THE DIVORCE OF JOSEPHINE.

BY REV. JOHN S. C. ABBOTT.

See Plate.

NAPOLEON cherished a strong attachment | a long time seemed lost in the most painful to his little grandchild, the son of Hortense and of his brother Louis. The boy was extremely beautiful, and developed all those noble and spirited traits of character which peculiarly delighted the Emperor. Napoleon had apparently determined to make the young prince his heir. This was so generally the understanding, both in France and in Holland, that Josephine was quite at ease, and serene days dawned again upon her heart.

composure. They sat down at the table in silence. Napoleon did not speak: Josephine could not trust her voice to utter a word. Neither ate a mouthful. Course after course was brought in and removed untouched. A mortal paleness revealed the anguish of each heart. Napoleon, in his embarrassment, mechanically, and apparently unconsciously, struck the edge of his glass with his knife, while lost in thought. A more melancholy meal probably was never witnessed. The attendants around the table seemed to catch the infection, and moved softly and silently in the discharge of their duties, as if they were in the chamber of the dead. At last the ceremony of dinner was over, the attendants were dismissed, and Napoleon, rising and closing the door with his own hand, was left alone with Josephine. Another moment of most painful silence ensued, when the Em

of the most feverish solicitude, and yet was compelled to appear calm and unconstrained. As yet she had only fearful forebodings of her impending doom. She watched, with most excited apprehension, every movement of the Emperor's eye, every intonation of his voice, every sentiment he uttered. Each day some new and trivial indication confirmed her fears. Her husband became more reserved, absented himself from her society, and the private access between their apartments was closed. He now seldom entered her room, and when he did so, he invariably knocked. And yet not one word had passed between him and Josephine upon the fearful subject. Whenever Josephine heard the sound of his approaching footsteps, the fear that he was coming with the terrible announcement of separation immediately caused such violent palpitations of the heart, that it was with the utmost difficulty she could tot-peror, pale as death, and trembling in every ter across the floor, even when supporting herself by leaning against the walls, and catching at the articles of furniture.

The months of October and November passed away, and, while the Emperor was discussing with his cabinet the alliance into which he should enter, he had not yet summoned courage to break the subject to Josephine. The evidence is indubitable that he experienced intense anguish in view of the separation; but this did not influence his iron will to swerve from its purpose. The grandeur of his fame, and the magnitude of his power, were now such, that there was not a royal family in Europe which would not have felt honored in conferring upon him a bride. It was at first contemplated that he should marry some princess of the Bourbon family, and thus add to the stability of his throne by conciliating the Royalists of France. A princess of Saxony was proposed. Some weighty considerations urged an alliance with the majestic Empire of Russia, and some advances were made to the court of St. Petersburg, having in view a sister of the Emperor Alexander. It was finally decided that proposals should be made to the court of Vienna for Maria Louisa, daughter of the Emperor of Austria.

nerve, approached the Empress. He took her hand, placed it upon his heart, and in faltering accents said, "Josephine! my own good Josephine! you know how I have loved you. It is to you alone that I owe the only few moments of happiness I have known in the world. Josephine! my destiny is stronger than my will. My dearest affections must yield to the interests of France."

Josephine's brain reeled; her blood ceased to circulate; she fainted, and fell lifeless upon the floor. Napoleon, alarmed, threw open the door of the saloon, and called for help. Attendants from the ante-room immediately entered. Napoleon took a taper from the mantel, and uttering not a word, but pale and trembling, motioned to the Count de Beaumont to take the Empress in his arms. She was still unconscious of everything, but began to murmur, in tones of anguish, "Oh, no! you cannot surely do it. You would not kill me." The Emperor led the way, through a dark passage, to the staircase which conducted to the apartment of the Empress. The agitation of Napoleon seemed now to increase. He uttered some incoherent sentences about a violent nervous attack; and, finding the stairs too steep and narrow for the Count de Beaumont to bear the body of the helpless Josephine unassisted, he gave the light to an attendant, and, porting her limbs himself, they reached the door of her bedroom. Napoleon then, dismissing his male attendants, and laying Josephine upon her bed, rung for her waiting

