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The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise

by Imbert de Saint-Amand · English · Gutenberg #8575 · 544,684 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise

Author: Imbert de Saint-Amand

Translator: Thomas Sergeant Perry


        
Release date: July 1, 2005 [eBook #8575]
                Most recently updated: December 26, 2020

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/8575

Credits: Produced by Charles Aldarondo, Tiffany Vergon, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HAPPY DAYS OF THE EMPRESS MARIE LOUISE ***




Produced by Charles Aldarondo, Tiffany Vergon,
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team




THE HAPPY DAYS

OF

THE EMPRESS MARIE LOUISE

BY

IMBERT DE SAINT-AMAND

_TRANSLATED BY_ THOMAS SERGEANT PERRY

_ILLUSTRATED_




CONTENTS.


INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER

I. EARLY YEARS

II. 1809

III. THE PRELIMINARIES OP THE WEDDING

IV. THE BETROTHAL

V. THE RELIGIOUS DIFFICULTY

VI. THE AMBASSADOR EXTRAORDINARY

VII. THE WEDDING AT VIENNA

VIII. THE DEPARTURE

IX. THE TRANSFER

X. THE JOURNEY

XI. COMPIÈGNE

XII. THE CIVIL WEDDING

XIII. THE ENTRANCE INTO PARIS

XIV. THE RELIGIOUS CEREMONY

XV. THE HONEYMOON

XVI. THE TRIP IN THE NORTH

XVII. THE MONTH OF JUNE, 1810

XVIII. THE BALL AT THE AUSTRIAN EMBASSY

XIX. THE BIRTH OF THE KING OF ROME

XX. THE RECOVERY

XXI. THE BAPTISM

XXII. SAINT CLOUD AND TRIANON

XXIII. THE TRIP TO HOLLAND

XXIV. NAPOLEON AT THE HEIGHT OF HIS POWER

XXV. MARIE LOUISE IN 1812

XXVI. THE EMPRESS'S HOUSEHOLD

XXVII. DRESDEN

XXVIII. PRAGUE




THE HAPPY DAYS

OF

THE EMPRESS MARIE LOUISE

INTRODUCTION.

In 1814, while Napoleon was banished in the island of Elba, the Empress
Marie Louise and her grandmother, Marie Caroline, Queen of Naples,
happened to meet at Vienna. The one, who had been deprived of the French
crown, was seeking to be put in possession of her new realm, the Duchy
of Parma; the other, who had fled from Sicily to escape the yoke of her
pretended protectors, the English, had come to demand the restitution of
her kingdom of Naples, where Murat continued to rule with the connivance
of Austria. This Queen, Marie Caroline, the daughter of the great
Empress, Maria Theresa, and the sister of the unfortunate Marie
Antoinette, had passed her life in detestation of the French Revolution
and of Napoleon, of whom she had been one of the most eminent victims.
Well, at the very moment when the Austrian court was doing its best to
make Marie Louise forget that she was Napoleon's wife and to separate
her from him forever, Marie Caroline was pained to see her granddaughter
lend too ready an ear to their suggestions. She said to the Baron de
Méneval, who had accompanied Marie Louise to Vienna: "I have had, in my
time, very good cause for complaining of your Emperor; he has persecuted
me and wounded my pride,--I was then at least fifteen years old,--but
now I remember only one thing,--that he is unfortunate." Then she went
on to say that if they tried to keep husband and wife apart, Marie
Louise would have to tie her bedclothes to her window and run away in
disguise. "That," she exclaimed, "that's what I should do in her place;
for when people are married, they are married for their whole life!"

If a woman like Queen Marie Caroline, a sister of Marie Antoinette, a
queen driven from her throne by Napoleon, could feel in this way, it is
easy to understand the severity with which those of the French who were
devoted to the Emperor, regarded the conduct of his ungrateful wife. In
the same way, Josephine, in spite of her occasionally frivolous conduct,
has retained her popularity, because she was tender, kind, and devoted,
even after she was divorced; while Marie Louise has been criticised,
because after loving, or saying that she loved, the mighty Emperor, she
deserted him when he was a prisoner. The contrast between her conduct
and that of the wife of King Jerome, the noble and courageous Catherine
of Wurtemberg, who endured every danger, and all sorts of
persecutions, to share her husband's exile and poverty, has set in an
even clearer light the faults of Marie Louise. She has been blamed for
not having joined Napoleon at Elba, for not having even tried to temper
his sufferings at Saint Helena, for not consoling him in any way, for
not even writing to him. The former Empress of the French has been also
more severely condemned for her two morganatic marriages,--one with
Count Neipperg, an Austrian general and a bitter enemy of Napoleon, the
other with Count de Bombelles, a Frenchman who left France to enter the
Austrian service. Certainly Marie Louise was neither a model wife nor a
model widow, and there is nothing surprising in the severity with which
her contemporaries judged her, a severity which doubtless history will
not modify. But if this princess was guilty, more than one attenuating
circumstance may be urged in her defence, and we should, in justice,
remember that it was not without a struggle, without tears, distress,
and many conscientious scruples, that she decided to obey her
father's rigid orders and become again what she had been before her
marriage,--simply an Austrian princess.

It must not be forgotten that the Empress Marie Louise, who was in two
ways the grandniece of Queen Marie Antoinette, through her mother Maria
Theresa of Naples, daughter of Queen Marie Caroline, and through her
father the Emperor Francis, son of the Emperor Leopold II., the
brother of the martyred queen, had been brought up to abhor the French
Revolution and the Empire which succeeded it. She had been taught from
the moment she left the cradle, that France was the hereditary enemy,
the savage and implacable foe, of her country. When she was a child,
Napoleon appeared to her against a background of blood, like a fatal
being, an evil genius, a satanic Corsican, a sort of Antichrist. The few
Frenchmen whom she saw at the Austrian court were émigrés, who saw in
Napoleon nothing but the selfish revolutionist, the friend of the young
Robespierre, the creature of Barras, the defender of the members of the
Convention, the man of the 13th of Vendémiaire, the murderer of the Duke
of Enghien, the enemy of all the thrones of Europe, the author of the
treachery of Bayonne, the persecutor of the Pope, the excommunicated
sovereign. Twice he had driven Austria to the brink of ruin, and it had
even been said that he wished to destroy it altogether, like a second
Poland. The young archduchess had never heard the hero of Austerlitz
and Wagram spoken of, except in terms inspired by resentment, fear,
and hatred. Could she, then, in a single day learn to love the man who
always had been held up before her as a second Attila, as the scourge of
God? Hence, when she came to contemplate the possibility of her marriage
with him, she was overwhelmed with surprise, terror, and repulsion, and
her first idea was to regard herself as a victim to be sacrificed to
a vague Minotaur. We find this word "sacrifice" on the lips of the
Austrian statesmen who most warmly favored the French alliance, even of
those who had counselled and arranged the match. The Austrian ambassador
in Paris, the Prince of Swartzenberg, wrote to Metternich, February 8,
1810, "I pity the princess; but let her remember that it is a fine thing
to bring peace to such good people!" And Metternich wrote back, February
15, to the Prince of Swartzenberg, "The Archduchess Marie Louise sees
in the suggestion made to her by her August father, that Napoleon may
include her in his plans, only a means of proving to her beloved father
the most absolute devotion. She feels the full force of the sacrifice,
but her filial love will outweigh all other considerations." Having been
brought up in the habit of severe discipline and passive obedience, she
belonged to a family in which the Austrian princesses are regarded as
the docile instruments of the greatness of the Hapsburgs. Consequently,
she resigned herself to following her father's wishes without a murmur,
but not without sadness. What Marie Louise thought at the time of her
marriage she still thought in the last years of her life. General de
Trobriand, the Frenchman who won distinction on the northern side in the
American civil war, told me recently how painfully surprised he was when
once at Venice he had heard Napoleon's widow, then the wife of Count de
Bombelles, say, in speaking of her marriage to the great Emperor, "I was
sacrificed."

Austria was covered with ruins, its hospitals were crowded with wounded
French and Austrians, and in the ears of Viennese still echoed the
cannon of Wagram, when salvos of artillery announced not war, but this
marriage. The memories of an obstinate struggle, which both sides had
regarded as one for life or death, was still too recent, too terrible to
permit a complete reconciliation between the two nations. In fact, the
peace was only a truce. To facilitate the formal entry of Napoleon's
ambassador into Vienna, it had been necessary hastily to build a bridge
over the ruins of the walls which the French had blown up a few months
earlier, as a farewell to the inhabitants. Marie Louise, who started
with tears in her eyes, trembled as she drew near the French territory,
which Marie Antoinette had found so fatal.

Soon this first impression wore off, and the young Empress was
distinctly flattered by the amazing splendor of her throne, the most
powerful in the world. And yet amid this Babylonian pomp, and all the
splendor, the glory, the flattery, which could gratify a woman's heart,
she did not cease to think of her own country. One day when she was
standing at a window of the palace of Saint Cloud, gazing thoughtfully
at the view before her, M. de Méneval ventured to ask the cause of the
deep revery in which she appeared to be sunk. She answered that as she
was looking at the beautiful view, she was surprised to find herself
regretting the neighborhood of Vienna, and wishing that some magic wand
might let her see even a corner of it. At that time Marie Louise was
afraid that she would never see her country again, and she sighed. What
glory or greatness can wipe out the touching memories of infancy?

Doubtless Napoleon treated his wife with the utmost regard and
consideration; but in the affection with which he inspired her there
was, we fancy, more admiration than tenderness. He was too great for
her. She was fascinated, but troubled by so great power and so great
genius. She had the eyes of a dove, and she needed the eyes of an eagle,
to be able to look at the Imperial Sun, of which the hot rays dazzled
her. She would have preferred less glory, less majesty, fewer triumphs,
with her simple and modest tastes, which were rather those of a
respectable citizen's wife than of a queen. Her husband, amid his
courtiers, who flocked about him as priests flock about an idol, seemed
to her a demi-god rather than a man, and she would far rather have been
won by affection than overwhelmed by his superiority.

It is not to be supposed, however, that Marie Louise was unhappy before
the catastrophes that accompanied the fall of the Empire. It was in
perfect sincerity that she wrote to her father in praise of her husband,
and her joy was great when she gave birth to a child, who seemed a
pledge of peace and of general happiness. Let us add that the Emperor
never had an occasion to find fault with her. Her gentleness, reserve,
and obedience formed the combination of qualities which her husband
desired. He had never imagined an Empress more exactly to his taste.
When she deserted him, he was more ready to excuse and pity her than to
cast blame upon her. He looked upon her as the slave and victim of the
Viennese court. Moreover, he was in perfect ignorance of her love for
the Count of Neipperg, and no shadow of jealousy tormented him at Saint
Helena. "You may be sure," he said a few days before his death, "that if
the Empress makes no effort to ease my woes, it is because she is kept
surrounded by spies, who never let my sufferings come to her ears; for
Marie Louise is virtue itself." A pleasant delusion, which consoled the
final moments of the great man, whose last thoughts were for his wife
and son.

We fancy that the Emperor of Austria was sincere in the protestations
of affection and friendship which he made to Napoleon shortly after the
wedding. He then entertained no thoughts of dethroning or fighting him.
He had hopes of securing great advantage from the French alliance, and
he would have been much surprised if any one had foretold to him how
soon he would become one of the most active agents in the overthrow of
this son-in-law to whom he expressed such affectionate feelings. In 1811
he was sincerely desirous that the King of Rome should one day succeed
Napoleon on the throne of the vast empire. At that time hatred of France
had almost died out in Austria; it was only renewed by the disastrous
Russian campaign. The Austrians, who could not wholly forget the past,
did not love Napoleon well enough to remain faithful to him in
disaster. Had he been fortunate, the hero of Wagram would have preserved
his father-in-law's sympathy and the Austrian alliance; but being
unfortunate, he lost both at once. Unlike the rulers of the old
dynasties, he was condemned either to perpetual victory or to ruin. He
needed triumphs instead of ancestors, and the slightest loss of glory
was for him the token of irremediable decay; incessant victory was the
only condition on which he could keep his throne, his wife, his son,
himself. One day he asked Marie Louise what instructions she had
received from her parents in regard to her conduct towards him. "To be
wholly yours," she answered, "and to obey you in everything." Might she
not have added, "So long as you are not unfortunate"?

But who at the beginning of that fatal year, 1812, could have foretold
the catastrophes which were so near? When Marie Louise was with Napoleon
at Dresden, did he not appear to her like the arbiter of the world,
an invincible hero, an Agamemnon, the king of kings? Never before,
possibly, had a man risen so high. Sovereigns seemed lost amid the crowd
of courtiers. Among the aides-de-camp was the Crown Prince of Prussia,
who was obliged to make special recommendations to those near him to pay
a little attention to his father-in-law, the Emperor of Austria. What
power, what pride, what faith in his star, when, drawing all Europe
after him, he bade farewell to his wife May 29, 1812, to begin that
gigantic war which he thought was destined to consolidate all his
greatness and to crown all his glories! But he had not counted on the
burning of Moscow: there is in the air a zone which the highest balloons
cannot pierce; once there, ascent means death. This zone, which exists
also in power, good fortune, glory, as well as in the atmosphere,
Napoleon had reached. At the height of his prosperity he had forgotten
that God was about to say to him: Thou shalt go no further.

At the first defeat Marie Louise perceived that the brazen statue had
feet of clay. Malet's conspiracy filled her with gloomy thoughts. It
became evident that the Empire was not a fixed institution, but a single
man; in case this man died or lived defeated, everything was gone.
December 12, 1812, the Empress went to her bed in the Tuileries, sad and
ill. It was half-past eleven in the evening. The lady-in-waiting, who
was to pass the night in a neighboring room, was about to lock all the
doors when suddenly she heard voices in the drawing-room close by. Who
could have come at that hour? Who except the Emperor? And, in fact, it
was he, who, without word to any one, had just arrived unexpectedly in a
wretched carriage, and had found great difficulty in getting the palace
doors opened. He had travelled incognito from the Beresina, like a
fugitive, like a criminal. As he passed through Warsaw he had exclaimed
bitterly and in amazement at his defeat, "There is but one step from the
sublime to the ridiculous." When he burst into his wife's bedroom in his
long fur coat, Marie Louise could not believe her eyes. He kissed her
affectionately, and promised her that all the disasters recounted in the
twenty-ninth bulletin should be soon repaired; he added that he had been
beaten, not by the Russians, but by the elements. Nevertheless, the
decadence had begun; his glory was dimmed; Marie Louise began to have
doubts of Napoleon. His courtiers continued to flatter him, but they
ceased to worship him. A dark cloud lay over the Tuileries. The Empress
had but a few days to pass with her husband. He had been away for nearly
six months, from May 29 till December 12, 1812, and he was to leave
again April 15, 1813, to return only November 9. The European sovereigns
could not have continued in alliance with him even if they had wished
it, so irresistible was the movement of their subjects against him.
After Leipsic everything was lost; that was the signal of the death
struggle, which was to be long, terrible, and full of anguish. Europe
listened in terror to the cries of the dying Empire. But it was all
over. The sacred soil of France was invaded. January 25, 1814, at three
in the morning, the hero left the Tuileries to oppose the invaders. He
kissed his wife and his son for the last time. He was never to see them
again. In all, Napoleon had passed only two years and eight months with
Marie Louise; she had had hardly time enough to become attached to him.
Napoleon's sword was broken; he arrived before Paris too late to save
the city, which had just capitulated, and the foreigners were about to
make their triumphal entrance. Could a woman of twenty-two be strong
enough to withstand the tempest? Would she be brave enough, could she
indeed remain in Paris without disobeying Napoleon? Was not flight a
duty for the hapless sovereign? The Emperor had written to his brother,
King Joseph: "In no case must you let the Empress and the King of Rome
fall into the enemy's hands. Do not abandon my son, and remember that
I had rather see him in the Seine than in the hands of the enemies of
France. The lot of Astyanax, a prisoner among the Greeks, has always
seemed to me the unhappiest in history." But, alas! in spite of the
great Emperor's precautions, the King of Rome was condemned by fate
to be the modern Astyanax, and Marie Louise was not as constant as
Andromache.

The allied forces drew near, and there was no more time for flight.
March 29, 1814, horses and carriages had been stationed in the Carrousel
since the morning. At seven o'clock Marie Louise was dressed and ready
to leave, but they could not abandon hope; they wished still to await
some possible bit of good news which should prevent their leaving,--an
envoy from Napoleon, a messenger from King Joseph. The officers of the
National Guard were anxious to have the Empress stay. "Remain," they
urged; "we swear to defend you." Marie Louise thanked them through her
tears, but the Emperor's orders were positive; on no account were the
Empress and the King of Rome to fall into the enemy's hands. The peril
grew. Ever since four o'clock Marie Louise had kept putting off the
moment of leaving, in expectation that something would turn up. Eleven
struck, and the Minister of War came, declaring there was not a moment
to lose. One would have thought that the little King of Rome, who was
just three years old, knew that he was about to go, never to return.
"Don't go to Rambouillet," he cried to his mother; "that's a gloomy
castle; let us stay here." And he clung to the banisters, struggling
with the equerry who was carrying him, weeping and shouting, "I don't
want to leave my house; I don't want to go away; since papa is away, I
am the master." Marie Louise was impressed by this childish opposition;
a secret voice told her that her son was right; that by abandoning the
capital, they surrendered it to the Royalists. But the lot was cast, and
they had to leave. A mere handful of indifferent spectators, attracted
by no other feeling than curiosity, watched the flight of the sovereign
who, four years before, had made her formal entrance into this same
palace of the Tuileries under a triumphal arch, amid noisy acclamations.
There was not a tear in the eyes of the few spectators; they uttered no
sound, they made no movement of sympathy or regret; there was only a
sullen silence. But one person wept, and that was Marie Louise. When she
had reached the Champs Elyseés, she cast a last sad glance at the palace
she was never to see again. It was not a flight, but a funeral.

The Empress and the King of Rome took refuge at Blois, where there
appeared a faint shadow of Imperial government. On Good Friday, April
8, Count Shouvaloff reached Blois with a detachment of Cossacks, and
carried Marie Louise and her son to Rambouillet, where the Emperor of
Austria was to join them. What Napoleon had feared was soon realized.

April 16, the Emperor of Austria was at Blois. Marie Louise, who two
years before had left her father, starting on her triumphal journey to
Prague, amid all form of splendor and devotion, was much moved at seeing
him again, and placed the King of Rome in his arms, as if to reproach
him for deserting the child's cause. The grandfather relented, but the
monarch was stern: did he not soon say to Marie Louise: "As my daughter,
everything that I have is yours, even my blood and my life; as a
sovereign, I do not know you"? The Russian sentinels at the entrance
of the castle of Rambouillet were relieved by Austrian grenadiers. The
Empress of the French changed captors; she was the prisoner no longer of
the Czar's soldiers, but of her own father. Her conjugal affection was
not yet wholly extinct, and she reproached herself with not having
joined Napoleon at Fontainebleau; but her scruples were soon allayed by
the promise that she should soon see her husband again at Elba. She was
told that the treaty which had just been signed gave her, and after her,
her son, the duchies of Parma, Piacenza, and Guastalla; that the King of
Rome was henceforth the hereditary Duke of Parma; that if she had duties
as a wife, she also had duties as a mother; that she ought to gain the
good-will of the powers, and assure her child's future. They added that
she ought to give her husband time to establish himself at Elba, and
that meanwhile she would find in Vienna, near her loving parents, a few
weeks of moral and physical rest, which must be very necessary after so
many emotions and sufferings. Marie Louise, who had been brought up to
give her father strict obedience, regarded the advice of the Emperor of
Austria as commands which were not to be questioned, and April 23 she
left Rambouillet with her son for Vienna.

Did the dethroned Empress carry away with her a pleasant memory of
France and the French people? We do not think so; and, to be frank,
was what had just happened likely to give her a favorable idea of the
country she was leaving? Could she have much love for the people who
were fastening a rope to pull down the statue of the hero of Austerlitz
from its pedestal, the Vendôme column? When her father, the Emperor
Francis I., had been defeated, driven from his capital, overwhelmed with
the blows of fate, his misfortunes had only augmented his popularity;
the more he suffered, the more he was loved. But for Napoleon, who was
so adored in the day of triumph, how was he treated in adversity? What
was the language of the Senate, lately so obsequious and servile? The
men on whom the Emperor had literally showered favors, called him
contemptuously Monsieur de Bonaparte. What did they do to save the crown
of the King of Rome, whose cradle they had saluted with such noisy
acclamations? Were not the Cossacks who went to Blois after the Empress
rapturously applauded by the French, in Paris itself, upon the very
boulevards? Did not the marshals of the Empire now serve as an escort
to Louis XVIII.? Where were the eagles, the flags, and the tricolored
cockades? When Napoleon was passing through Provence on his way to take
possession of his ridiculous realm of Elba, he was compelled to wear an
Austrian officer's uniform to escape being put to death by Frenchmen;
the imperial mantle was exchanged for a disguise. It is true that Marie
Louise abandoned the French; but did not the French abandon her and her
son after the abdication of Fontainebleau; and if this child did not
become Napoleon II., is not the fault theirs? And did she not do
all that could be demanded of her as regent? Can she be accused of
intriguing with the Allies; and if at the last moment she left Paris,
was it not in obedience to her husband's express command? She might well
have said what fifty-six years later the second Emperor said so sadly
when he was a prisoner in Germany: "In France one must never be
unfortunate." What was then left for her to do in that volcano, that
land which swallows all greatness and glory, amid that fickle people
who change their opinions and passions as an actress changes her dress?
Where Napoleon, with all his genius, had made a complete failure, could
a young, ignorant woman be reasonably expected to succeed in the face of
all Europe? Were her hands strong enough to rebuild the colossal edifice
that lay in ruins upon the ground?

