Napoleon could not bear a faded dress, nor one that had the appearance of having been much worn, so that if hers by any chance got creased, she was sure to change it directly. A considerable time was spent by her, daily, in her dressing-room in deciding upon her dinner costume; and she has been often known to change, when fully attired, because she might be looking paler, and such and such a dress was not calculated to set her off to advantage. By this means she almost wholly concealed the approaches of age. She had, in fact, preserved herself so well, that by looking at her, (even upon close inspection) no person would have guessed her age. She was by no means remarkable for perfection of feature; but her eyes and hair were beautiful, the latter of a light brown shade, and her eyes dark blue, large, and shaded by long silken lashes that gave them the most extraordinary softness. The goodness of her heart was indelibly stamped upon her countenance, and hers was a goodness, not alone confined to man, but extended to everything around her. A suffering animal would find compassion in the breast of Josephine, and if she saw but one of her flowers droop, she would tend and nurse and water it, 'till its bright blossoms once more renewed, would recompense her for the fostering care.

On the present occasion Josephine wore a polonaise or tunic of rich white satin, trimmed all round with swansdown; it was a dress that became her, particularly, and upon her head, a sort of diadem composed of blue flowers intermixed with silver wheat, forming a beautiful contrast to the color of her hair.

Dinner being announced, Napoleon gave his hand to the empress to conduct her to the dining room. "Excuse me, gentlemen, said he, to the ministers, "I will return to you in five minutes." Upon a considerate observation from Josephine, that, perhaps, they had not dined, the emperor hastened to invite them. They were not, however, much the better for this attention, for in less than ten minutes Napoleon had finished his dinner, and risen from table. Their excellencies were obliged to follow, as matter of course, and having remained another hour in consultation with the emperor, they set off for Paris where, though in the middle of the night, they were at length enabled to dine. As to the empress, on that day she scarcely tasted a morsel of food, but she was in the usual habit of either dining before Napoleon, or returning to the dinner table after he had quitted it.

There was a reception on that evening at the palace of Fontainebleau, and never did Josephine exert herself so much to please. Not the slightest trace remained upon her calm benignant countenance, of the dreadful scene that had so lately taken place; to have forgotten it, she could not, but the last words of her adored husband still rang in her ears. "No, never, let us think no more about it," and she resolved to forget it, as the emperor himself seemed to have done, for he certainly appeared that night to greater advantage than usual. He was cheerful, amiable, and condescending. Spoke to every lady present, gave each of them news from the army : there was not one in the saloon that had not a husband, a brother or a son in the late campaign. In short he seemed desirous to please, and he fully succeeded. On that night, Josephine laid her head upon her pillow, without a single misgiving of the misery in store for her, declaring, as her attendant quitted the chamber, that the emperor had been charming with every body, but more particularly with herself.

The next day an accumulation of visitors arrived at Fontainebleau; amongst them Napoleon's sister, the princess Pauline, the queen of Holland and prince Eugene, who had been named viceroy of Italy. As may be imagined the unexpected presence of the two latter personages was hailed with transports of joy by their tender mother, who did not at first perceive the depression that hung so heavily over the minds of both. As to Pauline, she never appeared so gay and so light hearted; she scarcely took the slightest notice of the empress; and, actually, whilst she remained at the palace had parties in her private apartments nearly every evening, from which Josephine was, as it were, excluded, for they never commenced until her majesty had retired to rest. Napoleon frequently attended these reunions, his dear Paulette having made a point of his being there he could not refuse.

It was Napoleon's original intention, from the moment he decided upon the divorce, to make the first communication to Josephine himself; he thought he could do it more delicately than any other person, and that without much difficulty he [COURT MAGAZINE.]

would bring her to consent to the measure, especially as he proposed descanting largely upon its necessity. The unforeseen circumstance, however, of her nonarrival at Fontainebleau, until some hours after himself, completely changed his plans. Without giving himself time for a moment's reflection, he construed the delay into a want of attention on the part of his wife. As we have seen, the fatal word was spoken in a moment of uncontrollable irritation, and then, as if to make things worse, the unhappy Josephine was told to think no more of it! This additional cruelty was by no means intended by Napoleon: the truth was, that the dreadful anguish displayed by Josephine, together with the sight of those tears. which never failed to reach his heart, totally unfitted him for the completion of his painful task. He then consoled her, as we have seen, and decided upon giving to another the ungrateful office of acquainting her with his unchanged determination; and whom so fit to be entrusted with this sad commission as her own children? Eugene! Hortense !-To them then he wrote, with orders to join him immediately at Fontainebleau. This summons was quickly answered, and before their mother knew of their arrival they had had a long and confidential interview with the emperor.

