Napoleon's Letters To Josephine Part 4

_May 7th.--Bonaparte pa.s.sed the Po at Placentia, and attacks Beaulieu, who has 40,000 Austrians._

_May 8th.--Austrians defeated at Fombio. Lose 2500 prisoners, guns, and 3 standards. Skirmish of Codogno--death of General La Harpe._

_May 9th.--Capitulation of Parma by the Grand Duke, who pays ransom of 2 million francs, 1600 artillery horses, food, and 20 paintings._

_May 10th.--Pa.s.sage of Bridge of Lodi. Austrians lose 2000 men and 20 cannon._

_May 14th.--Bonaparte was requested to divide his command, and thereupon tendered his resignation._

_May 15th.--Bonaparte enters Milan. Lombardy pays ransom of 20 million francs; and the Duke of Modena 10 millions, and 20 pictures._

_May 24th-25th.--Revolt of Lombardy, and punishment of Pavia by the French._

_May 30th-31st.--Bonaparte defeats Beaulieu at Borghetto, crosses the Mincio, and makes French cavalry fight (a new feature for the Republican troops)._

_June 3rd.--Occupies Verona, and secures the line of the Adige._

_June 4th._--Battle of Altenkirchen (Franconia) won by Jourdan.

_June 5th.--Armistice with Naples. Their troops secede from the Austrian army._

No. 7.

TO JOSEPHINE.

_Tortona, Noon, June 15th._

My life is a perpetual nightmare. A presentiment of ill oppresses me.

I see you no longer. I have lost more than life, more than happiness, more than my rest. I am almost without hope. I hasten to send a courier to you. He will stay only four hours in Paris, and then bring me your reply. Write me ten pages. That alone can console me a little. You are ill, you love me, I have made you unhappy, you are in delicate health, and I do not see you!--that thought overwhelms me. I have done you so much wrong that I know not how to atone for it; I accuse you of staying in Paris, and you were ill there. Forgive me, my dear; the love with which you have inspired me has bereft me of reason. I shall never find it again. It is an ill for which there is no cure. My presentiments are so ominous that I would confine myself to merely seeing you, to pressing you for two hours to my heart--and then dying with you. Who looks after you? I expect you have sent for Hortense. I love that sweet child a thousand times more when I think she can console you a little, though for me there is neither consolation nor repose, nor hope until the courier that I have sent comes back; and until, in a long letter, you explain to me what is the nature of your illness, and to what extent it is serious; if it be dangerous, I warn you, I start at once for Paris. My coming shall coincide with your illness. I have always been fortunate, never has my destiny resisted my will, and to-day I am hurt in what touches me solely (_uniquement_). Josephine, how can you remain so long without writing to me; your last laconic letter is dated May 22. Moreover, it is a distressing one for me, but I always keep it in my pocket; your portrait and letters are perpetually before my eyes.

I am nothing without you. I scarcely imagine how I existed without knowing you. Ah! Josephine, had you known my heart would you have waited from May 18th to June 4th before starting? Would you have given an ear to perfidious friends who are perhaps desirous of keeping you away from me? I openly avow it to every one, I hate everybody who is near you. I expected you to set out on May 24th, and arrive on June 3rd.

Josephine, if you love me, if you realise how everything depends on your health, take care of yourself. I dare not tell you not to undertake so long a journey, and that, too, in the hot weather. At least, if you are fit to make it, come by short stages; write me at every sleeping-place, and despatch your letters in advance.

All my thoughts are concentrated in thy boudoir, in thy bed, on thy heart. Thy illness!--that is what occupies me night and day. Without appet.i.te, without sleep, without care for my friends, for glory, for fatherland, you, you alone--the rest of the world exists no more for me than if it were annihilated. I prize honour since you prize it, I prize victory since it pleases you; without that I should leave everything in order to fling myself at your feet.

Sometimes I tell myself that I alarm myself unnecessarily; that even now she is better, that she is starting, has started, is perhaps already at Lyons. Vain fancies! you are in bed suffering, more beautiful, more interesting, more lovable. You are pale and your eyes are more languis.h.i.+ng, but when will you be cured? If one of us ought to be ill it is I--more robust, more courageous; I should support illness more easily. Destiny is cruel, it strikes at me through you.

What consoles me sometimes is to think that it is in the power of destiny to make you ill; but it is in the power of no one to make me survive you.

