of all subjects. One evening, before Napoleon left Paris on his
unhallowed expedition to Spain, the minister of police drew Josephine
aside into a corner of her saloon, and, after a preface of abundant
commonplaces, touching the necessities of the empire and the painful
position of the Emperor, asked her in plain terms whether she were not
capable of sacrificing all private feelings to these? Josephine heard
him with at least the appearance of utter surprise, ordered him to quit
her presence, and went immediately to demand of Napoleon whether the
minister had had any authority for this proceeding. The Emperor answered
in the negative, and with high demonstrations of displeasure: but when
Josephine went on to ask the dismissal of Fouche, as the only fit
punishment for so great an outrage, he refused to comply. He remained
steadfast, in spite of the urgencies and lamentations of an insulted
woman; and from that hour Josephine must have felt that her fate was
fixed.

The apartments of Napoleon, and those of his wife, which were
immediately over them, at the Tuileries, had communication by means of a
private staircase; and it was the custom of the Emperor himself to
signify, by a tap on the door of Josephine's sitting-room, his desire to
converse with her in his cabinet below. In the days of their cordial
union the signal was often made, most commonly in the evening, and it
was not unusual for them to remain shut up together in conversation for
hours. Soon after his return from Schoenbrunn, the ladies in attendance
began to remark that the Emperor's knock was heard more frequently than
it had ever used to be, that their mistress seemed to listen for it at
certain hours with a new and painful anxiety, and that she did not obey
the signal with her accustomed alacrity. One evening Napoleon surprised
them by carrying Josephine into the midst of them, pale, apparently
lifeless. She was but awaking from a long swoon into which she had
fallen on hearing him at last pronounce the decree which terminated
their connection.

This was on the 5th of December. On the 15th the Emperor summoned his
council, and announced to them, that at the expense of all his personal
feelings, he, devoted wholly to the welfare of the state, had resolved
to separate himself from his most dear consort. Josephine then appeared
among them, and, not without tears, expressed her acquiescence in the
decree. The council, after haranguing the imperial spouses on