its admiration for the Emperor. At that time this was so general, that a breath would have blown over the Prussian monarchy, which neither the armies nor the memories of the great Frederick, together with the invincible legion of the successor of Peter the Great, could defend."

At Dsseldorf, Napoleon, in accordance with his usual custom, received all the authorities, civil and military, as well as representatives of all sects. Among these last was an old white-bearded rabbi a hundred years old, who was so anxious to see the Emperor that he had himself carried to the reception. He entered, supported on one side by the parish priest, on the other, by the Protestant clergyman. This union of the three creeds in homage to their sovereign did not displease the Emperor, strange as it was. Count Beugnot's Memoirs must be consulted for a full account of the activity, the interest in details, the minuteness of the administrative investigations which, at Dsseldorf as everywhere else, characterized Napoleon in these laborious journeys, on which, under pretext of seeking distraction, he kept himself in almost as active movement as if he were at war. The Count who once played whist at Dsseldorf with Marie Louise for his partner, against the Duchess of Montebello and the Prince of Neufchtel, says in speaking of the occasion: "As often happens, the game was carelessly played; all watched the cards only with their eyes, and gave their attention to what was going forward about the table, to which the Emperor came every few minutes to say a few pleasant words to the Empress or to joke with the Prince of Neufchtel and me. I was too busy, both during the dinner and while we were playing, to make any study of the Empress's tastes or to form from them a judgment about her character. The journey had been long; she seemed tired and out of sorts. She answered the Emperor only in monosyllables, and the other by a somewhat monotonous nod of the head. I may be mistaken, but I am inclined to believe that Her Majesty is not free from the awe which her August husband inspires in all who approach him."

After resting for two days at Dsseldorf, Napoleon and Marie Louise went on to Cologne, when they visited the Chapel of the Eleven Thousand Virgins, and a grand Te Deum was sung in the famous Cathedral, They returned by Lige, Givet, Mzires, and Compigne, reaching Saint Cloud after an absence of nearly three months,—the longest visit that the Emperor had made in the provinces of either the old or the new France. Everywhere he had met with the expression of two distinct but somewhat different sentiments: for the Empress, an affectionate respect; for himself, the sort of violent sensation that a man who is a living wonder always produces. XXIV.

NAPOLEON AT THE HEIGHT OF HIS POWER.

At the beginning of 1812 Napoleon had reached the height of his power. Before we watch his decline, it may be well to consider him at the summit of his fortune, in the fulness of his force, might, and glory. In his career there were two distinctly marked periods,—the democratic and the aristocratic. In the early days of the Empire the first one had not yet come to an end. The coins of that time still bore the stamp, "French Republic. Napoleon Emperor." He himself resembled Caesar rather than Charlemagne: he granted no hereditary titles, and associated with but few of the migrs; he was still, in many ways, a man of the Revolution. In 1812, on the other hand, he had given his authority a sort of feudal character, and revived many points of resemblance with the Carlovingian epoch. Charlemagne had become his model, his ideal. The saviour of the Convention, the friend of the young Robespierre, was busily introducing much of the imperial and military splendor of the Middle Ages. The continental sovereigns treated him with so much consideration that he regarded himself as their superior rather than as an equal. He called them his brothers; but he thought that he was more than a brother—something like the head of a family of kings. The Kings of Bavaria, of Wrtemberg, of Saxony, of Spain, of Naples, of Westphalia, who all owed their crowns to him, were indeed his subordinates. As the Princes of the Confederation of the Rhine, the vassals of their protector, they despatched their contingents to him with as much zeal and punctuality as if they had been plain prefects of the Empire.

The migrs crowded the drawing-rooms of the Tuileries. One might have thought one's self at Coblenz. Those men who belonged to the old rgime were especially appreciated. The one of his aides-de-camp who most pleased the Emperor was perhaps the Count of Narbonne, knight of honor of one of the daughters of Louis XV., Minister of War under Louis XVI. The most rigid, the most precise etiquette prevailed in the Imperial residences. The high dignitaries and marshals concealed their plebeian names under pompous titles of princes and dukes. Madame de Mailly, the widow of a marshal of the royal period, had been admitted to the rank and privileges of the wives of the grand officers of the crown, and had figured as a marshal's widow, at the reception of January 1, 1811. The court of Versailles appeared to have revived.

Napoleon preferred to derive his power from divine right than from the will of the nation. "He was much struck," Metternich says in his Memoirs, "by the idea of ascribing the origin of supreme power to divine choice. One day at Compigne, soon after his marriage, he said to me, 'I notice that when the Empress writes to her father, she addresses him as His Holy Imperial Highness. Is that your usual way?' I told him he was so addressed from the tradition of the old Germanic Empire, and because he also wore the apostolic crown of Hungary. Napoleon then said with some solemnity, 'It is a noble and excellent custom. Power derives from God, and that is the only way it can be secure from human assault. Some time or other I shall adopt the same title.'"

At about the same time, in conversation with M. Mol about the houses building in Paris, on being asked when he intended to give his attention to the Church of the Madeleine, the Emperor said, "Well, what is expected of me?" M. Mol told him that he had heard that it was intended for a Temple of Glory. "That's what people think, I know," said Napoleon; "but I mean it for a memorial in expiation of the murder of Louis XVI." He said to Metternich: "When I was young I favored the Revolution out of ignorance and ambition. When I came to the age of reason I followed its counsels and my own instinct, and crushed the Revolution." At another time he said: "The French throne was empty. Louis XVI. had not been able to hold it. If I had been in his place, in spite of the immense progress it had made in men's minds during the previous reigns, the Revolution would not have triumphed. When the King fell, the Republic took its place; and I set that aside. The former throne was buried under the ruins; I had to make a new one."

