Part 3

II.

JOURNEY TO THE BANKS OF THE RHINE

Before having himself crowned by the Pope, after the example of Charlemagne, Napoleon was anxious to go to meditate at the tomb of the great Carlovingian Emperor, of whom he regarded himself as the worthy successor. A journey on the banks of the Rhine, a triumphal tour in the famous German cities which the France of the Revolution had been so proud to conquer, seemed to the new sovereign a fitting prologue to the pomp of the coronation. Napoleon was desirous of impressing the imaginations of people in his new Empire and in the old Empire of Germany. He wished the trumpets of fame to sound in his honor on both banks of the famous and disputed river.

The Empress, who had gone to Aix-la-Chapelle to take the waters, arrived there a few days before her husband. Napoleon wrote to her, August 6, 1804:--

"MY DEAR: I have been here at Calais since midnight; I am thinking of leaving this evening for Dunkirk. I am satisfied with what I see, and I am tolerably well. I hope that you will get as much good from the waters as I get from going about and from seeing the camps and the sea. Eugene has left for Blois. Hortense is well. Louis is at Plombières. I am very anxious to see you. You are always essential to my happiness. A thousand kind messages."

The Emperor wrote again from Ostend, August 14, 1804:--

"MY DEAR: I have not heard from you for several days, though I should have been glad to hear that the waters have done you good and how you pass your time. I have been here a week. Day after to-morrow I shall be at Boulogne for a tolerably brilliant festival. Send me word by the messenger what you mean to do, and when you shall have finished your baths. I am much satisfied with the army and the fleet. Eugene is still at Blois. I hear no more about Hortense than if she were at the Congo. I am writing to scold her. Many kind wishes for all."

Napoleon reached Aix-la-Chapelle September 3. The Emperor Francis had, on the 10th of August, assumed the Imperial title accorded to his house, of Emperor-elect of Germany, Hereditary Emperor of Austria, King of Bohemia and Hungary. He had then given orders to M. de Cobentzel to go to Aix-la- Chapelle to present his credentials to Napoleon. Napoleon received the Austrian diplomatist very kindly, and was soon surrounded by a multitude of foreign ambassadors who came to pay their respects. He re-established the annual honors long before paid to the memory of Charlemagne, went down into the vault, and gave the priests of the Cathedral convincing proofs of his munificence. The Empress was shown a piece of the true cross which the Carlovingian Emperor had long worn on his breast as a talisman. She was offered a holy relic, almost the whole arm of that hero, but she declined it, saying that she did not wish to deprive Aix-la-Chapelle of so precious a memorial, especially when she had the arm of a man as great as Charlemagne to support her.

From Aix-la-Chapelle, Napoleon and Josephine went to Cologne, then to Coblentz, then to Mayence, travelling separately. The Emperor left Cologne September 16 at four in the afternoon, and reached Bonn a little before nightfall, to start again the next morning. The town pleased her very much, and she was sorry she could not remain there longer. She stayed at a fine house with a garden opening on a terrace that looked out over the Rhine. After supper she walked on the terrace. The delight of the people assembled below, the peacefulness of the night, and the beauty of the river in the moonlight, made the evening most enjoyable. At four the next morning the Empress started off again in her travelling carriage, and at ten she entered Coblentz. The Emperor did not get there until six in the evening, having left Cologne the same day. At Bonn he got on horseback to examine for himself everything that demanded close inspection. From Coblentz, where a ball was given them, Napoleon and Josephine went to Mayence, each by a different route. The Emperor followed the highway on the edge of the Rhine; the Empress ascended the river in a yacht which the Prince of Nassau Weilburg had placed at her disposal. It was a picturesque voyage.

The morning mist soon cleared away. Josephine, who had breakfast served on deck, admired the many charming scenes between Boppard and Bacharach, the fertile fields, the towns perched on the steep banks; in the distance, the mountains covered with forests; then the narrowing river, the bounded view, the cliffs crowded together, where nothing can be seen but the river, the sky, and the crags crowned by the mirrored towns of mediaeval castles. The light boat, as it glided smoothly over the stream, with its gilded Neptune at the bow, recalled Cleopatra's barge. At times the silence was profound, then the church-bells would be heard, as well as the cheers of the peasants on the river-banks. The pettiest villages had sent guards of honor, had hoisted flags, and raised triumphal arches. Curiously enough, the right bank, which did not belong to France, seemed to display quite as much zeal and enthusiasm as the left bank, the French one; on both sides were the same shouts of welcome, the same demonstrations, the same salutes. When she reached Saint Goar, on the left bank, the Empress saw the authorities of the town coming out to meet her, with military music, in boats decorated with branches of trees; and on the other side of the river, on the terrace of the castle of Hesse Rheinfels, the Hessian garrison was presenting arms, and their salutes joined with those of the inhabitants of Saint Goar, Further on, they shouted through a speaking- trumpet to hear the famous echo of the Lorelei, with its wonderfully distinct and frequent repetitions. Then they passed the fantastic castle of the Palatinate, built in the middle of the stream, and in old times the refuge of the Countesses Palatine, where their children were born and kept in security during their babyhood. The Empress landed at Bingen, where she spent the night, starting again the next morning. Towards three in the afternoon she reached Mayence, where twelve young girls belonging to the best families of the city were awaiting her. Almost simultaneously, the cannon at the other gate announced the Emperor's arrival.