Such were the reflections of Marie Louise as she was leaving France. The
moment she touched German soil, all the ideas, impressions, feelings of
her girlhood, came back to her, and naturally enough; for were there not
many instances in the last war, of German women, married to Frenchmen,
who rejoiced in the German successes, and of French women, married to
Germans, who deplored them? Marriage is but an incident; one's nature is
determined at one's birth. In Austria, Marie Louise found again the same
sympathy and affection that she had left there. There was a sort of
conspiracy to make her forget France and love Germany. The Emperor
Francis persuaded her that he was her sole protector, and controlled her
with the twofold authority of a father and a sovereign. She who a few
days before had been the Empress of the French, the Queen of Italy, the
Regent of a vast empire, was in her father's presence merely a humble
and docile daughter, who told him everything, obeyed him in everything,
who abdicated her own free will, and promised, even swore, to entertain
no other ideas or wishes than such as agreed with his.

Nevertheless, when she arrived at Vienna, Marie Louise had by no means
completely forgotten France and Napoleon. She still had Frenchmen in her
suite; she wrote to her husband and imagined that she would be allowed
to visit him at Elba, but she perfectly understood all the difficulties
of the double part she was henceforth called upon to play. She felt that
whatever she might do she would be severely criticised; that it would
be almost impossible to secure the approval of both her father and her
husband. Since she was intelligent enough to foresee that she would be
blamed by her contemporaries and by posterity, was she not justified in
lamenting her unhappy lot? She, who under any other conditions would
have been an excellent wife and mother, was compelled by extraordinary
circumstances to appear as a heartless wife and an indifferent mother.
This thought distressed Marie Louise, who at heart was not thoroughly
contented with herself. She wrote, under date of August 9, 1814: "I am
in a very unhappy and critical position; I must be very prudent in my
conduct. There are moments when that thought so distracts me that I
think that the best thing I could do would be to die."

When Napoleon returned from Elba, the situation of Marie Louise, so far
from improving, became only more difficult. She had no illusions about
the fate that awaited her audacious husband, who was unable to contend,
single-handed, against all Europe. She knew better than any one, not
only that he had nothing to hope from the Emperor of Austria, his
father-in-law, but that in this sovereign he would find a bitter,
implacable foe. As to the Emperor Alexander, he swore that he would
sacrifice his last ruble, his last soldier, before he would consent to
let Napoleon reign in France. Marie Louise knew too well the feeling
that animated the Congress at Vienna, to imagine that her husband had
the slightest chance of success. She was convinced that by returning
from Elba, he was only preparing for France a new invasion, and for
himself chains. Since she was a prisoner of the Coalition, she was
condemned to widowhood, even in the lifetime of her husband. She cannot
then be blamed for remaining at Vienna, whence escape was absolutely
impossible.

Marie Louise committed one great error; that, namely, of writing that
inasmuch as she was entirely without part in the plans of the Emperor
Napoleon, she placed herself under the protection of the Allies,--Allies
who at that very moment were urging the assassination of her husband,
in the famous declaration of March 13, 1815, in which they said: "By
breaking the convention, which established him on the island of Elba,
Bonaparte has destroyed the only legal title on which his existence
depended. By reappearing in France, with plans of disturbance and
turmoil, he has, by his own act, forfeited the protection of the laws,
and has shown to the world that there can be no peace or truce with him
as a party. The Powers consequently declare that Napoleon Bonaparte has
placed himself outside of all civil and social relations, and that as an
enemy and disturber of the world's peace, he exposes himself to public
vengeance." April 16, at the moment when the processions designed to
pray for the success of the Austrian armies, were going through the
streets of Vienna to visit the Cathedral and the principal churches,
the Empress of Austria dared to ask the former Empress of the French to
accompany the processions with the rest of the court; but Marie Louise
rejected the insulting proposal. The 6th of May next, when M. de
Méneval, who was about to return to France, came to bid farewell and to
receive her commands, she spoke to this effect to the faithful subject
who was soon to see Napoleon: "I am aware that all relations between me
and France are coming to an end, but I shall always cherish the memory
of my adopted home.... Convince the Emperor of all the good I wish him.
I hope that he will understand the misery of my position.... I shall
never assent to a divorce, but I flatter myself that he will not oppose
an amicable separation, and that he will not bear any ill feeling
towards me.... This separation has become imperative; it will in no way
affect the feelings of esteem and gratitude that I preserve." Then
she gave to M. de Méneval a gold snuff-box, bearing his initials in
diamonds, as a memento, and left him, to hide the emotion by which she
was overcome. Her emotion was not very deep, and her tears soon dried.
In 1814 she had met the man who was to make her forget her duty towards
her illustrious husband. He was twenty years older than she, and always
wore a large black band to hide the scar of a wound by which he had lost
an eye. As diplomatist and as a soldier he had been one of the most
persistent and one of the most skilful of Napoleon's enemies. General
the Count of Neipperg, as he called himself, had been especially active
in persuading two Frenchmen, Bernadotte and Murat, to take up arms
against France. Since 1814 he had been most devoted to Marie Louise, and
he felt or pretended to feel for her an affection on which she did not
fear to smile. She admitted him to her table; he became her chamberlain,
her advocate at the Congress of Vienna, her prime minister in the Duchy
of Parma, and after Napoleon's death, her morganatic husband. He had
three children by her,--two daughters (one of whom died young; the other
married the son of the Count San Vitale, Grand Chamberlain of Parma) and
one son (who took the title of Count of Montenuovo and served in the
Austrian army). Until his death in 1829 the Count of Neipperg completely
controlled Marie Louise, as Napoleon had never done.

After Waterloo, every day dimmed Marie Louise's recollections of France.
The four years of her reign--two spent in the splendor of perpetual
adoration, two in the gloom of disasters culminating in final ruin--were
like a distant dream, half a golden vision, half a hideous nightmare.
It was all but a brief episode in her life. She thoroughly deserved
the name of "the Austrian," which had been given unjustly to Marie
Antoinette; for Marie Antoinette really became a Frenchwoman. The
Duchess of Parma--for that was the title of the woman who had worn the
two crowns of France and of Italy--lived more in her principality than
in Vienna, more interested in the Count of Neipperg than in the Duke of
Reichstadt. While her son never left the Emperor Francis, she reigned
in her little duchy. But the title was to expire at her death; for the
Coalition had feared to permit a son of Napoleon to have an hereditary
claim to rule over Parma. Yet Marie Louise cannot properly be called
a bad mother. She went to close the eyes of her son, who died in his
twenty-second year, of consumption and disappointment.

By this event was broken the last bond which attached Napoleon's widow
to the imperial traditions. In 1833 she was married, for the third time,
to a Frenchman, the son of an émigré in the Austrian service. He was a
M. de Bombelles, whose mother had been a Miss Mackan, an intimate friend
of Madame Elisabeth, and had married the Count of Bombelles, ambassador
of Louis XVI. in Portugal, and later in Venice, who took orders after
his wife's death and became Bishop of Amiens under the Restoration.
Marie Louise, who died December 17, 1847, aged fifty-six, lived in
surroundings directly hostile to Napoleon's glory. Her ideas in
her last years grew to resemble those of her childhood, and she was
perpetually denouncing the principles of the French Revolution and of
the liberalism which pursued her even in the Duchy of Parma. France has
reproached her with abandoning Napoleon, and still more perhaps for
having given two obscure successors to the most famous man of modern
times.

If Marie Louise is not a very sympathetic figure, no story is more
touching and more melancholy than that of her son's life and death. It
is a tale of hope deceived by reality; of youth and beauty cut down
in their flower; of the innocent paying for the guilty; of the victim
marked by fate as the expiation for others. One might say that he came
into the world only to give a lasting example of the instability of
human greatness. When he was at the point of death, worn out with
suffering, he said sadly, "My birth and my death comprise my whole
history." But this short story is perhaps richer in instruction than the
longest reigns. The Emperor's son will be known for many ages by
his three titles,--the King of Rome, Napoleon II., and the Duke
of Reichstadt. He had already inspired great poets, and given to
philosophers and Christians occasion for profound thoughts. His memory
is indissolubly bound up with that of his father, and posterity will
never forget him. Even those who are most virulent against Napoleon's
memory, feel their wrath melt when they think of his son; and when at
the Church of the Capuchins, in Vienna, a monk lights with a flickering
torch the dark tomb of the great captain's son, who lies by the side
of his grandfather, Francis II., who was at once his protector and his
jailer, deep thoughts arise as one considers the vanity of political
calculations, the emptiness of glory, of power, and of genius.

Poor boy! His birth was greeted with countless thanksgivings,
celebrations, and joyous applause. Paris was beside itself when in the
morning of March 20, 1811, there sounded the twenty-second report of a
cannon, announcing that the Emperor had, not a daughter, but a son. He
lay in a costly cradle of mother-of-pearl and gold, surmounted by a
winged Victory which seemed to protect the slumbers of the King of Rome.
The Imperial heir in his gilded baby-carriage drawn by two snow-white
sheep beneath the trees at Saint Cloud was a charming object. He was but
a year old when Gérard painted him in his cradle, playing with a cup and
ball, as if the cup were a sceptre and the ball were the world, with
which his childish hands were playing. When on the eve of the battle
of Moskowa, Napoleon was giving his final orders for the tremendous
struggle of the next day, a courier, M. de Bausset, arrived suddenly
from Paris, bringing with him this masterpiece of Gérard's; at once the
General forgot his anxieties in his paternal joy. "Gentlemen," said
Napoleon to his officers, "if my son were fifteen years old, you may be
sure that he would be here among this multitude of brave men, and not
merely in a picture." Then he had the portrait of the King of Rome set
out in front of his tent, on a chair, that the sight of it might be an
added excitement to victory. And the old grenadiers of the Imperial
Guard, the veterans with their grizzly moustaches,--the men who were
never to abandon their Emperor, who followed him to Elba, and died at
Waterloo,--heroes, as kind as they were brave, actually cried with joy
as they gazed at the portrait of this boy whose glorious future they
hoped to make sure by their brave deeds.

But what a sad future it was! Within less than two years Cossacks were
the escort of the King of Rome. When the Coalition made him a prisoner,
he was forever torn from his father. Napoleon, March 20, 1815, on this
return from Elba, re-entered triumphantly the Palace of the Tuileries
as if by miracle, but his joy was incomplete. March 20 was his son's
birthday, the day he was four years old, and the boy was not there;
his father never saw him again. At Vienna the little prince seemed the
victim of an untimely gloom; he missed his young playmates. "Any one can
see that I am not a king," he said; "I haven't any pages now."

The King of Rome had lost the childish merriment and the talkativeness
which had made him very captivating. So far from growing familiar with
those among whom he was thrown, he seemed rather to be suspicious and
distrustful of them. During the Hundred Days the private secretary of
Marie Louise left her at Vienna to return to Napoleon in France. "Have
you any message for your father?" he asked of the little prince. The boy
thought for a moment, and then, as if he were watched, led the faithful
officer up to the window and whispered to him, very low, "You will tell
him that I always love him dearly."

In spite of the many miles that separated them, the son was to be a
consolation to his father. In 1816 the prisoner at Saint Helena received
a lock of the young prince's hair, and a letter which he had written
with his hand held by some one else. Napoleon was filled with joy, and
forgot his chains. It was a renewal of the happiness he had felt on the
eve of Moskowa, when he had received the portrait of the son he loved
so warmly. Once again he summoned those who were about him and, deeply
moved, showed to them the lock of hair and the letter of his child.

For his part, the boy did not forget his father. In vain they gave him a
German title and a German name, and removed the Imperial arms with their
eagle; in vain they expunged the Napoleon from his name,--Napoleon,
which was an object of terror to the enemies of France. His Highness,
Prince Francis Charles Joseph, Duke of Reichstadt, knew very well that
his title was the King of Rome and Napoleon II. He knew that in his
veins there flowed the blood of the greatest warrior of modern times. He
had scarcely left the cradle when he began to show military tastes. When
only five, he said to Hummel, the artist, who was painting his portrait:
"I want to be a soldier. I shall fight well. I shall be in the charge."
"But," urged the artist, "you will find the bayonets of the grenadiers
in your way, and they will kill you perhaps." And the boy answered, "But
shan't I have a sword to beat down the bayonets?" Before he was seven he
wore a uniform. He learned eagerly the manual of arms; and when he was
rewarded by promotion to the grade of sergeant, he was as proud of
his stripes as he would have been of a throne. His father's career
continually occupied his thoughts and filled his imagination with a sort
of ecstasy.

At Paris the fickle multitude soon forgot the son of the Emperor. In
1820 the capital saluted the birth of the Duke of Bordeaux as it had
saluted that of the King of Rome. A close relationship united the two
children who represented two such distinct parties; their mothers were
first-cousins on both their fathers' and their mothers' side. The
Duchess of Berry, mother of the Duke of Bordeaux, was the daughter of
the King of Naples, Francis I., son of King Ferdinand IV. and Queen
Marie Caroline; and her mother was the Princess Marie Clementine,
daughter of the Emperor Leopold II. The Emperor Francis, father of the
Empress Marie Louise, was himself the son of Leopold II.; his wife was
Princess Marie Thérèse of Naples, daughter of Queen Marie Caroline and
aunt of the Duchess of Berry. The King of Rome and the Duke of Bordeaux
were thus in two ways second-cousins. July 22, 1821, at Schoenbrunn, in
the same room where, eleven years later, in the same month and on the
same day of the month, he was to breathe his last, the child who had
been the King of Rome learned that his father was dead. This news
plunged him into deep grief. He had been forbidden the name of Bonaparte
or Napoleon, but he was allowed to weep. The Duke of Reichstadt and his
household were allowed to wear mourning for the exile of Saint Helena.

In justice to the Emperor Francis it must be said that he showed great
affection for his grandson, whom he kept always near him, in his
chamber and in his study, and that he hid from him neither Napoleon's
misfortunes nor his successes. "I desire," he told Prince Metternich,
"that the Duke of Reichstadt shall respect his father's memory, that he
shall take example from his firm qualities and learn to recognize
his faults, in order to shun them and be on his guard against their
influence. Speak to the prince about his father as you should like to be
spoken about to your own son. Do not hide anything from him, but teach
him to honor his father's memory." Military drill, manoeuvres, strategy,
the study of great generals, especially of Napoleon, formed the young
prince's favorite occupations.

So long as the elder branch of the Bourbons reigned in France, the Duke
of Reichstadt never thought of seizing his father's crown and sceptre,
but the Revolution of 1830 suddenly kindled all his hopes. When he
learned that the tricolored flag had taken the place of the white one,
and heard of the enthusiasm that had seized the French for the men and
deeds of the Empire; when he heard the Austrian ministers continually
saying that Louis Philippe was a mere usurper who could reign but a
short time; when his grandfather, the Emperor Francis, who was the
incarnation of prudence and wisdom, said to him one day, "If the French
people should want you, and the Allies were to give their consent, I
should not oppose your taking your place on the French throne," and,
at another time, "You have only to show yourself on the bridge at
Strasbourg, and it is all up with the Orléans at Paris,"--the Duke was
carried away by a feeling of ambition, patriotism, and exaltation.
Born to glory, he imagined himself divinely summoned to a magnificent
destiny; wide and brilliant horizons opened before him. His eager
imagination was kindled by a hidden flame. In his youthful dreams he saw
himself resuscitating Poland, restoring the glories of the Empire. He
prepared for the part he was to play by studying with Marshal Marmont
the campaigns of Napoleon. These lessons lasted three months, and at
their end the Duke gave his portrait to his father's fellow-soldier, and
copied beneath it four lines from Racine's _Phèdre_, in which Hippolyte
says to Théramène:--

  "Having come to me with a sincere interest,
  You told to me my father's story;
  You know how my soul, attentive to your words,
  Kindled at the recital of his noble exploits."

He was as enthusiastic for poetry as for the military profession. One
day his physician, Dr. Malfatti, quoted to him two lines from the author
of the _Meditations_:--

  "Limited in his nature, infinite in his desires,
  Man is a fallen god who remembers heaven."

"That's a fine thought," said the young prince; "it is as pleasing as
it is striking. I am sorry that I don't know Lamartine's poetry." The
physician promised to send him the _Meditations_. The next day the Duke
read the volume aloud; his eyes moistened and his voice broke when he
came to these lines in which the poet seemed to be addressing him:--

  "Courage, fallen scion of a divine race;
  You carry your celestial origin on your brow;
  Every one who sees you, sees in your eyes
  A darkened ray of heavenly splendor."

And, indeed, every one recognized in him a really extraordinary being;
his face, his gestures, his bearing, all had an imperial air. He seemed
born to rule in a drawing-room as well as in a barracks. He was admired
as well as loved; he was a true son of Caesar, born for success in
love as well as for glory. When he appeared in the ball-room, his pale
coloring, his lively expression, his military bearing, his proud but
quiet manners, the mingled energy and gentleness of his face, attracted
every woman's eye. When he appeared before his soldiers, he filled them
with the wildest enthusiasm. One day when he happened to be riding a
fiery horse at the review of his battalion, his superb appearance made
such an impression on the troops that, although they were accustomed to
maintain a profound silence in the ranks, they suddenly broke out into
shouts of admiration.

Yet in spite of all his ardor it was only at intervals that Napoleon's
son felt hopeful. If at one time he had confidence in his star, this
feeling soon yielded to deep depression. The brilliant prospects evoked
by the events in Poland and in France shone for but a moment, and then
vanished. The court of Vienna recognized the monarchy of July. One day
some one was urging him to go to a ball given by Marshal Maison, the
French minister at the Austrian court. "What should I do," he asked, "at
the house of Louis Philippe's ambassador? Has not his government exiled
and outlawed me? No one there could see me without blushing; and then,
too, what would my feelings be?" He became restless and silent, and
distrusted even his best friends. "Answer me, my friend," he said to his
confidant, Count Prokesch-Osten, "answer me this question,--which is one
of great importance to me just now: What do people think of me? Do
they see in me any justification for the caricatures which are forever
presenting me as a creature of the feeblest intelligence?" Count
Prokesch answered him: "Don't worry. Don't you appear in public every
day? Can even the most ignorant see you and place the slightest
confidence in such fables, which are invented by charlatans without the
least care for truth?" But the young Duke was not consoled, and every
day he lost confidence in his future. Once Count Prokesch-Osten found
him meditating upon his father's will. "The fourth paragraph of the
first article," he said, "contains the guiding principle of my life.
There my father bids me not to forget that I was born a French prince."
And we may be sure that he never forgot it; and if he was so uneasy, if
he suffered keenly, and grief drove him with startling rapidity to the
tomb, it was because he felt that fate condemned him to live and die an
Austrian prince.

His overwrought mind and body soon made him ill. He sought by violent
emotions and excessive fatigue to escape from the thoughts which were
persecuting him like spectres, and driving him to his death. In vain the
physicians commanded rest and quiet. When attacked by an incurable
lung trouble, he required absolute repose: but repose was torture; he
preferred death as a deliverance. Dr. Malfatti, who took the keenest
interest in him, and who was much disturbed by his many imprudences,
entreated him not to throw away wantonly a life which might be so well
and usefully employed. "It is a great pity, sir, that Your Highness," he
said, "can't change bodies as you change horses, when they are tired. I
beg of you to notice that you have a soul of steel in a crystal body,
and that the abuse of your will can only be pernicious to you."

The young invalid did not listen to him: he scarcely slept; his appetite
failed him; he made no account of the weather; he rode the wildest
horses the longest distances. His chest and throat became seriously
affected, but it made no difference; he still wanted to command at the
reviews. His voice was lost: soon he could not even speak; but his
illness did not depress, it only annoyed him. His energetic character
could not accustom itself to the idea of abandoning the struggle. He
fought against suffering as he had fought against fate. "Oh!" he said,
"how I despise this wretched body which cannot obey my soul!" Dr.
Malfatti said, "There seems to be in this unfortunate young man an
active principle impelling him to a sort of suicide; reasoning and
precaution are of no avail against the fatality which urges him on."