According to Prince Metternich, "One of Napoleon's keenest and most persistent regrets was that he could not appeal to the principle of legitimacy as the foundation of his power. Few men have felt like him the fragility and precariousness of authority without this basis, and its vulnerability to attacks." One day, in speaking to the Austrian statesman about the letter he wrote when First Consul to Louis XVIII., he said: "His answer was dignified and rich in impressive traditions. In Legitimists there is something which lies outside of their intelligence. If he had consulted his intellect alone, he would have come to terms with me, and I should have treated him most generously."

The Emperor had come to regard himself as the glorious personification of divine right, and as the defender of all the monarchies. In his eyes the King of Prussia was only a revolutionary monarch. If we may believe Chateaubriand, "Frederick William's great crime, according to Bonaparte the Republican, was this, that he abandoned the cause of the kings. The negotiations of the Berlin court with the Directory indicated, Bonaparte used to say, a timid, selfish, undignified policy, which sacrificed his own position and the general monarchical interests to petty advantages. When he used to look at the new Prussia on the map he would say, 'Is it possible that I have left that man so much territory?'"

The philosophers aroused as much horror in Napoleon as the Jacobins. In his eyes strong minds were weak minds; and though he persecuted the Pope, he denounced with equal severity attacks on the throne and attacks on the Church. He especially detested the Voltairian irony, regarding it as both blasphemous and treasonable. To quote once more from Prince Metternich: "He had a profound contempt for the false philosophy as well as for the false philanthropy of the eighteenth century. Of all the founders of the doctrine it was Voltaire who was his pet aversion, and he carried his hate so far as to attack on every occasion his general literary reputation."

Napoleon thought, spoke, and acted as if he had always been Emperor and King. In the whole world there was no court so magnificent and brilliant as his. Many kings were admitted to it only as French princes, high dignitaries of the Empire: Joseph, King of Spain, was a Great Elector; Murat, King of the Two Sicilies, Lord High Admiral; Louis Bonaparte, deprived of the throne of Holland, figures in the Imperial Almanac of 1812 in his capacity of Constable. The other high dignitaries at this epoch were Cambacrs, Duke of Parma, Lord High Chancellor of the Empire; Lebrun, Duke of Piacenza, Lord High Treasurer, Governor General of the Departments of Holland; Prince Eugene de Beauharnais, Viceroy of Italy, Lord High Chancellor of State; Prince Borghese, Governor General of the Departments beyond the Alps; Marshal Berthier, Prince of Neufchtel and of Wagram, Vice Constable; Talleyrand, Prince of Benevento, Vice Great Elector. At the head of his military household, the Emperor had four colonel-generals of the Imperial Guard, all four marshals of France, Davoust, Duke of Auerstadt and Prince of Eckmhl; Soult, Duke of Dalmatia; Bessires, Duke of Istria; Mortier, Duke of Treviso. Moreover, there were ten aides-de-camp, nine of whom were generals of divisions, and thirteen orderly officers. For Grand Almoner he had Cardinal Fesch, Archbishop of Lyons, aided by four ordinary almoners, two archbishops, and two bishops; for Grand Marshal of the Palace, Duroc, Duke of Frioul; for High Chamberlain, the Count of Montesquiou Fezensac; for First Equerry, General de Caulaincourt, Duke of Vicenza; for Chief Huntsman, Marshal Berthier, Prince of Neufchtel and of Wagram; for Grand Master of Ceremonies, the Count of Sgur, formerly the Ambassador of Louis XVI. to the great Catherine of Russia. The Emperor had no fewer than ninety chamberlains, among whom figured these among other great names of the old rgime: an Aubusson de la Teuillade, a Galard de Barn, a Marmier, a d'Alsace, a Turenne, a Noailles, a Brancas, a Gontaut, a Gramont, a Beauvau, a Sapicha, a Radziwill, a Potocki, a Choiseul-Praslin, a Nicolay, a Chabot, a La Vieuville. This aristocratic court knew no lack of amusements. The winter of 1811-12 was one long succession of pleasures. "It was in the whirl of these entertainments and festivities of all sorts," says Madame Durand, first lady-in-waiting to the Empress, "that Napoleon formed his plan for the conquest of Russia. The spoiled child of fortune, intoxicated with flattery, never dreaming of the possibility of defeat, seemed to be calculating his victories in advance, and to regard pleasures as the preparations for war. Not a day passed without a play, a concert, or a masked ball at court." The theatrical representations on the Tuileries' stage were most impressive. The Emperor and Empress occupied a box opposite the stage. The princes and princesses sat on each side of them or behind; on the right was the box of the foreign ambassadors; on the left, that of the French Ministers. A large gallery was reserved for the ladies of the court, who all dressed magnificently and wore sparkling jewels. A number of distinguished men filled the pit, all in court dress, with small-sword, and ribbons and orders. During the entr'actes the Emperor's liveried footmen carried about ices and refreshments of various kinds. The hall was most brilliantly lit. The balls in the great rooms of the first floor, and the dinners in the Diana Gallery, were equally sumptuous. The Emperor, however, especially delighted in the masked balls, when, changing his Imperial robes for a simple domino, he whose police system was so perfect, who knew and saw everything, used to baffle the women, and tease or surprise their husbands and lovers.

Everywhere Napoleon used to make himself feared, at a ball as well as in a meeting of his Ministers. At an entertainment he won as much glory as on the battle-field. Even those who hated him had to admire him, for he had a most wonderful power of astounding and fascinating every one. His aide, General de Narbonne, had an old mother, who maintained her allegiance to the old royalty. "See here, my dear Narbonne," the Emperor said one day, "it's a bad thing for me that you see your mother so often. I understand that she doesn't like me." "True," replied the crafty courtier, "she hasn't got beyond admiration." This same Count de Narbonne had been off to preside at an electoral meeting in a department some distance from Paris. "What do they say about me in the different departments you have been through?" asked the Emperor. "Sire," replied M. de Narbonne, "some say you are a god, and others say you are a devil; but all agree that you are something more than a human being."

