“The King of Prussia and the Princes, his sons, came rather frequently to pay their court to Josephine; they even dined with her several times at Malmaison; but the Emperor Alexander come much more frequently.  The Queen Hortense was always with her mother when she received the sovereigns, and assisted her in doing the honours of the house.  The illustrious strangers exceedingly admired Malmaison, which seemed to them a charming residence.  They were particularly struck with the fine gardens and conservatories.”

From this moment, however, Josephine’s health rapidly declined, and she did not live to see Napoleon’s return from Elba.  She often said to her attendant, “I do not know what is the matter with me, but at times I have fits of melancholy enough to kill me.”  But on the very brink of the grave she retained all her amiability, all her love of dress, and the graces and resources of a drawing-room society.  The immediate cause of her death was a bad cold she caught in taking a drive in the park of Malmaison on a damp cold day.  She expired on the noon of Sunday, the 26th of May, in the fifty-third year of her age.  Her body was embalmed, and on the sixth day after her death deposited in a vault in the church of Ruel, close to Malmaison.  The funeral ceremonies were magnificent, but a better tribute to the memory of Josephine was to be found is the tears with which her children, her servants, the neighbouring poor, and all that knew her followed her to the grave.  In 1826 a beautiful monument was erected over her remains by Eugene Beauharnais and his sisters with this simple inscription: 

To Josephine.

Eugene.  Hortense.

CHAPTER II.

1814.

Italy and Eugene—­Siege of Dantzic-Capitulation concluded but not ratified-Rapp made prisoner and sent to Kiow—­Davoust’s refusal to believe the intelligence from Paris—­Projected assassination of one of the French Princes—­Departure of Davoust and General Hogendorff from Hamburg—­The affair of Manbreuil—­Arrival of the Commissioners of the Allied powers at Fontainebleau—­Preference shown by Napoleon to Colonel Campbell—­Bonaparte’s address to General Kohler—­His farewell to his troops—­First day of Napoleon’s journey—­The Imperial Guard succeeded by the Cossacks—­Interview with Augerean—­ The first white cockades—­Napoleon hanged in effigy at Orgon—­His escape in the disguise of a courier—­Scene in the inn of La Calade—­ Arrival at Aix—­The Princess Pauline—­Napoleon embarks for Elba—­His life at Elba.

I must now direct the attention of the reader to Italy, which was the cradle of Napoleon’s glory, and towards which he transported himself in imagination from the Palace of Fontainebleau.  Eugene had succeeded in keeping up his means of defence until April, but on the 7th of that month, being positively informed of the overwhelming reverses of France, he found himself constrained to accede to the propositions of the Marshal de Bellegarde to treat for the evacuation of Italy; and on the 10th a convention was concluded, in which it was stipulated that the French troops, under the command of Eugene, should return within the limits of old France.  The clauses of this convention were executed on the 19th of April.