The end drew near; the completion of the sacrifice approached. The
victim did not pray that the cup might pass from his lips. He ceased to
struggle against the inevitable, and submitted to his fate, becoming
as gentle and peaceful as a child. As the earth left him, he turned to
heaven. "I understood and felt," said Count Prokesch-Osten, "all the
sublimity there is in religion, which alone could throw a light on this
man's path, through the uncertainty and darkness that surrounded him....
Religion is our staff. We can find no surer support in our journey
through the darkness of our life on earth." He had received from the
Emperor and Empress of Austria a book of prayers, called _Divine
Harmonies_, which he read over and over on his bed of suffering. It
contained these words written by his grandfather's hand: "In every
incident of your life, in every struggle of your soul, may God aid you
with His light and strength; this is the most ardent wish of your loving
grandparents." "This book is very dear to me," the prince said to his
friend, after a serious talk on religious matters; "those words, written
by relatives whom I sincerely respect and thoroughly love, have an
inestimable value for me, and yet I give it to you. I want what I most
value to go to you, in memory of what seems to me the most important of
our conversations."

When he was dying, he wanted to gaze at the crucifix, in order not to
complain of his sad lot, dying thus at the very threshold of a career
which promised to be brilliant and glorious; to go down so early to the
gloomy tomb of the Hapsburgs! To exchange his glowing visions for this
untimely end; to find an Austrian tomb instead of the throne of France!
He accepted his fate, but he wished as few witnesses as possible of his
last sufferings. He did not want to show to the world a son of Napoleon
so weak and broken. He could scarcely lift the weak, worn hand which
should have wielded Charlemagne's sword and sceptre. "I am so weak,"
he said; "I beg of you not to let any one see me in my misery!" His
sumptuous cradle he had given to the Imperial Treasury of Vienna, which
is near the Church of the Capuchins, where he was to be buried. "My
cradle and my grave will be near each other," he said. "My birth and my
death--that's my whole story." In the overthrow, by lightning, of one
of the eagles surmounting the palace of Schoenbrunn, the populace saw a
prophecy of the death there of Napoleon's son, and in fact it was there
that he died, in the room which his father had occupied in 1809, when
possibly for the first time he thought of this Austrian marriage, which
should--such at least was his dream--guarantee to the Napoleonic dynasty
unlimited power and glory. The prince desired only one thing,--to see
his mother. She came, and he greeted her with tenderness. He had also
near him his young and beautiful relative, the Archduchess Sophia, the
mother of the present Emperor of Austria. This charming princess, who
was very fond of the young man who was approaching his end, told him
that the time had come for him to receive the last sacraments. "We will
pray together," she said; "I will pray for you, and you shall pray for
me and for my unborn child." The prince, consoled and strengthened by
the aid of religion, died in the enjoyment of a firm faith and thorough
piety. "Mother, mother!" were his last words. General Hartmann said:
"Having passed my life on battle-fields, I have often seen death, but
I never saw a soldier die more bravely." The 22d of July was a very
momentous date in the career of this young prince. It was July 22, 1818,
that the title of Duke of Reichstadt was substituted for his name of
Napoleon Bonaparte; July 22, 1821, he heard of his father's death;
and July 22, 1832, he died at the age of twenty-one years four months
and two days.

We desire to make five studies of the second wife and the son of
Napoleon I. The first, which we are now beginning, covers a period of
brilliancy of infatuation, of fairy-like splendor, which in all its glow
forms a striking contrast with the dreadful shadows that follow. With
the aid of eye-witnesses whose memoirs abound with most valuable
recollections--such as Prince Metternich, who had the principal charge
of the Archduchess's marriage; M. de Bausset and General de Ségur, both
attached to the Emperor Napoleon's household, so that they saw him
nearly every day; Madame Durand, the Empress's first lady-in-waiting;
Baron de Méneval, his private secretary--with their aid we shall try to
recall the brilliant past, taking for our motto that phrase of Michelet:
"History is a resurrection." An excellent work, which deserves
translation, Von Helfert's _Marie Louise, Empress of the French_, throws
a great deal of light on the early years of the mother of the King of
Rome. In the archives of the Ministers of Foreign Affairs--thanks to the
intelligent and liberal control which facilitates historic research--we
have found a great number of curious documents which had never been
published, such as letters written to Napoleon by the Emperor and
Empress of Austria, and despatches from his ambassador at Vienna, Count
Otto. This first study will carry us to the beginning of the Russian
campaign, that glorious period when the unheard-of prosperity promised
to be eternal. No darker night was ever preceded by a more brilliant
sun. Napoleon said on the rock of Saint Helena: "Marie Louise had a
short reign; but she must have enjoyed it; the world was at her feet."




I.


EARLY YEARS.

Marie Louise, Archduchess of Austria, Empress of the French, Queen of
Italy, afterwards Duchess of Parma, Piacenza, and Guastalla, was born
in Vienna, December 12, 1791, the daughter of Archduke Francis, Prince
Imperial, who a year later became Emperor of Germany under the name of
Francis II., and of Marie Thérèse, Princess of Naples, daughter of King
Ferdinand IV. and Queen Marie Caroline.

Marie Louise's father was born February 12, 1768, a year and a half
earlier than the Emperor Napoleon. He was the grandson of the great
Empress Marie Thérèse, and son of the Emperor Leopold II., who was the
brother of the Queen of France, Marie Antoinette, and whom he succeeded
March 1, 1792; his mother was a Spanish princess, a daughter of Charles
III. of Spain. He had four wives. He was an excellent husband, but his
family affections were so strong that he could not remain a widower. In
1788 he married his first wife, Princess Elizabeth Wilhelmina Louisa
of Wurtemberg, who died February 17, 1790, in giving birth to a
daughter who lived but six months. The same year he married by proxy
at Naples, August 15, and September 19 in person at Vienna, the young
Neapolitan princess Marie Thérèse, daughter of Ferdinand IV. and of
Marie Caroline, who ruled over the Two Sicilies.

The young princess, who was born June 6, 1772, was then eighteen years
old. She was kind, virtuous, and well educated, and her influence at the
court of Vienna was most excellent. Her mother, who during her reign of
thirty-six years endured many trials and exhibited great qualities as
well as great faults, was a remarkable woman.

Marie Caroline, the Queen of Naples, was energetic to excess, courageous
to the point of heroism; she believed that severity and sometimes
even cruelty was demanded of a sovereign; her religion amounted to
superstition, her love of authority to despotism; she alternated between
passionate devotion to pleasure and earnest zeal for her duty; she was
ardent in her affections and implacable in resentment, intense in her
joys and in her sorrows; she was often an unwise queen, but as a
mother she was beyond reproach. Like the matrons of antiquity and her
illustrious mother, the Empress Marie Thérèse, she was proud of her
large family; she had no fewer than seventeen children, and political
cares never prevented her actively and intelligently caring for their
moral and physical welfare. If she had not the happiness of seeing them
all grow up, those who survived were yet the constant object of her
tender solicitude. She took a prominent part in the education of her two
sons, the Duke of Calabria and the Prince of Salerno, and still more
in that of her five daughters: Marie Thérèse, the wife of the Emperor
Francis II.; Marie Louise, who married the Archduke Ferdinand, Grand
Duke of Tuscany; Marie Christine, wife of Charles Felix, Duke of Genoa,
later King of Sardinia; Marie Amélie, Duchess of Orleans, then Queen of
France; Marie Antoinette, first wife of the Prince of Asturias, later
Ferdinand VII., King of Spain.

Marie Caroline was very fond of her eldest daughter, Marie Thérèse; and
when the princess had, in 1790, married the Archduke Francis, two years
later Emperor of Germany, the mother and daughter kept up an active and
affectionate correspondence in French. They were forever consulting each
other about their babies, which were born at about the same time. When
the daughter had given birth to her first child, the future French
Empress, the Queen congratulated her most warmly: "I congratulate you on
your courage. I am sure that when you look at your baby, which I hear
is large, sturdy, and strong, that you forget all that you have been
through." Scarcely was this child born than the Queen, who was most
anxious to have a number of descendants, besought her daughter to give
the Archduchess Marie Louise a little brother. April 17, 1793, there
was born an Archduke Ferdinand, later Emperor of Germany; and his
grandmother, Queen Marie Caroline, wrote: "I wept for joy! Thank Heaven
for the birth of this boy!" Indeed, the wife of the Emperor Francis
II. followed her mother's example with regard to her own children.
Her eldest daughter, the Archduchess Marie Louise, she educated most
carefully. The little princess, who had a most amiable disposition, was
an eager student, and acquired a good knowledge of French, English,
Italian, drawing, and music. She was brought up to respect religion and
to detest revolutionary ideas.

Her grandmother, Queen Marie Caroline, who in 1800 came to visit the
Austrian court and stayed there two years, had many conversations with
Marie Louise, which certainly were unlikely to inspire her with any
taste for the French Revolution or for General Bonaparte. It is easy to
understand how extremely the high-spirited and haughty Queen of the Two
Sicilies must have been distressed and revolted by the sufferings and
death of her sister, Marie Antoinette. There was something very solemn
in the way in which she told her children what took place in Paris
October 16, 1793. She had them all summoned. They found her dressed in
deep black, with tears in her eyes; and she led them without a word to
the chapel in the royal palace of Naples, and there, before the altar,
she told them that the people of regicides had just put their aunt to
death upon the scaffold. Then she bade them all to pray together for
the peace of the victim's soul, and probably there mingled with Marie
Caroline's prayer thoughts of wrath and vengeance. From that time
she waged against the principles and the spread of the Revolution a
relentless, implacable war, of varying result, which filled her more and
more with detestation of the new France. On the occasion of Bonaparte's
expedition to Egypt, she deemed the time ripe for a general uprising in
Italy against the French. But Championnet had taken possession of Naples
when the Parthenopean Republic had been proclaimed, and the Queen had
been obliged, with her family, to take refuge at Palermo.

In the next year, 1799, the conditions of things changed; and while
Milan was recovered by Austria, and the Russian army, led by Suwarow,
completed the expulsion of the French from Northern and Southern Italy,
the Parthenopean Republic expired, and the Bourbon flag waved once more
over the walls of Naples.

Early in 1800 the French cause seemed forever lost in Italy; General
Masséna alone held out at Genoa. Queen Marie Caroline had triumphed; and
she conceived the plan of going to Austria to visit her daughter, the
Empress, and to make the acquaintance of her grandchildren, whom she
had never seen, and at the same time to demand an enlargement of her
territory in return for the sacrifices of the Kingdom of the Two
Sicilies in behalf of the common cause of the crowned heads and the
Pope. She set sail from Palermo, June 9, 1800, with her second son, the
Prince of Salerno, and her three unmarried daughters, Marie Christine,
Marie Amélie, and Marie Antoinette.

The ideas, the feelings, the principles, the prejudices, the hates, the
hopes, the interests, of Queen Marie Caroline were the same as those of
her son-in-law, the Emperor, of her daughter, the Empress, and of her
other daughter, the Grand Duchess of Tuscany. At Vienna she found the
same political feelings as at Naples. On her way thither she had a great
joy,--the news of the surrender of the French at Genoa, which caused
her to utter cries of delight; and a great sorrow,--the tidings of
the Austrian defeat at Marengo, which was such a blow that she fell
unconscious and narrowly escaped dying of apoplexy. We may readily
understand the influence which a woman of this character must have
had on the mind of her daughter, the Empress of Germany, and of her
granddaughter, the future Empress of the French. Doubtless the young
Marie Louise would have been much astonished if any one had prophesied
to her that she would marry this Bonaparte who was represented to her as
a monster. Marie Caroline did not leave Schoenbrunn to return to her own
kingdom until July 29, 1802. For two years she had worked persistently
and not without success, to augment, if that was possible, the
detestation which the court, the aristocracy, and the whole Austrian
people felt for France and French ideas. When Marie Louise was a child,
and with her little brothers and sisters used to play with toy-soldiers,
the ugliest, blackest, and most repulsive of them was always picked out
and called Bonaparte, and this one they used to prick with pins and
denounce in every way.

The war of 1805, which brought Austria to the brink of ruin, added to
the Archduchess's instinctive repulsion for Napoleon. At Vienna the
panic was extreme; the Imperial family was obliged to flee in different
directions. Marie Louise was only fourteen years old, and she was
already learning bitter lessons at the school of experience. Seeking
shelter in Hungary, and afterwards in Galicia, she prayed most warmly
for the success of the Austrians. She wrote: "Papa must be finally
successful, and the time must come when the usurper will lose heart.
Perhaps God has let him go so far to make his ruin more complete when
He shall have abandoned him." November 21, 1805, a few days before the
battle of Austerlitz, she wrote a letter to her governess's husband,
Count Colloredo, in which she said: "God must be very wroth with us,
since He punishes us so sorely. Perhaps at this very moment there is
living in one of our rooms at Schoenbrunn one of those generals who are
as treacherous as cats. Our family is all scattered: my dear parents are
at Olmütz; we are at Kaschan; there is a third colony at Ofen."

Every sort of misfortune combined to smite this suffering family. While
the Emperor Francis was losing the battle of Austerlitz, his wife, who
was in Silesia, with only one of her children, the little Archduchess
Leopoldine, who was born in 1797 and was not yet eight years old, fell
seriously ill with the measles, and dreaded giving the disease to her
little girl. "The only thing which would make death terrible," she wrote
to her husband, "would be to die without seeing you again.... Do not
take a step that will injure you or the country. Only don't let me be
taken to France." Nothing disturbed her so much as the dread of falling
into the hands of the enemy. The details which her husband wrote to her
about his interview with Napoleon did not allay her uneasiness. "I have
been as happy," he wrote, "as I could hope to be with a conqueror who
holds possession of a large part of my kingdom. With regard to his
treatment of me and mine, he has been very kind. It is easy to see that
he is not a Frenchman." Thus the Emperor Francis ascribed to Napoleon's
Italian birth the politeness with which the hero of Austerlitz treated
him. Does not this simple statement suffice to show in what esteem the
German sovereign held France and the French character?

The Imperial family was at last reunited in Vienna, after many
vicissitudes, early in 1806. But a new misfortune awaited them the
following year. The Empress, whose health was already delicate, had a
miscarriage April 9, 1807, and a pleurisy which seized her carried her
off in four days, in due odor of sanctity, after she had given her
blessing to Marie Louise and the rest of her children. She was only
thirty-five. The untimely death of the amiable and virtuous princess,
whose gayety and kindness had been the life and delight of the court,
plunged her whole family into deep grief.

The Emperor Francis was an excellent husband, but he was not an
inconsolable widower. April 13, 1807, he lost his second wife; but less
than nine months afterwards, January 6, 1808, he married his young
cousin, Marie Louise Beatrice of Este, daughter of the late Archduke
Ferdinand of Modena. This princess, who was born December 14, 1787, was
very short, but attractive in appearance and of an excellent character.
Her disposition was pleasant and her intelligence acute, but she was not
the woman to give Marie Louise any taste for France or the French; for
if in all Europe there was a princess who utterly detested the French
Revolution and all its works, it was the third wife of Francis II.

The new Empress was but four years older than her step-daughter, Marie
Louise, and at the age of twenty-one, she looked much more like the
sister than the step-mother of the young Archduchess, who was then
in her seventeenth year. Nevertheless, the Empress took hold of the
princess's education with a high hand, and displayed as much solicitude
as if she had been her real mother.




II.

1809.


The Emperor Francis was not without distractions during his honeymoon
with his third wife, the young Empress, Marie Louise Beatrice. It was
evident to every one that the Peace of Presbourg, like that of
Lunéville, could be nothing more than a truce. Austria could never be
reconciled to its loss, between 1792 and 1806, of the Low Countries,
Suabia, Milan, the Venetian States, Tyrol, Dalmatia, and finally of the
Imperial crown of Germany; for the heir of the Germanic Caesars now
styled himself simply the Emperor of Austria, and a great part of
Germany had become the humble vassal of Napoleon. Of all the Austrians,
it was perhaps the Emperor who felt the least hatred of France. His
whole family and his whole people--nobles, priests, the middle classes,
and the peasantry--nourished an angry resentment against the nation that
was overturning Europe. The new Empress, whose family had been deprived
of the Duchy of Modena, was conspicuous for the bitterness of her
indignation and of her political feelings. In the eyes of all the
Austrians, great or small, poor or rich, the French were the hereditary
enemies, the invaders, the destroyers of the throne and the Church,
impious, sacrilegious, revolutionary,--the authors of every evil. It was
they who, for years, destroyed the harvests, shed torrents of blood,
smote with the sword or the axe of the guillotine, crowded war upon war,
heaped ruins upon ruins, bringing misery and disgrace to all mankind.
The old nobility, once so proud of its coats-of-arms and of its
sovereign rights, now enslaved, humiliated, shorn of its independence,
knew no limit to its abuse of the "Corsican savage," who had cut the
roots of the old Germanic tree, previously so majestic. The priests
denounced the nation which had dared to confiscate the patrimony of
Saint Peter, and they cursed in Napoleon the persecutor of the Holy
Vicar of Christ. Women who had lost their husbands or sons in the war
held France responsible for their afflictions. The Frenchmen,
overthrowing and despoiling everything, foes of the human race, the
enemies of morality and religion, brought suffering to princes in their
palaces, to workmen in their factories, to tradespeople in their shops,
to the priests in their churches, to the soldiers in their camps, to the
peasants in their huts. The war of wrath was irresistible. Every one
lamented the mistake that had been made in abandoning the struggle; all
felt that they should have fought to the end, at the cost of every man
and every florin; that a mistake had been made in not assisting Prussia
at the time of the campaign of Jena; and that the moment had come for
all the powers to combine against the common foe and to crush him. Did
he make any pretence of concealing his intention to overthrow every
throne, and to make himself the oldest sovereign? Had he not had the
insolence to say at Milan in 1805, to the Prince of Cardito, the
Neapolitan envoy extraordinary, "Tell your Queen that I shall leave to
her and her family only enough land for their graves"? Had he not
recently, under the walls of Madrid, uttered these significant words to
the Spaniards, "If you don't want my brother Joseph for king, I shall
not force him upon you. I have another throne for him; and as for you, I
shall treat you as a conquered country"? This other throne, it was said
at Vienna, this throne which Napoleon did not name, must be the throne
of the Emperor Francis II. himself. Already the Imperial crown of
Germany had been lost, and the Austrian crown was threatened. But, added
all the archdukes and officers, that would not be so easy as the French
imagined, and they would get a good lesson. The Hapsburgs were not so
compliant as the Spanish Bourbons, and the Bayonne ambush could not be
repeated. All Europe was thrilling with indignation; only a signal was
needed for it to rise, and this signal Austria would give. This time
there was every chance of success. Their cry was "Victory or Death!" but
victory was certain. The French army, scattered from the Oder to the
Tagus, from the mountains of Bohemia to the Sierra Morena, would not be
able to withstand so many people eager to break their yoke. Were not
Russia and Prussia as desirous as Austria of revenge? Was not the whole
of Germany ready for the fray? Napoleon boasted that he was the
Protector of the Confederation of the Rhine; but if the Confederate
Princes were under his command, in his pay, the people, more patriotic,
more truly German than their rulers, burned with a longing to expel the
French. Let Napoleon suffer but a single defeat, and then on which one
of his vassals would he be able to count? Could he even rely on his own
subjects? Were there not already in his overgrown Empire many germs of
decay and death? In Vienna in 1809 the same things were said as in
Berlin in 1806; the same feelings prevailed. The military ardor had
grown so intense that the greatest soldier of Austria, the Archduke
Charles, was looked upon as too cool, too moderate, and those who were
eager to begin the fight called this bold warrior, this famous general,
the "Prince of Peace." Even if he had wished it, the Emperor Francis
would not have been able to calm the warlike fever of his army and his
people.

The musketry and the cannon would have fired themselves without waiting
for war to be declared. The Landwehr, which had been organized only
a few months, was impatient to cross swords with the veterans of the
French army. Volunteers enlisted in crowds; patriotic gifts abounded. A
story was told of a cobbler who, in despair at not being permitted to
join the army, blew out his brains. Youths wished to leave school in
order to serve. All classes of society rivalled one another in zeal,
courage, and self-sacrifice. When it was known that the Archduke Charles
had been appointed commander-in-chief, February 20, 1809, there was an
outburst of confidence from one end of the Empire to the other. March 9,
the Archbishop of Vienna solemnly blessed in the Cathedral the flags of
the Viennese Landwehr. Together with the other members of the Imperial
family, the young Archduchess Marie Louise was present at this patriotic
and religious ceremony. Could she have imagined that one year later, to
the delight of the vast majority of this same populace of Vienna, she
was to become the wife of this Napoleon who then was calling forth such
violent wrath and deep hatred?

