On the 2 April 1805 Napoleon left Fontainebleau for Milan, where he was to be crowned as King of Italy. He had not intended to take Joséphine with him, but she pleaded so warmly that he finally yielded. The first night was spent at Troyes, and the following day the Emperor went alone to Brienne, to see the school where he had received his first education. He slept at the château, and the following morning, without any escort, he visited the old familiar scenes of his boyhood.

Following the usual route via Mâcon the imperial party reached Lyon a week later. In order not to fatigue the Empress, Napoleon had arranged to stop every night in some city, instead of travelling night and day as was his regular habit. The sovereigns usually stayed at the préfecture, where they found the dinner ready to serve, and the lodgings prepared by the servants sent in advance.

At Lyon they descended at the palace of the archbishop, Cardinal Fesch, who had recently been appointed to this see. The entire journey from Fontainebleau had been a triumphal march. The villagers had flocked from far and near to line the route and cheer their Emperor, with an enthusiasm which at that time was as sincere as it was spontaneous.

It was three hours after noon when the party entered Lyon, and the entire populace of the second city of France had gathered to acclaim the Emperor. Napoleon had done much to increase the prosperity of this large silk-manufacturing town, and he was extremely popular there.

After a sojourn of five days, they left for Turin by way of Mont-Cenis. The fine road over the Alps, constructed by Napoleon, was not yet completed, and, to cross the mountains, chaises à porteur were provided for the women, and mules for the men. The Pope, who had left Fontainebleau two days after the Emperor, was still at Turin, where he had stopped for a short rest on his way to Rome. As he occupied the palace, the Emperor deferred for several days his entry into the capital, and stopped at an old villa of the King of Sardinia a few miles from the city.

Before proceeding to Milan, the party turned aside to visit Alessandria. Here, the 5 May, the Emperor held a grand review on the field where five years before he had gained the great victory of Marengo. He had brought from Paris, and wore again on this occasion the old and faded uniform, the shapeless hat, and the heavy sabre, which recalled so many glorious memories. The manœuvres were directed by Eugène under the orders of the Emperor, and Napoleon expressed to Joséphine his satisfaction with the manner in which her son had performed his task.

On the following day, Napoleon saw Jérôme for the first time since his brother’s marriage. Jérôme had arrived at Lisbon with his wife during the month of April. He was allowed to land, but, under orders from the Emperor, she was forced to reëmbark for England. Jérôme was summoned to meet the Emperor in Italy, and travelled there post-haste. After a decisive interview with Napoleon, he basely agreed to abandon his wife and her unborn child, and was again restored to favor.

On the 8 May the Emperor entered Milan, where his welcome was not so spontaneous as in the cities of Piedmont. Napoleon was much disappointed at the lack of real enthusiasm, and spoke of it to Joséphine. His coronation as King of Italy took place on the 26 May in the cathedral. The weather was perfect, and the city was crowded with spectators. The ceremonies were similar to those at Notre-Dame, but on a much smaller scale. Cardinal Caprara, the Archbishop of Milan, officiated. Napoleon himself placed upon his head the celebrated Iron Crown of the ancient kings of Lombardy, at the same time using the traditional formula: “God gave it me; woe to him who touches it!” Joséphine, although she bore the title of Queen of Italy, was not crowned as at Paris, and was present at the ceremony only as a spectator.

“After our return to the palace,” writes Mlle. Avrillon, “I was occupied in the room of the Empress when the Emperor entered. He was full of glee; he laughed, rubbed his hands together, and said with great good humor: ‘Well, mademoiselle, did you have a good view of the ceremony? Did you hear what I said in placing the crown upon my head?’ Then he repeated in nearly the same tone he had used in the cathedral: Dieu me l’a donnée, gare à qui y touche! I replied that nothing had escaped me. He was most amiable to me, and I have often remarked that when nothing disturbed the Emperor he was very familiar with the persons of his household; he spoke to us with a sort of bonhomie, of freedom, as if he were our equal.... Often he gave us a little tap, or pulled our ears: it was a favor which he did not accord to everybody; and we could judge of the extent of his good humor by the greater or less degree of pain that he caused us.... Very frequently he did the same to the Empress when we were dressing her: he gave her some taps playfully upon the shoulders. It was useless for her to cry: Finis donc, finis donc, Bonaparte! he continued as long as the play amused him.”

