But she dared not! she submitted faithfully and devotedly to Napoleon’s will.  To her he was, though banished, humiliated, and conquered, still the emperor and the sovereign; and her tearful eyes gazed toward the solitary island which to her would have been a paradise could she but have lived there by the side of her Napoleon!

But she had to remain in France; she had sacred duties to perform; she had to save out of the wreck of the empire at least something for her children!  For herself she wanted nothing, she desired nothing; but the future of her children had to be secured.

Therefore, Josephine gathered all her courage; she pressed her hands on the mortal wounds of her heart, and kept it still alive, for it must not yet bleed to death; her children yet claimed her care.

Josephine, therefore, left the castle of Navarra for that of Malmaison, thus fulfilling the wishes of the Emperor Alexander, who desired to know Josephine’s wishes in reference to herself and to her children, and who sincerely wished to become acquainted with her, that he might offer her his homage, and transfer to her the friendship he once cherished for Napoleon.

Josephine received in Malmaison the first visit of Alexander, and from this time he came every day, to the great grief of the returned Bourbons, who felt bitterly hurt at the homage thus publicly offered before all the world by the conqueror of Napoleon to the divorced Empress Josephine, who, in the eyes of the proud Bourbons, was but the widow of General de Beauharnais.

Notwithstanding this, the rest of the princes of the victorious allies followed the example of Alexander.  They all came to Malmaison to visit the Empress Josephine; so that again, as in the days of her imperial glory, she received at her residence the conquerors of Europe, and saw around her emperors and kings.  The Emperor Alexander, with his brothers; the King Frederick William, with his sons; the Duke of Coburg, and many others of the little German princes, were guests at her table, and endeavored, through the respect they manifested to her, and the expressions of their esteem and devotedness, to turn away from her the sad fate which had come upon all the Bonapartes.

But her heart was mortally wounded.  “I cannot overcome the fearful sadness which has seized me,” said she to Mlle. Cochelet, the friend of her daughter Hortense; “I do all I can to hide my cares from my children, but I suffer only the more.” [Footnote:  Mlle. Cochelet.  “Memoires,” vol. ii.]

“You will see,” said she to the Duchess d’Abrantes, who had visited her at Malmaison, “you will see that Napoleon’s misfortune will cause my death.  My heart is broken—­it will not be healed.” [Footnote:  Abrantes, “Memoires,” vol. xvii.]