-day, for the
first time; Hortense was not present, and she might therefore, for once,
allow herself the sad consolation of showing, bereft of its smile and
its paint, the pale countenance, which death had already
lightly touched.

"Your majesty is ill!" exclaimed the emperor, in dismay.

With a smile, which brought tears to Alexander's eyes, Josephine pointed
to her breast, and whispered: "Sire, I have received the
death-wound here!"

Yes, she was right; she had received a fatal wound, and her heart was
bleeding to death.

Terrified by Josephine's condition, the emperor hurried to Paris, and
sent his own physician to inquire after her condition. When the latter
returned, he informed the emperor that Josephine was dangerously ill,
and that he did not believe her recovery possible.

He was right, and Alexander saw the empress no more! Hortense and
Eugene, her two children, held a sad watch at their mother's bedside
throughout the night. The best physicians were called in, but these
only confirmed what the Russian physician had said--the condition of the
empress was hopeless. Her heart was broken! With strong hands, she had
held it together as long as her children's welfare seemed to require.
Now that Hortense's future was also assured--now that she knew that her
grandchildren would, at least, not be compelled to wander about the
world as exiled beggars--now Josephine withdrew her hands from her
heart, and suffered it to bleed to death.

On the 29th of May, 1814, the Empress Josephine died, of an illness
which had apparently lasted but two days. Hortense had not heard her
mother's death-sigh; when she re-entered the room with Eugene, after her
mother had received the sacrament from Abbe Bertrand--when she saw her
mother, with outstretched arms, vainly endeavoring to speak to
them--Hortense fainted away at her mother's bedside, and the empress
breathed her last sigh in Eugene's arms.

The intelligence of the death of the empress affected Paris profoundly.
It seemed as though all the city had forgotten for a day that Napoleon
was no longer the ruler of France, and that the Bourbons had reascended
the throne of their fathers. All Paris mourned; for the hearts of the
French people had not forgotten this woman, who had so long been their
benefactress, and of whom each could relate the most touching traits of
goodness, of generosity, and of gentleness.

Josephine, now that she was dead, was once more enthroned as empr