L. Mühlbach

“ Victory belongs to the swiftest. I am well satisfied with General Beaulieu, he manoeuvres well; he is a stronger man than his predecessor. I trust to beat him soundly. Be without care; love me as your eyes; but no, that is not enough, as yourself, more than yourself, as your thoughts, as your spirit, your life, your all! Sweet friend, pardon me; I am beyond myself; nature is too weak for him who feels with passion, for him whom you love.
“To Barras, Sucy, Madame Tallien, my heart-felt friendship; to Madame Chateau Renaud, kindest regards; for Eugene and Hortense, my true love. ”

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

“ She belongs to the world, to history, and if we Germans have no love for the Emperor Napoleon, the tyrant of the world, the Caesar of brass who bowed the people down into the dust, and trod under foot their rights and liberties—if we Germans have no love for the conqueror Napoleon, because he won so many battles from us, yet this does not debar us from loving Josephine, who during her lifetime won hearts to Napoleon, and whose beautiful death for love’s sake filled with tears the eyes of those whose lips knew but words of hatred and cursing against the emperor. ”

“ Therese at this hour reminded her friend of a day in prison when Josephine had assured her friends trembling for her life that she was not going to die, that she would one day be Queen of France.
“Yes,” said Josephine, smiling and thoughtful, “who knows if this prophecy will not be fulfilled? To-day begins for me a new life. I have done with the past, and it will sink behind me in the abyss of oblivion. I trust in the future! It must repay me for all the tears and anxieties of my past life, and who knows if it will not erect me a throne?” ”

“ I have done you so much wrong, that I know not how to make amends for it. I found fault because you remained in Paris, and you were sick! Forgive me, my beloved. The passion you have inspired in me has taken my reason away; I cannot find it again. One is never cured of this evil. My contemplations are so horrible, that it would be a satisfaction to see you; to press you for two hours to my heart, and then, to die together! Who takes care of you? I imagine that you have sent for Hortense. I love this child a thousand times more, when I think she can comfort you somewhat. ”

“ The past, with its sad memories, its deceptions and errors, had sunk behind her, and a luminous future sent its rays upon her at the side of the man whom jubilant Italy proclaimed “her deliverer,” and whom Josephine’s joyous heart acknowledged to be her hero, her beloved. For now she loved him truly, not with that love of fifteen years past, with the marmoreal pulse, of which Bonaparte had spoken to her in his letters, but with all the depth and glow of which a woman’s heart is capable, with all the passion and jealousy of which the heart of a creole alone is susceptible. ”

“ The Procurator-General Roderer implored the king to save himself with his family by taking refuge in the National Assembly, for there alone was safety for him and the queen.
Louis hesitated; but Marie Antoinette felt once more the pride of a queen awake within her; she felt it was nobler and worthier to die as the loyal Swiss had done, to die sword in hand, than to meet pardon and disgrace, than to bow her head under the yoke. She entreated the king to remain with the loyal National Guards and to fight with his soldiers and die in the palace of his fathers. ”

“ Happy the man to whom it is granted to close a beautiful and worthy life with a beautiful and worthy death! Happy Josephine, for whom it was not reserved like the rest of the Bonapartes to wander about Europe seeking for a refuge where they might hide themselves from the persecutions and hatred of the princes and people! To her alone, of all the Napoleonic race, was reserved the enviable fate to die under the ruins of the imperial throne, whose fragments fell so heavily upon her heart as to break it.
For France the days of fear had come, for Napoleon the days of vengeance. ”

“ With gloomy grudge he gazed at those young elegants whom he met on the Boulevards in splendid toilet, on superb horses—at these incroyables who, in the first rays of the sun of peace, from the soil of the republic, yet moist with blood, had sprung up as so many mushrooms of divers colors and varied hues.
“And such men enjoy their happiness!” exclaimed Bonaparte, contemptuously, as once in the Champs Elysees he sat before a coffee-house, near one of those incroyables, and with violent emotion starting up, he pushed his seat back and nearly broke the feet of his exquisitely dressed neighbor. ”