Never was there such a terrible war; never perhaps had the world seen
such slaughter. April 8, 1809, the Emperor Francis left his capital,
leaving there his wife and children, who were not able to stay there
after the fifth of May. From Vienna the Archduchess Marie Louise wrote
frequently to her father. A rumor had spread that the battle of Eckmühl
had been a brilliant victory for the Austrians, and Marie Louise wrote
to her father, April 25: "We have heard with delight that Napoleon was
present at the great battle which the French lost. May he lose his head
as well! There are a great many prophecies about his speedy end, and
people say that the Apocalypse applies to him. They maintain that he is
going to die this year at Cologne, in an inn called the 'Red Crawfish.'
I do not attach much importance to these prophecies, but how glad
I should be to see them come true!" These sentiments, it must be
confessed, are a singular preparation for the next year's wedding.

When the Empress of Austria was compelled to leave Vienna with her
children at the approach of the enemy, she had more the appearance of an
exile than of a sovereign. She was very ill at the time, and scarcely
able to support the jolting of her carriage, and she groaned
continually, as much from her moral as from her physical sufferings. "It
is horrible," said Marie Louise, "to see her suffer so." It rained in
torrents, and the thunder roared as if to foretell all the misfortunes
which were about to overwhelm the country. The roads, made still worse
by the bad weather, were abominable. When the fugitives reached Buda,
after a long and difficult journey, they were wet through, and nearly
worn out with fatigue.

The illusions of the Imperial family were speedily destroyed by the
harsh reality. Vienna surrendered May 12, after suffering severely. In
a few hours eighteen hundred shells had fallen in the city. The streets
were narrow, the houses high, and the populace crowded within the narrow
fortifications were terrified and infuriated at the sight of the damage
caused by the shells, which started fires in every direction. Who
would have said to the Viennese who were then hurling all manner of
imprecations at Napoleon, the author of their woes, that in ten months
later they would be singing the praise of this detested Emperor, and
would be voluntarily setting French flags in their windows as symbols
of friendship? May 13, 1809, the French, under the command of General
Oudinot, entered Vienna, amid the curses and execrations of the populace
beside itself with grief; and ten months later to a day, March 13, 1810,
the same populace, joyous and peaceful, with bells ringing and cannon
saluting, blessed and applauded an archduchess who was leaving Vienna to
share this same Napoleon's throne!

But meanwhile there were many horrors, and much blood was shed. The
artillery duel was most formidable; there was no limit to the fury and
obstinacy of the two combatants. It was a war of giants in which all
the infernal powers appeared to be let loose at once. Napoleon himself,
familiar as he was with scenes of carnage, was surprised by the
bitterness of the struggle. Never had he defied fortune with such
audacity. Neglecting the usual laws of military science, he fought for
twenty-four hours without cessation, on a line only three leagues long,
having in his rear one of the largest rivers in Europe. Wagram was
a victory, but a victory hotly disputed. When at the opening of the
campaign it was thought that events would take a turn favorable to
Austria, a thrill of hope, a movement of joy, ran through all the
European nations, which showed the conqueror what would have happened
if he had been beaten. He began to long for peace as ardently as he had
longed for war. He no longer thought of making Austria, Hungary, and
Bohemia three separate kingdoms, or of dethroning the Emperor Francis,
and putting in his place his brother, the Grand Duke of Würzburg,
formerly the Grand Duke of Tuscany. The Austrians, for whom he had felt
a certain contempt, now inspired him with profound esteem; he admired
their bravery, and especially the fidelity, of which they had given many
touching proofs, to their unfortunate ruler. The hero of Wagram said to
himself that if instead of gaining this battle he had lost it, he would
not have gone back to the Tuileries as easily as Francis was going back
to his palace in Vienna. An Emperor of Austria could be beaten and
retain his popularity; but he, the great Napoleon, could not. That
was the reflection which was made one day by his successor, himself a
prisoner of Prussia, "In France one cannot be unfortunate."

When the negotiations began to arrange peace, Napoleon treated the two
distinguished officers, Prince John of Lichtenstein and General von
Bubna, with the utmost courtesy. He spared no pains to show his personal
esteem and to flatter their national pride; he spoke in the highest
terms of the Austrian army and of the bravery it had displayed in the
last campaign. He said to them: "You will always remain the first
continental power, after France; you are deucedly strong. Allied as
I was with Russia, I never expected to have on my hands a serious
continental war, and what a war!" Then to console them for the
conditions imposed on mutilated Austria, he added: "Why distress
yourselves about a few scraps of territory which must come back to you
some day? All this can only last during my lifetime. France ought never
to fight beyond the Rhine. I have been able to; but when I'm gone, it's
all over." Perhaps he was thinking of marrying Marie Louise; at any
rate, he showed a consideration for Prince John of Lichtenstein
and General Bubna which amazed all who saw it. M. de Bausset, who
accompanied him as a gentleman-in-waiting, says in his Memoirs: "I
watched attentively the two Austrian commissioners while they were
breakfasting with the Emperor: I tried to read their expressions, and
I fancied that I saw harmony and a good understanding growing day by
day.... Napoleon's politeness and graciousness towards these gentlemen
never relaxed for a moment. He seemed anxious to give them a favorable
idea of his manners and his person." Nevertheless there were many
patriotic men and women in Austria who were inconsolable. Princess
Charles of Schwarzenberg--the wife of the brilliant general who had
just fought like a hero, and, in the next year, as Austrian ambassador
at the court of the Tuileries Avas to negotiate the marriage of Napoleon
and Marie Louise--wrote a most despairing letter to her husband, in
which she said: "I shall bury myself in the past in order to escape
the present and the future. I have heard that you were to be chosen to
negotiate this so-called peace; it was a heavenly grace by which you
escaped sullying your name. To conclude, I have only one earthly wish:
it is that the ruin which we are cowardly enough to call a peace, may
become complete, that our political existence may end. I pray for the
calm of death."

Napoleon was about leaving Schoenbrunn, to return to France, when,
October 12, 1809, just as he was about to review his troops, he saw
approaching him a young German, of suspicious appearance, who was at
once arrested. This young man, whose name was Staaps, was the son of a
Protestant pastor at Erfurt, and under his coat was found a large, sharp
dagger, with which he said he had intended to kill the Emperor, in order
to deliver Germany. The cool, calm replies of this determined fanatic,
whom Napoleon himself examined, made a deep impression upon him. Might
not this young German be the forerunner of numberless volunteers who
were about to organize against France what they would consider a holy
war? At the sight of this youth, who gave calm expression to unrelenting
hatred, Napoleon--who did not venture to spare his life, although no
criminal act had been committed--was moved by a painful feeling in which
pity was mingled with surprise. He who had cost Germany such torrents
of blood and tears was singularly astonished when at last he saw that
Germany did not love him. Nothing is so repugnant to the great of the
earth, and especially to conquerors, as the thought of death,--death,
the only unconquerable foe! What, the first comer, a fool, a vulgar
fanatic, can with a kitchen knife lay low the greatest hero, the most
illustrious warrior, the mightiest king! At Regensberg, when he was
wounded for the first time since he had begun his military career, the
hero of so many battles perceived, and not without a pang, that he was
not invulnerable. Before the corpse of the brave Marshal Lannes, who had
had his two legs carried off by a cannon-ball at Esoling, he wrote very
sadly to the Empress Josephine: "So everything ends!" And now he might
himself have fallen by the hand of a poor, unknown student! As the
Duchess of Abrantès wrote: "Death, which was always prowling about the
Emperor in various forms, yet never daring to seize him, but always
appearing to say, Take care! ... was a prophecy, and a prophecy of
evil." Napoleon began to reflect seriously. To audacity and the
spirit of adventure there suddenly succeeded prudence and the need of
self-preservation. The all-powerful Emperor said to himself at the
moment of his triumph, that if he were to die without a direct heir, his
vast Empire would fall to pieces, like that of Alexander the Great,
and the unrivalled edifice, built at the price of so much toil and
sacrifice, would be shattered.

The national historian has said: "In proportion as he lost the support
of the public, Napoleon took pleasure in thinking that it was the lack
of a future and not his own misdeeds that threatened his proud throne
with premature fragility. The desire to make firm what he felt trembling
beneath his feet, became his dominant passion, as if, with a new wife in
the Tuileries, the mother of a male heir, the faults which had armed
the whole world against him would be only causes without effects."
And Thiers adds this reflection: "It would doubtless have been to his
advantage to have had an undoubted heir; it would have been better, a
hundred times better, to have been prudent and wise. Napoleon, who,
despite his need of a son, could not, after Tilsit, at the very climax
of his power and glory, make up his mind to sacrifice Josephine, at last
came to a decision because he felt the Empire threatened, and he tried
in a new marriage to secure the solidity which he should have tried to
obtain by wise and moderate conduct."

Possibly even when at Schoenbrunn the conqueror already thought of
asking for the hand of the young archduchess whose home this palace was.
At any rate, it never crossed his mind that in the very room where he
wove such proud visions, such far-reaching plans, his heir would die so
sadly, the heir whom the daughter of the Germanic Caesars was to give to
him. When he reappeared crowned with victory at Fontainebleau, October
26, 1809, Josephine felt that her fate was sealed. The immediate result
of the battle of Wagram was the divorce.




III.

THE PRELIMINARIES OF THE WEDDING.


Austria had known terrible fears during the campaign of Wagram; it had
asked anxiously, whether the Hapsburgs might not disappear from the list
of crowned heads, like the Spanish Bourbons, or might not, like the
Neapolitan Bourbons, be left to enjoy only part of their States. The
peace which was signed at Vienna, October 14, 1809, had somewhat allayed
these serious apprehensions, but the situation of Austria remained no
less anxious and painful. As Prince Metternich has said in his curious
Memoirs: "The so-called Peace of Vienna had enclosed the Empire in
an iron circle, cutting off its communication with the Adriatic, and
surrounding it from Brody, on the extreme northeast, towards Russia,
to the southeastern frontiers toward the Ottoman Empire, with a row of
states under Napoleon's rule, or under his direct influence. The Empire,
as if caught in a vice, was not free to move in any direction; moreover,
the conqueror had done all he could to prevent the defeated nation
from renewing its strength; a secret article of the treaty of peace
established one hundred and fifty thousand men as the maximum force of
the Austrian army."

A still darker danger threatened the throne of the Hapsburgs; namely,
the marriage, which was thought very probable and very near, of Napoleon
with the sister of the Czar. Thus imprisoned between two vast empires,
between that of the East and that of the West, as if between hammer and
anvil, what would become of Austria, shorn of its territory and its
strength?

There was but one chance, and a very faint one, of any defence against
the dangers that threatened Austria, and that was, that the Viennese
court might make the match which the Russian court was contemplating.
Already, its matrimonial alliances had brought the country good fortune
more than once, and it could not forget the famous maxim expressed in a
Latin line--

  "_Bella gerant alii; tu felix Austria, nube!_"
  "Let others wage war; do you, happy Austria, marry!"

The last campaigns had been unfavorable to the Hapsburg dynasty; a
marriage would set things to right.

At Vienna a party which may be called the peace party had come to power.
Mr. von Stadion, a statesman of warlike tendencies, had been succeeded
in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs by a young and brilliant diplomatist,
Count Metternich. The new minister had been ambassador to Paris before
the campaign of Wagram, and, while he had been unable to prevent the
war, he had left a very favorable impression at Napoleon's court, where
his success as a man of the world, as a great nobleman, had been very
brilliant. He then, in the lifetime of his father, Prince Metternich,
bore only the title of Count. In his desire to attest his belief in the
possibility of a reconciliation between Austria and Napoleon, he had
left his wife, Countess Metternich, in France during the war. When
he came to power, he conceived a political plan which was founded,
temporarily at least, if not finally, on a French alliance. But to
secure all the benefits which he hoped to get from it, Napoleon's
marriage with an Austrian princess was necessary; and Metternich, who
was aware of the negotiations between the French and Russian courts,
was not inclined to believe in the possibility of a marriage between an
Austrian Archduchess and the hero of Wagram. Neither before nor after
the conclusion of the Treaty of Vienna was a word spoken about this
plan, either by Napoleon or by the Austrian court.

The Emperor of the French had absolutely decided on a divorce; but he
still thought that it was the Grand Duchess Anne, sister of the Emperor
Alexander of Russia, who was going to succeed Josephine. On the occasion
of the interview at Erfurt he had spoken of this marriage, and the Czar
appeared to be most favorable to the plan. November 22, 1809, the Duke
of Cadore, Minister of Foreign Affairs, forwarded this despatch to the
Duke of Vicenza, French Ambassador at Saint Petersburg: "Rumors of the
divorce reached the ears of the Emperor Alexander at Erfurt, and he
spoke to the Emperor on the subject, saying that his, sister Anne was at
his disposition. His Majesty desires you to broach the subject frankly
and simply with the Emperor Alexander, and to address him in these
terms: 'Sire, I have reason to think that the Emperor, urged by the
whole of France, is making ready for a divorce. May I ask what may be
counted on in regard of your sister? Will not Your Majesty consider the
question for two days and then give me a frank reply, not as to the
French Ambassador, but as to a person interested in the two families? I
am not making a formal demand, but rather requesting the expression
of your intentions. I venture, Sire, upon this step, because I am so
accustomed to say what I think to Your Majesty that I have no fear of
compromising myself.'

"You will not mention the subject to M. de Romanzoff on any pretext
whatsoever, and when you shall have had this conversation with the
Emperor Alexander, and shall have received his answer two days later,
you will entirely forget this communication that I am making. You will,
in addition, inform me concerning the qualities of the young Princess,
and especially when she may be expected to become a mother; for in the
present state of affairs, six months' difference is of great importance.
I need not recommend to Your Excellency the most complete secrecy; you
know what you owe to the Emperor in this respect."

At that time couriers took two weeks to go from Paris to Saint
Petersburg, and the answer to the despatch of November 22 had not yet
arrived when Napoleon, who did not yet know who his second wife was to
be, announced to Josephine, November 30, that divorce was inevitable.
The unhappy Empress received for the last time at the Tuileries, which
she was to leave forever, in the morning of December 16. The reception
was drawing to an end. Among those who were waiting on the grand
staircase or in the vestibule for their carriages to be announced, there
happened to be standing together M. de Sémonville, a young man of some
prominence in the court, and M. de Floret, a young secretary of the
Austrian legation. Everybody imagined then that the marriage with the
Grand Duchess of Russia was settled. Suddenly, in this crowd of great
personages, M. de Sémonville began the following conversation with the
Austrian diplomatist:--

"Well, that's fixed. Why didn't _you_ do it?"

"Who says that we didn't want to?"

"People think so. Are they wrong?"

"Perhaps."

"What? It would be possible? You may think so; but the Ambassador?"

"I will answer for Prince Schwarzenberg."

"But Count Metternich?"

"There is no difficulty about him."

"But the Emperor?"

"Or about him, either."

"And the Empress, who hates us?"

"You don't know her; she is ambitious, and could be persuaded."

M. de Sémonville started at once to report this curious conversation to
his friend, the Duke of Bassano, who at once hastened to speak of it to
the Emperor. Napoleon appeared pleased, but not astonished. He said that
he had just heard the same thing from Vienna.

This is what had happened in the Austrian capital: the Count of Narbonne
had been passing through before going to Munich, where he was to
represent France as Minister Plenipotentiary. This amiable and
distinguished man, of whom M. Villemain has written an excellent life,
had succeeded in attracting Napoleon's favor, and after receiving an
appointment as general in the French army, he had been made ambassador
and one of the Emperor's aides-de-camp. M. de Narbonne, who was a model
of refinement and bravery, had been one of the ornaments of the court
of Versailles and of the Constituent Assembly. He had been a Knight of
Honor of Madame Adelaide, the daughter of Louis XV.; Minister of War
under Louis XVI., in 1792; a friend of Madame de Staël; an émigré in
England, Switzerland, and Germany; and in 1809, thanks to Napoleon's
good-will, he had once more resumed his military career, after an
interruption of seventeen years. Towards the end of the campaign the
Emperor had sent him as governor to Raab, to keep an eye on Hungary and
Bohemia, and in case Austria should refuse to accept the conditions
imposed by her conqueror, to proclaim the independence of those two
countries. The peace once signed, General the Count of Narbonne went to
Vienna, where he met two of his best friends,--the Prince of Ligne, who
had been one of the favorites of Marie Antoinette, and the Count of
Lamarck, who had been a confidant of Mirabeau. One day when he was
dining with them, and Prince Metternich and a few other intimate
friends, the conversation turned to politics. The Austrian Minister
congratulated himself on the peace, which, he said, made the future
sure, and cut short all danger of trouble and anarchy. The Prince of
Ligne expressed similar views. Then M. de Narbonne spoke out somewhat as
follows: "Gentlemen, I am surprised by your recent astonishment and your
present confidence. Is it possible that you are too blind to see that
every peace, easy or hard, is nothing more than a brief truce? that for
a long time we are hastening to one conclusion, of which peace is but
one of the stations? This conclusion is the subjugation of the whole
of Europe under two mighty empires. You have seen the swift growth and
progress of one of these empires since 1800. As to the other, it is not
yet determined. It will be either Austria or Russia, according to the
results of the Peace of Vienna; for this peace is a danger if it is not
the foundation of a closer alliance, of a family alliance, and does not
finally restore more than its beginning took away; in a word, you are
ill advised if you hesitate in your leaning towards France."

The next morning the Count of Narbonne was summoned to the Emperor
Francis II., and the Austrian monarch indicated the possibility of a
marriage between Napoleon and the Archduchess Marie Louise. The Count of
Narbonne approved, and eloquently expressed his conviction that such a
happy result as confiding once more an Archduchess to France would at
last decide Napoleon to remain at peace, instead of forever hazarding
his glory, and to work for the welfare of the people in harmony with
the wise and virtuous monarch whose adopted son he would become. M. de
Narbonne sent a note of this conversation to Fouché, to be shown to the
Emperor, who thus had knowledge of the secret plans of the Viennese
court six weeks before the meeting over which he presided at the
Tuileries, to ask his councillors their opinion on the choice of an
Empress.

Since the resumption of diplomatic relations between the two powers, the
Austrian Ambassador in Paris had been Prince Charles of Schwarzenberg,
the warrior and statesman who later, as commander-in-chief of the
Austrian forces, was to deal such heavy blows to France. In 1810 he was
all for peace, and his sole aim was to undermine, for the good of his
country, the influence of his Russian colleague, Prince Kourakine. The
Austrian Ambassador was very anxious that the Archduchess Marie Louise
should become Empress of the French; for he was convinced that such an
event would be of as much benefit to him as to his country. Yet he was
still afraid to hope for the realization of his dream, when one of his
friends, Count Alexandra de Laborde--who, after serving as an émigré, in
the Austrian army, had returned to France and been appointed Master of
Requests in the Council of State, encouraged him in his ideas which
might at first have seemed fanciful, M. de Laborde, whose father had
been court-banker before the Revolution, and had most generously aided
Marie Antoinette, was well known and much liked in Vienna. In this
matter of the marriage of Marie Louise he was the secret agent between
Napoleon's Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Prince of Schwarzenberg,
in whom he kindled so much zeal in behalf of the French alliance that
the Ambassador, as we shall soon see, signed the marriage contract
of the Archduchess with Napoleon, even before he had received the
authorization of his government.

December 17, 1809, nothing had been decided. Indeed, what seemed
probable, if not certain, was the Russian marriage. That day--the day
when there appeared in the _Moniteur_ the decree of the Senate relative
to the divorce--a new despatch had been sent from Paris to Saint
Petersburg by the Duke of Cadore, to demand a speedy reply from the
Russian court, yes or no. The answer of the Duke of Vicenza to the first
despatch, that of November 22, 1809, did not reach Paris until December
28. The Ambassador said that the Czar had received his overtures very
amiably, but that the affair needed much discretion and a little
patience. The Emperor Alexander, he went on to say, was personally
favorable; but his mother, whom he did not wish to offend, refused her
consent, and the Czar asked for a few days before giving a final answer.
This delay vexed Napoleon, who nevertheless resolved to wait, although
waiting suited neither his tastes nor his character.

In short, at the beginning of 1810, the matrimonial alliance with
Austria was not settled. The initiative steps had not been taken by the
monarch, the ministers of Foreign Affairs, or by the ambassadors. It is
a curious and characteristic detail, that it was the divorced Empress,
Josephine, who gave the signal. She summoned the Countess Metternich
to Malmaison, January 2, 1810, and said to her: "I have a plan which
interests me to the exclusion of everything else, and nothing but its
success can make me feel that the sacrifice I have just made is not
wholly thrown away: it is that the Emperor shall marry your Archduchess;
I spoke to him about it yesterday, and he said that his choice was
not yet made. But I think it would be made, if he were sure of being
accepted by you." Madame de Metternich was much surprised by this
overture, which she hastened to communicate to her husband in a letter
dated January 3, 1810, which began thus: "To-day I have some very
extraordinary things to tell you, and I am almost sure that my letter
will make a very important part of your despatches. In the first place,
I must tell you that I was presented to the Emperor last Sunday. I had
only mentioned the matter in conversation with Champagny when I received
a letter from M. de Ségur, telling me that the Emperor had appointed
Sunday, and that I was to choose a lady-in-waiting to present me. In my
wisdom I selected the Duchess of Bassano, and after waiting in company
with twenty other women, among whom were the Princess of Isenburg,
Madame de Tyskiewitz and others, from two till half-past six in the
evening, I was introduced first, and the Emperor received me in a way I
could not have expected. He seemed really glad to see me again, and glad
that I had stayed here during the war; he spoke about you and said, 'M.
de Metternich holds the first place in the Empire; he knows the country
well and can be of service to it.'"

