Part 3

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."

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.