From the time that the divorce of Joséphine was first officially discussed, at the Erfurt conference in the autumn of 1808, Napoleon’s preference seems to have been for an alliance with the imperial family of Russia. The replies of the Czar to the overtures of Talleyrand at that time had been equally vague and discreet; but a week after his return home his elder sister Catharine had been affianced to the heir of the Duchy of Oldenburg.

During the following year the time of the Emperor was taken up with the campaigns in Spain and Austria, and the matter remained in abeyance. But his thoughts still turned to Russia, and on the 22 November 1809, a week before the formal notification to Joséphine, he instructed Champagny, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, to send a despatch to Caulaincourt, the French ambassador at St. Petersburg, directing him to ask the Czar to state frankly whether he would consider favorably an alliance between the Emperor and his younger sister, Anne.

At that time it took two weeks for a courier to go from Paris to Saint Petersburg, and a month later no reply had yet been received from Russia. Another month passed, and Napoleon’s patience was exhausted. After Mass, on Sunday the 28 January 1810, the Emperor called a meeting of the principal dignitaries of the Empire, to discuss the respective advantages and disadvantages of a matrimonial alliance with Austria, Russia or Saxony. Prince Eugène, Talleyrand, Champagny, Berthier, and Maret declared for the Archduchess Marie-Louise; Murat and Cambacérès, for the Grand Duchess Anne; while only Lebrun favored the daughter of the King of Saxony. Napoleon took no part in the discussion, and gave no indication of his preference.

Finally, on the 6 February, a despatch was received from Caulaincourt. He stated that he had not yet succeeded in obtaining a definite answer from the Czar, but added that Anne, who was only fifteen, was not yet of an age to marry, and furthermore that she was not willing to change her religion. Napoleon hesitated no longer. He immediately sent a messenger to inquire of the Austrian ambassador, Prince de Schwarzenberg, whether the marriage contract with the Archduchess Marie-Louise could be signed the next day!

The contract, which was accordingly signed as proposed, was an almost exact copy of that of Marie-Antoinette, forty years before. The marriage by procuration was celebrated at Vienna on the 11 March, the Archduke Charles representing the Emperor Napoleon. On the 23 March Marie-Louise crossed the Rhine at Strasbourg, and four days later reached Compiègne where Napoleon had been awaiting her arrival for a week.

The Court left Compiègne on the 30 March and arrived at Saint-Cloud the same evening. Here the civil marriage was celebrated on Sunday, the first of April. The religious ceremony was performed in Paris the following day by Cardinal Fesch, and took place in the Salon Carré of the Louvre, which had been transformed into a chapel for the occasion.

In the meantime, Joséphine at the Élysée was finding her life in Paris as monotonous as it had been at Malmaison. The capital had never been so gay. Every night there were dinners, balls, suppers; but the Empress Joséphine was not present. The Emperor attended the opera, the theatres: he even gave, in the former apartments of the Empress at the Tuileries, a performance by the troupe of the Théâtre-Feydeau. There were balls given by Schwarzenberg, Talleyrand, Pauline, Berthier, Cambacérès; but in the midst of all these gaieties, Joséphine passed her evenings quietly at home.

The Emperor had completely changed his habitudes, and seemed to be in training for his life with a young wife. In place of the former tragedies, he demanded comedies to amuse him. He hunted in the Bois de Boulogne, at Saint-Germain, and at Satory. From time to time he paid a brief visit to Joséphine, but his letters had almost entirely ceased. In the centre of Paris, Joséphine felt as though she were marooned on a desert island.

After passing only a few weeks at the Élysée, on the 9 March Joséphine returned to Malmaison. It is not definitely known whether she tired of her isolation in the capital, or whether she received a delicate hint that her absence would be appreciated during the coming fêtes in honor of the arrival of the new Empress.

The very day that the marriage contract with Marie-Louise was signed, the Emperor had taken up the matter of finding a suitable country residence for Joséphine: one not too far from Paris, but at the same time more distant than Malmaison, which was almost at the gates of the city. His choice finally fell on the old château of Navarre, near Evreux, about seventy miles west of Paris. It will be recalled that this property had been assigned to the Prince of the Asturias in May 1808, as a part of the bargain for the Crown of Spain, but the agreement had never been carried out, and the following January, by a decree of the Emperor, the land of Navarre had been added to the domain of the State.