On the 10 June the Emperor announced the appointment of Eugène as Viceroy of Italy. This elevation of her son, which should have delighted Joséphine, was only a cause of chagrin. She shed tears at the thought of being separated from her child. One day when the Emperor found her very sad he said: “You weep, Joséphine: it is not reasonable. Do you cry because you are going to be separated from your son? If the absence of your children causes you so much grief, judge what I myself must endure! The attachment to them which you show makes me cruelly feel the misfortune of not having any.” These words were far from assuaging the grief of the Empress: they raised once more the dreaded spectre of divorce. Napoleon certainly had no idea of increasing her grief, and Joséphine could not let him see what an interpretation she put upon his speech. “The Emperor,” says Mlle. Avrillon, “was one of the best husbands that I have ever known; when the Empress was indisposed he passed by her side all the time that he could take from his affairs. He always came to her before retiring, and very often when he awoke during the night, he came himself, or sent his Mameluke to have news of Her Majesty. He had for her the most tender regard, and it is only true to say that she fully returned it.... Nothing that I say here would seem exaggerated if others, like myself, could have witnessed the proofs of affection which they both displayed; and I am certain that when political reasons forced them to separate, all the grief was not on one side.”

On the 10 June the Emperor left Milan for a visit to the Austrian frontier and the famous Quadrilateral, the scene of so many of his brilliant victories. Three days later he held another grand review of his troops on the battle-field of Castiglione. Joséphine took advantage of his absence to make with a few attendants the tour of the Italian lakes. She was happy to be free for a few days from the irksome etiquette which the presence of the Emperor always imposed.

On her return to Milan, she dismissed most of her suite, who were to leave directly for Paris, and with a few attendants proceeded to Bologna, where she rejoined the Emperor. In this city the new sovereigns of Italy received a very warm greeting, which partially atoned for the coldness of the Milanais. On the last day of June the party arrived at Genoa, well named the Superb, where they had a brilliant reception. During the following week there was a succession of magnificent fêtes to celebrate the incorporation of the ancient republic in the French Empire.

Late on the 6 July a special courier from Paris brought to the Emperor the news of the formation of the Third Coalition, and at ten o’clock that evening he set out for Turin, where he arrived early on the following morning. He then told the Empress of his intention to start the next day post-haste for Paris, leaving her to follow him more leisurely. Joséphine begged to accompany him, and the Emperor finally consented, on her promise not to have one of her headaches!

The party started in three carriages—one for the Emperor and Empress, another for the grand officers of the household, and a third for the service—with a small escort of cavalry. But after crossing Mont-Cenis, the Emperor travelled so rapidly that the other carriages and the escort were left far behind. Napoleon and Joséphine reached Fontainebleau about ten o’clock on the night of the 11 July, after an absence of exactly one hundred days. Four days later the Emperor wrote Eugène: “I arrived eighty-five hours after my departure from Turin. Nevertheless I lost three hours on Mont-Cenis and I stopped constantly on account of the Empress. One or two hours to breakfast and one or two hours to dine made me lose eight or ten hours more.” The express trains via the Mont-Cenis tunnel now make the run of about 440 miles in fourteen hours. Allowing for the delays of which he speaks, and the longer distance by road, the Emperor made the trip in about seventy hours, at the rate of nearly seven miles an hour.

The arrival of the Emperor at Fontainebleau was so unexpected that there was no one to receive him except the concierge of the palace, an old servant named Gaillot, who had been his cook in Egypt. “Come, my good fellow,” said the Emperor, “you must resume your old calling; you must get us some supper.” Fortunately Gaillot had in his larder some mutton chops and some eggs, and Napoleon and Joséphine ate the simple repast with a good appetite.

A week later the Emperor reached Saint-Cloud, while the thunder of the cannon of the Invalides announced his return to the capital. The same evening, after a call on Madame Mère, the sovereigns attended the Opéra, where they received a warm welcome from the audience.

On the second day of August the Emperor left Saint-Cloud for a month’s tour of inspection of the Grand Army, which was in cantonments along the Channel, prepared for a descent on England. Here, ten days later, he received news that Admiral Villeneuve, after an indecisive action with the English fleet off Ferrol, had set sail for Cadiz, instead of Brest, as ordered. Losing no time in vain regrets over the failure of his well-laid plans, Napoleon called Daru to his headquarters at Pont-de-Brique at four o’clock in the morning, and dictated at one sitting the plan of the Austrian campaign as far as Vienna.

In the meantime Joséphine had gone to her favorite watering-place, Plombières, to take the baths. What a marvellous change in her fortunes since her earlier visit as Madame Bonaparte after the departure of her husband for Egypt! Then, after her accident, she was almost alone, and Hortense was called in haste from Saint-Germain to nurse her mother. Now a company of infantry is sent to escort Her Majesty from Nancy to Plombières; there are receptions by authorities civil and military, addresses and salutes; triumphal arches at the gates of the cities; at Plombières, illuminations and fireworks. She is accompanied by a préfet du palais, an écuyer d’honneur, a dame d’honneur and two dames du palais, five femmes de chambre, and a score or more of servants. The charges for the post, going and coming, amount to nearly forty thousand francs, and the entire expenses of the trip total over 134,000 francs.