Then the Countess went on to narrate what the Empress Josephine and
Queen Hortense had said the evening before at Malmaison. She had been
received by Hortense while waiting in the drawing-room for Josephine to
come down, and she had been much astounded to hear the Queen of Holland
say with much warmth: "You know that we are all Austrians at heart, but
you would never guess that my brother has had the courage to advise the
Emperor to ask for the hand of your Archduchess." Josephine frequently
referred to this projected marriage, on which she seemed to have set her
heart. "Yes," she said, "we must try to arrange it." Then she expressed
her regret that M. de Metternich was not in Paris; for if he had been,
doubtless he would bring the affair to a happy conclusion. "Your Emperor
must be made to see," she went on, "that his ruin and the ruin of his
country are certain if he does not give his consent to this marriage. It
is perhaps the only way of preventing Napoleon from breaking with the
Holy See."

The letter of the Countess Metternich ended thus: "I have not seen
the Queen of Holland again, because she is ill. Hence I have nothing
positive to tell you concerning the matter in question; but if I wanted
to tell you all the honors that have been showered upon me, I should
not stop so soon. At the last levee I played with the Emperor; you may
imagine that it was a serious matter for me, but I managed to come
off with glory. He began by praising my diamond headband, and that
everlasting gold dress, then he asked me a number of questions about my
family and all my relatives; he insisted, in spite of all I could say,
that Louis von Kaunitz was my brother. You can't imagine what effect
that little game of cards had. When it was over, I was surrounded and
paid court to by all the great dignitaries, marshals, ministers, etc. I
had abundant material for philosophical reflections on the vicissitude
of human affairs."

Nevertheless, in spite of the overtures which Josephine had made to the
Countess Metternich, Napoleon had come to no decision about his new
wife. One day when he had been working with M. Daru, whom he highly
esteemed, he had the following conversation with him:--

"In your opinion which would be the better for me, to marry the Russian
or the Austrian?"

"Neither."

"The devil! You are very hard to please."

"Neither, I say, but a Frenchwoman; and provided the new Empress does
not have too many relatives who will have to be made princes and given a
large fortune, France will approve your choice. The throne you occupy is
like no other; you have erected it with your own hands. You are at the
head of a generous nation; your glory and its glory ought to be
shared in common. It is not by imitating other monarchs, it is by
distinguishing yourself, that you find your real greatness. You do not
rule by the same title that they do; you ought not to marry as they do.
The nation would be flattered by your looking at home for an Empress,
and it would always see in your line a thoroughly French family."

"Come, come! that's nonsense! If M. de Talleyrand should hear you, he
would form a very poor idea of your political sagacity. You don't treat
this question like a statesman. I must unite in defence of my crown
those at home and abroad who are still hostile to it; and my marriage
furnishes a chance. Do you imagine that monarchs' marriages are matters
of sentiment? No; they are matters of politics. Mine cannot be
decided by motives of internal policy; I must try to establish my
influence outside, and to extend it by a close alliance with a powerful
neighbor."

No answer had come from Russia, no official overture had been made to or
by Austria; still Napoleon continued to believe, or at least pretended
to believe, that his only difficulty was to make the best choice. The
idea that two emperors and a king--without counting the other sovereigns
on whom he did not deign to cast a glance--were simultaneously disputing
the honor of allying their family with him, greatly flattered his pride.
In fact, what he desired was the Austrian marriage; but he was anxious
to keep his preferences secret, in order to prolong in the eyes of his
principal councillors, an uncertainty in which his pride did not suffer.
He convoked them to an extraordinary session, at the Tuileries, after
mass, Sunday, January 21, 1810. The great dignitaries of the Empire,--
Champagny, Minister of Foreign Affairs; the Duke of Cadore; Maret, the
Secretary of State; the Duke of Bassano; M. Gamier, the President of the
Senate; and M. de Fontanes, President of the Corps Législatif,--all took
part in this solemn council. The relative advantages and disadvantages
of the Russian, the Saxon, and the Austrian marriage were considered at
great length. The Archtreasurer Lebrun and M. Gamier favored the
daughter of the King of Saxony; the Archchancellor Cambacérès and King
Murat, the Grand Duchess of Russia; M. de Champagny, Prince Talleyrand,
Prince Eugene, the Prince of Neufchâtel and the Duke of Bassano, the
Archduchess Marie Louise. Murat especially distinguished himself by his
violent opposition to the Austrian alliance. Doubtless he was averse to
the selection for Empress of the French of the granddaughter of Queen
Marie Caroline of Naples, whose throne he was occupying. Napoleon
remained calm and impassive. When the meeting was over, he dismissed the
councillors, simply saying: "I shall weigh in my mind the arguments that
you have submitted to me. In any case, I remain convinced that whatever
difference may exist in your views, each one has formed his opinion only
from a desire for the good of the country and devotion to my person."
Thus it was that seventeen years to a day after a king of France who had
married an Austrian archduchess had died on the scaffold, there was
discussed the alliance of a new French ruler with another archduchess,
the grandniece of the other.

Some time later, Cambacérè's, in the course of a conversation with M.
Pasquier, then Counsellor of State, gave utterance to his regret at
having failed to impress upon his hearers the superior advantages of the
Russian alliance. "I am not surprised," he said; "when a man has only
one argument to give, and it is impossible to give it, he must expect to
be beaten.... And you will see that my argument is so good that a single
sentence will show you all its weight. I am morally sure that in less
than two years we shall be at war with the Emperor whose relative we do
not marry. Now war with Austria causes me no anxiety; but I dread war
with Russia; its consequences are incalculable. I know that the Emperor
is familiar with the road to Vienna, but I am not so sure that he will
find the road to St. Petersburg."

After quoting this conversation between Cambacérès and M. Pasquier in
his admirable book, _The Church of Rome and the First Empire_, the Count
d'Haussonville indulges in some philosophic reflections: "If it is
curious to come upon this profound and accurate summary, compressed into
a few clear and precise words by a man of remarkable sagacity dealing
with a future still completely hidden, it is no less strange to think
that the prospect of the Austrian marriage, destined to be so fatal to
the Empire, should be suddenly discussed in a five minutes' talk between
two men who met by chance on the steps of the Tuileries, at the very
moment when the unhappy Josephine was about to leave this spot which
had been so long her home. When we reflect on the course of all the
following events, we may perhaps say that the fate of the Empire was
settled in this eventful quarter of an hour; for if the Emperor had
married the Grand Duchess instead of Marie Louise, probably the campaign
of 1812, which Cambacérès foresaw, would not have taken place, and
Heaven knows what part this unhappy expedition played in the fall of the
First Empire!"

How insufficient is human wisdom, how false its calculations! This
Austrian marriage which discouraged the bitterest enemies of the hero of
Austerlitz, of Jena, of Wagram, this magnificent marriage which was to
have been the safeguard of the Empire, proved its ruin. This great event
which called forth abundant congratulations and outbursts of noisy
delight was the main cause of the most tremendous and most
disastrous war of modern times. If he had not blindly counted on
his father-in-law's friendship, would Napoleon, in spite of all his
audacity, have ventured to march to the Russian steppes, without even
taking the precaution of reviving Poland? He himself has said it:
his marriage with the Austrian Archduchess was an abyss covered with
flowers.

January was drawing to a close; and while in Paris many people were
beginning to regard Napoleon's marriage with Marie Louise as very
probable, the young princess herself had no suspicion of his intentions.
Count Metternich who, like his sovereign, had maintained secrecy about
this delicate matter, wrote to his wife, January 27, 1810: "The
Archduchess is still ignorant, as indeed is proper, of the plans
concerning her, and it is not from the Empress Josephine, who gives
us so many proofs of her confidence, who with so many noble qualities
combines those of a tender mother, that I shall conceal the many
considerations which necessarily present themselves to the Archduchess
Marie Louise when the matter is laid before her. But our princesses
are little accustomed to choose their husbands according to their own
inclinations, and the respect which so fond and so well-trained a
daughter feels for her father's wishes, makes me confident that she will
make no opposition."

The same day, January 27, 1810, the Count Metternich wrote to Prince
Charles of Schwarzenberg, the Austrian Ambassador in Paris, a despatch
which proves that the negotiations concerning the marriage had not yet
begun: "It is with great interest that his Imperial Majesty has heard
the details which Your Highness has communicated to him in his last
despatches, on the question of the marriage of the Emperor of the
French. It would be difficult to form any definite conclusion from the
different data that reach us. It is impossible not to see a certain
official character in the explanations, vague as they are, which the
Minister of Foreign Affairs has had with Your Highness. M. de Laborde's
uninterrupted zeal, the remarks of so many persons connected with the
government, all tending in one direction, and especially the very direct
overtures made by the Empress and the Queen of Holland to Madame de
Metternich, would incline us to suppose that Napoleon's mind was made
up, as the Emperor said, if our August master should consent to give him
Madame the Archduchess. On the other hand, the demands commonly reported
to have been addressed to Russia conflict with this supposition. The
question must, at any rate, become clearer shortly after the arrival of
the next courier, if indeed not before then. So much has been said, that
it is impossible to deny that an alliance with the Imperial House of
Austria has entered into the designs of the French court. By following a
very simple calculation and comparing the great publicity given to the
alleged demand on Russia with the secrecy exercised towards us in this
matter, we may possibly be authorized to suppose that at present their
views tend in our direction; but probability is of very little account
in a transaction of this sort to which Napoleon is a party, and we can
only go on in our usual course, and the result, in one way or another,
must inure to our advantage."

While the court of Vienna thus maintained a position of prudent and
dignified reserve, Napoleon, annoyed by the delays of the Russian court,
and now only anxious to have nothing more to do with it, impatiently
awaited the despatches from Saint Petersburg. These arrived February 6,
but they brought no satisfactory news. The first delay of ten days which
the Czar had asked of the Duke of Vicenza came to an end January 6, but
on the 2lst the Emperor Alexander had not yet replied. He said, to be
sure, that his mother had withdrawn her opposition; but he combined
the affairs of the marriage with the political negotiations concerning
Poland, and doubtless in the desire of affecting Napoleon's decision, he
let the matter drag, as if he wanted to be urged. The Duke of Vicenza
also said in his despatches that, according to the physicians, the Grand
Duchess was yet too young to bear children, and that since she was
averse to changing her religion, she insisted on having a Greek chapel
and Greek priests at the Tuileries.

Napoleon hesitated no longer. That same day he sent word to the Russian
Ambassador, Prince Kourakine, that, being unable to accept a longer
delay, he broke off the negotiation; and that evening he had the
Austrian Ambassador, Prince Schwarzenberg, asked if the contract of his
marriage with the Archduchess Marie Louise could be signed the next day.

The Austrian diplomatist had never expected that events were going to
move at any such speed. He knew the favorable disposition of his court,
but he had received no authorization to conclude the business. The
general instructions which had been sent to him regarding the marriage
were dated December 25, 1809, and they had not since been modified.
These left the Ambassador free to discuss the question only in
accordance with the restrictions which Count Metternich had thus
formulated.

"1. Every overture is to be received by you in an unofficial capacity.
Your Highness must take cognizance of it only by expressing your
personal willingness to see how the land lies here.

"2. You will then make it clear, as if it were a remark of your own,
that if no secondary consideration, no prejudice, influence the
Emperor's decision, there are laws which he will always obey. His
Majesty will never force a beloved daughter to a marriage which she
might abhor, and will never consent to a marriage not in conformity with
the principles of our religion.

"3. You will endeavor, moreover, to get a definite statement of the
advantages which France would offer to Austria in the case of a family
alliance."

When, in the evening of February 6, 1810, Napoleon's Minister of Foreign
Affairs asked Prince Schwarzenberg if he was ready to sign the marriage
contract at the Tuileries the next morning, the Ambassador was
delighted, but surprised, and perhaps, for a moment, perplexed. If he
regarded the instructions conveyed in the despatch of December 25, 1809,
he certainly had no authority to sign anything. In fact, not merely did
he not know whether the Archduchess had given her consent, he did not
know whether she had ever been informed of the projected marriage.
Besides, he had no information as to the way in which the Austrian
court looked on the annulment of the religious marriage of Napoleon
and Josephine by the officials of the diocese of Paris, who had acted
independently of the Pope. Finally, he was not in condition to stipulate
for any political advantage to his government as the price of the
alliance. A timid diplomatist would have hesitated. But might not there
arrive the next moment a courier from Saint Petersburg, bringing a
definite answer from the Czar? Would Napoleon, impatient as he was and
unused to delay--would he accept the slightest postponement on the part
of Austria? Prince Schwarzenberg burned his ships; he said to himself
that if his action were disavowed, he could go and raise cabbages on his
estate; but if it were approved, he would be at the top of the wave.
Abandoning then the customary slowness and scruples of diplomacy, he
answered without hesitation that he was ready, and made an engagement
with the Duke of Cadore, Minister of Foreign Affairs, for the next day,
at the Tuileries, to sign the marriage contract of the Emperor of the
French, King of Italy, and of Marie Louise, Archduchess of Austria. IV.




THE BETROTHAL.


February 7, 1810, M. Champagny, Duke of Cadore, the French Minister
of Foreign Affairs, and Prince Charles of Schwarzenberg, met at the
Tuileries, and signed, without the slightest hitch, the marriage
contract of Napoleon and the Archduchess Marie Louise. The text was a
copy almost word for word of Marie Antoinette's marriage contract, which
had been signed forty years before.

On leaving the Tuileries, Prince Schwarzenberg despatched a messenger to
Vienna to announce the momentous news, which possibly would arouse
more surprise than delight. "Count," he wrote to M. de Metternich, "in
signing the marriage contract, while protesting that I was in no way
clothed with power _ad hoc_, I believe that I have merely signed a paper
which can guarantee to the Emperor Napoleon the determination already
formed by my August Sovereign of meeting him half-way in negotiation on
this subject. The despatches with which you have honored me made the
course that I was to follow perfectly clear. His Majesty, as Your
Excellency assures me, approves of my conduct by bidding me follow
the same course; hence the marriage is an affair which my government
naturally regards as one of the greatest interest, and one which it
desires to see arranged. It will be evident to those who know the
character of Emperor Napoleon that if I had shown the slightest
hesitation, he would have abandoned this plan and have formed another.
If this affair was hurried, it was because that is the way in which
Napoleon acts, and it seemed to me best to seize the favorable moment.
I have the most profound conviction of having been of service to my
sovereign on this occasion; and if by any possibility I have had the
misfortune to displease him by the course that I took in perfect
sincerity, His Majesty can disavow it, but in that case I shall
instantly demand my recall."

The next day Prince Schwarzenberg sent to Vienna one of his secretaries,
M. de Floret, with this letter to M. de Metternich: "Paris, February
8, 1810. I send to you, dear Count, M. de Floret, who will give you an
account of everything that has happened. You will soon see that I could
not have acted otherwise without spoiling the whole business. If I had
insisted on not signing, he would have broken the affair off, to treat
with Russia or Saxony. I formally declared that I had full power to give
the most positive assurances that the propositions of marriage would be
favorably received by my court; but that if I was not ready to sign
a contract, it was only on account of the impossibility in which my
minister found himself of supposing that a matter scarcely touched
upon should so soon come to a head. I beg of you, my dear friend, to
arrange that there shall be no obstacle to this important business, and
that it be arranged with a good grace.... I pity the Princess, it is
true; but yet she must not forget that it is a noble deed to give peace
to such good nations, and to give a guarantee of general peace and
tranquillity. Floret will give you our records, and will explain it to
you by word of mouth; we have not had time to have it copied. You
will not object to this, inasmuch as we wish Floret to leave at once.
Conclude this matter nobly, and you will render an incalculable service
to our country."

At the diplomatic reception which was held at the Tuileries, February 8,
Napoleon walked up to the Austrian Ambassador and said to him, in the
most friendly way, "You have been very busy lately, and I think you have
done a good piece of work." Prince Kourakine, the Russian Ambassador,
was much annoyed at the turn events had taken, and did not attend the
reception, under the pretext that he was not well. The evening before
Prince Schwarzenberg had dined at the house of Napoleon's mother with
the King of Holland, Louis Bonaparte, who was loudspoken in his praise
of the Emperor Francis and the Imperial house of Austria. At the court
of the Tuileries there was general satisfaction. Napoleon thought that
he had never achieved a greater triumph. The messenger whom Prince
Schwarzenberg had despatched on the day he had signed the contract,
reached Vienna February 14. The populace had not the faintest idea of
the possibility of a marriage between the Archduchess Marie Louise and
the Emperor of the French; the Austrian monarch and M. de Metternich, in
their anxiety to keep their secret, lest some opposition should manifest
itself, had not breathed a word about the overtures made at Vienna by
Count Alexandre de Laborde, and at Malmaison by the Empress Josephine.
Neither the Viennese nor the Diplomatic Body suspected anything. As M.
de Metternich put it, Count Shouvaloff, the Russian Ambassador at the
Austrian court, was literally petrified. The English breathed fire
and flame. The sudden outburst of a volcano would not have been more
startling than this piece of news which came from a clear sky. The
impression made upon the populace was one of surprise which amounted to
disbelief. People stopped in the streets to ask one another if the thing
was possible.

Marie Louise had given her consent more with resignation than with
pleasure. Metternich recounts in his Memoirs his speech to Francis II.:
"In the life of a state, as in that of a private citizen, there are
cases in which a third person cannot put himself in the place of one
who is responsible for the resolutions he has to take. These cases are
especially such as cannot be decided by calculation. Your Majesty is a
monarch and a father; and Your Majesty alone can weigh his duties as
father and emperor." "It is my daughter who must decide," answered
Francis II. "Since I shall never compel her, I am anxious, before I
consider my duties as a sovereign, to know what she means to do. Go find
the Archduchess, and then let me know what she says. I am unwilling to
speak to her of the demand of the French Emperor, lest I should seem to
be trying to influence her decision."

M. de Metternich betook himself at once to the Archduchess Marie Louise,
and set the matter before her very simply and briefly, without beating
about the bush, without a word for or against the proposition. The
Archduchess listened with her usual calmness, and, after a moment's
reflection, asked him, "What are my father's wishes?" "The Emperor," the
minister answered, "has commissioned me to ask Your Imperial Highness
what decision she means to take in a matter concerning her whole life.
Do not ask what the Emperor wishes; tell me what you yourself wish."
"I wish only what my duty commands me to wish," answered Marie Louise.
"When the interests of the Empire are at stake, they must be consulted,
not my feelings. Beg of my father to regard only his duty as a
sovereign, without subordinating it to my personal interests."

When M. de Metternich had reported to Francis II. the result of his
interview, the Emperor said: "What you tell me does not surprise me. I
know my daughter too well not to expect just such an answer. While you
were with her, I have been considering what I have to do. My consent to
this marriage will assure to the kingdom a few years of political peace,
which I can devote to healing its wounds. I owe myself solely to the
happiness of my people; I cannot hesitate."

We shall now make some extracts from the despatches of Count Otto, the
French Ambassador at Vienna in 1810, which we have found in the archives
of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The documents, which have never been
published, are well worthy of our readers' attention, and they throw a
full light on the Emperor Napoleon's relations with the Austrian court.
M. Otto wrote to the Duke of Cadore, February 16, 1810, that the news of
the marriage was beginning to spread through the city: "Business people
are much excited. Merchants are entreating me to tell them what I know.
Couriers are despatched in every direction. In short, I have never had
occasion to use more reserve than at this moment, when the real feeling
of this nation, which has long been compelled to be our enemy, reveals
itself in a way most flattering to us. The French officers who are
returning from different missions assure me that they have found the
same spirit in the army. 'Arrange,' they say, 'that we can fight on your
side; you will find us worthy.' Every one agrees that this alliance will
insure lasting tranquillity to Europe, and compel England to make
peace; that it will give the Emperor all the leisure he requires for
organizing, in accordance with his lofty plans, the vast empire he has
created; that it cannot fail to have an influence on the destiny of
Poland, Turkey, and Sweden; and finally, that it cannot fail to give
lasting glory to Your Excellency's ministry. The news of the conclusion
of this marriage will be received with tumultuous joy throughout the
Austrian dominions. France and the greater part of Europe will share
this joy. As to the English government, I do not think it possible
for it to avert the blow which this important event will deal it; the
national party will finally triumph over the avarice of usurers, the
rancorous passions of the ministry, and the bellicose and constitutional
fury of their king. All humanity will find repose beneath the laurels of
our August Emperor and, after having conquered half of Europe, he
will add to his long list of victories the most difficult and most
consolatory of all,--the conquest of general peace."

