1810-1814
Just before the opening of the year 1810, which marked the beginning of Bonaparte's decay, Fouche demanded an audience.
"Well, Fouche," said the Emperor, "what now?""This Empire can't go much further, Your Majesty, unless more novelty is introduced. I've had my men out all through France taking notes, and there's but one opinion among 'em all. You've got to do something new or stop the show. If you'd only done what I suggested at Austerlitz, and lost a leg, it would have been different. The people don't ask much song-and-dance business from a one-legged man.""We compromised with you there," retorted Napoleon. "At Ratisbon our imperial foot was laid up for a week.""Yes--but you didn't lose it," returned Fouche. "Can't you see the difference? If you'd lost it, and come home without it, there'd have been evidence of your suffering. As it is, do you know what your enemies are saying about your foot?""We do not," said the Emperor, sternly. "What do they say?""Well, the Bourbons say you stepped on it running away from the enemy's guns, and the extreme Republicans say your wound is nothing but gout and the result of high, undemocratic living. Now, my dear sir--Sire, I mean--I take a great deal of interest in this Empire.
It pays me my salary, and I've had charge of the calcium lights for some time, and I don't want our lustre dimmed, but it will be dimmed unless, as I have already told you a million times, we introduce some new act on our programme. 1492 didn't succeed on its music, or its jokes, or its living pictures. It was the introduction of novelties every week that kept it on the boards for four hundred years.""Well--what do you propose?" asked Bonaparte, recognizing the truth of Fouche's words.
"I--ah--I think you ought to get married," said Fouche.
"We am married, you--you--idiot," cried Bonaparte.
"Well, marry again," said Fouche. "You've been giving other people away at a great rate for several years--what's the matter with acquiring a real princess for yourself?""You advise bigamy, do you?" asked Bonaparte, scornfully.
"Not on your life," returned Fouche, "but a real elegant divorce, followed by an imperial wedding, would rattle the bones of this blase old Paris as they haven't been rattled since Robespierre's day."Bonaparte reddened, then, rising from the throne and putting his hand to the side of his mouth, he said, in a low, agitated tone:
"Close the door, Fouche. Close the door and come here. We want to whisper something to you."The minister did as he was bidden.
"Fouche, old boy," chuckled the Emperor in the ear of his rascally aide--"Fouche, you're a mind-reader. We've been thinking of just that very thing for some time--in fact, ever since We met that old woman Emperor Francis Joseph. He'd make an elegant mother-in-law.""Precisely," said Fouche. "His daughter Marie-Louise, an archduchess by birth, is the one I had selected for you. History will no doubt say that I oppose this match, and publicly perhaps I may seem to do so, but you will understand, my dear Sire, that this opposition will serve, as it is designed to serve, as an advertisement of our enterprise, and without advertising we might as well put up the shutters. Shall we--ah--announce the attraction to the public?""Not yet," said Napoleon. "We must get rid of our leading lady before we bring on the understudy."It is a sad chapter in the history of this eminent man wherein is told the heart-breaking story of his sacrifice--the giving up through sheer love of his country of the only woman he had ever loved, and we should prefer to pass it over in silence. We allude to it here merely to show that it was brought about by the exigencies of his office, and that it was nothing short of heroic self-abnegation which led this faithful lover of his adopted native land to put the beautiful Josephine away from him. He had builded an Empire for an opera bouffe people, and he was resolved to maintain it at any cost.
In March, 1810, Bonaparte, having in his anxiety to spare the feelings of the divorced Josephine, wooed Marie-Louise by proxy in the person of Marshal Berthier, met his new fiancee at Soissons.
"It is three months since we lost our beloved Josephine," he said to Fouche, with tears in his voice, "but the wound is beginning to heal.
We fear we shall never love again, but for the sake of the Empire we will now begin to take notice once more. We will meet our bride-elect at Soissons, and escort her to Paris ourself."This was done, and on the 2nd of April, 1810, Marie-Louise became Empress of France. Josephine, meanwhile, had retired to Malmaison with alimony of 3,000,000 francs.
Fouche was delighted; Paris was provided with conversation enough for a year in any event, and Bonaparte found it possible to relax a little in his efforts to inspire interest. His main anxiety in the ensuing year was as to his family affairs. His brothers did not turn out so highly successful as professional kings as he had hoped, and it became necessary to depose Louis the King of Holland and place him under arrest. Joseph, too, desired to resign the Spanish throne, which he had found to be far from comfortable, and there was much else to restore Bonaparte's early proneness to irritability; nor was his lot rendered any more happy by Marie-Louise's expressed determination not to go to tea with Josephine at Malmaison on Sunday nights, as the Emperor wished her to do.
"You may go if you please," said she, "but I shall not. Family reunions are never agreeable, and the circumstances of this are so peculiar that even if they had redeeming features this one would be impossible.""We call that rebellion--don't you?" asked Bonaparte of Fouche.
"No," said Fouche. "She's right, and it's for your good. If she and Josephine got chumming and compared notes, I'm rather of the opinion that there'd be another divorce."Fouche's reply so enraged the Emperor that he dismissed him from his post, and the Empire began to fall.