At length the fatal day arrived for the announcement to Josephine. It was the last day of November, 1809. The Emperor and Empress dined at Fontainebleau alone. She seems to have had a presentiment that her doom was sealed, for all that day she had been in her retired apartment, weeping bit-women. terly. As the dinner-hour approached, she bathed her swollen eyes, and tried to regain

sup

He hung over her with an expression of the most intense affection and anxiety until she began to revive. But the moment

consciousness seemed returning, he left the room. Napoleon did not even throw himself upon his bed that night. He paced the floor until the dawn of the morning. The royal surgeon, Corvisart, passed the night at the bedside of the Empress. Every hour the restless yet unrelenting Emperor called at her door to inquire concerning her situation. "On recovering from my swoon," says Josephine, “I perceived that Corvisart was in attendance, and my poor daughter Hortense weeping over me. No! no! I cannot describe the horror of my situation during that night! Even the interest he affected to take in my sufferings seemed to me additional cruelty. Oh! how much reason had I to dread becoming an Empress!"

A fortnight now passed away, during which Napoleon and Josephine saw but little of each other. During this time there occurred the anniversary of the coronation, and of the victory of Austerlitz. Paris was filled with rejoicing. The bells rang their merriest peals. The metropolis was refulgent with illuminations. In these festivities Josephine was compelled to appear. She knew that the sovereigns and princes then assembled in Paris were informed of her approaching disgrace. In all these sounds of triumph she heard but the knell of her own doom. And though a careful observer would have detected indications in her moistened eye and her pallid cheek of the secret woe which was consuming her heart, her habitual affability and grace never, in public, for one moment forsook her. Hortense, languid and sorrowstricken, was with her mother.

Eugene was summoned from Italy. He hastened to Paris, and his first interview was with his mother. From her saloon he went directly to the cabinet of Napoleon, and in quired of the Emperor if he had decided to obtain a divorce from the Empress. Napoleon, who was very strongly attached to Eugene, made no reply, but pressed his hand as an expression that it was so. Eugene immediately dropped the hand of the Emperor,

and said,

"Sire, in that case, permit me to withdraw from your service."

"How!" exclaimed Napoleon, looking upon him sadly; "will you, Eugene, my adopted son, leave me?"

"Yes, sire," Eugene replied, firmly; "the son of her who is no longer Empress cannot remain Viceroy. I will follow my mother into her retreat. She must now find her consolation in her children."

filled his eyes. In a mournful voice, tremulous with emotion, he replied, "Eugene, you know the stern necessity which compels this measure, and will you forsake me? Who, then, should I have a son, the object of my desire and preserver of my interests, who would watch over the child when I am absent? If I die, who will prove to him a father? Who will bring him up? Who is to make a man of him ?"

Eugene was deeply affected, and, taking Napoleon's arm, they retired and conversed a long time together. The noble Josephine, ever sacrificing her own feelings to promote the happiness of others, urged her son to remain the friend of Napoleon. "The Emperor," she said, "is your benefactor-your more than father, to whom you are indebted for everything, and to whom, therefore, you owe a boundless obedience."

The fatal day for the consummation of the divorce at length arrived. It was the 15th of December, 1809. Napoleon had assembled all the kings, princes, and princesses who were members of the imperial family, and also the most illustrious officers of the Empire, in the grand saloon of the Tuileries. Every individual present was oppressed with the melancholy grandeur of the occasion. Napoleon thus addressed them:-

For many

"The political interests of my monarchy, the wishes of my people, which have constantly guided my actions, require that I should transmit to an heir, inheriting my love for the people, the throne on which Providence has placed me. years I have lost all hopes of having children by my beloved spouse, the Empress Josephine. It is this consideration which induces me to sacrifice the sweetest affections of my heart, to consult only the good of my subjects, and to desire the dissolution of our marriage. Arrived at the age of forty years, I may indulge a reasonable hope of living long enough to rear, in the spirit of my own thoughts and disposition, the children with which it may please Providence to bless me. God knows what such a determination has cost my heart; but there is no sacrifice which is above my courage, when it is proved to be for the interests of France. Far from having any cause of complaint, I have nothing to say but in praise of the attachment and tenderness of my beloved wife. She has embellished fifteen years of my life, and the remembrance of them will be forever engraved on my heart. She was crowned by my hand; she shall retain always the rank and title of Empress. Above all, let her never doubt my feelings, or regard me but as her best and dearest friend."