On his way, Napoleon had noticed on an island in the Rhine, at the very extremity of the French Empire, the convent of Rolandswerth. He was told that the nuns who lived there had refused to leave it during the last war, that very often the cannon-balls of the contending armies had often fallen on the island without damaging the convent where those holy women were praying. The Emperor became interested in their fate, and made over to them the forty or fifty acres of which the little island consisted.

General de Ségur, In his Memoirs, narrates an anecdote about Napoleon's stay in this old German city. The Emperor had gone incognito and without escort to an island in the Rhine, not far from the town. As he was walking in this almost deserted island, he noticed a wretched hut in which a poor woman was lamenting that her son had been drafted. "Console yourself," said Napoleon, without letting her know who he was, and giving her an assumed name: "Come to Mayence to-morrow and ask for me; I have some influence with the ministers and I will try to help you." The poor woman appeared punctually. With delight and surprise she saw that the stranger was the Emperor of the French. Napoleon delighted to tell her that her house which had been destroyed by the war should be rebuilt, that he would give her a little herd and several acres of land, and that her son should be restored to her.

A letter in the Moniteur thus described the departure of Napoleon and Josephine: "Mayence, 11 Vendémiaire (October 3). The Empress left yesterday for Paris, by way of Saverne and Nancy. The Emperor is just leaving; he means to visit Frankenthal, Kaiserslanten, and Kreutznach; then he will take the road to Trèves. The stay of Their Majesties has been for us a source of lasting pleasure and advantage. The most important interests of our department have been favorably regulated. We have nothing now to wish for except an opportunity to show our gratitude, our devotion, and our fidelity, and the sincerity of the good wishes our citizens expressed by their unanimous cheers. The Electors, the Princes, and the many distinguished strangers who have given our city the appearance of a great capital, are now taking their departure."

This journey on the banks of the Rhine made a deep impression in France and throughout Europe. It must be confessed that no one has ever equalled the Emperor in the art of keeping himself picturesquely before the public. Napoleon in the crypt at Aix-la-Chapelle, face to face with the shade of Charlemagne is a subject to inspire a painter or a poet! At Brussels, in the church of Saint Gudule, Napoleon evoked the memory of Charles V.; at Aix-la-Chapelle in the Cathedral vault he questioned the shade of Charlemagne. And as he meditated on the tomb of the Carlovingian hero, so now do monarchs on their way through Paris meditate in their turn over his tomb beneath the gilded dome of the Invalides. They go down into the crypt, look at the porch upheld by twelve great statues of white marble, each one commemorating a victory, at the mosaic pavement representing a huge crown with fillets, the sarcophagus of red granite from Finland, placed on a foundation of green granite from the Vosges. Then they enter the subterranean chamber, the black marble sanctuary, which contains, among numerous relics, the sword that Napoleon carried at Austerlitz, the decorations he wore on his uniform, the gold crown voted him by the city of Cherbourg, and finally sixty flags won in his victories. The church of the Invalides Inspires the same thoughts as the Cathedral of Aix-la-Chapelle. In the two temples kings and great men may make the same reflection about glory, about death, about the handful of dust which is all that is left of heroes.

III.

THE POPE'S ARRIVAL AT FONTAINEBLEAU.

The time for the coronation was drawing near. Napoleon, who had already received the official recognition of foreign powers, was anxious to have his Imperial title consecrated by a great religious ceremony, the fame of which should resound throughout the whole Catholic world. The first date proposed for the solemnity was the 26th Messidor, Year XII. (July 14, 1804), then that of the 18th Brumaire, Year XIII. (Nov. 9, 1804). But the choice in each case was unfortunate. It was hard to combine the memory of the taking of the Bastille with the coronation of a sovereign, and the 18th Brumaire would have recalled the regrets of Republicans and the services of Lucien Bonaparte, who, after being the main aid of his brother's fortune, was living at Rome, in disgrace and exile. On the other hand, the Pope's hesitation, for it was with the greatest difficulty that he could make up his mind to go to Paris, had further postponed the date, which was at last fixed for the beginning of December.

