er
be any serious question of marriage between members of the two courts.
Compelled by circumstances to choose between a dual alliance with a
first-rate power which must share on equal terms in the dominion of
the world, and one with a second-rate power whose armies were
surpassed by none, Napoleon had deliberately chosen the latter, as the
shortest way to absolute and complete supremacy, to the assertion of a
sovereign will over a conquered universe.

Napoleon's return to Paris was celebrated in the manner usual after a
victorious campaign. The departments of government issued the most
fulsome addresses; subsidiary and vassal kings crowded to offer their
congratulations; there were the ordinary manifestations of popular
joy, and no one seemed to remember that the Emperor had been smitten
by the papal bolt. But men remarked a great change in his bearing and
expression. Cambaceres said that he seemed to be walking in the midst
of his glory. Moreover, he withdrew from the capital, and held his
court in Fontainebleau. The air was all surcharged. The Duc de Broglie
tells us in his memoirs that he had seen the Empress early that year,
surrounded by the brilliant throng of "ladies in waiting, ladies of
the court and palace, accompanied by the train of 'readers,' which
composed the harem of our sultan, and enabled him for a time to endure
the painted old age of the former sultana." The truth which underlies
this is notorious, and the scene over the divorce before the Emperor's
departure for the campaign just concluded bears witness to the depth
to which Josephine had fallen in her desperate attempts to retain both
her place and some portion of Napoleon's tenderness.

[Illustration: From the collection of W. C. Crane.

EUGENE BEAUHARNAIS.

Drawn by Vigneron after Le Gros]

Napoleon himself had long since announced that he was superior to
plain virtues, and the list of his paramours was daily growing longer
and better known. But all this self-abasement on the part of Josephine
and all the self-indulgence of Napoleon could not do more than
postpone the judgment day. "My enemies," the Emperor was accustomed to
cry out--"my enemies make appointments at my tomb." He could not rest
content with an empire for himself which he knew would break of its
own weight on his death unless he left a legitimate heir. On his
return from Austria his resolution to divorce the Empress was taken,
and Eugene was summoned to convey it to his moth