A witty observer, who was inclined to witticism rather than to enthusiasm, said of the Napoleon of 1811: "His genius controlled every one's thoughts. I believed that he was born to rule Fortune, and it seemed to be natural enough that people should prostrate themselves before his feet; that became, in my eyes, the normal way of the world." Count Beugnot, who was at that time ruling the Grand Duchy of Berg, adds: "I worked all night with extraordinary zeal, and thereby surprised the inhabitants, who did not know that the Emperor performed for all his officers, at whatever distance they might be, the miracle of real presence. I imagined that I saw him before me, when I was working alone in my room, and this impression, which sometimes inspired me with ideas far beyond my powers, more often preserved me from lapses due to negligence or carelessness. An ancient writer has said that it was of great service for a man's conduct of life, if he could feel himself in the presence of a superior being; and I am inclined to believe, that the Emperor was generally so well served, because, whether through the precautions he took, or through the influence of his name, which was uttered everywhere and all the time, every one of his servants saw him continually at his side."

If Napoleon produced such an effect even at a distance, what an impression he must have made on those who were near him! Count Miot de Mlito thus describes an Imperial reception in 1811: "Never had the Tuileries displayed more pomp and magnificence. Never had a greater number of princes, ambassadors, distinguished foreigners, generals, splendid in gold, and purple, and jewels, ablaze with orders and ribbons of every color, offered more obsequious homage or sought with more eagerness at Versailles for the favor of a word or of a glance. The Emperor alone seemed free and unconstrained. With an assured step he passed through the throng of courtiers, who respectfully made way before him. With a look he transported with rapture or crushed those who approached him; and if he deigned to speak to any one, the happy mortal thus honored stood with bowed head and attentive ear, scarcely daring to breathe or to reply."

Napoleon had then given France so much glory that the loss of liberty was hardly perceived.

December 19, 1832, Victor Hugo, in a speech before the Court of Commons, where he was trying to compel the government to let "Le Roi s'amuse" be given, spoke thus of the Imperial government: "Then, sirs, it is great! The Empire, in its administration and government, was, to be sure, an intolerable tyranny, but let us remember that our liberty was largely paid for with glory. At that time France, like Rome under Caesar, maintained an attitude at once submissive and proud. It was not the France we desire, free, ruling itself, but rather a France, the slave of one man, and mistress of the world. It used to be said, 'On such a day, at such an hour, I shall enter that capital,' and they entered that day and at that hour. All sorts of kings used to elbow one another in his ante-chambers. A dynasty would be dethroned by a decree in the Moniteur. If a column was wanted, the Emperor of Austria used to furnish the bronze. The control of the French comedians was, I confess, a little arbitrary, but their orders were dated from Moscow. We were shorn of all our liberties, I say; there was a rigid censorship, our books were pilloried, our posters were torn down; but to all our complaints a single word sufficed for a magnificent reply; they could answer us with Marengo! Jena! Austerlitz!"

And the poet thus ended his speech: "I have but a few more words to say, and I hope that you will remember them when you proceed to your deliberations. They are these: 'In this century there has been only one great man—Napoleon; and only one great thing—Liberty. We no longer have the great man; let us try to have the great thing.'"

Certainly he exceeded the common measure, that man of whom Chateaubriand, his implacable foe, said: "The world belongs to Bonaparte. What that destroyer could not finish, his fame has seized. Living, he missed the world; dead, he possesses it. You may protest, but generations pass by without hearing you." When some one asked the illustrious author why, after so violently attacking Napoleon, he admired him so much, the answer was, "The giant had to fall before I could measure his height."

Those who were nearest to Napoleon regarded him as an almost supernatural being. The Baron of Mneval, who, before he was the private secretary of Marie Louise, when regent, had been secretary of the First Consul and Emperor, thus writes: "By the influence which Napoleon exercised on his age he was more than a man. Never perhaps will a human being accomplish greater things than did this privileged creature in so few years, in the face of so many obstacles; yet these were inferior to those of which the plans lay in his mighty head. The memory of that time, of the hours I spent with this wonderful man, seems to me a dream. In the deep feeling which he arouses in me, I have to bow before the impenetrable decrees of Providence, which, after inspiring this wonderful instrument of its plans, tore him from his uncompleted work. Possibly God did not wish him to anticipate the time He had established by an invariable order. Possibly He did not wish a mortal to exceed human proportions!"

If Napoleon was thus admired, even after the terrible catastrophes which wrought his ruin, even after the retreat from Russia, after the two invasions, after Waterloo, what an impression he must have made on his enthusiastic partisans when he was the incarnation of success and glory, when there was no spot on the sun of his omnipotence, and, protected by some happy fate, he had disarmed envy, discouraged hate, and so far bound Fortune that she seemed to tremble before him like an obedient slave!

In spite of the glory which surrounded him in 1812, Napoleon, who is often represented as infatuated with himself and his glory, yet even at this moment of colossal power and unheard-of prosperity, had moments when he judged himself with perfect impartiality. He knew human nature thoroughly, and he indulged in no illusions about his family, which he distrusted, or about his marshals, whose desertion he seemed to anticipate, or about his courtiers, whose flatteries did not deceive him. Being convinced that interest is generally the sole motive of human actions, he expected neither devotion nor gratitude. "One day, in speaking to my father," says General de Sgur, "he asked him what he thought people would say about him after his death, and my father began to enlarge on the way we should mourn for him. 'Nothing of the sort!' interrupted the Emperor; 'you would all say, "Ah!"' and he accompanied this word with a consolatory gesture which expressed 'at last we can take a long breath and be at peace.'" It was not after his defeats that the Emperor said this, but in 1811, when still mighty and successful.