Josephine awaited with impatience and fear an event on which, she felt, her future fate depended. The Pope, that mysterious and holy person, had started. Was he to prove her saviour? Was she to be a repudiated wife or a crowned Empress? The clergy were untiring in their laudations of Napoleon's glory. Bishops, in their charges, spoke of him as God's elect. One prelate, speaking of the Empire, had said: "One God and one monarch! As the God of the Christians is the only one deserving to be adored and obeyed, you, Napoleon, are the only man worthy to rule the French!" Another had said: "Napoleon, whom God called from the deserts of Egypt, like another Moses, will bring peace between the wise Empire of France and the divine Empire of Christ. The finger of God is here. Let us pray the Most High to protect with his powerful hand the man he has chosen. May the new Augustus live and rule forever! Submission is his due because he is ordered by Providence!" Yet in spite of these extravagant outbursts which came from every pulpit in the whole French Empire, this restorer of the altars, this saviour of religion was married only by civil right! From the ecclesiastic point of view, he was living in concubinage. He had had his brother Louis's marriage with Hortense de Beauharnais, and his sister Caroline's with Murat blessed by Cardinal Caprara, but in spite of Josephine's entreaties, he had denied her this pious satisfaction. It was on the Pope that the Empress put all her hope; she thought that he would take pity on her, and by bringing her into conformity with the rules of the church, would put an end to a condition of things humiliating to her as a sovereign, and painful to her as a Catholic.

At the same time Josephine was anxiously wondering whether she was to be crowned. Her brothers-in-law became more venomous in their intrigues against her, and desired not only that she be excluded from any part in the coronation, but also that she should be condemned to divorce on the pretext of barrenness. Joseph Bonaparte was never tired of saying that Napoleon ought to marry some foreign Princess, or at least some daughter of an old French family, and he skilfully laid stress on his own unselfishness in urging a plan which would necessarily remove himself and his descendants from the line of inheritance. The Emperor's sisters showed the same hostility towards Josephine, whom they hated, although she well deserved their love. Since Napoleon maintained an absolute silence about his intentions concerning the coronation, the Bonapartes already imagined that she was going to be divorced, and hence exhibited an untimely delight which displeased the Emperor and brought him closer to his wife. At last, tired with family bickerings, he suddenly put an end to them and filled Josephine with joy by telling her that she was to be crowned at Notre Dame.

The reader should turn to the curious account in Miot de Mélito's Memoirs of the council held at Saint Cloud, November 17, 1804, to arrange the formalities of the coronation. Of Napoleon's four brothers, two were in disgrace, Lucien and Jerome, and they were not to be present at the ceremony. As for Joseph and Louis, it was decided that they should appear, not as Princes of the blood, but only as high dignitaries of the Empire. Joseph, it will be remembered, was Grand Elector, and Louis was Constable.

This decision once taken, Joseph said in the council of November 17: "Since it has been recognized that, with the exception of the Head of the State, no one else, whatever his rank, can be regarded as partaking the honors of sovereignty, and that we especially are not treated as Princes, but only as high dignitaries, it would not be right that our wives, who henceforth are only wives of high dignitaries, should as Princesses carry the train of the Empress's robe, which consequently must be carried by Ladies of Honor or of the Palace." This remark displeased the Emperor, and many members of the council cited many examples to refute it, notably that of Maria de' Medici. Joseph, who had foreseen their arguments, displayed unexpected erudition: "Maria de' Medici," he said, "was accompanied only by Queen Margaret, the first wife of Henri IV., and by Madame (Catherine of Bourbon), the King's sister. The train was carried by a very distant relative. Queen Margaret had, indeed, offered a fine example of generosity by being present at the coronation of the woman who took her place and who, more fortunate than herself, had borne heirs to Henri IV. But she was not asked to carry the train of Maria de' Medici, and yet Maria de' Medici had a right to every honor, because she was a mother." This very transparent allusion to Josephine's barrenness so exasperated Napoleon that he arose suddenly from his chair and addressed his brother with the intensest bitterness and violence. After the meeting Joseph proposed to his brother retiring to Germany. Napoleon relented and, November 27, he said to his brother: "I have given a great deal of thought to the difference that has arisen between you and me, and I will confess that during the six days that this quarrel has lasted, I have not had a moment's peace. I have even lost my sleep over it, and you are the only person who has this power over me; I know nothing that disturbs me to this degree. This influence comes from my old affection for you and from my recollection of what you did for me in my boyhood, and I am much more dependent than you think on feelings of that sort.... Take your position in an hereditary monarchy and be the first of my subjects. That is a fine enough position, to be the second man in France, perhaps in Europe.... Comply with my wishes; follow my ideas; do not flatter the patriots when I drive them away; do not oppose the nobles when I summon them; form your household according to the principles that have guided me. In a word, be a Prince, and do not disturb yourself about the importance of the title."

