Empress Josephine: An Historical Sketch of the Days of Napoleon Part 31

Meanwhile this separation was to last longer than Bonaparte had imagined. War held him entangled in its web so fast, that he had not time even to write to Josephine. In the next two letters he could only tell her, in a few lines, what had happened at the theatre of war; that he had again defeated Wurmser, and had surrounded him, and that he hopes to take Mantua. Even for his constant complaint about Josephine's slothfullness in writing, he finds no room in these short letters. In the next letter, however, it appears the more violently. He has no time to give her, as was his usual practice, any account of the war.

He begins at once with the main object, which is--"Josephine has not written:"

"VERONA, 1st day of Complementaires in Year V," "(September 17, 1796).

"I write to you often, my beloved one, but you write seldom to me. You are wicked and hateful, very hateful--as hateful as you are inconstant.

It is indeed faithlessness to deceive a wretched man, a tender lover!

Must he lose his rights because he is away, burdened with hards.h.i.+p and labor? Without his Josephine, without the certainty of her love, what is there on earth for him? What would he do here?

"We had yesterday a very b.l.o.o.d.y affair; the enemy has lost many men, and is well beaten. We have taken his advanced works before Mantua.

"Farewell, adored Josephine! One of these nights the doors will open with a loud crash: as a jealous man, I am in your arms!

"A thousand dear kisses! BONAPARTE."

But the doors were not to be opened on any of the following nights for the jealous one! The events of war were to keep him away a long time from his Josephine. The Austrian Generals Wurmser and Alvinzi, with their two armies, demanded all the energy and activity of Bonaparte.

Meanwhile, as he was preparing for the great battles which were to decide the fate of Italy, his thoughts were always turned to his Josephine; his deep longings grew day by day, still he had no longer cause to complain that Josephine did not write, that she had forgotten him! Contrariwise, Josephine did write; she had, while he was writing her angry letters about her silence, written several times, for Bonaparte in the following letter says that he has received many letters from her, which, probably on account of the difficulties of communication, had been delayed. He had received them with the highest delight, and pressed them to his lips and heart. But no sooner had he rejoiced over them, than he complains that they are cold, reserved, and old. No word, no expression, satisfies his ardent love. He complains that her letters are cold, and then, when she dips her pen in the fire of tender love, he complains again that her glowing letters "turn his blood into fire, and stir up his whole being." Love, with all its wantonness and all its pains, holds him captive in its hands, and the general has no means of appeasing the lover.

The letter which complains of Josephine's coldness is dated

"MODENA, 26th Vendemiaire of the Year V." (October 17, 1796),

"I was yesterday the whole day on the field. To-day I have kept my bed.

Fever and a violent headache have debarred me from writing to my adored one; but I have received her letters, I pressed them to my lips and to my heart, and the anguish of a separation of hundreds of miles disappeared. At this moment I see you at my side, neither capricious nor angry, but soft, tender, and wrapped in that goodness which is exclusively the attribute of my Josephine. It was a dream--judge if it could drive the fever away. Your letters are as cold as if you were fifty years old; they seem to have been composed after a marriage of fifteen years. One can see in them the friends.h.i.+p and sentiments of the winter of life. Pshaw! Josephine, ... that is very naughty, very abominable, very treasonable on your part. What more remains to make me worthy of pity? All is already done! To love me no more! To hate me! Well, then, let it be so! Every thing humiliates but hatred, and indifference with its marmoreal pulse, its staring eyes, and its measured steps. A thousand thousand kisses as tender as my heart! I am somewhat better. I leave to-morrow. The English are cruising on the Mediterranean. Corsica is ours. Good news for France and for the army.

"BONAPARTE."

Bonaparte had gone to wage the last decisive battle. He writes to her from Verona a few lines that he has arrived there, and that he is just going to mount his horse to pursue the march. In this letter, however, he does not tell Josephine that General Vaubois, with his fugitive regiments, has been beaten by the Tyrolese, and that, driven from their mountains, he has arrived in Verona; that Alvinzi occupies the Tyrol and has pushed on to Brenta and to Etsch. Bonaparte was gathering his troops to drive away General Alvinzi, who had occupied the heights of Caldiero, from these important positions, and to take possession of them by main force. A violent and desperate struggle ensued, and the day ended with victory on the side of the Austrians. Bonaparte had to return to Verona; Alvinzi maintained himself on the heights.