Josephine, her eyes filled with tears, with Napoleon was not without feelings. Tears a faltering voice replied: "I respond to all

the sentiments of the Emperor in consenting to the dissolution of a marraige which henceforth is an obstacle to the happiness of France, by depriving it of the blessing of being one day governed by the descendants of that great man who was evidently raised up by Providence to efface the evils of a terrible revolution, and to restore the altar, and the throne, and social order. But his marriage will in no respect change the sentiments of my heart. The Emperor will ever find in me his best friend. I know what this act, commended by policy and exalted interests, has cost his heart, but we both glory in the sacrifices we make for the good of the country. I feel elevated in giving the greatest proof of attachment and devotion that was ever given upon earth."

Such were the sentiments which were expressed in public; but in private Josephine surrendered herself to the unrestrained dominion of her anguish. No language can depict the intensity of her woe. For six months she wept so incessantly that her eyes were nearly blinded with grief. Upon the ensuing day the council were again assembled in the grand saloon, to witness the legal consummation of the divorce. The Emperor entered the room dressed in the imposing robes of state, but pallid, care-worn, and wretched. Low tones of voice, harmonizing with the mournful scene, filled the room. Napoleon, apart by himself, leaned against a pillar, folded his arms upon his breast, and in perfect silence, apparently lost in gloomy thought, remained motionless as a statue. A circular table was placed in the centre of the apartment, and upon this there was a writing apparatus of gold. A vacant arm-chair

moved to tears. With that grace which ever distinguished her movements, she advanced silently to the seat provided for her. Sitting down, and leaning her forehead upon her hand, she listened to the reading of the act of separation. Nothing disturbed the sepulchral silence of the scene but the convulsive sobbings of Hortense, blended with the mournful tones of the reader's voice. Eugene, in the mean time, pale and trembling as an aspen leaf, had taken a position by the side of his mother. Silent tears were trickling down the cheeks of the Empress.

As soon as the reading of the act of separation was finished, Josephine for a moment pressed her handkerchief to her weeping eyes, and then rising, in clear and musical, but tremulous tons pronounced the oath of acceptance. She then sat down, took the pen, and affixed her signature to the deed which sundered the dearest hopes and the fondest ties which human hearts can feel. Poor Eugene could endure this anguish no longer. His brain reeled, his heart ceased to beat, and he fell lifeless upon the floor. Josephine and Hortense retired with the attendants who bore out the insensible form of the affectionate son and brother. It was a fitting termination of this mournful but sublime tragedy.

But the anguish of the day was not yet closed. Josephine, half delirious with grief, had another scene still more painful to pass through in taking a final adieu of him who had been her husband. She remained in her chamber, in heart-rending, speechless grief, until the hour arrived in which Napoleon usually retired for the night. The Emperor, restless and wretched, had just placed stood before the table. Never did a multi-himself in the bed from which he had tude gaze upon the scaffold, the block, or ejected his most faithful and devoted wife, the guillotine with more awe than the assem- and the attendant was on the point of learbled lords and ladies in this gorgeous salooning the room, when the private door of his contemplated these instruments of a more dreadful execution.

At length the mournful silence was interrupted by the opening of a side door, and the entrance of Josephine. The pallor of death was upon her brow, and the submission of despair nerved her into a temporary calmness. She was leaning upon the arm of Hortense, who, not possessing the fortitude of her mother, was entirely unable to control her feelings. The sympathetic daughter, immediately upon entering into the room, burst into tears, and continued sobbing most convulsively during the whole remaining scene. The assembly respectfully arose upon the entrance of Josephine, and all were