"The Emperor," says General de Sgur again, "was not so blind as some have thought, as to the fate that awaited his gigantic work. He was often heard to say that his heir would be crushed by the vast bulk of his empire. 'Poor child!' he said, as he gazed on the King of Rome, 'what a snarl I leave to you.' ... Every one knows the gloomy impression it makes, when to the vigor and activity of youth there succeeds, with advancing years, the benumbing influence of stoutness. This transition, a melancholy warning, came over Napoleon at the end of 1810. Doubtless this warning of physical decline and weakness rendered him anxious about the future of a work founded on force. This was apparent when he told my father: 'The shortest ride now tires me;' and to M. Mollier: 'I am mortal, and more so than many men;' and again, 'My heir will find my sceptre very heavy.' As he regarded the future, the only power that seemed to threaten this sceptre and this heir was Russia, and it may be that as he began to feel himself grow old, he repented that he had enlarged its territory both on the north and the south, to the Gulf of Bothnia and to the Danube. Hence, possibly, this eager desire to deal the country a blow arose from a spirit of preservation rather than from one of conquest, and the charge of an overweening and uncontrollable ambition is thus somewhat refuted." This observation is not wholly inaccurate. It may be that if the Emperor had had no son, he would not have made the Russian campaign, and possibly it was more by a mistaken calculation than by pride, that he was drawn into this colossal war which, he hoped, would bring the whole continent, and consequently England, under his control.

A great deal has been said about Napoleon's pride; but in discussing the matter it is necessary to distinguish between two very different personages,—the man as he appeared in public, and the man as he was in private. In public, he was obliged to display more majesty than any other sovereign. The novelty of his grandeur made additional formality necessary. When the general became Emperor, he was compelled to keep at a distance his old fellow-soldiers who had formerly been his equals and intimates, for familiarity would have lowered his glory and have lessened his authority. He had to appear before his court like a living statue that never descended from its pedestal. It was hard to detect a human heart beating under the sovereign's Imperial robes. Yet in private life he was by no means what he seemed in public; when he returned to his own rooms, he laid aside his official seriousness as if he were taking off a fatiguing uniform, and became affable and familiar. He used to joke, and sometimes even noisily. He was no longer a haughty potentate, a terrible conqueror, but rather a good husband who was kind to his wife, and a good father who played with his child. He used to tease the companions of Marie Louise wittily, and without malice; he would take an interest in their dresses, and often give them bits of good advice in the gentlest manner. He took as much interest in the minutest details as in the greatest questions. He was indulgent and generous to his officials, and knew how to make himself loved by them. He and Marie Louise lived most happily together, as his valet de chambre, Constant, tells us, "As father and husband he might have been a model for all his subjects." He simply adored his son, and knew how to play with him better than did the Empress. As Madame Durand says: "Being without experience with children, Marie Louise never dared to hold or pet the King of Rome; she was afraid of hurting him: consequently, he became more attached to his governess than to his mother—a preference which at last made Marie Louise a little jealous. The Emperor, on the other hand, used to take him in his arms every time he saw him, play with him, hold him before a looking-glass, and make all sorts of faces at him. At breakfast, he used to hold him on hi knees, and would dip one of his fingers in a sauce, and let the child suck it, and rub it all over its face. If the governess complained, the Emperor would laugh, and the child, who was almost always merry, seemed to like his father's noisy caresses. It is a noteworthy fact that those who had any favor to ask of the Emperor when he was thus employed were almost sure of a favorable reception. Before he was two years old the young Prince was always present at Napoleon's breakfast."

At this period of his life Napoleon was really happy. The two years that he spent in the society of the young Empress formed a blessed rest in his stormy career; he loved his wife and thought that she loved him. He was grateful to her for being an archduchess, for her beauty, youth, and health; for having given him an heir to the Empire. He continually rejoiced in a marriage which, to be sure, inspired him with many illusions, but yet gave him at least some moments of moral repose and domestic calm, which are of importance in the life of such a man. Why was he not wise enough to stop and give thanks to Providence, instead of continuing his perilous course and forever tempting fortune? How many evils he would have spared France, Europe, and himself! A few concessions would have disarmed his adversaries, have satisfied Germany, have consolidated the Austrian alliance, strengthened the thrones, and brought about a lasting and general peace. We may say that Napoleon was his own worst enemy, and that when he held his happiness in his hand he willingly let it drop on the ground. It was not his second marriage that ruined him, but rather the over-bold combination which led him to extend the line of his military operations from Cadiz to Moscow.



XXV.

MARIE LOUISE IN 1812.

Empress Marie Louise was twenty, December 12, 1811. Early in 1812 she, like Napoleon, was at the summit of her fortune. During the two years of her reign she had received nothing but homage in France, and no woman in the whole world held so lofty a position. We will try to draw a portrait of her at this time when she had reached the top of the wave of human prosperity.

