No. 2
This is the third pilgrimage Josephine has made, under the doctor’s orders, to Plombières; but the longed-for heir will have to be sought for elsewhere, by fair means or foul. Lucien, who as Spanish Ambassador had vainly spent the previous year in arranging the divorce and remarriage of Napoleon to a daughter of the King of Spain, suggests adultery at Plombières, or a “warming-pan conspiracy,” as the last alternatives.53 Josephine complains to Napoleon of his brother’s “poisonous” suggestions, and Lucien is again disgraced. In a few months an heir is found in Hortense’s first-born, Napoleon Charles, born October 10.
The fat Eugène had come partly to be near his sister in her mother’s absence, and partly to receive his colonelcy. Josephine is wretched to be absent, and writes to Hortense (June 16):—“I am utterly wretched, my dear Hortense, to be separated from you, and my mind is as sick as my body. I feel that I was not born, my dear child, for so much grandeur.... By now Eugène should be with you; that thought consoles me.” Aubenas has found in the Tascher archives a charming letter from Josephine to her mother in Martinique, announcing how soon she may hope to find herself a great-grandmother.