No. 4
July 8th.—On July 5th, driving along the Chambéry road, Josephine met the courier with a letter from Eugène describing the terrible fire at Prince Schwartzenberg’s ball, where the Princess de la Leyen, mother of young Taschre’s bride-elect, was burnt. It is noteworthy that the Emperor makes no allusion to the conflagration. As, however, this is the first letter since the end of May, others may have been lost or destroyed.
You will have seen Eugène—i.e. on his way to Milan, who arrived at Aix on July 10th. He had just been made heir to the Grand Duchy of Frankfort—a broad hint to him and to Europe that Italy would be eventually united to France under Napoleon’s dynasty. This was the nadir of the Beauharnais family—Josephine repudiée, Hortense unqueened and unwed,90 and Eugène’s expectations dissipated, and all within a few short months. Eugène had left his wife ill at Geneva, whither Josephine goes to visit her the next day, duly reporting her visit to Napoleon in her letter of July 14th (see No. 5). Geneva was always the home of the disaffected, and so the Empress had to be specially tactful, and the De Rémusat reports: “She speaks of the Emperor as of a brother, of the new Empress as the one who will give children to France, and if the rumours of the latter’s condition be correct, I am certain she will be delighted about it.”
That unfortunate daughter is coming to France—i.e. to reside when she is not at St. Leu (given to her by Napoleon) or at the waters. On the present occasion she has been at Plombières a month or more. On July 10th Napoleon instructs the Countess de Boubers to bring the Grand Duke of Berg to Paris, “whom he awaits with impatience” (Brotonne, 625).