--[ Meneval (tome ii. p. 112), then with Maria Louisa as Secretary, who gives some details of her interview with the Emperor Francis on the 16th of April, says nothing about the Czar having been there; a fact he would have been sure to have remarked upon. It was only on the 19th of April that Alexander visited her, the King of Prussia coming in his turn on the 22d; but Bourrienne is right in saying that Maria Louisa complained bitterly of having to receive Alexander, and considered that she was forced by her father to do so. The poor little King of Rome, then only three years old, had also to be seen by the monarchs. He was not taken with his grandfather, remarking that he was not handsome. Maria Louisa seems, according to Meneval, to have been at this time really anxious to join Napoleon (Meneval, tome ii. p. 94). She left Rambouillet on the 28d of April stopped one day at Grossbois, receiving there her father and Berthier, and taking farewell of several persons who came from Paris for that purpose. On the 25th of April she started for Vienna, and later for Parma, which state she received under the treaty of 1814 and 1815. She yielded to the influence brought to bear on her, became estranged from Napoleon, and eventually married her chamberlain, the Comte de Neipperg, an Austrian general.]--The two Emperors set off from Paris shortly after each other. The Emperor of Austria arrived first at Rambouillet, where he was received with respect and affection by his daughter. Maria Louisa was happy to see him, but the many tears she shed were not all tears of joy. After the first effusion of filial affection she complained of the situation to which she was reduced. Her father sympathised with her, but could offer her no consolution, since her misfortunes were irreparable. Alexander was expected to arrive immediately, and the Emperor of Austria therefore informed his daughter that the Russian monarch wished to see her. At first Maria Louisa decidedly refused to receive him, and she persisted for some time in this resolution. She said to her father, "Would he too make me a prisoner before your eyes? If he enters here by force I will retire to my chamber. There, I presume, he will not dare to follow me while you are here." But there was no time to be lost; Francis II. heard the equipage of the Emperor of Russia rolling through the courtyard of Rambouillet, and his entreaties to his daughter became more and more urgent. At length she yielded, and the Emperor of Austria went himself to meet his ally and conduct him to the salon where Maria Louisa remained, in deference to her father. She did not, however, carry her deference so far as to give a favourable reception to him whom she regarded as the author of all her misfortunes. She listened with considerable coldness to the offers and protestations of Alexander, and merely replied that all she wished for was the liberty of returning to her family. A few days after this painful interview Maria Louisa and her son set off for Vienna.
--[A few days after this visit Alexander paid his respects to Bonaparte's other wife, Josephine. In this great breaking up of empires and kingdoms the unfortunate Josephine, who had been suffering agonies on account of the husband who had abandoned her, was not forgotten. One of the first things the Emperor of Russia did on arriving at Paris was to despatch a guard for the protection of her beautiful little palace at Malmaison. The Allied sovereigns treated her with delicacy and consideration.
"As soon as the Emperor Alexander knew that the Empress Josephine had arrived at Malmaison he hastened to pay her a visit. It is not possible to be more amiable than he was to her. When in the course of conversation he spoke of the occupation of Paris by the Allies, and of the position of the Emperor Napoleon, it was always in perfectly measured language: he never forgot for a single instant that be was speaking before one who had been the wife of his vanquished enemy. On her side the ex-Empress did not conceal the tender sentiments, the lively affection she still entertained for Napoleon . . . . Alexander had certainly something elevated and magnanimous in his character, which would not permit him to say a single word capable of insulting misfortune; the Empress had only one prayer to make to him, and that was for her children."
This visit was soon followed by those of the other Allied Princes.
"The King of Prussia and the Princes, his sons, came rather frequently to pay their court to Josephine; they even dined with her several times at Malmaison; but the Emperor Alexander come much more frequently. The Queen Hortense was always with her mother when she received the sovereigns, and assisted her in doing the honours of the house. The illustrious strangers exceedingly admired Malmaison, which seemed to them a charming residence. They were particularly struck with the fine gardens and conservatories."
From this moment, however, Josephine's health rapidly declined, and she did not live to see Napoleon's return from Elba. She often said to her attendant, "I do not know what is the matter with me, but at times I have fits of melancholy enough to kill me." But on the very brink of the grave she retained all her amiability, all her love of dress, and the graces and resources of a drawing-room society. The immediate cause of her death was a bad cold she caught in taking a drive in the park of Malmaison on a damp cold day. She expired on the noon of Sunday, the 26th of May, in the fifty-third year of her age. Her body was embalmed, and on the sixth day after her death deposited in a vault in the church of Ruel, close to Malmaison. The funeral ceremonies were magnificent, but a better tribute to the memory of Josephine was to be found is the tears with which her children, her servants, the neighbouring poor, and all that knew her followed her to the grave. In 1826 a beautiful monument was erected over her remains by Eugene Beauharnais and his sisters with this simple inscription:
TO JOSEPHINE.
EUGENE. HORTENSE.