“ Happiness had once more penetrated into the heart of Josephine. Love again threw her sun-gleams upon her existence, and filled her whole being with animation and joy. She was once more united to her husband, who, with tears of joy and repentance, had again taken her to his heart. She was once more with her relatives, who, in the day of distress, had shown her so much love and faithfulness, and finally she had also her son, her own dear Eugene, from whom she had been separated during the sad years of their matrimonial disagreements. ”

“ Bonaparte, who had preceded his army, was forced to retreat from Verona, and went with Josephine to Castel Nuovo, where the majority of his troops were stationed. But it was a fearful journey, beset with dangers. Everywhere on the road lay the dying and the wounded who had remained behind after the different conflicts, and who with difficulty were crawling along to meet the army. Josephine’s sensitive heart was painfully moved by the spectacle of these sufferings and these bleeding wounds. Napoleon noticed it on her pale cheeks and trembling lips, and in the tears which stood in her eyes. ”

“ When I feel weary with the burden of affairs, when I dread some inauspicious result, when men oppose me, when I am ready to curse life itself, I place my hand upon my heart, your image beats there; I gaze on it, and love is for me absolute bliss, and everything smiles except when I am away from my beloved.
“By what art have you been able to enchain all my powers, and to concentrate in yourself all my mental existence? It is an enchantment, my dear friend, which is to end only with my life. To live for Josephine, such is the history of my life! ”

“ On the path of Death—such is the suite of the queen, the daughter of an emperor!
Perchance at this hour thousands were on their knees to offer to God their heart-felt prayers for Marie Antoinette, whom in the silence of the soul they still call “the queen;” perchance many thousand compassionate hearts pour out warm tears of sympathy for her who now ascends into the miserable wagon, and sits on a plank which ropes have made firm to both sides of the vehicle. But those who pray and weep have retired into the solitude of their rooms, for God alone must receive their sighs and see their tears. ”

“ The dark clouds which hung yet over the future of Napoleon Bonaparte, the lieutenant of artillery, were gathering in heavier and heavier masses over all France, and already were overshadowing the throne of the lilies.
Marie Antoinette had already abandoned the paradise of innocency in Trianon, and when she came there now it was to weep in silence, to cast away the mask from her face, and under the garb of the proud, imperious, ambitious queen to exhibit the pallid, anxious countenance of the woman. ”

“ At this moment from the Place de Carrousel ascended an enormous air balloon surmounted by an ornamental, gigantic crown, and which, on the wings of the wind, was to announce to France the same tidings proclaimed to Paris by bell and cannon: “The republic of France is converted into an empire! The free republicans are now the subjects of the Emperor Napoleon I.!”
The gigantic balloon arose amid the joyous shouts of the crowd, and soon disappeared from the gaze of the spectators. It flew, as a trophy of victory of Napoleon I., all over France. ”

“ At this decisive moment a fearful self-possession and calmness came over her; all sufferings and sorrow appeared to have sunk away, all anxiety and care seemed overcome, and a radiant smile illumined Josephine’s features, for, through a wondrous association of ideas, she suddenly remembered the prophecy of the negro-woman in Martinique.
“Be calm, my friends,” said she, smiling; “weep not, do not consider me as destined to the scaffold, for I assure you I am going to live: I must not die, for I am destined to be one day the sovereign of France. ”

“ Josephine died broken-hearted—the misfortunes of her beloved, who no more loved her, the misfortunes of Napoleon, broke her heart.
She was a woman, “take her for all in all”—a noble, a beautiful woman, a loving woman, and such as belongs to no peculiar class, to no peculiar nation, to no peculiar special history; she belongs to the world, to humanity, to universal history. In the presence of such an apparition all national hatred is silent, all differences of political opinion are silent. ”

“ Josephine read: “Therese of Fontenay to the citizen Tallien. Either in eight days I am free and the wife of my deliverer, the noble and brave Tallien, who will have freed the world from the monster Robespierre, or else, in eight days, I mount the scaffold; and my last thought will be a curse for the cowardly, heartless man who has not had the courage to risk his life for her he loved, and who suffers for his sake, for his sake meets death—who had not the mind to consider that with daring deed he must destroy the bloodthirsty fiend or be ruined by him. ”

