The last week in April 1810, Napoleon left Compiègne with Marie-Louise for a visit of five weeks to Belgium. Madame de La Tour du Pin, the wife of the French prefect at Brussels at that time, has given us in her Recollections a striking picture of the young Empress, whom she saw frequently while the Court was at Laeken. She says that Marie-Louise was insignificant, absolutely devoid of intelligence, and entirely unworthy of the great man whose destiny she shared; that she seemed to make it a point to be as disagreeable as possible to every one with whom she came in contact.

The new Empress was no more popular at Paris, where Joséphine was more and more regretted. During the absence of the Emperor, Joséphine held a regular Court at Malmaison. “The crowd rushed there, all the more eager because Their Majesties were at Antwerp, and they had no fear of displeasing Marie-Louise.” The astute courtiers already perceived signs of a return to power of the old favorite. The Emperor had invited Eugène to accompany him, and during the journey had treated him with marked distinction. Joséphine had discreetly revealed to her confidential friends that she had received from the Emperor a letter full of affection, in which he gave her permission to remain at Malmaison, even after the return of the Court to Saint-Cloud, and promised to pay her an early visit. This letter, which bears no date, runs as follows:

To the Empress Joséphine, at Malmaison

At this time Joséphine was very anxious about her daughter. After the stay of the Court at Compiègne, the Emperor had ordered Hortense to go to Amsterdam to rejoin her husband, with whom she had not lived since the birth of Louis-Napoleon two years before. Her health was still very bad, and she complied with the Emperor’s order with great reluctance. The letters of Joséphine during the month of May all manifest her great anxiety, and express her desire that Hortense should accompany her to the waters, either to Aix-la-Chapelle, her first idea, or to Aix-les-Bains, in Savoie, where she finally decided to go. The condition of Hortense finally became so alarming that, at the end of May, her husband consented to her going to Plombières.

Napoleon’s promised visit to Malmaison finally took place on the 13 June, twelve days after his return to Saint-Cloud. In a letter to her daughter, written the following day, Joséphine records her joy:

To Queen Hortense, at Plombières

A few days later, on the 18 June, Joséphine set out for Aix-les-Bains, travelling under the name of the Comtesse d’Arberg, and accompanied only by four members of her household. She had chosen this place in preference to her old resort, Plombières, because “her health required distraction above all, and she hoped to find more of that in a place which she had not yet seen, and whose situation was picturesque,” also because “the waters are especially renowned for the nerves.”

The Empress occupied a modest habitation with Madame d’Audenarde, and the rest of her attendants were lodged in a small adjoining house. A week after her arrival she was rejoined by Madame de Rémusat.

At Aix, Joséphine led a very simple life. Bathing, excursions, reading the latest novels from Paris, dinner at eight o’clock, on account of the heat, a little music or a game afterwards—so passed her days. She had arrived before the opening of the season, but as soon as her presence was known visitors began to come from all of the neighboring towns in France, Switzerland and northern Italy.

On the 10 July she had a short visit from her son, who was on his way to Milan. Eugène had recently been made by the Emperor hereditary Grand-Duke of Frankfort, which was generally assumed to be the end of any expectations that he might become King of Italy. It was rumored that Napoleon intended to unite Italy to the Empire, and that Eugène would cease to be his adopted son, when he had a son of his own. Joséphine feared that he would cease to be Viceroy at the same time that Hortense descended from the throne of Holland. This event had just been announced to her in a letter from the Emperor:

To the Empress Joséphine, at Aix

Although Joséphine, in her letters to Hortense, complains of her quiet surroundings, and speaks of her melancholy, her life at Aix seems to have been quite gay. The only incident which produced any excitement was a narrow escape which she had from death on a visit to the abbey of Hautecombe, when a sudden storm on the lake nearly caused her boat to founder. This is referred to in a letter from Napoleon at Trianon: “I have heard with anxiety the danger which you ran. For a child of the Isles of the Ocean to perish in a lake would be a catastrophe!”