Poor Josephine was not long before she poured into their friendly bosoms the tale of her sad fears and sufferings; but she concluded by assuring them that her fears were nearly at rest. It was now their duty not to flatter these false hopes, and they both declared themselves doubtful of so happy an issue. In short, without precisely acquainting her with the very worst, they found means to instil into her mind those apprehensions, that depriving her of the security she had just expressed, would, at least, help to mitigate the fearful intensity of the stroke, whenever it came.

The persons that were eye-witnesses to the cruel facts we are relating, all concur in expressing the heart-felt sorrow they experienced on behalf of their most excellent and most unfortunate sovereign. That close congeniality, that intercourse of hearts, and minds, that had so long subsisted between the Emperor and Josephine, was all destroyed: they met without the slightest interchange of sentiments. Napoleon was grave, silent, and evidently pained; the dread of being left alone a moment with the empress, seemed continually to haunt him. Josephine, on her part, seemed fearful to address him, and if she did, it was in a tone scarcely raised above a whisper. Her eyes, those speaking eyes, the emblem of her soul, were mostly downcast and filled with tears; or if, for one moment, they were fixed on his face, and encountered those that had once looked upon her with love, they were instantly withdrawn. But this painful state of things could not last. Josephine, nothwithstanding her conviction, that all was at an end, still nourished a slight hope which however she tried to conceal in the inmost recesses of her bosom. She never had the opportunity of entering into conversation with one of the ministers, or any other high dignitary of the empire, that she did not try by some indirect questions to ascertain what they knew of the business; but these persons, unable or unwilling to satisfy her, only returned evasive answers to her queries, leaving heri n the same state of uncertainty as before. At length Napoleon summoned all his resolution, and decided upon putting an end to the affair at once. He, therefore, commissioned queen Hortense to prepare the empress, by degrees, for all that was to follow. The king of Saxony arrived in Paris, on the 13th of November; Napoleon and the empress quitted Fontainebleau, on the following day to take up their winter residence as usual at the Tuileries, where the presence of that excellent monarch frequently broke in upon a tête-à-tête that could not occasionally be avoided between them. But it was visible that Napoleon's embarrassment increased in proportion to the disquietude and preoccupation of the empress. The unhappy Josephine had lost all hope, and was now summoning up resolution to meet the bitter stroke with firmness. They dined alone on the 28th and 29th of November. A visible alteration for the worse had taken place in the appearance of Josephine; the meal passed off both days in absolute silence; their majesties did not remain at table more than ten minutes. On Thursday the 30th, the storm burst upon her devoted head. They again dined tête-à-tête. Napoleon was gloomy and silent, and, the empress, whose tears fell fast, wore a large white bonnet, evidently to conceal her C-JANUARY, 1841.

features. They had not been seated more than seven or eight minutes, when the emperor enquired of M. de Bausset,* who was in attendance, what sort of weather it was, and, at the same time, he rose from the table, Josephine slowly following into the next room, (called the emperor's saloon). A page now entered with coffee. Napoleon who had hitherto always received the cup from the hand of Josephine, took it off the salver himself, and having hastily swallowed its contents, signed to de Bausset and the page, to leave them. They instantly retired, when M. de B-, judging from the emperor's countenance that something unpleasant was about to happen, threw himself into a chair that chanced to be near the door of the emperor's saloon. There he sat for some time, ruminating upon the sad drama that was about to be enacted so close to him, compassionating in his heart, the unhappy empress, when, suddenly, his whole attention was arrested by most violent shrieks and cries, which he knew to proceed from the empress Josephine. The groom of the chambers, who was seated at the other extremity of the table, got up, and rushing to the door, laid his hand upon the lock; fortunately, de Bausset was in time to stop him. Meanwhile the cries and screams encreased to a frightful degree, and de B― had some trouble in preventing the groom of the chambers from going into the room to offer his assistance, to his unfortunate mistress; at that instant the door opened, and the emperor putting out his head: called, "Come in Bausset, and shut the door." he did as he was bid, and, cruelly, shocked he was, at the scene before him. There, upon the carpet, lay the wretched Josephine, her members agonized and distorted by the most frightful convulsions, uttering cries and shrieks, and moans, at once so piercing, and so plaintive, that it would have torn the most obdurate heart to have listened to them. "No, I shall never survive it!" And then, she would lie still, and motionless, as though life and feeling were extinct, till the next moment her cries would re-commence, more vehement, more heart-rending than ever.