chamber was slowly opened, and Josephine tremblingly entered. Her eyes were swollen with grief, her hair dishevelled, and she appeared in all the dishabille of unutterable anguish. She tottered into the middle of the room, and approached the bed; then, irresolutely stopping, she buried her face in her hands, and burst into a flood of tears. A feeling of delicacy seemed for a moment to have arrested her steps-a consciousness that she had now no right to enter the chamber of Napoleon; but in another moment all the pent-up love of her heart burst forth, and, forgetting everything in the fulness of her anguish, she threw herself upon the bed, clasped Napoleon's neck in her arms, and

exclaiming, "My husband! my husband!" | death-like pallor of his cheek, his sunken sobbed as though her heart were breaking. eye, and the haggard expression of his counThe imperial spirit of Napoleon was for the tenance, attested that the Emperor had moment entirely vanquished, and he also passed the night in sleeplessness and sufferwept almost convulsively. He assured Joing. sephine of his love-of his ardent and undying love. In every way he tried to soothe and comfort her, and for some time they remained locked in each other's embrace. The attendant was dismissed, and for an hour they continued together in this last private interview. Josephine then, in the experience of an intensity of anguish which few hearts have ever known, parted forever from the husband whom she had so long, so fondly, and so faithfully loved.

After the Empress had retired, with a desolated heart, to her chamber of unnatural widowhood, the attendant entered the apartment of Napoleon to remove the lights. He found the Emperor so buried beneath the bed-clothes as to be invisible. Not a word was uttered. The lights were removed, and the unhappy monarch was left in darkness and silence to the dreadful companionship of his own thoughts. The next morning the

Great as was the wrong which Napoleon thus inflicted upon the noble Josephine, every one must be sensible of a certain kind of grandeur which pervades the tragedy. When we contemplate the brutal butcheries of Henry VIII. as wife after wife was compelled to place her head upon the block, merely to afford room for the indulgence of his vagrant passions; when we contemplate George IV. by neglect and inhumanity driving Caroline to desperation and to crime, and polluting the ear of the world with the revolting story of sin and shame; when we contemplate the Bourbons, generation after generation, rioting in voluptuousness, in utter disregard of all the laws of God and man, while we cannot abate one tithe of our condemnation of the great wrong which Napoleon perpetrated, we feel that it becomes the monarchies of Europe to be sparing in their condemnation.

scarcely less interest. Stretching along the valley, which is watered by the Cephissus, is an extensive olivegrove. It is at once recognized to be the Grove of Academus. Though no very celebrated works of art were collected here, and though no illustrious spot, yet contests of a different kind were here carried on, and victories scarcely less glorious and permanent than those of Marathon and Salamis were here won. The laurels of Plato are still fresh and green as those of Miltiades and Themistocles. It is surely not easy to estimate the effect of the victories which were gained at Marathon and Salamis on the tide of human events; but it would be equally difficult to estimate the influence of that philoso

THE GROVE OF ACADEMUS.-A correspondent of the Recorder, writing from Athens, alludes with much spirit and interest to this spot. It was indeed a distinguished one in the history of Greece and the records of this city, the capital. But few men have lived who have possessed the native talents and the literary attainments of Plato. The Academy he planted in what is termed "The Grove of Academus," was consecrated to philosophy and letters, and its light shone over the whole republic of Greece. Plato, for a pagan, and living amid the darkness of paganism, did make some glorious discoveries of the future, and from it drew exalted and powerful motives to virtue and piety. As a teacher he was never surpassed; and the proof is found in such phi-phy which proceeded from the Academy. The Persian, losophers as he trained to imbibe his spirit and extend his researches. The master minds of illustrious Greece were those who received their discipline and knowledge in this far-famed Grove." Had he lived in our day, and were his noble powers enlisted in the cause of Christianity, like those of a Paul, what wonders would he accomplish! Yet, we love to read of him and his influence in those dark times, and to hear of the place where he gave his lessons in philosophy and virtue. This correspondent proceeds to say :

To the left of the Acropoiis is another object of

with his millions, without doubt, once occupied a much larger space in the eye of the world than the crowd of Athenian Sophists; but the day has now arrived when victories over mind are considered not less difficult and important than the resistance of physical force, however great and the conquests of the Platonic philosophy, imperfect though it was as a system, over the sensual and skeptical tendencies of the age in which it flourished, are now ranked among the proudest achievements of the Grecian race.