Rather handsome than pretty, Marie Louise was more impressive than charming. Her most striking quality was her freshness; her whole person bespoke physical and moral health. Her face was more gentle than striking; her eyes were very blue and full of animation; she had a rich complexion; her hair was light yellow, but not colorless; her nose, slightly aquiline; her red lips were a trifle thick, like those of all the Hapsburgs; her hands and feet were models of beauty; she had an impressive carriage, and was a little above the medium height. When she arrived in France, she was a little too stout, and her face was a little too red; but after the birth of her child these two slight imperfections disappeared. With a more delicate figure she became more graceful, and no woman ever had a finer complexion. Being endowed with a most sturdy constitution, she owed all her beauty to nature and nothing to artifice; her face needed no paint, her wit no coquetry; with no fondness for luxury or dress, possessing simple and quiet tastes, never striving for effect, always preferring half-tints to a blaze of light, her expression and demeanor always had a quality of simplicity and directness which fascinated Napoleon, who was very glad to turn from experienced coquettes to a really natural person.

Those who had supervised Marie Louise's education rightly thought that the greatest charm in a young girl was innocence. She had been brought up with the most scrupulous care. The books to be placed in the hands of the archduchesses were first carefully read, and any improper passages or even words were excised; no male animals were admitted into their apartments, but only females, these being endowed with more modest instincts. Napoleon, who was accustomed to the women of the end of the eighteenth century and to the heroines of the court of Barras, was delighted to find a girl so pure and so carefully trained.

On grand occasions Marie Louise bore no resemblance to the Marie Louise in private life; she assumed a coldness which was mistaken for disdain. She became imposing; she weighed every word; and careless observers attributed to haughtiness what was really due to reserve and timidity. The young Empress had every reason to distrust the French court. She knew what it had cost her great-aunt, Marie Antoinette, to try to live on the throne like a private person, and to carry kindliness even to familiarity. The best way for the Empress to escape malevolence and criticism was by saying very little. She knew French very well, but it was not her mother-tongue, and however well acquainted with its grammar, she could not know perfectly the fine shades of the language. Her fear of employing possibly correct but unusual expressions made her timid about speaking. Besides, her husband would not have liked to see her taking part in long conversations. Political subjects were forbidden to her, and her great charm in Napoleon's eyes was that she did not interfere in such matters. She never tried to pass for a witty woman. Although she was well-read, she lacked the delicate observation, the ingenious comparisons, the jingling of brilliant phrases or words which compose what in France is called wit. She had no confidence in the character of the prominent Frenchwomen, of the romantic but unsentimental beauties who always expressed more than they felt, who knew how to faint when fainting would be of use to them, and who in their drawing-rooms, and especially in their boudoirs, bore too close a resemblance to actresses upon the stage. Marie Louise never assumed any feelings or ideas which were not genuine. She was always natural. Comparing his two wives, Napoleon at Saint Helena said: "One was art and grace; the other, innocence and simple nature. My first wife never, at any moment of her life, had any ways or manners that were not agreeable and attractive. It would have been impossible to find any fault with her in this respect; she tried to make only a favorable impression, and seemed to attain her end without study. She employed every possible art to adorn herself, but so carefully that one could only suspect their use. The other had no idea that there was anything to be gained by these innocent artifices. One was always a little inexact; her first idea was to deny everything: the other never dissimulated, and hated everything roundabout. My first wife never asked for anything, but she ran up debts right and left; my second always asked for more when she needed it, which was seldom. She never bought anything without feeling bound to pay for it on the spot. But both were kind, gentle, and devoted to their husband."

Marie Louise did not shine in a drawing-room like Josephine; that would have required a French tact which she did not in the least possess. The first Empress was thoroughly familiar with French society, which the second did not know at all. Josephine had seen the last brilliancy of the old regime and the golden days of the Revolution; she had been a conspicuous figure in that brilliant but, above all, amusing period, of which Talleyrand said, "No one who did not live before 1789 knows how charming life can be." As Viscountess of Beauharnais, she was intimate with the most intelligent persons in Paris. Though far less educated than Marie Louise, her conversation was more animated and had a wider range. No subject was too deep for her; and although she never said anything very important, she always could give what she had to say an agreeable turn. Her most ardent desire was to make people forget, by her fascinations, that she was not born to the throne, and she seemed always endeavoring to be pardoned for her elevation into the society of the Faubourg Saint Germain. The names of the great French families always made much more impression on her, who had risen from the people, than on Marie Louise, who by birth as well as position could look down on all the French ladies without exception. It was not those who had belonged to the old rgime whom she preferred; Madame Lannes was far more congenial to her than the Princess of Beauvau or the Countess of Montesquieu. She never sought to flatter the Faubourg Saint Germain, but rather kept it at a distance, making none of the advances to which it was accustomed at the hands of the first Empress. She felt that the Royalists secretly blamed her for attaching her old coat-of-arms to the new fortune of Bonaparte. She belonged to a race which had never felt a warm love for the Bourbons; while Josephine, who was born in a family of Royalists, had remained faithful, even when on the Imperial throne, to her devotion to the old Royalty. Marie Louise indulged in no illusions. She knew that the courtiers, under the appearance of adoration which amounted to servility, were really concealing a depth of malice and ill-will, which was the more dangerous the more it was hidden, and that the very ones who were burning incense before her would be the most delighted to catch her tripping. Hence she was always on her guard, and in public steadily maintained an attitude of cold benevolence and discreet reserve. Napoleon loved her, for the very reason that her qualities were the exact opposite of those of Josephine; and if she had striven to copy the former Empress, she would only have sunk in her husband's estimation. He had bidden her never to forget that she was a sovereign, as he was always Emperor: she obeyed him, and she did right to obey him. Strong in her husband's approval,—for he never had occasion for the slightest reproach,—she persisted in the very prudent and dignified line of conduct that she had adopted on entering France. She had every reason to be proud of her success; for so long as she lived with Napoleon, no whisper of calumny attacked her, no faintest insinuation was breathed against her morality. At Saint Helena, the Emperor said, "Marie Louise was virtue itself."