To the irritated general, disappointed in his plans and humiliated, his love becomes his "bete de souffrance," upon which he takes vengeance for the defeat of Caldiero. Josephine has to endure the flaming wrath of Bonaparte, in whom now general and lover are fused into one; but in his expressions of anger the general has no complaints--it is the lover who murmurs, who reprimands, and is irritated.

On the evening of the 12th November, the day of the defeat of Caldiero, Bonaparte returned to Verona. The next day he wrote to Josephine:

"VERONA, the 3d Frimaire, Year V." (November 13, 1796)

"I love you no more; on the contrary, I hate you. You are a wicked creature, very inconsistent, very stupid, very silly. You do not write to me. You do not love your husband. You know how much pleasure your letters would afford, and you do not write to him even six lines, which you can readily scribble out."

"How, then, do you begin the day, madame? What important occupation takes away your time from writing to your very excellent lover? What new inclination chokes and thrusts aside the tender, abiding love which you have promised him? What can this wonderful, this new love be, which lays claim to all your time, and rules over your days, and hinders you from occupying yourself with your husband? Josephine, be on your guard; on some evil night the doors will be burst open and I shall stand before you!"

"In truth, I am restless, my dear one, because I receive no news from you. Write me at once four pages about those things, which fill my heart with emotion and pleasure.

"I trust soon to fold you in my arms, and then I will overwhelm you with a million of kisses burning like the equator."

"BONAPARTE."

Whilst Bonaparte was pursuing and engaging with Wurmser and Alvinzi in b.l.o.o.d.y hostilities, and writing to Josephine tender and angry letters of a lover ever jealous, ever dissatisfied and envious, Josephine was leading in Milan a life full of pleasure and amus.e.m.e.nt, full of splendor and triumphs, of receptions and festivities. Every new victory, every onward movement, was for the inhabitants of Milan, and her proud and rich n.o.bles, a fresh and welcome occasion to celebrate and glorify the wife of General Bonaparte, and, through her, the hero who was to take away from their necks the yoke of the Austrian, and who suspected not that he was so soon to place upon them another yoke.

Josephine, true to the wishes and commands of Bonaparte, accepted these festivities and this homage with all the affability and grace which distinguished her. She had by degrees become familiar with this ceaseless homage, which at first seemed so wearisome; by degrees she took delight in this life of pleasure, in the incense of adulation, and the brilliancies of fame. All the indolence, the dreamy carelessness, the graceful abandonment of the creole had been again awakened in her.

She cradled herself playfully on the lulling, bright waves of pleasure as an insect with golden wings, and she smiled complacently at the stream of encircling festivities.

Bonaparte had told her to use all the arts of a woman to bind the Milanese and the Lombards to herself and to her husband. With her smiles she was to continue the conquest begun by Bonaparte's sword.

She could not, therefore, live alone in quiet solitude; she could not remain in obscurity while her husband was performing his part on the theatre of war; she could not, by an appearance of gravity, or by a clouded brow, furnish occasion to the suspicion that there existed doubt in the future success of her husband, or in his prosperity and victory.

Roses were to crown her brow--a cheerful smile was to beam on her countenance; with joyous spirit, she was to take part in the festivities and pleasures--that the Milanese might see with what earnest confidence she believed in Napoleon's star! But Bonaparte, with all the instinct of a genuine lover, had read the deepest secret of her soul; he was envious and jealous, because he felt that Josephine did not belong to him with her whole heart, her whole being, all her emotions and thoughts. Her heart, which had received from the past so many scars and wounds, could not yet have blossomed anew; it had been warmed by the glow of Bonaparte's love, but it was not yet thoroughly penetrated with that pa.s.sion which Bonaparte so painfully missed, so intensely craved.

The earnest, unfettered nature of his love intimidated her, while it ravished and flattered her vanity; but her heart was not entirely his, it had yet room for her children, for her friends, for the things of this world!

Josephine loved Bonaparte with that soft, modest, and retiring affection, which only by degrees--by the storms of anguish, jealousy, agony, and the possibility of losing him--was to be fanned into that vitality and glow which never cooled again in her heart, and which at last gave her the death-stroke.