Joseph at last yielded, and promised that his wife should conform without a murmur to the ceremonies established for the coronation. Only this concession was made to their susceptibilities: that in the rules the phrase, bear the cloak was substituted for carry the train, "for," as Miot de Mélito says, "Vanity will clutch at a straw."

As for Madame Bonaparte, Napoleon's mother, she persisted in remaining at Rome with Lucien. In spite of frequent messages from Paris, she was not to get there until some days after the coronation, a fact which did not prevent her appearing in the great picture commemorating the event, painted by David, who was successively Jacobin and Imperialist, and beginning with the apotheosis of Marat, celebrated that of Napoleon.

Pope Pius VII., then sixty-two years old, had left Rome November 2, after praying for a long time at the altar of Saint Peter's, The populace had followed his carriage for a long distance, weeping with terror at his undertaking a journey to revolutionary France. At Florence he had been received by the Queen of Etruria, then a widow and her son's Regent. At Lyons he became less anxious; a number of the inhabitants crowded about him, and fell on their knees, asking for the blessing of the Vicar of Christ. Meanwhile, Napoleon was putting the last touches to the repairs be had commenced at the Palace of Fontainebleau, to put it in a suitable condition to receive the Sovereign Pontiff. In less than twenty days the furnishing of the palace had been completed, and the castle had, as if by magic, resumed its old-time splendor.

Every one wondered how the first meeting between the Pope and the Emperor would take place. Many points of etiquette arose which Napoleon managed to elude. Pius VII. was to arrive through the forest of Fontainebleau, and the Emperor was to go to meet him through the forest of Nemours. To prevent all formality, Napoleon made an excuse of a hunting party. All the huntsmen, with their carriages, met in the forest. Napoleon was on horseback, in hunting dress. When he knew that the Pope and his suite were due at the cross of Saint Hérene--at noon, Sunday, November 25, 1804--he turned his horse in that direction, and as soon as he reached the half- moon at the top of the hill, he saw the Pope's carriage arriving.

According to the account given in the Memoirs of the Duke of Rovigo, the carriage of Pius VII. stopped, and the pontiff in his white robes got out by the left-hand door. The road was muddy, and he was averse to stepping into it with his white silk slippers; but there was nothing to be done. Napoleon got off his horse to receive him, and sprang cordially into his arms. These two famous men, who, although they were entire strangers, had already thought so often of each other, and were to exercise such great influence over each other's destiny, now met with deep emotion. As they were embracing, one of the Emperor's carriages, which had been ordered to drive up, pushed on a few steps as if by an oversight of the coachman; the footmen held both doors open; the Emperor took that on the right; a court official pointed to that on the left for the Pope, so that the two sovereigns entered the same carriage simultaneously by the two doors. The Emperor sat down naturally on the right-hand side, and this first step established the etiquette for the whole time of the Pope's stay, without discussion.

At the entrance of the Palace of Fontainebleau, the Empress, the high dignitaries of the Empire, the generals, were formed in a circle to receive and salute Pius VII. He was welcomed with the utmost reverence. His fine, noble face, his air of angelic kindness, his soft, yet sonorous voice, produced a deep impression. Josephine was especially moved by the presence of the Vicar of Christ. After resting a few moments in his private apartment, to which he had been conducted by M. de Talleyrand, High Chamberlain, by General Duroc, Grand Marshal of the Palace, and by M. de Ségur, Grand Master of Ceremonies, the Pope paid a visit to Napoleon, who, after an interview of about half an hour, conducted him back to the hall that was at that time called that of the High Officers. The two sovereigns dined together, and the Pope went early to bed, to rest himself after the fatigues of his long journey. The next evening some singers had been summoned to the Empress's apartment, but Pius VII. withdrew just as the concert was about to begin.

In the course of the day Josephine had had a private interview with the Pope, and had confided to him the secret which so distressed her. She who was reigning over the greatest of Catholic nations, the consort of the successor of the very Christian Kings, the wife of a ruler about to be crowned by the Pope, was married only by civil rite! She entreated Pius VII. to use all his influence with Napoleon to put an end to a situation which was a continual torture and reproach to her as a wife and as a Christian. The Pope appeared touched by the confidence of his dear daughter, as he always called the Empress, and promised to demand, and, if necessary, to insist, upon the celebration of the Emperor's religious marriage, as a condition of the coronation, and this promise filled Josephine with joy.