The untiring precision of her demeanor and of her words protected the Empress from criticism, but aroused no enthusiastic praise. She was more esteemed than loved; and, in spite of her precocious wisdom, she aroused no fervent sympathy, none of the enthusiastic admiration which less reserved, more amiable queens have inspired. Still, no one found fault with her. Count Miot de Mlito, in describing a reception at the Tuileries in 1811, says: "The Empress entered.... Her face wore a dignified but somewhat disdainful expression. She walked round the room, accompanied by the Duchess of Montebello, and spoke agreeably and pleasantly with a number of people whom she had introduced to her, and all were gratified by their kindly reception."

The Duke of Rovigo, the Minister of Police, speaks thus in his Memoirs: "Marie Louise aroused enthusiasm whenever she opened her mouth. Her success in France was entirely her own work; for I declare, on my honor, the authorities never adopted any particular methods to secure for her a warm welcome from the public. When she was to appear in a procession or at the theatre, all the authorities did was to provide against the slightest breach of order or propriety; beyond that, nothing was done. For example, when I was told that she was going to the theatre, I used to take all the boxes opposite the one she was to occupy, and all others from which people might stare at her. Then I took the precaution of sending the tickets for these boxes to respectable families, who were very glad to use them. In this way I filled the balcony on the days when the Empress meant to be present. As to any steps towards insuring a warm welcome from the pit, I simply did not take any. The Empress Marie Louise was accustomed, when she came before the public, to make three courtesies, and so gracefully that the applause always broke out with great warmth before the third. It was she herself who bade me take no active steps on such occasions." After thus greeting the audience, the Empress used to sit modestly in the back of the box. To be gazed at through all the opera-glasses always annoyed her. Her lofty rank, the pride of her position, which would have filled other women with rapture, left her almost indifferent.

Marie Louise was certainly attached to Napoleon, but we may doubt whether she was really in love with him. He was twenty-two years her senior; and if she was a wife who suited him in every particular, probably he was not the husband of whom she had dreamed. He possessed too much power, too much genius, too much majesty; a quiet home would have pleased her better than the Imperial Olympus, of which he was the Jupiter, and she the Juno. Doubtless his glory was unrivalled, but he had won the best part of it through Austrian defeats. Arcola and Marengo, Austerlitz and Wagram, were names that wounded Austrian ears. Had she been free to choose, she would perhaps have preferred to this all-powerful Emperor any petty German prince, who possessed neither great wealth nor vast territories, but who shared her memories, ideas, and hopes. Yet she had resolved to love her husband, and she easily succeeded in so doing. She was grateful for his kindness, his consideration, his respect; and in her affectionate but not passionate devotion there was no trace of reluctance. She sincerely thought that she would always be faithful to him. She was not only attached to him, she was also jealous of him; the proximity of Josephine annoyed and disturbed her. In fact, there was something singular in the simultaneous presence in France of two empresses sharing almost equally the official honors. Marie Louise knew how popular Josephine was; and this offended her, although she pitied a woman of whom the rigid laws of public policy had required so cruel a sacrifice. Possibly, too, she feared that she could not count too absolutely on the feelings of a man who, for reasons of state, had abandoned a wife whom a short time before he had really loved. Who knows, indeed, but what she dreaded the same fate for herself, in case she should bear no children? She felt really sure only when she had borne a son. Before that she was so jealous that one day when she heard that Napoleon had made a visit to Josephine, she was seen to shed tears, for the first time since her arrival in France. Another time, when the Emperor had suggested to her to take advantage of the absence of the first Empress, who had gone to Aix, in Savoy, and to visit Malmaison, her face suddenly became so sad that Napoleon at once abandoned the plan. But after the birth of King of Rome, Marie Louise was no longer jealous. Under the conviction that she had finally reconciled Austria and France, and that her son was the pledge of the peace and happiness of all Europe, she thought that she had so well accomplished her destiny that she could always count on her husband's affection and gratitude.

Judging by the words of Cardinal Maury, who had been so famous in the Constituent Assembly, and had been made Archbishop of Paris by the Emperor, Napoleon was very much in love with his young wife. "It would be impossible," he wrote to the Duchesa of Abrantes, "to make you understand how much the Emperor loves our charming Empress. It is love, but a good love this time. He is in love with her, I tell you, and as he never was with Josephine; for, after all, he never knew her when she was young. She was over thirty when they married, while this wife is young and as fresh as the spring. You will see her, and you will be delighted with her.... And then if you knew how gay she is, how pleasant, and, above all, how thoroughly at her ease with all those whom the Emperor honors with his intimacy! You will see how lovable she is. People used to talk about the soires of the Queen of Holland. I assure you the Empress is very charming for those whom the Emperor admits informally into the Tuileries. They go there of an evening to pay their court, they play with Their Majesties reversis or billiards; and the Empress is so charming, so fascinating, that it is easy to see from the Emperor's eyes that he is dying to kiss her."

Probably there is some exaggeration in Cardinal Maury's enthusiasm. Doubtless Marie Louise pleased Napoleon very much, but had she been a young woman of humble rank, he probably would not have noticed her. What he especially admired in her was the Archduchess, the daughter of the German Caesars, and in the feeling she aroused in him there was perhaps more gratified vanity than real love. He certainly was not attracted to her by one of those tempests of passion which had drawn him towards Josephine; he would not have written to his second wife burning letters like those he wrote to Josephine during the first campaign in Italy. In his affection for Marie Louise there was something calm and reasonable, almost paternal; it was the reflection of maturity succeeding to the impetuous ardor of youth. Yet he had more deference and regard for the second Empress than for the first. Shortly after her marriage Marie Louise said to Metternich: "I am sure that in Vienna people think a great deal about me, and imagine that I live in continual anguish. The truth often seems improbable. I am not afraid of Napoleon, but I am beginning to think that he is afraid of me."