The first feeling that prevailed in all classes of Viennese society, on
hearing of the Archduchess's marriage, was, as has been said, one of
surprise, which soon gave way to almost universal joy. Count Metternich
wrote to Prince Schwarzenberg under date of February 19, 1810: "It would
be difficult to judge at a distance the emotion that the news of the
marriage has aroused here. The secret of the negotiations had been so
well kept, that it was not till the day of M. de Floret's arrival that
any word of it came to the ears of the public. The first effect on
'Change was such that the currency would be to-day at three hundred and
less, if the government had not been interested in keeping it higher,
and it was only by buying a million of specie in two days that it
succeeded in keeping it at three hundred and seventy. Seldom has
anything been so warmly approved by the whole nation."

M. de Metternich was most delighted, and took especial satisfaction in
the thought that it was his work. "All Vienna," he wrote to his wife,
"is interested in nothing but this marriage. It would be hard to form an
idea of the public feeling about it, and of its extreme popularity. If
I had saved the world, I could not receive more congratulations or more
homage for the part I am supposed to have played in the matter. In the
promotions that are to follow I am sure to have the Golden Fleece. If
it comes to me now, it will not be for nothing; but it is none the less
true that it required a very extraordinary and improbable combination of
circumstances to set me far beyond my most ambitious dreams, although in
fact I have no ambitions. All the balls and entertainments here will be
very fine, and although everything will have to be brought from the ends
of the earth, everything will be here. I sent the order of arrangements
a few days ago to Paris; Schwarzenberg will have shown it to you. The
new Empress will please in Paris, and she ought to please with her
kindness and her great gentleness and simplicity. Her face is rather
plain than pretty, but she has a beautiful figure, and when she is
properly dressed and put into shape, she will do very well. I have
begged her to engage a dancing-master as soon as she arrives, and not to
dance until she has learned how. She is very anxious to please, and that
is the surest way of pleasing."

The Austrian court did everything with the best possible grace, knowing
that Napoleon set great store by the details of etiquette. Everything
was exhumed from the archives which bore on the weddings of Louis XIV.,
Louis XV., the great Dauphin, the father of Louis XVI., of Louis XVI.
himself. The old gentlemen of the court of Versailles, and especially M.
de Dreux-Brézé, the master of ceremonies at the end of the old régime,
were consulted at every step. Napoleon was very anxious that in pomp and
majesty the wedding of Marie Louise should not only be quite equal, but
even superior to that of Marie Antoinette, for he thought himself of far
more importance than a dauphin of France. He was given what he wanted.
Speaking of the Princess's escort, Count Otto said in despatch to the
Duke of Cadore, dated February 19, 1810: "In order to give the part
its full importance, the Emperor of Austria has appointed to it Prince
Trautmannsdorff, who on all great occasions holds the highest rank in
the kingdom. The Dauphiness had been accompanied by a nobleman of no
very lofty position. Moreover, the Emperor has given orders to
deepen all the tints: the suite of the Dauphiness consisted of six
ladies-in-waiting and six chamberlains; the future Empress will have
twelve of each. The Emperor will choose the most distinguished and
best-known personages of the Empire for these functionaries, and the
Empress has reserved for herself the right of naming the ladies most
prominent for their old families and their position in society. In a
word, the Minister has assured me that no pains will be spared to make
the train most brilliant."

Points of etiquette kept the French Ambassador very busy. He wrote,
February 21, 1810, to the Duke of Cadore: "In reading carefully the
historic summary enclosed in Your Excellency's despatch, I found but
few matters requiring comment, but these seemed to me of sufficient
importance to warrant my calling your attention to them. They are as
follows:

"1. Since the religious ceremony is the most solemn, it seems that it
is here that the distinction between the Dauphiness and the new Empress
should be most distinctly marked. The first-named sat in an armchair,
placed in front of the altar, but without a canopy, the Queen Marie
Leczinska, daughter of King Stanislas, having a place, under a canopy,
between the King and Queen of Poland.

"2. The representative and personal rank of His Highness the Prince of
Neufchâtel being much higher than that of the Marquis de Durfort, who
held a similar position in 1770, it has seemed to me desirable to make
the reception more formal. Count Metternich has given me complete
satisfaction on both these points. He has told me that the Emperor would
give the most positive orders to pay to the Empress of France the same
honors that were paid to the Empress of Austria at the celebration of
the last marriage. The canopy and all the paraphernalia of royalty will
be assigned to the new Empress, and the Emperor will furthermore make a
concession on this occasion which is without precedent in the annals of
the realm: at table he will resign the first place to his daughter, and
take the second place himself. Nothing will be left undone to give these
ceremonies their full splendor and to show the interest with which these
new ties are regarded here. The Emperor is so well pleased with this
alliance that he speaks about it even with private persons who have the
honor to be admitted to his presence. He loudly denounces those who led
him into the last war, and asserts that if he had earlier known the
loyalty and magnanimity of the Emperor Napoleon, he should have been on
his guard against their counsels."

The Viennese, who in their amiability and fickleness closely resemble
the Parisians, passed in a moment from an apparently deep-seated hatred
of Napoleon, to the most unbounded confidence. The still bleeding wounds
of Wagram were forgotten; every one thought of nothing but the brilliant
festivals that were preparing. Smiles took the place of tears, and it
seemed as if the French and the Austrians had always been brothers.

The French Ambassador wrote to the Duke of Cadore, February 21, 1810:
"Since the 16th the whole city has thought of nothing but the great
marriage for which the preparations are now under way. All eyes are
turned on the Archduchess. Those who have the honor of being admitted to
her presence are closely questioned, and every one is glad to hear that
she is in the best spirits, and does not try to conceal the satisfaction
she takes in this alliance. Funds continue to rise in a surprising way,
and the price of food is falling in the same proportion. A great many
people have found it hard to sell their gold. Never has public opinion
spoken more clearly or more unanimously. A great many people who had
hoarded their silver in the hope of selling it or of sending it abroad,
are now carrying it to the mint, and consider the government paper
which they get for it as good as gold. The stewards of great houses are
ordering new silverware to take the place of that which they have had
to give to the government. Every one shows a readiness to offer all his
fortune, being convinced that after such an alliance the government
cannot fail to meet its engagements."

The Viennese have a very lively imagination, and bounding from one
extreme to another, they began to form visions of the Austrians waging
wars of ambition and conquest along with the French. They fancied that
their Emperor and his son-in-law would have all Europe at their feet.
"The greater their enthusiasm about the French," wrote Count Otto in
the same despatch, "the more evident the old animosity of the Austrians
against Prussia and Russia. The coffee-house politicians are already
busy with devising a thousand combinations according to which the
Emperor of Austria will be able to recover Silesia and to extend his
dominions towards the east. The disappointed Russians, of whom there are
very many here, are much astonished at this sudden change. One of them
was heard to say, 'A few days ago we were very highly thought of in
Vienna, but now the French are adored, and everybody wants to make war
on us.' Count Shouvaloff himself keeps very quiet. Sensible people do
not share this warlike feeling; they want a general peace, and bless an
alliance which seems to secure it for a few years. In their eyes even a
successful war is a great calamity. Peace, too, has its triumphs, and
this last negotiation is one of the finest known to history."

The official _Gazette_, which was eagerly read by a noisy multitude in
the streets of Vienna, published the official announcement of the
great news. The number of February 24, 1810, contained the following
paragraph: "The formal betrothal of the Emperor of the French, King of
Italy, and Her Imperial and Royal Highness the Archduchess Marie Louise,
the oldest daughter of His Imperial and Royal Majesty, our very Gracious
Sovereign, was signed at Paris, on the 7th, by the Prince Schwarzenberg,
Ambassador, and the Duke of Cadore, Minister of Foreign Affairs. The
exchange of ratifications of this contract took place on the 21st of
this month, at Vienna, between Count Metternich Winneburg, Minister of
State and of Foreign Affairs, and the Imperial Ambassador of France,
Count Otto de Mesloy. All the nations of Europe see in this event a gage
of peace, and look forward with delight to a happy future after so many
wars." On the day that this paragraph appeared in the official journal,
the French Ambassador wrote to the Duke of Cadore: "The Emperor loves
the Princess, and is very happy in her brilliant good fortune. It is
long since he has seemed so happy, so interested, so busy. Everything
which furthers the sumptuousness of the festivals now in preparation is
a matter of great interest to him, and all his subjects, with very few
exceptions, share their sovereign's amiable anxiety."

The French Ambassador was beside himself with delight; he saw everything
in glowing colors,--Marie Louise, the court, all Austria. His despatch
of February 17 was full of enthusiasm. In it he drew with trembling
hand the portrait of the August lady, and we may readily conceive the
eagerness with which Napoleon must have devoured it: "Every one agrees
that the Archduchess combines with a very amiable disposition sound
sense and all the qualities that can be given by a careful education.
She is liked by all at court, and is spoken of as a model of gentleness
and kindness. She has a fine bearing, yet it is perfectly simple; she is
modest without shyness; she can converse very well in many languages,
and combines affability with dignity. As she acquires familiarity
with the world, which is all very new to her, her fine qualities will
doubtless develop further, and endow her whole being with even more
grace and interest. She is tall and well made, and her health is
excellent. Her features seemed to me regular and full of sweetness."

Even the Empress of Austria, who recently had been conspicuous for her
dislike of the French, so that there had been felt some dread of her
dissatisfaction, if not of direct opposition, thoroughly shared her
husband's joy. On this subject, Count Otto, in a despatch of February
19, expressed himself as follows: "The Empress shows herself extremely
favorable to this marriage. In spite of her wretched health she has
expressed her desire to be present at all the festivities, and she takes
every occasion to speak of them with delight."

The Ambassador carried his optimism so far as to look upon Marie
Antoinette's marriage as a happy precedent. In the same despatch he
wrote to the Duke of Cadore: "The names of Kaunitz and Choiseul are on
every one's lips, and every one hopes to see a renewal of the peaceful
days that followed the alliance concluded by those two ministers. They
had both been ambassadors, in France, and in Austria, exactly like Your
Excellency and Count Metternich." The French diplomatist's satisfaction
was only equalled by the vexation of the Russian Ambassador. "The
Russian coteries," added Count Otto, "are the only ones that take no
part in the general rejoicing. When the news reached a ball at a Russian
house, the violins were stopped at once, and a great many of the guests
left before supper. I must observe that Count Shouvaloff has not come to
offer his congratulations." The good humor of the Viennese grew from day
to day, especially in business circles. The French Ambassador concluded
his letter thus: "It is at the Bourse that public opinion has declared
itself in the most amazing way. In less than two hours funds went up
thirty per cent. A feeling of security established itself and at once
affected the price of imported provisions, which immediately began to
fall. Yesterday there was a large crowd gathered at the palace to see
the Archduchess go to mass. The populace was delighted to see her
radiant with health and happiness. Two artists are painting her
portrait. The better one will be sent to Paris." Everything had moved
smoothly without the slightest jar. "In the whole course of the
negotiation," Count Otto had written, February 17, "I have not heard
a word about any pecuniary consideration, or the slightest objection
except as to the legality of the divorce. A mere word from me was
sufficient to overcome that." Consequently nothing troubled the
composure of the happy Ambassador.




V.

THE RELIGIOUS DIFFICULTY.


The marriage was officially announced, when suddenly an incident
arose which caused the greatest anxiety to Napoleon's ambassador, and
threatened, if not to prevent, at least to delay, the wedding. The
unexpected difficulty which arose at the last moment was of a religious
nature, and in a court as pious as that of Austria it could not fail to
make a very deep impression.

Even in Paris, the annulment of the religious marriage ceremony of
Napoleon and Josephine had aroused serious objections, and the Emperor
had shown much surprise when he was told by his uncle, Cardinal Fesch,
the Grand Almoner, that there were obstacles in the way. In a matter of
this sort, which concerns crowned heads, and is inspired by reasons of
state, it is the Pope who must make the decision. Louis XII. had secured
the dissolution of his marriage with Jane of France from Pope Alexander
VI. Henry IV. had applied to Pope Clement VIII. to annul his marriage
with Margaret of Valois. Napoleon himself had likewise had recourse,
though without success, to Pope Pius VII., in the matter of his
brother Jerome's marriage with Miss Paterson. Now, when the Pope was
his prisoner, Napoleon could not apply to him; and since the sovereign
pontiff had taken part in the coronation of the Empress Josephine, and
profoundly sympathized with her, could he dare to say, like the diocesan
officials of Paris, that she, from the religious point of view, was only
the Emperor's mistress?

At the beginning of 1810 there was an ecclesiastic commission,
consisting of Cardinal Fesch, President; Cardinal Maury, famous at
the time of the Constituent Assembly, and later, one of the Imperial
courtiers; the Archbishop of Tours; the bishops of Nantes, Trèves,
Évreux, and Verceil; and the Abbé Emery, Superior of the Seminary of
Saint Sulpice. The Emperor put to this committee the question whether
the diocesan officials were competent to proceed to the canonical
dissolution of his marriage with Josephine.

January 2, 1810, the committee decided that the diocesan officials were
competent, but neither Cardinal Fesch nor the Abbé Emery signed the
report. The Cardinal could not forget that it was he who, by the special
authorization of Pius VII., had, on the night of December 1-2, 1804,
given to the couple the nuptial blessing.

The very day that the Ecclesiastical Committee had affirmed
the competence of the diocesan officials, it received from the
Archchancellor Cambacérès a petition stating that the nuptial blessing
given to Napoleon and Josephine had not been preceded, accompanied, or
followed by the formalities prescribed by the Canon laws; that is to
say, it lacked the presence of the proper priest--as the parish priest
was termed--and of witnesses. To these two grounds for annulment a third
was added, a new one, which could not fail to surprise the officials. It
was one which in general is applicable only to a minor, wrought upon
by surprise and violence; namely, lack of consent,--yes, lack of the
Emperor's consent. Napoleon saw very clearly that the first two points
were mere quibbles, and that the moment when he intended that his uncle,
the Grand Almoner, should bless his marriage with Marie Louise, was, to
say the least, a singular one to choose for denouncing his incapacity
for consecrating his union with Josephine. As to the absence of
witnesses, that is to be explained as due to a special dispensation of
the Pope, who wished to avoid the scandal of announcing to the whole
world that Napoleon, who had been married by civil, but not by religious
rites, had in the eyes of the Church been living for eight years in
concubinage, in spite of the entreaties of the Empress to put an end
to a state of things which pained her conscience and filled her with
constant dread of divorce. The Emperor consequently laid the chief
weight on his lack of consent. Count d'Haussonville in his remarkable
book, _The Church of Rome and the First Empire_, says on this subject:
"Setting aside the religious feeling with regard to the sanctity of
marriage, it is hard to understand how such a man could have been
willing to represent himself as having desired, on the eve of this great
ceremony of consecration, to deceive at the same time his uncle who
married him, his wife whom he seemed pleased to associate with
his glory, and the venerable pontiff who, in spite of his age and
infirmities, had come from a long distance, to call down upon him the
blessing of the Most High. This argument offended not only every feeling
of delicacy, but also the plainest principles of honest and fair
dealing."

The officials were not moved by such scruples. They exercised a twofold
jurisdiction,--as a diocesan and as a metropolitan tribunal,--and both
affirmed the nullity of the marriage. The metropolitan tribunal, while
admitting the first two grounds,--namely, the absence of witnesses and
of the proper priest,--based its decision principally on the non-consent
of the Emperor. The diocesan tribunal had declared that to atone for the
infringement of the laws of the Church, Napoleon and Josephine should be
compelled to bestow a sum of money to the poor of the parish of Notre
Dame. The metropolitan tribunal struck this clause out as disrespectful.

This decision was sent to Count Otto, the French Ambassador at Vienna;
in fact, the original draft of the two papers, that is to say, the
judgment of the metropolitan tribunal, was forwarded to him. The
Ambassador spoke about it to the Emperor Francis, to satisfy that
monarch's scruples, but he did not show him the papers themselves, and
three days after the ratification of the marriage contract he sent them
back to Paris. "I confess," he wrote to the Duke of Cadore, in his
despatch of February 28, 1810, "that in returning these papers so
speedily to Paris, I had a presentiment of the discussion which they
might cause among the foreign ecclesiastics. Everything was settled, the
Emperor of Austria was satisfied, the marriage contract was ratified,
the ratification of the marriage had been exchanged for three days, when
the first mention was made of these documents which have aroused the
curiosity and interest of some too influential prelates. I am the more
authorized to say that no one had before that thought of these papers,
by the fact that the Minister, when on the 15th he asked me to give
him, on my honor, my personal opinion with regard to the nullity of His
Majesty's first marriage, would not have failed to add that he had asked
for proof from the Prince of Schwarzenberg, and that he awaited his
reply. My declaration was sufficient to determine the ratification of
the contract on the next day."

Whence came these tardy scruples, this unexpected delay? What had
happened? The objections did not come from the Emperor Francis, or from
Count Metternich, but from a priest, the Archbishop of Vienna, who was
to celebrate the marriage by proxy in the Church of the Augustins in
Vienna. This prelate, who shared all the opinions of the French émigrés,
and had much more respect for the Pope than for Napoleon, deemed it his
duty to examine for himself the judgment of the Parisian authorities,
and stoutly demanded the originals. This filled the French Ambassador
with despair, and he wrote to the Duke of Cadore in great distress: "For
three days the Minister of Foreign Affairs has been in negotiation with
the Archbishop, trying to overcome his scruples with regard to the
nullity of the first marriage of His Majesty. This prelate persists in
saying to-day that he cannot give the nuptial blessing until he has seen
the document which I have sent back to Your Excellency, of which, too,
M. de Metternich did not speak in the course of our negotiations. It is
very strange that since the Archbishop was consulted some time ago, no
mention was made to me of his scruples. I have every reason to believe
that he did nothing until he heard that I had received documents, the
validity of which he might discuss. Now the French clergy will hardly
care to submit its decision to a foreign prelate. Your Excellency's
intention has been to satisfy the Emperor of Austria, the only authority
which, in a question of this importance, we can consider competent,
because it concerns the lot of his daughter. What would happen, sir, if
this prelate, adopting other principles than those which determined the
judgment of our officials, should presume to invalidate them? How can we
submit to a new discussion of a treaty ratified before the eyes of all
Europe, and made public by the order of the Emperor of Austria himself?
May we not suppose that the Archbishop, who in the first instance
approved of this alliance, to-day is moved only by scruples and inspired
by a foreign faction which is ready to seize any pretext to oppose the
genius of peace? I am told that the former Bishop of Carcassonne is
living with the Archbishop. Possibly the Nuncio, who is still here, has
brought some influence to bear on this occasion. That there is something
of the sort behind it all is proved by the prominence that some of the
intriguers give to an alleged excommunication of His Majesty the Emperor
by the Pope. Count Metternich assures me that both the Nuncio and the
Archbishop disclaim all knowledge of any obstacle of this sort. The
Emperor himself, who is keenly alive to the insult to crowned heads
which it implies, repels the indecent objection with the scorn which it
deserves.

"The Minister has had many fruitless interviews with the Archbishop, who
seems to wish to lay the matter before his tribunal. The Emperor himself
is very uneasy; they are trying to gain time, and are to-day very
anxious lest the Prince of Neufchâtel should arrive too soon. If he
should not get here till the 3d of March, they will manage to postpone
the nuptial blessing till the 11th, when it is hoped that the documents
will have come back again. But even in this case, the Ambassador
Extraordinary will need all the firmness of his character to overrule
this cabal which brings uneasiness to the Emperor's family and uses the
Archbishop as a tool. I have done everything that I could to impress
upon the Minister how much the present state of affairs compromises the
dignity of our court. He has shown me a list of questions presented by
the Archbishop, which it is impossible to answer without seeming to
recognize a tribunal with which we ought to have nothing to do. Never
has so important a negotiation been hampered by a stranger incident."
(Despatch of Count Otto to the Duke of Cadore, February 28, 1810.)

The Ambassador was in great perplexity, and he would have been much more
uneasy if the documents demanded had been in his possession. In fact,
would he have been justified in submitting to a foreign ecclesiastical
tribunal papers which he could only show to the Emperor of Austria, to
remove that sovereign's personal objections? Count Metternich had told
the Ambassador, February 24, that the ceremony would take place in spite
of the Archbishop's objection, but the next day M. de Metternich was
convinced that he was mistaken.

In order to gain time, Count Otto had written to Napoleon's Ambassador
Extraordinary, the Prince of Neufchâtel, to ask him to delay his
arrival at Vienna until March 4. The carnival would end with brilliant
festivities, for which great preparations were making. Ash Wednesday and
the three following days would be consecrated to devotion; and on the
11th the church ceremonies would take place, if, as was hoped, the
required documents should have arrived from Paris.