By way of diversion, Joséphine had her portrait painted by a very popular artist named Laurent whom she met at Plombières. For this small full-length portrait, eighteen inches by fifteen, she paid six thousand francs. Except for a few excursions in the neighborhood this was the only occupation of her days. At Bondy, on her return, she was greeted by the prefect and all the authorities. She survived the addresses, and without any escort continued her journey to Malmaison, which she reached the last of August.

On the 24 September, between four and five o’clock in the morning, accompanied by Joséphine, Napoleon left Saint-Cloud to put himself at the head of the Grand Army, which exactly four weeks before had begun its march from the Channel to the Rhine. The journey of 315 miles to Strasbourg was made in sixty hours without any stop. In accompanying the Emperor to Strasbourg, and taking up her residence there, Joséphine’s thought was, “to escape from the Parisian addresses which bored her; from the surveillance of her brothers-in-law; and from the ennui of the palace of Saint-Cloud.” She was amused with a new entertainment.

In the ancient capital of Alsace, Joséphine lived in the episcopal mansion at the foot of the cathedral. It was a real palace, completed in 1741, and entirely modern in its appointments. Built by the first bishop of the house of Rohan, Armand-Gaston, cardinal and grand almoner, it had been visited by Louis the Fifteenth in 1744, and had received Marie-Antoinette on her arrival in France as Dauphine in 1770. Sold early in the Revolution as national property, it had been bought by the city and become the seat of the municipal administration. After the foundation of the Empire the city had offered the palace to the State as one of the “four imperial residences to be established at the four principal points of the Empire.” From Boulogne, the Emperor had ordered Duroc to send Fontaine to Strasbourg to put the mansion in order to receive him. In less than two weeks the architect cleared out the clerks and the archives; cleaned, redecorated and refurnished the palace—all at a cost not much exceeding two hundred thousand francs. Furniture was collected from the neighboring cities and châteaux; linen, glass and silver were sent from Paris. Three days before the Emperor’s arrival all was ready, even to the carriages and horses in the stables.

The private suite of the Emperor, facing on the court, comprised five rooms, while in the rear, fronting on the terrace of the Ill, were the State apartments, seven magnificent salons on the first floor. On the first and second floors, there were fourteen small rooms at the disposal of the Empress; the quarters were not very commodious, but she was satisfied.

The Emperor remained only four days at Strasbourg and then proceeded to the headquarters of the army. The life of Joséphine after his departure was one continual round of dinners, balls, concerts and spectacles. In two months Bausset, the prefect of the palace, paid out over two hundred thousand francs for the running expenses of the household. As the success of the Emperor became known there were visits from all of the South German princes. Joséphine received the homage rendered her; she missed no ceremony; she remained until the end of all the balls she gave, and had a smile and a polite word for every one.

Not content with enjoying all the pleasures of the city, Joséphine indulged to the limit her mania for spending. Everything that was offered, she bought: pictures, porcelains, plants, living animals—all of which went to swell her collection at Malmaison. With the expenses of the palace, she left over a million francs behind her in Strasbourg.

The story of the campaign of 1805 is told in the letters which Napoleon wrote almost daily. From every bivouac, from every field of battle, came one of his letters—not burning and delirious as nine years before, but full of tenderness and loving thought.

On the 6 October the Emperor surveyed the passage of the Danube at Donauwörth, and passed the night at Nördlingen, where on the following day he issued the first of the famous bulletins of the Grand Army. He remained in this vicinity for four days, directing the passage of the river by the troops of Murat, and the operations which followed. He reached Augsbourg on the night of the tenth, and lodged with the former Elector of Trèves.

To the Empress, at Strasbourg

Two days later the French Army entered Munich in triumph, and the Emperor continued his correspondence:

To the Empress, at Strasbourg

On the eve of the capitulation of Ulm, from his headquarters Napoleon sent the good news to Joséphine:

To the Empress, at Strasbourg

The Emperor of Austria, obliged to flee from his capital, had taken refuge at Brünn, where he joined the Czar and his army. On the 13 November Napoleon entered Vienna, and took up his residence at Schœnbrunn.

To the Empress, at Strasbourg

The following day the Emperor sent Joséphine the welcome message that he had made all the arrangements for her to proceed to Munich.