She therefore thought she was fulfilling her task when she, while Bonaparte was fighting with weapons, conquered with smiles, and received the homage of the conquered only as a tribute which they brought through her to the warlike genius of her husband.

Meanwhile Bonaparte had taken vengeance for his defeat at Caldiero.

Through a ruse of war, he had decoyed Alvinzi from his safe and impregnable position into one where he could meet him with his army anxious for the fray, and give him battle.

The gigantic struggle lasted three days--and the close of the third day brought to the conqueror, Bonaparte, the laurel-wreath of undying glory, which, more enduring and dazzling than an imperial crown, surrounded with a halo the hero's brow long after that crown had fallen from it.

This was the victory of Arcola, which Bonaparte himself decided by s.n.a.t.c.hing from the flag-bearer the standard of the retreating regiment, and rus.h.i.+ng with it, through a shower of b.a.l.l.s, over the bridge of death and destruction, and, with a voice heard above the thundering cannon, shouting jubilant to his soldiers--"En avant, mes amis!" And bravely the soldiers followed him--a brilliant victory was the result.

Elevated by this deed, the grandest and most glorious of his heroic career, Napoleon returned to Verona on the 19th November. The whole city--all Lombardy--sang to his praise their inspired hymns, and greeted with enthusiasm the conqueror of Arcola. He, however, wanted a sweeter reward; and after obtaining a second victory, on the 23d of November, by defeating Wurmser near Mantua, he longed to rest and enjoy an hour's happiness in the arms of his Josephine.

From Verona he wrote to her on the day after the battle of Mantua, on the 24th of November:

"I hope soon to be in your arms, my beloved one; I love you to madness!

I write by this courier for Paris. All is well. Wurmser was defeated yesterday under Mantua. Your husband needs nothing but the love of his Josephine to be happy. BONAPARTE."

But the most terrible doubts hung yet over this love. The letter in which Napoleon announced his coming had not reached Josephine; and, as the next day he came to Milan with all the cravings and impatience of a lover, he did not find Josephine there.

She had not suspected his coming; she had not dreamed that the commanding officer could stop in his victorious course and give way to the lover. She thought him far away; and, ever faithful to Bonaparte's direction to a.s.sist him in the conquest of Italy, she had accepted an invitation from the city of Genoa, which had lately and gladly entered into alliance with France. The most brilliant festivities welcomed her in this city of wealth and palaces, and "Genova la superba" gathered all its magnificence, all the splendor of its glory, to offer, under the eyes of all Europe, her solemn homage to the wife of the celebrated hero of Arcola.

While Josephine, with joyous pride was receiving this homage, Bonaparte, gloomy and murmuring, sat in his cabinet at Milan, and wrote to her:

"MILAN, the 7th Frimaire, Year V.," Three o'clock. afternoon (November 27, 1796).

"I have just arrived in Milan, and rush to your apartments. I have left every thing to see you, to press you in my arms; .... you are not there!

You are pursuing a circle of festivities through the cities. You go away from me at my approach; you trouble yourself no more about your dear Napoleon. A spleen has made you love him; inconstancy renders you indifferent.

"Accustomed to dangers, I know a remedy against ennui and the troubles of life. The wretchedness I endure is not to be measured; I am ent.i.tled not to expect it.

"I will wait here until the 9th. Do not trouble yourself. Pursue your pleasures; happiness is made for you. The whole world is too happy when it can please you, and your husband alone is very, very unhappy.

"BONAPARTE."

But this cry of anguish from this crushed heart did not reach Josephine; and the courier, who next day came to Milan from Genoa, brought from Josephine only a letter with numerous commissions for Berthier.

Bonaparte's anger and sorrow knew no bounds, and he at once writes to her with all the utterances of despair and complaint of a lover, and the proud wrath of an injured husband:

"MILAN, the 8th Frimaire, Year V., eight o'clock, evening.

"The courier whom Berthier had sent to Milan has just arrived. You have had no time to write to me; that I can understand very well. In the midst of pleasures and amus.e.m.e.nts it would have been too much for you to make the smallest sacrifice for me. Berthier has shown me the letter you wrote to him. It is not my purpose to trouble you in your arrangements or in the festivities which you are enjoying; I am not worth the trouble; the happiness or the misery of a man you love no longer has not the right to interest you.