After a few days of uncertainty, as painful for the court of Vienna as
for the French Ambassador, the difficulties began to settle themselves.
Count Otto wrote to the Duke of Cadore, March 3, 1810: "My long silence
must have surprised Your Excellency, but it was caused by the strangest
circumstances that I have known for many years.... It is only to-day
that we are secure from the attack of the ecclesiastical committee,
and from its scruples. Seven long days and nights have been spent in
ransacking the volumes of the _Moniteur_ and the _Official Bulletin_ in
order to prove the nullity of His Majesty the Emperor's first marriage.
Nothing could pacify the alarmed conscience of the Archbishop. At
first I refused, and held out for twenty-four hours. After protracted
discussion, and insisting on a complete recasting of the paper which I
was desired to sign, I to-day consented to hand in the paper, of which I
have the honor to enclose a copy, but on the express condition, which I
have under the minister's signature, that it is only to be shown to the
Archbishop and in no case to be made public."

This is the text of the paper mentioned by Count Otto: "I, the
undersigned, Ambassador of his Majesty the Emperor of the French, affirm
that I have seen and read the originals of the two decisions of the
two diocesan official boards, concerning the marriage between their
Majesties, the Emperor and the Empress Josephine, and that it
follows from these decisions that, in conformity with the Catholic
ecclesiastical laws established in the French Empire, the said marriage
has been declared null and void, because at the celebration of this
marriage the most essential formalities required by the laws of the
Church, and always regarded in France as necessary for the validity of
a Catholic marriage, had been omitted. I affirm, moreover, that
in conformity with the civic laws in existence at the time of the
celebration of this marriage, every conjugal union was founded on the
principle that it could be dissolved by the consent of the contracting
parties. In testimony whereof I have signed the present declaration, and
have set my seal to it."

In his despatch of March 3, 1810, the Ambassador said, in speaking of
the document just cited: "The only thing that persuaded me to adopt
this course was the conviction that the Archbishop would not consent
to pronounce the blessing until he had seen the two decisions; and it
appeared to me very dangerous to expose these two documents to the whims
of an old man who was controlled by two refugee priests. At any rate,
this method has proved successful, and the delay in the Prince of
Neufchâtel's arrival prevents the public from forming any suspicions
about this discussion which has given us so much anxiety. The Archbishop
is satisfied; all the ceremonies will take place according to the
programme, except the interruption due to the heavy roads. The wedding
will take place March 11; and to make up the time lost, the Archduchess
will travel a little faster, and can easily reach Paris by the 27th. Now
the postponement of the nuptial blessing can be ascribed only to
the circumstances which have prolonged the journey of the Prince of
Neufchâtel. In Lent Sunday is considered the only proper day for
weddings; and since Ash Wednesday is so near, the religious ceremony
cannot possibly take place before the 11th."

The last difficulties had vanished, and the festivities were free to
begin.




VI

THE AMBASSADOR EXTRAORDINARY.


In Vienna the animation was very great. The great event which was now
in preparation was the sole subject of conversation in all classes of
society. "The ceremonies and the festivities," the French Ambassador
wrote, March 2, 1810, "will be in every respect the same as those that
took place at the marriage of the Emperor with the present Empress.
Every inhabitant of Vienna is doing his utmost to testify his joy on
this occasion. Painters are at work night and day on transparencies and
designs. The festivities will be thoroughly national. Every morning
thousands of people station themselves before the palace to see the
Archduchess pass by on her way to mass. Her portraits are in constant
demand. The Emperor and the archdukes never miss a ball; they are
surrounded by a crowd of maskers who say a number of pleasant things
to them, and it really appears as if this alliance had added to the
Emperor's already great popularity." The next day, March 3, Count Otto
wrote: "I to-day presented the Count of Narbonne to the Emperor,
the Empress, and the Archduchess, and I profited by the occasion to
strengthen my conviction of the joy which the Count feels at this
happy alliance. The Empress spoke with the greatest warmth of her
step-daughters, conversed with a keen interest about France, Paris, and
what she hopes to cultivate in that interesting city."

It was with impatience that was awaited the arrival of the Ambassador
Extraordinary, who had been chosen by the Emperor of the French to make
the formal demand for the hand of the Archduchess, to attend to the
celebration of the marriage which was to be celebrated by proxy at the
Church of the Augustins in Vienna, and to escort the bride to France.
This Ambassador Extraordinary was Marshal Berthier, sovereign Prince of
Neufchâtel, the husband of the Princess Marie Elizabeth Amelia Frances
of Bavaria, Vice-Constable of France, Master of the Hounds, commander of
the first cohort of the Legion of Honor, etc., etc. The most brilliant
reception was prepared for him. Count Otto wrote to the Duke of Cadore,
February 21, 1810: "As to the honors which I have considered due to His
Most Serene Highness, the Prince of Neufchâtel, Count Metternich assures
me that he regarded him not merely as Ambassador Extraordinary, but as
a Sovereign Prince, a great dignitary of the Empire, as a friend and
fellow-soldier of the Emperor; that there would be no more comparison
between him and the Marquis of Durfort than between the future Empress
and the Dauphiness; and that consequently Prince Paul Esterhazy had
been designated to proceed to the frontier to congratulate His Highness;
and that, moreover, an Imperial Commissary would be sent to look after
his journey, and to see that proper honor was paid to him on the way;
that he would be lodged and entertained by the court, and that pains
would be taken to furnish him with everything he might require; for in
such a severe season, at so brief a notice, he could not possibly have
supplied himself with all the articles ha needed."

The Prince of Neufchâtel's formal entrance into Vienna was accompanied
with great pomp. Count Otto thus describes it in his despatch of March
6, 1810: "The Prince of Neufchâtel has just made his entrance. The
ceremony was most magnificent. The court had despatched their finest
carriages, and the highest noblemen sent their equipages in their
grandest array. The Prince lacked only couriers and footmen. I had
twelve of my servants accompanying his carriage, all in the Emperor's
grand livery. The sovereign himself could not have had a warmer
welcome, or one more sumptuous and enthusiastic than did our Ambassador
Extraordinary, and the contrast with many fresh memories made the
spectacle a very touching one. To shorten the Prince's triumphal march
from the summer palace of Schwarzenberg to the Kärthnerstrasse, many
thousand workmen had been busily throwing a bridge over the very
fortifications that our soldiers had blown up. Cheers and applause
accompanied the Vice-Constable to the door of the Audience Chamber, and
from there to his house. The court has given him most sumptuous quarters
in the Imperial Chancellor's offices, where he is treated like the
Emperor himself."

Count Otto in the same despatch thus describes the evening of that
brilliant 10th of March, 1810; "That evening there was a grand ball in
the Hall of Apollo; the whole city was there. The Prince was greeted as
enthusiastically as in the morning. The Emperor himself was present,
together with the Archdukes, and received the congratulations and
blessings of a populace beside itself with joy. The Prince scarcely left
the Emperor, who talked with him most amiably and most cordially. The
Emperor and the Vice-Constable attracted the eyes of the whole multitude
that surrounded them, and every one rejoiced to see the friend and
fellow-soldier of Napoleon by the side of the ruler of Austria. It was
noticed that this was the first appearance of the Archduke Charles
in the Hall of Apollo along with the Emperor; he will figure in the
marriage ceremony, and shows the liveliest satisfaction in the event.
The Vice-Constable was charmed with the Prince's conversation, and is
going to dine with him to-morrow."

General the Count of Lauriston had just arrived in Vienna, bringing
letters from Napoleon to the Emperor and Empress of Austria. We have
found the replies in the archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
They are as follows:--

The letter of the Emperor of Austria to the Emperor of the French:--

"March 6, 1810. MY BROTHER: General the Count of Lauriston has given to
me Your Imperial Majesty's letter of February 23. Entrusting to your
hands, my brother, the fate of my beloved daughter, I give to Your
Majesty the strongest possible proof that I could give of my confidence
and esteem. There are moments when the holiest of the affections
outweighs every other consideration which is foreign to it. May Your
Imperial Majesty find nothing in this letter but the feelings of a
father, attached, by eighteen years of pleasant intercourse, to a
daughter whom Providence has endowed with all the qualities that
constitute domestic happiness. Though called far away from me, she
will continue to be worthy of my most enduring affections only by
contributing to the felicity of the husband whose throne she is to
share, and to the happiness of his subjects. You will kindly receive the
assurance of my sincere friendship, as well as of the high consideration
with which I am, my brother, Your Imperial and Royal Majesty's
affectionate brother FRANCIS."

The letter of the Empress of Austria to the Emperor Napoleon:--

"March 6,1810. MY BROTHER: I hasten to thank Your Imperial Majesty for
the many proofs of confidence contained in the letter which Your Majesty
has kindly sent to me through the Count of Lauriston. The tender
attachment of the best of fathers for a beloved child has had no need
of counsels. Our wishes are the same. I share his confidence in the
happiness of Your Majesty and of our daughter. But it is from me that
Your Imperial Majesty must receive the assurance of the many qualities
of mind and heart that distinguish the latter. What might seem the
exaggerated affection of a father cannot be suspected from the pen of
a stepmother. Be sure, my brother, that my happiest days will be those
that come to you in consequence of the alliance that is about to unite
us. Accept the friendship and high esteem with which I am Your Imperial
Majesty's affectionate sister MARIE LOUISE."

The different provinces of the Empire sent deputations to Vienna to bear
their good wishes to the Archduchess. They were received on the 6th of
March, and the ceremony was thus described by Count Otto: "Yesterday's
festival was very brilliant. In the morning, the deputations of the
Austrian states drove, in a procession of more than thirty carriages,
to the Palace to pay their compliments to the Archduchess, who received
them under a canopy. In spite of the shyness natural to her youth,
the Princess replied to them in a speech which amazed and touched her
hearers. She is likewise to receive deputations from Hungary, Bohemia,
and Moravia. It is thought that to the first she will reply in Latin. At
one o'clock we went to the Palace to dine with their Majesties and the
Imperial family. The only guests were the Prince Vice-Constable, the
Count of Lauriston, and myself. The Empress was in better health,
and more affable than I have ever seen her. The two Ambassadors took
precedence of the Archduchess. The Prince Vice-Constable was placed at
the Empress's left, and I sat at the Archduchess's right; the Emperor
sat in the middle and took part in the conversation on both sides.
This conversation was very animated. The Archduchess asked a good many
questions which displayed the soundness of her tastes." According to
the Ambassador's despatch, these were the questions which Marie Louise
asked: "Is the Napoleon Museum near enough to the Tuileries for me to
go there and study the antiques and monuments it contains?" "Does the
Emperor like music?" "Shall I be able to have a teacher on the harp?
It is an instrument I am very fond of." "The Emperor is so kind to me;
doubtless he will let me have a botanical garden. Nothing would please
me more." "I am told that the country around Fontainebleau is very wild
and picturesque. I like nothing better than beautiful scenery." "I am
very grateful to the Emperor for letting me take Madame Lazansky with
me, and for choosing the Duchess of Montebello; they are two excellent
women." "I hope the Emperor will be considerate; I don't know how to
dance quadrilles; but if he desires it, I will take dancing-lessons."
"Do you think Humboldt will soon finish the account of his travels? I
have read all that has appeared with great interest."

Count Otto adds, in his faithful report: "I told Her Imperial Highness
that the Emperor was anxious to know her tastes and ways. She told me
that she was easily pleased; that her tastes were very simple; that she
was able to adapt herself to anything, and would do her best to conform
to His Majesty's wishes, her only desire being to please him.... I
must say, that during the whole hour of my interview with Her Imperial
Highness, she did not once speak of the Paris fashions or theatres."

That evening there was a ball at which the Emperor was present with his
whole family, and the Ambassador thus describes the occasion: "More than
six thousand persons, of all ranks, were invited by the court, and they
filled two immense halls which were richly decorated and illuminated. At
the end of the first hall there was a most magnificent sideboard, in the
shape of a temple lit by a thousand ingeniously hidden lamps. The Genius
of Victory, surmounting an altar, was placing a laurel wreath on the
escutcheons of the bride and groom. The N and L were displayed in all
the decoration of the columns and pediments. To the right, a tent made
of French flags covered a sideboard-laden with refreshments; and on the
left there was another under a tent made of Austrian flags. There
were large tables in the neighboring rooms, covered with food for the
citizens who regarded it as an important duty to pledge the health of
the Imperial couple in Tokay. The Archduchess, who had never been to a
ball before in her life, passed through every room on the Emperor's arm.
She was most warmly cheered, and the crowd followed her with a joyous
enthusiasm that can scarcely be described. This ball presented the most
perfect combination of grandeur, wealth, and good taste; it was further
remarkable for the bond of fraternity which seemed to unite the two
nations." The next day but one, March 8, the formal demand for the hand
of the Archduchess Marie Louise was made at the Palace, with great pomp,
by Marshal Berthier, Prince of Neufchâtel. As soon as he had delivered
his speech, the Archduchess entered in magnificent attire, accompanied
by all the members of the household. Count Anatole de Montesquiou, an
orderly officer of the Emperor Napoleon, had just arrived in Vienna,
bringing a miniature portrait of his sovereign. This officer was to
be present at the wedding, and to take to Paris the first news of
its conclusion. As soon as the Archduchess appeared, the Prince of
Neufchâtel offered her Napoleon's portrait, which she at once had
fastened on the front of her dress by the Mistress of the Robes. The
Ambassador Extraordinary then went to the apartments of the Empress of
Austria, whence he went to visit the Archduke Charles to tell him that
Napoleon wished to be represented by him at the wedding to be celebrated
by proxy, March 11, by the Archbishop of Vienna, at the Church of the
Augustins. The Prince of Neufchâtel continued to be treated with a
consideration such as perhaps had never before fallen to the lot of an
envoy in Vienna. From morning till night his quarters were surrounded by
an inquisitive multitude who were anxious to see and salute Napoleon's
friend and fellow-soldier. On the 9th of March he gave a grand dinner
to the most distinguished gentlemen and ladies of the city. "After the
dinner," Count Otto wrote to the Duke of Cadore, "other ladies came in
to pay the first visit to him, a distinction which probably no foreign
prince has ever before enjoyed here. At the grand performance given at
the court theatre that same evening, the Prince again had precedence of
the Archdukes. He was given a seat by the side of the Empress, who
all the evening said the most flattering things to him.... Among the
unprecedented honors which have been paid to him, I have always found it
easy to distinguish such as were personal attentions. His Highness has
had the greatest success here, especially with the Archdukes, who, in
order to overcome his objections to take precedence of them, said in the
most obliging way, 'We are all soldiers, and you are our senior.' The
Archduke Charles has especially displayed a grace and delicacy that have
extremely touched the Prince.... The Emperor has presented the Prince
with his portrait in a costly medallion, and His Highness has taken care
to wear it on various occasions."

Napoleon, who a few days before had been so hated by the Viennese,
appeared to them, as if by sudden endowment, a sort of divine being. On
all sides were heard outbursts of praise, allegories, and cantatas, in
his honor. The poets of the city rivalled one another in celebrating
the union of myrtles and laurels, of grace and strength, of beauty and
genius. "Love," they sang in their dithyrambs, "weaves flowery chains
to unite forever Austria and Gaul. Peoples shed tears, but tears of
enthusiasm and gratitude. Long live Louise and Napoleon!" In every
street, in every square, there were transparencies, mottoes, flags,
mythological emblems, temples of Hymen, angels of peace and concord,
Fame with her trumpet.

At that moment there happened to be in Vienna a great many French
officers and soldiers, detained there to recover from the wounds they
had received in the course of the last war. All those who were able to
leave their beds were anxious to have the happiness of seeing their new
Empress, and thronged to the Palace doors. As soon as Marie Louise heard
that they were there, she made her appearance before them, and spoke to
them most graciously a few kind words. Then these veterans, wild with
joy, shouted at the top of their lungs, "Long live the Princess! Long
live the House of Austria!" And the good people of Vienna, enchanted at
the sight, both wondered and rejoiced to see their Emperor's daughter so
warmly greeted by the French soldiers of Essling and Wagram.




VII.

THE WEDDING AT VIENNA.


Before proceeding to the account of the wedding, celebrated by proxy in
Vienna, at the Church of the Augustins, March 11, 1810, it may be well
to enumerate the members, at that time, of the Imperial family.

The Emperor, Francis II., head of the house of Hapsburg-Lorraine, who
was born February 12, 1768, had just entered his forty-third year;
consequently, he was only eighteen months older than his son-in-law, the
Emperor Napoleon, who was born August 15, 1769. The Austrian monarch
had taken for his third wife his cousin Marie Louise Beatrice of Este,
daughter of the Archduke Ferdinand, Duke of Modena. This Princess, who
had no children, was born December 14, 1787, four years, almost to a
day, before her step-daughter, the Archduchess Marie Louise, Napoleon's
wife, who was born December 11, 1791. The new Empress of the French, at
the time of the celebration of her wedding in Vienna, was consequently
eighteen years and three months old, and twenty-two years younger than
her husband.

Francis II. had eight children, three boys and five girls, all by
his second wife, Marie Theresa, of the Two Sicilies, and born in the
following order: In 1791, Marie Louise; in 1793, Ferdinand, the Prince
Imperial; in 1797, Leopoldine, who became the wife of Dom Pedro, Emperor
of Brazil; in 1798, Marie Clementine, who married the Prince of Salerno,
and was the mother-in-law of the Duke of Aumale, the son of Louis
Philippe; in 1801, Caroline, who married Prince Frederick of Saxony; in
1802, Francis Charles Joseph; in 1804, Marie Anne, who became Abbess of
the Chapter of Noble Ladies in Prague; in 1805, John.

He had one sister and eight brothers, to wit: Marie Theresa Josepha,
born 1767, who married Antoine Clement, brother of Frederic Augustus,
King of Saxony; Ferdinand, born 1769, who, after having been Grand
Duke of Tuscany, became Grand Duke of Würzburg, and a great friend
of Napoleon; Charles Louis, born 1771, the famous Archduke Charles,
Napoleon's rival on the battle-field; Joseph Antoine, born 1776,
Palatine of Hungary; Antoine Victor, born 1779, who became Bishop of
Bamberg; John, born 1782, who presided over the parliament at Frankfort
in 1848; Reinhardt, born 1783, who was Viceroy of the Kingdom of
Lombardy and Venetia when it became an Austrian province; Louis, born
1784; Rudolph, born 1788, who became a Cardinal. Consequently, at the
time of Marie Louise's marriage, there were eleven Archdukes, three sons
and eight brothers of the Emperor. The wedding ceremony was preceded,
March 10, 1810, by a rite called the renunciation. At one in the
afternoon, Marshal Berthier, Prince of Neufchâtel, Ambassador
Extraordinary of France, drove to the Palace with his suite, in a state
carriage drawn by six horses, and was conducted to the hall of the Privy
Council, to witness this ceremony. As soon as Francis II. and Marie
Louise had taken their seats beneath the canopy, the Emperor, as head of
the family, spoke as follows: "Inasmuch as the customs of the Imperial
family require that the Imperial Princesses and Archduchesses shall
before marriage recognize the Pragmatic Sanction of Austria, and the
order of succession, by a solemn act of renunciation, Her Imperial
Highness the Archduchess Marie Louise, who is betrothed to His Imperial
Majesty the Emperor of the French, King of Italy, is about to take
the usual oath, and proceed to the formal rite of renunciation." The
Archduchess then went up to a table on which stood a crucifix between
two lighted candles, and the holy Gospels. Count Hohenwart, Prince
Archbishop of Vienna, opened the book of the Gospel according to St.
John, and the Archduchess, having placed upon it two fingers of
the right hand, read aloud the act of renunciation of the right of
succession to the crown, and took the oath. That evening, Gluck's
_Iphigenia among the Taurians_ was given at the Royal opera-house.
The stairway to the boxes was brilliantly lighted, and lined with
orange-trees. The next day, Sunday, the wedding was celebrated with
great pomp at the Church of the Augustins. The procession filed through
the apartments of the Palace, which had been covered with rugs and
filled with chandeliers and candelabra. Grenadiers were drawn up in a
double line from the Palace to the church. This was the order of the
procession: Two stewards of the court, the pages, the stewards of the
chamber, the carvers, the chamberlains, the privy councillors, the
ministers, the principal officers of the court, the French Ambassador
Extraordinary, the Archdukes Rudolph, Louis, Reinhardt, John, Antoine,
Joseph, preceded by the Archduke Charles, accompanied by the Grand
Master of the Court; the Emperor and King, followed by the Captain of
the Noble Hungarian Guard, the Captain of the Yeomen, and the Grand
Chamberlain; the Empress Queen holding the bride by the hand. The train
of the Empress's dress was carried by the grand mistresses of the court
as far as the second ante-chamber, by pages to the church, and then
again by the grand mistresses. On each side of the Emperor, the Empress,
and the Archdukes, marched twelve archers and as many body-guards; at
some distance the same number of yeomen bearing halberds. Kettledrums
and trumpets announced the arrival of the Emperor and the Empress at
the church, where the Prince Archbishop of Vienna, accompanied by the
clergy, met them at the door and presented them with holy water; that
done, he proceeded with his bishops to the foot of the altar, on the
gospel-side. The Imperial family took their place in the choir. The
Archduke Charles, as Napoleon's representative, and the Archduchess
Marie Louise, kneeled at the prayer-desks before the altar. When the
Archbishop had blessed the wedding-ring, which was presented to him in a
cup, the Archduke Charles and the bride advanced to the altar, where the
ceremony took place in German, according to the Viennese rite. After the
exchange of rings, the bride took the one destined for Napoleon, which
she was to give herself to her husband. Then while those present
remained on their knees the _Te Deum_ was sung. Six pages carried
flaming torches; salvos of artillery were fired; the bells of the city
announced to the populace the completion of the rite. After the _Te
Deum_ the Archbishop pronounced the benediction. Then the procession
returned to the Palace in the order of its going forth.

