He sent this letter to the
castle of Navarra by M. de Maussion, and the messenger of evil
tidings arrived there in the middle of the night.
Josephine had given orders that she should be awakened as soon as
any one brought news for her. She immediately arose from her bed,
threw a mantle over her shoulders, and bade M. de Maussion come in.
"Does the emperor live?" cried she, as he approached. "Only answer
me this: does the emperor live?"
Then, when she had received this assurance, after reading Napoleon's
letter, and learning all the sad, humiliating news, pale, and
trembling in all her limbs, she hastened to her daughter Hortense.
"Ah, Hortense," exclaimed she, overcome and falling into an arm-
chair near her daughter's bed, "ah, Hortense, the unfortunate
Napoleon! They are sending him to the island of Elba! Now he is
unhappy, abandoned, and I am not near him! Were I not his wife I
would go to him and exile myself with him! Oh, why cannot I be with
him?" [Footnote: Mlle. Cochelet, "Memoires," vol. ii.]
But she dared not! Napoleon, knowing her heart and her love, had
commissioned the Duke de Bassano expressly to tell the Empress
Josephine to make no attempt to follow him, and "to respect the
rights of another.
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