The emperor was dreadfully agitated: "Are you strong enough," he enquired, at length, of de Bausset, "to lift Josephine, and carry her to her chamber, by the private stair-case that leads hence to her apartment, so that she may receive the assistance her situation requires?

De Bausset raised the unhappy empress, slightly, at first; then, assisted by Napoleon, lifted her entirely in his arms. The emperor snatched a taper from the table, and, opening the door, lighted him down a long dark passage conducting to the stair-case already mentioned. Arrived at the first stair, and about to make a false step, de B observed to the emperor that the stair-case was so narrow, it would be impossible for him to descend without falling. No sooner did Napoleon hear these words, than he quickly opened a door upon that landing, and calling to an attendant, stationed day and night in a room close by, gave him the candle to hold, and lifting the empress' feet himself, they began to descend; the emperor walking backwards. At this juncture de Bausset's sword some how got entangled and they would have been precipitated from top to bottom had it not been for his presence of mind in requesting the emperor to pause. They both thought Josephine had fainted. De Bausset supported her round the waist with both arms, her back was towards him and her head reclined upon his right shoulder. At the instant that he saw himself in danger of falling, he clasped her more tightly to him, at the same time that he made an effort to recover his footing. Josephine hereupon uttered a low moan, and said gently, "You hurt me, you hold me too tight." It was the first token she gave that she had not lost consciousness. Happily, they descended in perfect safety, and deposited their precious charge upon an ottoman in her sleeping apartment. Napoleon instantly ran to the bell and pulled it violently; three or four of the empress' female attendants now rushed into the room, terrified at the loud and unusual ringing. Napoleon then passed into a little saloon contiguous to Josephine's chamber whither M. de Bausset followed.

The emperor was pale as death, his countenance bore evident tokens of the intensity of his feelings, his agitation was beyond control; for several minutes he could not

The particulars of this scene are taken from a work written by that gentleman.

articulate a word, and, when, at length, he spoke, it was in broken sentences, interrupted between every few words by his trying to regain breath. In his trouble of mind, for he scarcely knew what he said or did, he gave de Bausset a sufficient insight into the momentous affair which then occupied his thoughts, to account for the dreadful state in which he had seen the ill-fated empress : "The interests of France" he ejaculated, "demand that I should perpetuate my dynastyand deeply as it wounds my heart- -a divorce has become- -a rigorous dutyI am the more afflicted- at the effect it produced to-night-upon Josephine --for she must have known-these some days, from Hortense- -the cruel obligation that condemns me to part from her from my very soul I pity her

but I expected to have found more firmness- -I was not prepared for such an outbreak of her grief", and he paused, the violence of his feelings preventing him from articulating, and his eyes were filled with tears. The whole of this dreadful scene had not occupied a space of more than eight or ten minutes. Napoleon instantly despatched messengers for his physician Corvisart, queen Hortense, Cambacérès, and Fouchè; before he returned to his apartment, he went back to see Josephine, and found the poor sufferer more calm and more resigned. M. de Bausset adds that on his return to the room, occupied by the pages and grooms of the chamber, in order to avoid being questioned he stated that the empress had been seized with a violent fit of hysterics, and that his assistance had been required to remove her to her chamber. He also says that although the emperor had not given the slightest hint of who the princess was whom he had destined to fill the place of the excellent Josephine, he had not the smallest doubt, from the observations he had been enabled to make during the late negociations of Schoenbrunn, that the decision was already made in favor of an Austrian archduchess. At the period of the divorce the empress Josephine had attained her forty-sixth year.

Josephine's destiny was again changed, and she resolved to submit to her cruel fate without a murmur. Never, indeed, at any period of her life did she display more true dignity and greatness of mind than upon this trying occasion. The weakness she displayed upon hearing her final doom from the lips of Napoleon, was the last she ever exhibited. As highly talented writer has so justly remarked, "She descended from the throne, but she did not fall from it." There was nothing degrading, nothing humiliating in the repudiation of the empress Josephine. By Napoleon it was deemed a necessity which compelled him to sacrifice everything to what he considered the grand political interests of France. On the part of Josephine it was a generous immolation to the good of the nation, and the will of the man upon whom she had always looked with respect and admiration, and whose word had ever been to her a law. Thus it was that the benedictions of the whole nation followed her to her retreat, and that at a subsequent period, the highest powers of Europe all concurred in rendering homage to the exalted virtues and the self-abdication displayed by the first wife of Napoleon Bonaparte.