On her return to Aix from this excursion, which had so nearly proved fatal, Joséphine found a chamberlain of Queen Hortense, who announced her arrival on the following day. The meeting of the mother and daughter was very affecting. The similarity in their situations had produced a new bond of sympathy between them. At the time of her arrival, Hortense was ill both in body and soul, threatened with consumption, and absolutely worn out and discouraged. But in spite of all her troubles, she was her usual amiable self, and proved a great consolation to her mother. It was at this time that Hortense was brought into intimate contact with Charles de Flahaut, whose social accomplishments had made him a great favorite with Joséphine. Their intimacy resulted fifteen months later in the birth of the future Duc de Morny, so well known under the Second Empire.

The visit of Hortense was very short, as she was ordered by the Emperor to return to Fontainebleau, and rejoin her two sons. She was therefore unable, as she wished, to accompany her mother on her tour of Switzerland during the months of September and October.

Leaving Aix the first of September, Joséphine went to Sécheron, a small village in the suburbs of Geneva. She made this her headquarters during the two following months while she visited all the principal points of interest in Switzerland. As she was never fond of travelling, the only explanation of her course at this time is the report which had just reached her of the condition of Marie-Louise. We find the first mention of the subject in a letter to her daughter:

To Queen Hortense, at Aix

As usual, Josephine’s letter to the Emperor is not extant, but his reply is given in Queen Hortense’s collection:

To the Empress Joséphine, at Aix

This correspondence seems to furnish a sufficient explanation of Joséphine’s restlessness. She now showed a great desire to cancel the program which she herself had submitted to the Emperor in the spring, and to return at once to Malmaison. She evidently wrote Napoleon on the subject, for we have his reply:

To the Empress Joséphine, at Geneva

Joséphine returns to the same subject in two letters to her daughter, from Berne, the following month:

To Queen Hortense, at Fontainebleau

This revelation of the deep affection of Joséphine for Napoleon, in the confidence of an intimate personal letter to her daughter, seems a sufficient answer to those writers who have frequently expressed doubts of her sincerity.

Upon her return to Geneva, the 21 October, Joséphine found a note from the Emperor, and at once wrote Hortense to announce her final plans:

To Queen Hortense, at Fontainebleau

While she was still at Berne, or soon after her return to Geneva, Joséphine received a very long letter from Madame de Rémusat, in which, with many flattering phrases, she mingles the advice not to return to Paris. The letter bears no date, but was probably written early in October 1810. The note of Paul de Rémusat, in which he assigns the date to the last of 1812, or the beginning of 1813, is absurd. This letter is quoted at length in the collection of Queen Hortense, and in many of the biographies, but it hardly deserves so much space.

Apparently Joséphine had wished to meet Marie-Louise, but Madame de Rémusat assures her that the time has not yet come for such a step. Then follow long details to show the jealousy of Marie-Louise.

Among those whom the writer had seen was Duroc, the grand marshal of the palace; from him she gathered that Joséphine had still further sacrifices to make. “May you not find in the course of a rather more prolonged journey pleasures which you do not foresee at first? At Milan there awaits you the sweet spectacle of a son’s merited success. Florence and Rome too would gratify your tastes.... You would encounter at every step in Italy memories which the Emperor would see recalled with no vexation, for to him they are connected with the epoch of his earliest glories.” There is much more in the same strain, and it is evidently Napoleon who is speaking through the mouth of Duroc. The Emperor, however, was too tenderly disposed towards Joséphine to give her a positive order not to return to France, and she was not a woman to take a hint.

Before leaving Geneva, Joséphine purchased the château of Prégny, on the edge of the lake, facing Mont-Blanc, for which she paid nearly two hundred thousand francs. After this final extravagance, she set out on the first day of November for her stay of “twenty-four hours” at Malmaison. Napoleon was still at Fontainebleau with Marie-Louise, but his own return to the Tuileries was fixed for the 15 November. As Joséphine was still at Malmaison at that date, the Emperor sent Cambacérès to hasten her departure. She protested that she could not leave without time to pack up, and it was not until the 22 November that she actually reached Navarre.