It has been said that the Emperor was not perfectly constant to Marie Louise; but even if he was ever unfaithful, he kept the fact from her knowledge, and never made his second wife as unhappy as he had made his first. He used to boast that he cared only for honest men and virtuous women, and he was anxious that no one should be able to charge him with setting a bad example. His court had become very strict, at least in appearance. Decorum prevailed there as rigidly as etiquette.

Marie Antoinette had in fact known less happiness than Marie Louise. From the moment she entered France she encountered a sullen enmity which Marie Louise never experienced. The Empress was never denounced for her Austrian birth as the Queen had been by the opposition. Marie Antoinette was surrounded by snares and pitfalls which were never prepared for Marie Louise. Who would have dared to treat Napoleon's wife as the Cardinal de Rohan treated the wife of Louis XVI.? What could there have been under the Empire to compare with the affair of the necklace? The Queen was attacked by pamphlets of all sorts. The Empress was not once insulted or slandered. The bitterest foes of her husband respected her. Moreover, Napoleon was far more attractive than Louis XVI., and Marie Louise was soon a mother, while Marie Antoinette long endured a barrenness for which she was not to blame.

The happiness of Marie Louise lasted but little more than two years, but it was all without a cloud. The mistake that historians always make in discussing celebrities is that they try to make a single portrait instead of a series of portraits, according to the different ages and circumstances. What was true in 1812 was no longer true in 1813, still less so in 1814. Human life has its seasons like the year. Is anything less like a brilliant spring day than a gloomy winter's day? In his history of the Restoration, Lamartine has drawn a picture of the Empress Marie Louise which seems tolerably exact for the period after the calamities that befell the Empire, but inapplicable to the happy days of the mother of the King of Rome. "Marie Louise," he writes, "sought refuge in ceremony, in retreat and silence from the ill-will that pursued her at every step.... Napoleon loved her from a feeling of superiority and pride. She was a sign of his alliance with great races; the mother of his son; and thus she perpetuated his ambition. ... The public did wrong to demand of Marie Louise passionate returns and devotion when her nature could inspire her only with a feeling of duty and respect for a soldier who had regarded her only as a German hostage and a pledge of posterity. Her constraint lessened her natural charms, darkened her expression, dimmed her wit, and burdened her heart. She was looked upon as a foreign decoration attached to the columns of the throne. Even history, written in ignorance of the truth, and inspired by the resentment of Napoleon's courtiers, has slandered this sovereign. Those who knew her will restore, not the stoical, theatric glory which was demanded of her, but her real nature.... The alleged emptiness of her silence hid feminine thoughts and mysteries of feeling which transported her far from this court. Magnificent though cruel exile!... She could not pretend anything, either during the days of her grandeur, nor after her husband's overthrow; that was her crime. The theatrical world of the court wanted to see a pretence of conjugal affection in a victor's captive. She was too natural to simulate love where she felt only obedience, terror, and resignation. History will blame her; nature will pity her.... She was expected to play a part; she failed as an actress, but as a woman she has survived."

The Marie Louise who is thus described by Lamartine is not the Marie Louise of the beginning of 1812; then the young Empress did not regard herself as "a victor's captive," nor as "a foreign decoration attached to the columns of the throne." Napoleon did not inspire her with terror, and she knew none of the constraint which "lessened her natural charms, darkened her expression, dimmed her wit, and burdened her heart." She did not look upon her court as a "magnificent but rude exile." These thoughts may have occurred to her in misfortune, but hardly, we think, before the Russian campaign. If Lamartine had read the letters which she wrote to her father in 1810, 1811, and the beginning of 1812, he would doubtless have acknowledged that for some time Napoleon's second wife was happy on the French throne.

To this portrait drawn by the great poet we prefer the one we find in Mneval's Memoirs: "The better Napoleon learned to know the Empress, the more he applauded his choice. Her character seemed made for him; she brought him happiness and consolation amid the cares of his stormy career. In ordinary life she was simple and kindly, yet with no loss of dignity. No word of complaint or blame ever crossed her lips. Gentle, but reserved and discreet, she never expressed her feelings with any vivacity. She was kind and generous, simple and astute at the same time; her gayety was gentle, her wit without malice. Though well-informed, she made no parade of her acquirements, fearing to be accused of pedantry. Her wifely devotion had won the Emperor's affection, and her unfailing gentleness had attracted all his friends. In this estimate I am confirmed by my recollections, and I am not inspired by any partiality, by what has happened, or by any present interest. It would be a mistake to suppose that her duty and her inclinations were at variance; she was perfectly natural and could not conceal her real impressions; but events have shown that while she inclined to virtue when it was easy, she yet lacked the strength to practise it when it was hard."

Marie Louise did not have the character of her great-grandmother Marie Thrse, or that of her great-aunt Marie Antoinette. She rather resembled the wife of Louis XIV. or that of Louis XV. She would have led a calm, modest, harmless life, like those two queens, if her fate had not placed her amid unforeseen and terrible events, the shock of which she could not endure. In 1812 we see her a loving mother, a faithful wife, a worthy sovereign. If Napoleon had adopted a less imprudent policy, all that would have lasted. Doubtless that is what he said to himself when, at Saint Helena, he impartially examined his career, and he had no angry thought, no bitter word, for the woman who has been so severely judged by others.



XXVI.

THE EMPRESS'S HOUSEHOLD.