The most interesting, also, of the decorations along the line of route, followed by the recent funeral procession of Napoleon's remains, (December, 1840,) was a colossal statue of the Empress Josephine, erected at the extremity of the bridge of Neuilly, on the road leading to the château de Malmaison, before which the train paused on passing, thus shewing the respect and esteem in which her virtues are held by the French nation.

From the moment the future destiny of the empress had been definitively announced to her by Napoleon, Josephine kept her own apartments, and did not again preside at the court where her place was filled by madame Letitia. She was, how

ever, forced to appear twice in public, once at the church of Nôtre Dame, where a Te Deum was celebrated in honor of the peace that had been signed with Vienna: on which occasion, for the first time in her life, she did not occupy her seat in the carriage of Napoleon, but went and returned, attended only by her ladies, in one of her own. Her next and last appearance in her public character of empress of the French, was at the splendid fête given in celebration of the same event at the hôtel de Ville. On both occasions the emperor had sent her word that her presence was indispensable. It was not many days after these public rejoicings that the day was fixed for annulling their marriage.

Accordingly, on the 18th of December the counts Regnault de Saint-Jean-d'Angély and Defermont delivered a message from the emperor to the senate, in which the project of the divorce was submitted for their deliberation. The project contained five articles.

1stly. The marriage between the emperor Napoleon and the empress Josephine is annulled.

2dly. The empress Josephine is to preserve her title of empress queen.

3dly. Her dowry is fixed at the annual sum of two* millions of francs on the Treasury.

4thly. All the settlements, present and future, made by the emperor in favor of the empress Josephine upon the funds of the civil list, shall be considered binding by his successors.

5thly. The present Senatus-Consulte (imperial decree) shall be transmitted by message to her majesty the empress queen.

The count Regnault de Saint-Jean-d'Angely, in an appropriate speech, stated that it was by mutual consent that the emperor and empress had decided upon this great and noble sacrifice to the interests of France, and that the project now only awaited their sanction.

Prince Eugene de Beauharnaist next addressed them, and after gratefully acknowledging all the benefits his family had received from the emperor, who had acted the part of a father to himself and sister, concluded by saying, that however deeply his mother would feel the separation, she was proud and happy to be enabled to testify her devotion to the will of the emperor, and the sincere interest she felt in

the welfare of France.

The day after this message to the senate was appointed for those proceedings which were to be performed by the parties themselves. Accordingly, the high chancellor of France, together with all the other grand dignitaries and officers of the crown, assembled, on the afternoon of that day, in the state apartments of the Tuileries; the members of the imperial family being also present. Upon the entrance of the emperor, the debate instantly began, and at the moment fixed upon, which was about one hour after, the folding-doors were thrown open and the " empress announced. Poor Josephine! she was supported, on one side, by her son, and Hortense at the other. She seemed dreadfully exhausted by her sufferings, and walked with the utmost difficulty. The faces of both ladies were in some measure concealed by large white satin bonnets, but the pale face and red and swollen eyelids of the empress were visible to all. The proceedings were continued as soon as Josephine was seated. The emperor now began to read the act which was to separate them for ever, but his voice trembled, and his emotion was so overpowering, as to oblige him to make a long pause between each sentence. As soon as he had concluded, it became Josephine's turn. With difficulty she rose half way from her seat, but quickly fell again into her chair. She did not, however, faint, but by a violent effort, summoning up a courage which seemed almost supernatual to the by-standers, she rose again with the assistance of her son and daughter, who were forced to hold her up, and commenced in her turn, to read the fatal paper she held in her trembling hands, and upon which her tears poured fast. But the words that she pronounced were unintelligible; her voice trembled and was suffocated with tears and sobs. This dreadful trial was too much for the heart of Josephine, she had scarcely pronounced the last word of the cruel act, when the paper dropped from her hands, and, fainting, she fell into the arms of her son: she was then placed, gently, in her chair, where, after some time, the remedies resorted to by the queen of Holland had the effect of restoring her, alas! to misery. During this time Napoleon, to all appearance, suffered martyrdom; he durst not publicly approach her, but his

It appears that M. Hilaire, from whom we have taken these particulars, was mistaken. Mademoiselle Arvillian, and some others, asserting that Napoleon settled three millions annually upon Josephine, which a letter of the Emperor's further corroborates.

The son of Josephine and the Viscount de Beauharnais. When about to be united to the amiable daughter of the King of Bavaria, it is well known that Napoleon adopted him for the purpose of equalizing his rank to that of the princess of Bavaria. This happy marriage was a source of consolation to the Empress in her own misfortunes.