This château owed its name to Jeanne of France, Queen of Navarre, who about the middle of the fourteenth century had erected the building on the site of an old manor house. Three hundred years later the property was ceded by Louis the Fourteenth to the Duc de Bouillon in exchange for the sovereignty of Sedan, and remained in the possession of that family up to the time of the Revolution. By a curious coincidence, it was one of the cadet members of this same family who built at Paris the hôtel which later became the palace of the Élysée. During the Revolution the property was confiscated, and had later been joined to the Crown lands, although the title was far from clear. It was also very doubtful whether the Emperor had the power now to alienate the property from the Crown domain, and present it to a private person. But after certain formalities, more or less legal, had been complied with, the Emperor directed Maret to prepare letters patent erecting the land of Navarre into a duchy, and conveyed the title and the revenues to Joséphine for her life. In a letter to the Empress at Malmaison, Napoleon tells her of this gift:

This letter of the Emperor was in effect an order, which admitted of no evasion. The date of her departure and the length of her exile were both fixed. The 19 March, the day of Saint-Joseph, was her fête, but it was very quietly celebrated this year. The following day Eugène was to arrive with his wife, whom she had not seen since their marriage at Munich four years before. They came to spend a week at Malmaison, and thus Joséphine found an excuse to defer her departure for a few days longer. She had already stayed three days beyond the limit fixed by the Emperor; the new Empress was at Compiègne, and expected in Paris by the end of the week. It was time to start, and Joséphine went into her first exile.

Late in the afternoon of Thursday the 29 March, Joséphine made her triumphal entry into Évreux. She was received by the mayor, the prefect, and the authorities, with a band of music, and a guard of honor; the church bells were rung, and there were salvos of artillery. Joséphine did not stop in the city, but proceeded directly to Navarre, where she arrived at nightfall.

The first view of the château was very disappointing: it was a huge two-storied square block, surmounted by a dome upon which one of the original owners had intended to set up a statue of his uncle, the great Turenne. At the side of the château stood a smaller house. Both alike were dilapidated, draughty, and unfurnished, in spite of the fact that for two weeks past all of the laborers available at Évreux had worked “to make in haste the most necessary repairs.” The unfinished and uncrowned dome, which gave a ludicrous appearance to the building, was irreverently termed the marmite by the Normands of the neighborhood.

The rooms were vast and chilly; the windows would not close; the roof leaked, and the chimneys smoked. The château’s situation in a valley, while giving from the windows beautiful views of wooded hills in the summer, made it very damp for the rest of the year. On all sides there were large bodies of water, with cascades and fountains; and the park was planted with magnificent trees, but at the end of March “the leaves are rare, and between the water which flows, the water which stagnates, and the water which falls, with, for companions, these black skeletons, denuded and oozing, it would require, to be pleased, a backing of gaiety which Joséphine did not bring with her.”

A few days after her arrival Joséphine wrote Hortense, who was at Compiègne with the Court:

In a letter to her husband at Compiègne, written early in April, Madame de Rémusat says:

As Madame de Rémusat was a great friend of Joséphine these rumors undoubtedly reached her at Navarre, and increased her anxiety to return to Malmaison. The Emperor had not written her since his marriage, and she looked upon his silence as a proof of his intention to abandon her entirely. She feared to write him direct, but through Eugène asked permission to return to Malmaison. The reply being favorable, Joséphine wrote the letter which follows:

This letter does not seem to merit either the severe criticism of some of the biographers or the eulogy of others. Turquan declares it to be totally lacking in dignity, with its irritating reiteration of the sacrifices she had made, and its demand for money. On the other hand Saint-Amand considers it to be “an eloquent and simple expression of a true and noble sentiment, in which humility and dignity are perfectly combined”; and Masson says: “In truth this letter is a masterpiece, in which is to be found everything to excite the memory of Napoleon, arouse his former affection, and awaken his pity.”

The best comment on this letter, however, is to be found in the reply of the Emperor:

This letter is written with the old familiar tutoiement, so difficult to render into English, which is employed by Napoleon in all his letters to Joséphine. We think that the reader will agree that her letter showed bad form; was unwarranted in its assumptions, and that Napoleon, on this, as on many other occasions, proved himself the better friend.

Joséphine’s reply merits quotation in full:

This letter is very sweet and tender, but somehow it does not ring true. Masson says, if it is sincere it is maladroite; but if she is playing a rôle, knowing her partner as she does, is it not adroit in the highest degree?

In answer to her letter, Napoleon wrote briefly from Compiègne on the 28 April, encouraging her to go to the waters and assuring her once more of his unchanged feelings. He, too, had evidently heard of the rumors spoken of by Madame de Rémusat, for he said in his letter: “Do not listen to the babble of Paris; they are idle, and far from knowing the truth.” In fact there was not the slightest foundation for the reports.

Napoleon showed himself most willing to fall in with Joséphine’s plans for the remainder of the year, and the following winter. She wished, to go first to Malmaison, then at the end of May to some watering-place for three months. After that she proposed to proceed to the South of France, Florence, Rome and Naples; to spend the winter with Eugène in Milan, and return in the spring to Malmaison and Navarre.

The Emperor did not offer to meet the expenses of the repairs at Navarre, but agreed to advance the six hundred thousand francs left, after payment of her debts, out of her allowance from the Crown Treasury for 1810 and 1811; also that the one hundred thousand francs allowed her for extraordinary expenses at Malmaison should be diverted to Navarre.

The middle of May, Joséphine returned to Malmaison, then in all its spring glory. For the first time she is able to enjoy her hyacinths and tulips imported from Holland, for, as she once complained, “Bonaparte always summons me to him just at the moment they are in flower.”