In your letter, dear, be sure to tell me that you are convinced that I love you more than it is possible to imagine; that you are persuaded that all my moments are consecrated to you; that to think of any other woman has never entered my head--they are all in my eyes without grace, wit, or beauty; that you, you alone, such as I see you, such as you are, can please me, and absorb all the faculties of my mind; that you have traversed its whole extent; that my heart has no recess into which you have not seen, no thoughts which are not subordinate to yours; that my strength, my prowess, my spirit are all yours; that my soul is in your body; and that the day on which you change or cease to live will be my death-day; that Nature, that Earth, is beautiful only because you dwell therein. If you do not believe all this, if your soul is not convinced, penetrated by it, you grieve me, you do not love me--there is a magnetic fluid between people who love one another--you know perfectly well that I could not brook a rival, much less offer you one.[15] To tear out his heart and to see him would be for me one and the same thing, and then if I were to carry my hands against your sacred person--no, I should never dare to do it; but I would quit a life in which the most virtuous of women had deceived me.

But I am sure and proud of your love; misfortunes are the trials which reveal to each mutually the whole force of our pa.s.sion. A child as charming as its mamma will soon see the daylight, and will pa.s.s many years in your arms. Hapless me! I would be happy with one _day_. A thousand kisses on your eyes, your lips, your tongue, your heart. Most charming of thy s.e.x, what is thy power over me? I am very sick of thy sickness; I have still a burning fever! Do not keep the courier more than six hours, and let him return at once to bring me the longed-for letter of my Beloved.

Do you remember my dream, in which I was your boots, your dress, and in which I made you come bodily into my heart? Why has not Nature arranged matters in this way; she has much to do yet.

N. B.

_A la citoyenne Bonaparte, &c._

_June 18th.--Bonaparte enters Modena, and takes 50 cannon at Urbino._

_June 19th.--Occupies Bologna, and takes 114 cannon._

_June 23rd.--Armistice with Rome. The Pope to pay 21 millions, 100 rare pictures, 200 MSS., and to close his ports to the English._

_June 24th._--Desaix, with part of Moreau's army, forces the pa.s.sage of the Rhine.

No. 8.

TO JOSEPHINE.

_Pistoia, Tuscany, June 26th._

For a month I have only received from my dear love two letters of three lines each. Is she so busy, that writing to her dear love is not then needful for her, nor, consequently, thinking about him? To live without thinking of Josephine would be death and annihilation to your husband. Your image gilds my fancies, and enlivens the black and sombre picture of melancholy and grief. A day perhaps may come in which I shall see you, for I doubt not you will be still at Paris, and verily on that day I will show you my pockets stuffed with letters that I have not sent you because they are too foolish (_bete_). Yes, that's the word. Good heavens! tell me, you who know so well how to make others love you without being in love yourself, do you know how to cure me of love??? I will give a good price for that remedy.

You ought to have started on May 24th. Being good-natured, I waited till June 1st, as if a pretty woman would give up her habits, her friends, both Madame Tallien and a dinner with Barras, and the acting of a new play, and Fortune; yes, Fortune, whom you love much more than your husband, for whom you have only a little of the esteem, and a share of that benevolence with which your heart abounds. Every day I count up your misdeeds. I lash myself to fury in order to love you no more. Bah, don't I love you the more? In fact, my peerless little mother, I will tell you my secret. Set me at defiance, stay at Paris, have lovers--let everybody know it--never write me a monosyllable!

then I shall love you ten times more for it; and it is not folly, a delirious fever! and I shall not get the better of it. Oh! would to heaven I could get better! but don't tell me you are ill, don't try to justify yourself. Good heavens! you are pardoned. I love you to distraction, and never will my poor heart cease to give all for love.

If you did not love me, my fate would be indeed grotesque. You have not written me; you are ill, you do not come. But you have pa.s.sed Lyons; you will be at Turin on the 28th, at Milan on the 30th, where you will wait for me. You will be in Italy, and I shall be still far from you. Adieu, my well-beloved; a kiss on thy mouth, another on thy heart.

We have made peace with Rome--who gives us money. To-morrow we shall be at Leghorn, and as soon as I can in your arms, at your feet, on your bosom.

_A la citoyenne Bonaparte, &c._

_June 27th.--Leghorn occupied by Murat and Vaubois._

_June 29th.--Surrender of citadel of Milan; 1600 prisoners and 150 cannon taken._

FOOTNOTES

[14] _Un millier de baise_ (sic).

[15] So Tennant (_t'en offrir un_): but Baron Feuillet de Conches, an expert in Napoleonic graphology, renders the expression _t'en souffrir un_.

SERIES B

(1796-97)