No. 2
This letter seems to have been taken by Eugène to Paris, and thence forwarded to the Emperor with a letter from that Prince in which he enumerates Josephine’s suggestions and wishes—(1) that she will not go to Aix-la-Chapelle if other waters are suggested by Corvisart; (2) that after stopping a few days at Malmaison she will go in June for three months to the baths, and afterwards to the south of France; visit Rome, Florence, and Naples incognito, spend the winter at Milan, and return to Malmaison and Navarre in the spring of 1811; (3) that in her absence Navarre shall be made habitable, for which fresh funds are required; (4) that Josephine wishes her cousins the Taschers to marry, one a relative of King Joseph, the other the Princess Amelie de la Leyen, niece of the Prince Primate. To this Napoleon replies from Compiègne, April 26th, that the De Leyen match with Louis Tascher may take place,89 but that he will not interest himself in the other (Henry) Tascher, who is giddy-headed and bad-tempered. “I consent to whatever the Empress does, but I will not confer any mark of my regard on a person who has behaved ill to me. I am very glad that the Empress likes Navarre. I am giving orders to have £12,000 which I owe her for 1810, and £12,000 for 1811 advanced to her. She will then have only the £80,000 from the public treasury to come in.... She is free to go to whatever spa she cares for, and even to return to Paris afterwards.” He thinks, however, she would be happier in new scenes which they had never visited together, as they had Aix-la-Chapelle. If, however, the last are the best she may go to them, for “what I desire above all is that she may keep calm, and not allow herself to be excited by the gossip of Paris.” This letter goes far to soothe the poor châtelaine of Navarre.
No. 2a.
Two letters.—The other, now missing, may have some reference to the pictures to which he refers in his letter to Fouché the next day. “Is it true that engravings are being published with the title of Josephine Beauharnais née La Pagerie? If this is true, have the prints seized, and let the engravers be punished” (New Letters, No. 253).