We have just tried to draw a picture of the appearance and character of Marie Louise in 1812, when at the summit of her fortune; let us turn our attention to the organization of her household at this epoch, and to the details of her daily life. Her first almoner was Count Ferdinand de Rohan, formerly Archbishop of Cambrai; her knight-of-honor was the Count of Beauharnais, who had held the same position to the Empress Josephine, a relative of his. Napoleon had at first meant to appoint the Count of Narbonne to this place, but Marie Louise had dissuaded him. M. Villemain says in his Life of M. de Narbonne: "The Empress Marie Louise, generally so yielding to her husband, on this occasion manifested great opposition. Whether through womanly kindness or through her pride as a sovereign, possibly through some superstitious scruple as a second wife, she insisted on the retention in this post of the Count of Beauharnais; she was unwilling on any terms to seem to exclude, in the person of this relative of Josephine, the first name of the Princess whom she succeeded on the French throne. On the other hand, it is fair to suppose that in the dashing and attractive Count of Narbonne she was willing to keep away certain things which were unfamiliar and so alarming to her, such as the lighter graces, the jesting spirit of the old court, and doubtless too the melancholy presentiments attached, in her mind, to everything that recalled Versailles and the daughters of Louis XV., who had become the aunts of Marie Antoinette. In a word, Marie Louise, cold and calm, was inflexible in her opposition to the choice which the Emperor announced to her. He at once yielded the point, and smoothed matters over by appointing M. de Narbonne one of his aides, an odd favor for a man fifty-five years old, a relic of the former court, suddenly made a member of the most warlike and most active staff in Europe." For first equerry Marie Louise had Prince Aldobrandini, and for master of ceremonies, the Count de Seyssel d'Aix.

The maid-of-honor was Madame Lannes, Duchess of Montebello, the widow of the famous marshal who was killed in Austria in the first war. Mneval tells us that Napoleon in making this appointment hesitated between this lady and the Princess of Beauvau. "The fear of introducing into his court influences hostile to the national ideas, such as a German princess might have favored, with the prejudices of her birth and position, made him give up this idea. He decided for the Duchess, thinking this an honor due to the memory of one of his oldest and bravest comrades." It was a most happy choice. Madame de Montebello was ten years older than the Empress; very handsome, stately, above reproach, of whom the Emperor said when he appointed her, "I give the Empress a real lady-of-honor."

In the purity of her features, the Duchess of Montebello recalled Raphael's Virgins. There was in her appearance, and in her life, a quality of calmness, of regularity, which greatly pleased Marie Louise, who was also much touched by her untiring devotion at the time of her child's birth, when for nine whole days Madame de Montebello remained in the Empress's room, sleeping at night on a sofa, and the Empress was grateful to her for having rigorously performed what could be demanded only of affection or devotion.

Madame Durand says that Marie Louise felt the need of a friend, and that the Duchess won her confidence and good graces to such an extent that the Empress could not do without her; she got to love her like a sister, and tried to prove her affection by great confidence to her and to her children. She was always delighted to choose presents that the Duchess would like, and offered them to her with charming amiability. Naturally a preference of this sort aroused a great deal of jealousy, especially among the ladies of the palace, most of whom belonged to older families than did the Duchess, and were somewhat annoyed that she was preferred to them. Whenever the Emperor was away, Madame de Montebello used to stay with the Empress, and every morning Marie Louise used to go to her room to chat with her, and in order to avoid passing through the drawing-room, where the other ladies had assembled, she used to go through a dark passage, which greatly offended these ladies. According to Madame Durand, Madame de Montebello scorned to hide her real opinions about any one of whom she was talking, and gave her opinion clearly and frankly. This openness—a virtue rare in courts—inspired the Empress's confidence, but earned her many enemies; but they, in spite of their ill-will, could not injure her reputation. The lady of the bedchamber to the Empress was the Countess of Luay, who had been a lady-in-waiting since the beginning of the Consulate. She was a gentle, modest, distinctly virtuous person, who enjoyed general esteem and sympathy. The Emperor set great store by her. "In private life," says General de Sgur, "Napoleon was gentle and confiding, and especially fond of honorable people, whose delicacy and uprightness were above suspicion, and of women of the best reputation; he was a good judge, and he demanded a great deal. This was undeniably true, and the exceptions were very few: the way he chose his council and the officers attached to his person, shows it. In corroboration I will quote first the Grand Marshal Duroc with all the household of the palace, whose affairs were managed more honestly and better than those of any private house that can be named. As to the ladies of the court, it will be enough to name Madame de Luay, my mother-in-law, the Lady of the Bedchamber, and Madame de Montesquiou, governess of the King of Rome, whom the Emperor chose when my mother declined the position from ill-health. His confidence, when once given, was unlimited."

The Countess of Montesquiou, the governess of the King of Rome, was the wife of the Emperor's Grand Chamberlain. The Baron de Mneval thus speaks of her: "Madame de Montesquiou, who was of high birth, received the highest consideration and thoroughly deserved it. She was forty-six years old when she was appointed governess of the Imperial children; her reputation was above reproach. She was a woman of great piety, yet indifferent to petty formalities; her manners had a noble simplicity, her whole nature was dignified but benevolent, her character was firm, and her principles were excellent. She combined all the qualities that were required for the important position which the Emperor, of his own choice, had given her." Madame Durand speaks as warmly about the Countess of Montesquiou: "It would have been hard to make a better choice. This lady, who belonged to an illustrious family, had received an excellent education; to the manners of the best society she added a piety too firmly fixed and too wise to run into bigotry. Her life had been so well ordered that she escaped any breath of calumny. Some were inclined to call her haughty, but this haughtiness was tempered by politeness and the most gracious consideration for others. She took the most tender and constant care of the young Prince, and there could be nothing nobler and more generous than the devotion which led her later to leave the country and her friends, to follow the lot of this young Prince whose hopes had been destroyed. Her sole reward was bitter sorrow and unjust persecution.