ant of what is passing
within sight of the gates of Paris, or, if he knows, how cruel the
thoughts which must now agitate his breast! Oh! if he had listened to
me."

Josephine remained for some days at Navarre, in a state of most painful
anguish respecting the fate of the emperor. She allowed herself no
relaxation, excepting a solitary ride each morning in the park, and
another short ride after dinner with one of her ladies. The Emperor
Alexander had immediately sent a guard of honor to protect Josephine
from all intrusion. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers were swarming
in all directions, and every dwelling was filled with terror and
distraction. One melancholy incident we will record, illustrative of
hundreds which might be narrated. Lord Londonderry, in the midst of a
bloody skirmish, saw a young and beautiful French lady, the wife of a
colonel, in a caleche, seized by three brutal Russian soldiers, who were
carrying off, into the fields, their frantic and shrieking victim. The
gallant Englishman, sword in hand, rushed forward for her deliverance
from his barbarian allies. He succeeded in rescuing her, and, in the
confusion of the battle still raging, ordered a dragoon to take her to
his own quarters till she could be provided with suitable protection.
The dragoon took the lady, half dead with terror, upon his horse behind
him, and was galloping with her to a place of safety, when another
ruffian band of Cossacks surrounded him, pierced his body with their
sabers, and seized again the unhappy victim. She was never heard of
more. The Emperor Alexander was greatly distressed at her fate, and made
the utmost, though unavailing efforts to discover what had become of
her. The revelations of the last day alone can divulge the horrors of
this awful tragedy.

The grief of Josephine in these days of anxiety was intense in the
extreme. She passed her whole time in talking about Napoleon, or
in reading the letters she had lately received from him. He wrote
frequently, as he escaped from place to place, but many of his letters
were intercepted by the bands of soldiers traversing every road. The
last she had received from him was dated at Brienne. It gave an account
of a desperate engagement, in which the little band of Napoleon had been
overwhelmed by numbers, and was concluded with the following affecting
words: "On beholding those scenes where I had passed my boyhood, and
comparing my peaceful condition then with the agitati