“ Josephine wept hot tears as she accompanied her Hortense into the boarding-school, and, embracing her blond curly-haired angel, she closely pressed her to her heart, and said:
“Judge how much I love you, my daughter, since I have the courage to leave you and to deprive myself of the greatest of my life’s enjoyments! Ah, I shall be very lonesome, Hortense, but my thoughts will be with you continually—with you and your brother Eugene. Live to be an honor to your father, grow and prosper to be your mother’s happiness!” ”

“ There remained yet to perform the last, the most painful scene of this great, tearful drama. Josephine had to leave the Tuileries; she had forever to retire from the place which she so long had occupied at her husband’s side; she had to descend into the open grave of her mournful abandonment; as a widow, to part with the corpse of her love and of the past, and to put on mourning apparel for a husband who was not yet dead, but who only rejected her to give his hand and his heart to another woman. ”

“ These words of Napoleon are the most beautiful epitaph of the Empress Josephine, the much-loved, the much-regretted, and the much-slandered one. Even while Napoleon won battles, while with lofty pride he placed his foot on the neck of the conquered, took away from princes their crowns, and from nations their liberty—while Europe trembling bowed before him, and despite her admiration cursed him—while hatred heaved up the hearts of all nations against him—even then none could refuse admiration to the tender, lovely woman who, with the gracious smile of goodness, walked at his side ”

“ It seemed that all Paris and all France had gone mad—that the whole nation was drunk with blood as with intoxicating wine, and wanted to stifle the voice of conscience in the horrible revelry of the saturnalia.
Josephine never took part in these public balls and festivities; never did the widow of General Beauharnais, one of the victims of the revolution, attend these bals a la victime, where man prided himself on his misfortune and gloried in his sorrows. ”

“ No one sees the king and the queen, but they see and hear every thing. They hear from without the howlings of the mob, the cannon’s roar, the reports of the rifles, telling them that a bloody fratricidal strife, a terrible civil war, is raging. They hear there in the hall, a few steps from them, the fanatical harangues of the deputies, whose words, full of blood, are like the hands of the murdering Marsellais there without. Marie Antoinette hears Vergniaud’s motion, “to divest the king at once of his power and rank,” and she hears the acclamations of the Assembly in favor of the motion. ”

“ Josephine stood on the pinnacle of life; she saw the princes of foreign states come to France as conquered, as captives, and as allies, to bring to her husband and to herself the homage of subjects; she saw devoted courtiers and flatterers; pomp and splendor surrounded her on every side.
Amid this glory she remained simple and modest—she never gave up her cheerful gentleness and mildness; she never forgot the days which had been; she never allowed herself to be exalted by the brilliancy of the moment to an ambitious pride or to a lofty self-conceit. ”

“ And she wearied the tribunal of the revolution constantly with petitions, with visits, with complaints. They were tired of these molestations, and it was so easy, so convenient to shield one’s self against them! There was nothing else to do but to arrest Josephine; for once a prisoner, she could no longer—in anterooms, where she would wait for hours; in the street before the house-door, where she would stand, despite rains and winds—she could no longer trouble the rulers of France, and beseech them with tears and prayers for her husband’s freedom. ”

“ Hortense’s youth made it hopeful that she would add to the new branch of the Napoleonic dynasty new leaves and new boughs.
Josephine could now rejoice in her happiness and her glory; she could abandon herself to the new splendors of her life with all the enjoyment of her sensitive and excitable nature. She could now receive with smiles and with affable condescension the homage of France, for she was not only empress by a nation’s vote, but she was also empress by the choice of Napoleon her husband. ”

“ This hope, however, was not to be realized, for greater triumphs still than those she had enjoyed in Italy awaited Bonaparte in Paris. The days of quietude, and the pleasures of home, which Josephine so much loved, and which she so well understood how to embellish with friendships and joys, were now forever past away. Placed at the side of a hero whose fame already filled all Europe, she could no longer calculate upon living in modest retirement, as she would have wished to do: it was her lot to share his burden of glory, as she also was illumined by its beams. ”