The Court of the Empress Josephine | Page 7

effaced all her suite." Three days later the
Emperor started for the camp at Boulogne.
In spite of the enthusiasm of the people and the army, one thing became
clear to every thoughtful observer, and that was that the new régime,
lacking strength to resist misfortunes, must have perpetual success in
order to live. Napoleon was condemned, by the form of his government,
not merely to succeed, but to dazzle, to astonish, to subjugate. His
Empire required extraordinary magnificence, prodigious effects,
Babylonian festivities, gigantic adventures, colossal victories. His
Imperial escutcheon, to escape contempt, needed rich coats of gilding,
and demanded glory to make up for the lack of antiquity. In order to
make himself acceptable to the European, monarchs, his new brothers,
and to remove the memory of the venerable titles of the Bourbons, this
former officer of the armies of Louis XVI., the former
second-lieutenant of artillery, who had suddenly become a Caesar, a
Charlemagne, could make this sudden and strange transformation
comprehensible only through unprecedented fame and splendor. He
desired to have a feudal, majestic court, surrounded by all the pomp
and ceremony of the Middle Ages. He saw how hard was the part he
had to play, and he knew very well how much a nation needs glory to
make it forget liberty. Hence a perpetual effort to make every day
outshine the one before, and first to equal, then to surpass, the
splendors of the oldest and most famous dynasties. This insatiable thirst
for action and for renown was to be the source of Napoleon's strength
and also of his weakness. But only a few clear-sighted men made these
reflections when the Empire began. The masses, with their easy

optimism, looked upon the new Emperor as an infallibly impeccable
being, and thought that since he had not yet been beaten, he was
invincible. Josephine indulged in no such illusions; she knew the
defects in her husband's character, and dreaded the future for him as
well as for herself. Singularly enough for one so surrounded by
flatteries, in her whole life her head was never for a moment turned by
pride or infatuation.

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