The emperor kept his word.  The same evening there came to Malmaison an imperial page, with an autograph letter from Napoleon to Josephine.  The empress rewarded this messenger of glad tidings with a costly diamond-pin, and then she called her ladies together, to show them the letter which had brought so much happiness to her heart, and which also had obscured her eyes with tears.

It was an autograph letter of Napoleon; it contained six or eight lines, written with a rapid hand; the pen, too hastily filled, had dropped large blots of ink on the paper.  In these lines Napoleon announced to Josephine the birth of the King of Rome, and concluded with these words:  “This child, in concert with our Eugene, will secure the happiness of France, and mine also.”

These last words were to Josephine full of delight.  “Is it, then, possible,” exclaimed she, joyously, “to be more amiable and more tender, thus to sweeten what this moment might have of bitterness if I did not love the emperor so much?  To place my son alongside of his is an act worthy of the man who, when he will, can be the most enchanting of men.” [Footnote:  Ducrest, vol. i., p. 238.]

And this child, for which so much suffering had been endured, for which she had offered her own life in sacrifice, was by Josephine loved even as if it were her own.  She was always asking news from the little King of Rome, and no deeper joy could be brought to her heart than to speak to her of the amiableness, the beauty, the liveliness of this little prince, who appeared to her as the visible reward of the sacrifice which she had made to God and to the emperor.

One intense, craving wish did Josephine cherish during all these years—­she longed to see Napoleon’s son; she longed to press to her heart this child who was making her former husband so happy, and on which rested all the hopes of France.

Finally Napoleon granted her desire.  Privately, and in all secrecy, for Maria Louisa’s jealousy was ever on the watch, and she would never have consented to allow her son to go to her rival; without pomp, without suite, the emperor took a drive with the little three-year-old King of Rome to the pleasure-castle of Bagatelle, whither he had invited the Empress Josephine through his trusty chamberlain Constant.

Josephine herself has described her interview with the little King of Rome in a very touching and affecting letter which she addressed the next day to the emperor, and which contains full and interesting details of the brief interview she had with the son of Maria Louisa.  We cannot, therefore, abridge this letter, nor deny ourselves the pleasure of transcribing it: 

“Sire, although deeply moved by our interview of yesterday, and preoccupied with the beautiful and lovely child you brought me, penetrated with gratitude for the step taken by you for my sake, and whose unpleasant consequences, I may well imagine, could fall only upon you; I felt the most pressing desire to converse with you, to assure you of my joy, which was too great to be at once exhibited in a suitable manner.  You, who to meet my wishes exposed yourself to the danger of having your peace disturbed, will fully understand why I thus long to acknowledge to you all the happiness your inestimable favor has produced within me.