The French Ambassador wrote to the Duke of Cadore: "The marriage of His
Majesty the Emperor with the Archduchess Marie Louise was celebrated
with a magnificence that it would be hard to surpass, by the side of
which even the brilliant festivities that have preceded it are not to be
mentioned. The vast multitude of spectators, who had gathered from all
quarters of the realm and from foreign parts, so packed the church, and
the halls and passage-ways of the Palace, that the Emperor and Empress
of Austria were often crowded. The really prodigious display of pearls
and diamonds; the richness of the dresses and the uniforms; the
numberless lights that illuminated the whole Palace; the joy of the
participants, gave to the ceremony a splendor worthy of this grand and
majestic solemnity. The richest noblemen of the country made a most
brilliant display, and seemed to rival even with the Emperor. The ladies
who accompanied the two Empresses, who were for the most part Princesses
and women of the highest rank, seemed borne down by the weight of the
diamonds and pearls they wore. But all eyes were fixed on the principal
person of the solemnity, on this adored Princess who soon will make the
happiness of our Sovereign."

When the procession had re-entered the Palace, the Imperial family and
the court assembled in the room called the Room of the Mirror. The
Emperor of Austria and the two Empresses received the congratulations of
all the nobility. By the side of Marie Louise stood the grand mistress
of the household and twelve ladies-in-waiting. "Her modesty," Count Otto
continues in the same report, "the nobility of her bearing, the ease
with which she replied to the speeches addressed to her, enchanted
every one.... I was the first to be introduced to her. She answered my
congratulations by saying that she would spare no pains to please His
Majesty the Emperor Napoleon and to contribute to the happiness of the
French nation which had now become her own. Her Majesty then received
all the noblemen of the court, and spoke to them with an affability that
delighted them. When the reception was over, I was presented to the
Emperor, who spoke to me most amiably and most cordially. He told me
that, in spite of his delicate health, he was unwilling to lose any
opportunity of testifying his high esteem of my master, the Emperor. 'He
will always find in me,' he went on, 'the loyalty and zeal which you
must have noticed in this last negotiation. I give to your Emperor my
beloved daughter. She deserves to be happy. You see joy on every face.
We have neglected nothing to show our satisfaction with this alliance.
Our nations require rest; they applaud what we have done. I am sure that
the best intelligence will reign between us, and that our union will
become only closer.' All these gratifying things that the Emperor said
to me were made even more marked by the voice and the smile which
accompanied them. This monarch, in fact, has a charm of manner which
accounts for his great popularity. During and after the ceremony, the
Empress held her stepdaughter by her right hand, leading her in this
way in the church and through the halls and rooms. The large crowd of
spectators, which almost blocked the inside of the Palace and all the
approaches, seemed to belong to the Imperial family, so great was its
emotion on seeing the new Empress pass by. All the Frenchmen who were
near me confessed that they had never seen a grander or more touching
sight. The court has had a large number of medals struck off in memory
of this event. Many hundred of these have been sent to the Prince of
Neufchâtel, who, to the last, has been treated with the most marked
consideration."

After the wedding and the reception a grand state dinner was given at
the Palace. A splendid table was set upon a platform covered with costly
carpets, over which there was a canopy in the shape of a horseshoe. The
Grand Master of the Court announced to their Majesties that the dinner
was served. Carvers and pages brought in the meats. After the _lavabo_
the Archbishop asked the blessing, and the Imperial family took their
places in the following order; in the middle, the Empress of the French;
on her right, the Emperor of Austria; on her left, the Empress; on the
two sides the Archdukes Charles, Joseph, Antoine, John, Reinhardt,
Louis, Rudolph, the Prince of Neufchâtel, the Ambassador Extraordinary.
The Grand Master of the Court sat on the right, behind the Emperor's
chair; near him were the Captain of the Yeomen, and on the left the
Captain of the Noble Hungarian Guard. The ministers of state and the
representatives of foreign courts sat on the right, and the two grand
mistresses of the court on the left below the platform. The rest were
opposite the table, next to the body-guard. The Emperor's children had a
place assigned to them in the gallery from which they could look down on
the feast. A concert, vocal and instrumental, accompanied the dinner. At
the end the officiating bishop said grace in a low voice.

There was much comment on the presence of the Prince of Neufchâtel at
the Imperial table, where he sat from the beginning to the end of the
dinner. This was a modification of the ceremonial of the Viennese court,
which admitted Ambassadors to the monarch's table only on very rare
occasions, as at the marriage of an Archduchess; but even in this case,
required that they should leave the table when the dessert was served,
to move about among the noblemen admitted to the banquet-hall. It was
recalled that at the marriage of the French Dauphin to the Archduchess
Marie Antoinette, the Marquis of Durfort, the Ambassador of Louis
XV., was not invited to the dinner in order to avoid the question of
precedence between him and Duke Albert of Saxe-Teschen, who was present
at the banquet. This same Duke, as well as the brothers of the young
Empress of the French, did not attend the state dinner of March 11,
1810; and the reason given was the desire to show a particular honor to
Napoleon's Ambassador Extraordinary.

The same day, the Archduke Charles who had just represented the French
Emperor at the wedding, wrote to him this letter:--

"March 11, 1810. SIRE: The functions which Your Imperial Majesty has
been kind enough to impose on me have been infinitely agreeable.
Flattered at being chosen to represent a sovereign who, by his exploits,
will live eternally in the annals of history, and convinced of the
mutual happiness which must ensue from the union of Your Imperial
Majesty with a Princess endowed with so many qualities as my dear niece,
I have felt happy at being called on to cement this bond. I beg Your
Imperial Majesty to receive the most earnest assurances of this feeling,
as well as of the profound consideration with which I shall never cease
to be, sire, Your Majesty's very humble and very obedient servant and
cousin, CHARLES."

That evening there were free performances at every theatre. The Emperor
and Empress drove through the city with the bride, who had that day sent
one gold napoleon to every wounded Frenchman, and five napoleons to
every one who had lost a limb. The same thing had been done for the
wounded German allies of France in the last war. This exhibition of
generosity produced the most favorable impression, and much gratitude
was felt towards the new Empress, who in the hours of her triumph had
thought of the suffering soldiers. She was everywhere cheered. The city
and suburbs were rivals in the brilliancy of the illuminations. In front
of the Chancellor's office, where the Prince of Neufchâtel was staying,
were shown the initials of Napoleon and Marie Louise amid a circle
of lights. On one window was this motto, _Ex unione pax, opes,
tranquillitas populorum_, "This union brings to the people peace,
wealth, tranquillity." The dwelling of the Superintendent of Public
Buildings represented a temple with this illuminated inscription,
_Vota publica fausto hymeneo_, "The wishes of the public for the happy
marriage."

The famous engineer Melzel had devised an ingenious decoration. Above an
excellent portrait of the new Empress there appeared a rainbow; on one
side, his happiest invention, an automaton, which the Viennese called
the War Trumpet. But a Genius was silencing it by pointing to this
motto, _Tace, mundus concors_, "Silence, the world is at peace."

To be sure there were a few satires, and some insulting placards posted
secretly, but the police took pains to remove them. Unfortunately the
weather was unfavorable, and scarcely one light out of ten held out
to burn. Was not this a token of the enthusiasm of the Viennese for
Napoleon, an enthusiasm which had succeeded hatred as if by magic, and
which, after flaring up so speedily, was soon to expire? VIII.

THE DEPARTURE.


Marie Louise was to pass but one day more in Vienna. The ceremony had
taken place March 11, 1810, and on the 13th the new Empress of the
French was to leave the Austrian capital to join her husband in France.
After all these festivities and great excitement, the 12th was devoted
to peace and quiet. The Emperor Francis profited by it to write to
Napoleon the following letter:--

"March 12, 1810. MY BROTHER AND MY DEAR SON-IN-LAW: I appoint my
Chamberlain, the Count of Clary, the bearer of this letter to Your
Imperial Majesty. The great bond which forever unites our two thrones
was completed yesterday. I wish to be the first to congratulate Your
Majesty on an event which it has deserved, and which my wishes in
harmony with your own, my brother, have crowned, for I regard it as the
most precious as well as the surest pledge of our common happiness, and
consequently of that of our subjects. If the sacrifice I make is very
great, if my heart is bleeding at the loss of this beloved daughter, the
thought, and, I do not hesitate to say, the firmest conviction of her
happiness, is alone able to console me. Count Metternich, who in a few
days will follow Count Clary, will be commissioned to express by word of
mouth to Your Imperial Majesty the attachment which I consecrated to
the monarch who yesterday became one of the members of my family. Now I
confine myself to begging him to receive the assurances of my esteem and
unalterable friendship. Your Imperial and Royal Majesty's affectionate
brother and father-in-law,

"Francis."

March 12, the Marshal Berthier, Prince of Neufchâtel, left Vienna for
Braunan, on the Austrian and Bavarian frontier. There he was to join the
Empress of the French, who was to be conducted thither by the Austrian
escort and then be entrusted to the French escort with which she was
to continue her journey. "Before the Prince of Neufchâtel left," wrote
Count Otto, March 10, "a great many Archdukes called on him, including
even the high officers of the crown. His Highness started at two
o'clock, amid the acclamations of a large multitude. No embassy has ever
been more warmly received or filled with more dignity and nobility. The
Prince left sixty thousand francs to be divided among the household
where he had stayed. He was most discreet in everything that he did,
and in spite of the various honors heaped upon him, I do not think that
there is a single person at the court whose pride has been wounded." As
the moment drew near when the young Empress was to leave her beloved
family and country, to plunge into the unknown future that was awaiting
her, various emotions crowded upon her. At heart a German and an
Austrian, she could not accustom herself to the thought that probably
she would never see again her revered and beloved father; the family who
adored her; the good people of Vienna, who had always shown the kindest
interest in her; the Burg and Schoenbrunn, where had been spent so many
happy years of her infancy; the dear Church of the Augustins, where she
had so often earnestly offered up her prayers. Could all the praise of
Napoleon which she had been hearing for the last few days wipe out
the memory of the abuse she had so often heard? She had been promised
wealth, grandeur, power; but do those constitute happiness?

The 13th of March came; the hour of her departure struck. That same day
the French Ambassador wrote: "Her Majesty the Empress of the French left
this morning with a large suite. On leaving her loved family and the
land she will never see again, she for the first time felt all the
anguish of the cruel separation. At eight o'clock in the morning the
whole court was assembled in the reception-rooms. About nine, the
Austrian Empress appeared, again leading her step-daughter by her right
hand. She tried to speak to me, but her voice was choked by sobs. The
young Empress was accompanied to her carriage by her step-mother and
the Archdukes, and there they kissed her for the last time. Here the
affectionate mother broke down, and she was supported to her own room by
two chamberlains. The young Empress burst into tears, and her distress
moved even foreigners who witnessed it."

The procession started in the following order: a division of
cuirassiers, a squadron of mounted militia, three postilions, the Prince
of Paar, Director of the Posts, in a carriage with six horses; following
came four carriages, each with six horses, containing Count Edelinck,
Grand Master of the Court, and the chamberlains; Counts Eugene
of Hangevitz; Domenic of Urbua; Joseph Metternich, Landgrave of
Fürstenberg; Counts Ernest of Hoyes and Felix of Mier; Count Haddick,
Field-Marshal; the Count of Wurmbrand; Count Francis Zichy; Prince
Zinzendorf; Prince Paul Esterhazy; Count Antony Bathiani; then the
Prince of Trautmannsdorf, First Grand Master of the Court, and
Quartermaster, in a carriage with six horses; then, in one with eight
horses, the Empress of the French, having with her the Countess of
Lazansky, grand mistress of her household; finally, in three carriages
with six horses each, her ladies-in-waiting,--the Princess of
Trautmannsdorf, Countesses O'Donnell, of Sauran, d'Appony, of Blumeyers,
of Traun, of Podstalzky, of Kaunitz, of Hunyady, of Chotek, of Palfy,
of Zichy. A detachment of cavalry brought up the rear. The procession
passed slowly through Saint Michael's Place, the Kohlmarkt, the Graben,
Kärthnerstrasse, the Glacis, and the Mariahülfestrasse. The troops and
national guard lined both sides of the way.

"The Empress," wrote Count Otto, in his despatch of March 13, "passed
through the main streets of the city and the suburbs, amid the ringing
of bells and the roar of cannon, followed by an immense concourse of
persons who uttered affectionate wishes and farewells. The inhabitants
had decorated their houses and even the palace gate with tricolored
flags. The regimental bands played French marches for the first time. A
general salvo from the ramparts finally announced that the Empress had
crossed the bridge. Her Majesty will be received with the same honors
in all the Austrian cities she passes through. The procession, which
consists of eighty-three carriages, will probably be delayed by the bad
roads, and the rain which fell heavily last night."

The Ambassador thus concluded his despatch: "The tumultuous joy which
has prevailed in Vienna during this last week, which has gratified Her
Majesty as much as any one, has been dimmed for a moment by a feeling
which does honor to the kindness of her heart, and can only endear her
the more to us. She has a great affection for her parents, and this
feeling they return. She has been called Louise the Pious, and it has
been said to be only right that she should share the throne of Saint
Louis. The Emperor started an hour before Her Majesty for Linz, where he
will embrace his beloved daughter for the last time. During these last
few days it has been very obvious that his feelings as a father have had
more weight with him than his position as a sovereign. This monarch's
amiable disposition has appeared in the most favorable light on this
occasion, and everything promises the happiest results from this
alliance."

On leaving Vienna, Marie Louise doubtless thought that she would
never see it again; but she was to return to it very soon and in very
different circumstances. In four years the Viennese were to see
her again, but how changed the condition of things! Events cruelly
disappointed the hopes of peace and happiness evoked by her marriage. It
was a bitter deception. The hatred of the Austrians for Napoleon, whom
in 1810 they had so much admired, became once more as intense as in the
days of Austerlitz and Wagram. They ceased to greet Marie Louise with
applause; they simply pitied her. Her father himself ceased to regard
her as a sovereign. "As my daughter," he said to her, "everything that
I possess is yours, my blood and my life; I do not know you as a
sovereign." The time seemed very remote when she had precedence of the
Empress of Austria, and her father, the head of the house of Hapsburg,
respectfully gave her place at his right hand. After losing the double
Imperial and Royal crown, that of France and that of Italy, she was
obliged to beg of the implacable Coalition a petty duchy, the possession
of which had been promised her by a treaty signed after the fall of the
great Empire. There were again festivities in Vienna, but not for her,
the dethroned sovereign. Once she was curious to see one, and she
watched it hiding behind a curtain. On the evening of a court ball given
by her father in honor of the members of the Congress of Vienna, she
concealed herself near an opening made in the attic of the great hall
of the palace,--where the festivities of her wedding had been
celebrated,--and from there the wife of the prisoner of Elba watched the
men dancing who were condemning her to widowhood even in the lifetime of
her husband.




IX.


THE TRANSFER.

Marie Louise's journey was one long ovation; in every town and in every
village she passed through the young Empress received the homage of the
authorities. Groups of girls, dressed in white, offered her flowers;
bells were rung; and the enthusiasm of the country people was quite as
warm as that of the Viennese. Marie Louise spent the night at Saint
Pölten, where she met her father, who had gone thither incognito,
in order to embrace her for the last time. The Empress, the bride's
stepmother, went there also unexpectedly, and threw herself for the last
time into the arms of the Empress of the French. Ried she reached the
15th of March, 1810, and thence Marie Louise started on the 16th, at
eight in the morning, after hearing mass. By eleven she had reached
Altheim, close to the Bavarian frontier, and here she made a stop for
the purpose of exchanging her travelling-dress for a finer one. Bavaria,
as part of the Confederation of the Rhine, could be regarded as a
province of the French Emperor, since Napoleon was the Protector of the
Confederation. It had hence been decided that on the frontier, between
Austria and Bavaria, close to Braunau, should take place the ceremony of
handing her over to her French escort with all formality. The scene was
a close imitation of what had taken place forty years before, on the
occasion of the marriage of Marie Antoinette. On the frontier line
between Austria and Bavaria three pavilions were set up, opening from
one to the other: the first of these was regarded as Austrian; the
second, as neutral; and the third, as French. These three connected
buildings formed a wooden edifice in three compartments, and was placed
between Altheim and Braunau. It was furnished with care, and provided
with fireplaces. The central pavilion, or hall, which was destined for
the ceremony, was adorned with a canopy, beneath which, on a platform,
there was an armchair for the Empress, covered with a cloth of gold. To
the left of the canopy, on the Bavarian side, towards Braunau, was set a
large table with a velvet cloth, on which the plenipotentiaries were to
write their signatures. Two lines of young green trees had been set out,
one leading to the French hall, the other to the Austrian. On the side
of the first, towards Braunau, were drawn three regiments, in full
uniform, two of infantry and one of cavalry, under the command of
Generals Friant and Pajol. On the other, the Austrian, side, towards
Altheim, there were neither troops nor sentinels, in token of the
temporary neutrality of the territory. The French Commissioner was
Marshal Berthier, the Prince of Neufchâtel, and his secretary, Count
Alexandre de La Borde. The Austrian Commissioner was the Prince of
Trautmannsdorf: M. Thedelitz was his secretary. The French party, which
was to meet Marshal Berthier at Braunau, and to serve as an escort to
the Empress for the rest of the journey, was composed of the following
people: Caroline, Queen of Naples, Murat's wife and Napoleon's sister;
the Duchess of Montebello, lady of honor, the widow of Marshal Lannes;
the Countess of Luçay, lady of the bed-chamber; the Duchess of Bassano,
the Countesses of Montmorency, of Mortemart, and of Bouillé, maids of
honor; the Bishop of Metz, Monsignor Jauffret, almoner; the Count of
Beauharnais, lord-in-waiting; the Prince Aldobrandini Borghese, chief
equerry; the Counts d'Aubusson, of Béarn, d'Angosse, and of Barol,
chamberlains; Philip de Ségur, lord steward; the Baron of Saluces and
the Baron d'Audenarde, equerries; the Count of Seyssel, master of
ceremonies; M. de Bausset, steward.

March 16, at half-past one, the Prince of Neufchâtel, with the rest of
his company, made their way to the French division of the building; they
were all, men and women, in full dress. Towards two o'clock Marie Louise
entered the Austrian room, and after resting a moment she was ushered
into the middle room, the neutral one, by the Austrian master of
ceremonies; there a throne had been set, and the formal ceremony was to
take place. Marie Louise seated herself on the throne. The Prince of
Trautmannsdorf took his station before the table where the papers were
to be signed, with the Aulic Counsellor, Hudelitz, the secretary, behind
him. The men and women of the Austrian party ranged themselves around
the Empress. At the back and on the two sides of the hall were twelve
Noble Hungarian Guards and twelve German guardsmen, armed and in full
uniform.

While the Austrians were thus getting ready, the French were waiting in
the next room, and displayed great impatience to get a sight of their
new sovereign. M. de Bausset, an eye-witness of the ceremony, tells us
in his Memoirs: "I was naturally anxious to see the Empress as soon as
she should reach the middle room to take a place on the throne, and
give her courtiers time to arrange themselves about her, before we were
introduced. I had brought a gimlet, and with this I had bored a good
many holes in the door of our room. This little indiscretion, which
was not mentioned in our report, gave us an opportunity to inspect the
appearance of our young sovereign at our ease. I need not say that it
was the ladies of our party who were most anxious to make use of the
little holes I had provided. The impression produced by the grace
and majesty of the Empress upon these inquisitive peepers was very
favorable. Marie Louise," M. de Bausset goes on, "sat straight on the
throne. Her erect figure was fine; her hair was blond and very pretty;
her blue eyes beamed with all the candor and innocence of her soul. Her
face was soft and kindly. She wore a dress 

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