of her former husband. Then
irresolutely stopping, she buried her face in her hands and burst into a
flood of tears.

"A feeling of delicacy seemed, for a moment, to have arrested her
steps--a consciousness that she had _now_ no right to enter the chamber
of Napoleon. In another moment all the pent-up love of her heart burst
forth, and forgetting every thing in the fullness of her anguish, she
threw herself upon the bed, clasped Napoleon's neck in her arms, and
exclaiming, 'My husband! my husband!' sobbed as though her heart were
breaking. The imperial spirit of Napoleon was entirely vanquished. He
also wept convulsively. He assured Josephine of his love--of his ardent,
undying love. In every way he tried to soothe and comfort her. For some
time they remained locked in each other's embrace. The valet-de-chambre,
who was still present, was dismissed, and for an hour Napoleon and
Josephine continued together in this their last private interview.
Josephine then, in the experience of an intensity of anguish such as few
human hearts have ever known, parted forever from the _husband_ whom
she had so long and so faithfully loved."

Josephine having withdrawn, an attendant entered the apartment to remove
the lights. He found the Emperor so buried beneath the bedclothes as to
be invisible. Not a word was uttered. The lights were removed, and the
unhappy monarch was left alone in darkness and silence to the melancholy
companionship of his own thoughts. The next morning the death-like
pallor of his cheek, his sunken eye, and the haggard expression of his
countenance, attested that the Emperor had passed the night in
sleeplessness and in suffering.

The grief of Napoleon was unquestionably sincere. It could not but be
so. He was influenced by no vagrant passion. He had formed no new
attachment. He truly loved Josephine. He consequently resolved to retire
for a time to the seclusion of Trianon, at Versailles. He seemed
desirous that the externals of mourning should accompany an event so
mournful.

"The orders for the departure for Trianon," writes the Baron Meneval,
Napoleon's private secretary, "had been previously given. When in the
morning the Emperor was informed that his carriages were ready, he took
his hat and said, 'Meneval, come with me.' I followed him by the little
winding staircase which, from his cabinet, communicated with the
apartment of the Empress. Josephine was alone, and appeared absorbed in
the most melanch