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The Emperor frequently came in to encourage his young wife. Within the palace expectation was keen, passionate, and noisy. It was who should get the first tidings of the delivery.
The pains, which had been feeble during the night, ceased entirely at five o'clock in the morning. M. Dubois, observing no signs of a speedy delivery, said so to the Emperor, who dismissed everybody and went to take a bath.
The anxiety he was undergoing made this brief moment of repose essential to him; he was greatly moved. He told me how much the Empress was suffering: "But," he added, "she is full of strength and courage."
The Empress, worn out by fatigue, slept for some minutes. She was awakened by hard pains, which constantly increased, yet without bringing on the natural crisis, and M. Dubois became convinced that the delivery would be difficult and laborious. His Majesty had been in his bath scarcely a quarter of an hour when he was announced, and came into the bath-room with his face much drawn. He said to the Emperor that out of a thousand confinements not more than one was likely to present itself as did that of the Empress, and that he was afraid he could not save both the mother and the child. "Come, then," said the Emperor, "don't lose your head, M. Dubois; save the mother, think of nothing but the mother. I will follow you." The Emperor got out of his bath precipitately, giving me scarcely time enough to dry him. He put on his dressing-gown and went down stairs. I know that he embraced the Empress tenderly, recommended her to be courageous, and held her hand for some time. But unable to restrain his emotion, he retired to an adjoining salon, and there, listening to the slightest sounds, and trembling with fear, he spent a quarter of an hour in cruel anguish. It was necessary to use instruments. Marie-Louise perceived them, and said with sorrowful bitterness: "Must I be sacrificed then, because I am an empress?" Madame de Montesquiou, who was holding her head, said to her: "Courage, Madame; I have been through all that; I assure you that your precious life is not in danger."
The labor lasted twenty-six minutes and was very painful. The feet of the child came first, and great efforts were necessary in order to extricate the head. The Emperor was waiting in the dressing-room; he was as pale as death and seemed beside himself. At last the child was born. Then the Emperor rushed into the room and embraced the Empress With extreme tenderness, without even glancing at the child, who was believed to be dead. It did in fact remain seven minutes without any sign of life. A few drops of brandy were blown into its mouth; it was slapped lightly all over the body with the palm of the hand; it was covered with hot napkins. At last it uttered a cry.
The Emperor sprang from the arms of the Empress to embrace this son whose birth was for him the last and highest gift of fortune. He seemed overwhelmed with joy; he would turn from the mother to the child, and from the child to the mother, and appeared unable to satisfy himself with gazing at both. When he came back to his room to dress his face shone with delight. On seeing me, he said: "Well! Constant, we have a big boy; he is splendidly made for ear-pulling, for example." He announced it in the same way to all the other persons whom he met. It was in these effusions of domestic joy that I could appreciate how profoundly the pleasures of family life were felt by this great soul who was supposed to be sensitive to glory alone.
From the instant when the great bell of Notre-Dame and the steeples of the different parishes of Paris began to make themselves heard in the middle of the night, until that when the cannon announced the happy delivery of the Empress, an extreme agitation was perceptible all over the city. At daybreak, crowds began pouring toward the Tuileries. The courts and docks were encumbered by them. Every one was anxiously awaiting the first discharge of cannon. But this curious spectacle occurred not merely at the Tuileries and the neighboring quarters; by half-past nine o'clock you might see people in the streets most remote from the château, and in all parts of Paris, stopping to count with emotion the successive discharges. The twentysecond, which announced the birth of a boy, was greeted with general acclamations. To the expectant silence which had suspended as if by enchantment the progress of all who were scattered throughout the various quarters of the city, succeeded a movement of enthusiasm difficult to describe. In that twenty-second cannon there was a whole dynasty, an entire future. Hats flew into the air, people ran up to meet entire strangers, and with mutual embraces shouted: Long live the Emperor! Old soldiers shed tears of joy in reflecting that by their sweat and their exhaustion they had aided in preparing the heritage of the King of Rome, and that their laurels were to shelter the cradle of a dynasty.
Napoleon, hidden behind the curtain of one of the Empress's windows, enjoyed the spectacle of the popular delight, and seemed profoundly affected by it. His eyes swam with tears, and he came in that condition to embrace his son. Glory had never caused him to shed a tear, but the happiness of being a father had softened this heart which the most brilliant victories and most sincere evidences of public admiration seemed scarcely to touch. And in fact, if Napoleon was ever justified in believing in his fortune, it was on the day when he, who had begun life as the second son of a Corsican family, had been made, by an Austrian archduchess, the father of a king. In the course of a few hours, the event which France and Europe had been awaiting with great impatience had become the private festival of every family.
At half-past ten o'clock, Madame Blanchard went up in a balloon from the Military School to spread the news of the birth of the King of Rome in all the towns and villages she might pass.
The happy event was announced by telegraph in all quarters, and by two o'clock in the afternoon replies had been received from Lyons, Lille, Brussels, Antwerp, Brest, and several other large cities of the Empire. As may easily be believed, these replies were in perfect accord with the sentiments of the capital.
To respond to the eagerness of the crowds continually besieging the doors of the palace for tidings of the Empress and her august infant, it had been decided that one of the chamberlains on duty should remain from morning till evening in the first salon of the grand apartment to receive those who should present themselves, and to acquaint them with the contents of the bulletins which Her Majesty's physicians were to send in twice a day. Within a few hours extraordinary couriers were carrying over all roads the news of the accouchement of the Empress; some of the Emperor's pages were charged with this mission to the Italian Senate and the municipal bodies of Milan and Rome. In all the fortified cities and in the ports orders were given for the same salvos as in Paris, and for the draping of the fleets. A lovely evening favored the special rejoicings of the capital. The houses had been spontaneously illuminated. Those who seek to divine from external appearances the real sentiments of a people on such occasions, remarked that the upper stories of houses situated in the faubourgs were as light as the most sumptuous hotels and handsomest houses of the capital. Public edifices, which under other circumstances become noticeable by reason of the darkness of the surrounding buildings, were scarcely so in this profusion of lights which public gratitude had kindled in every window. The boatmen gave an impromptu fête on the water which lasted half the night, and was participated in by an immense crowd on the river banks, who testified the utmost joy. This people, which for thirty years had been experiencing so many emotions, and which had fêted so many victories, displayed as lively an enthusiasm as if this were a first festivity, or signified a happy alteration in its destiny. Verses were sung or recited in all the theatres, and there was not a poetical form, from the ode to the fable, which was not employed to celebrate the event of March 20, 1811. I learned from a very well-informed person that the sum of one hundred thousand francs, previously deducted from the Emperor's private funds, was divided by M. Dequevauvilliers, secretary of accounts to the chamber, between the authors of the poesies which were sent to the Tuileries. And finally, fashion, which exploits the least events, gave birth to stuffs entitled things roi-de-Rome, just as under the old regime there had been things Dauphin.
At nine o'clock in the evening of March 20, the King of Rome received private baptism in the chapel of the Tuileries. The ceremony was magnificent. The Emperor Napoleon, surrounded by the princes and princesses and all his court, took his place in the middle of the chapel, in an armchair surmounted by a dais with a prie-dieu. A granite plinth, supporting a magnificent gilt vase which was to serve as the baptismal font, had been placed on a white velvet carpet between the altar and the balustrade. The Emperor was grave, but paternal affection made his countenance look happy; one might have thought he felt half relieved of the burden of Empire by the sight of the august infant who seemed destined one day to receive it from his father's hands. When he approached the baptismal font to present the child for private baptism, there was a moment of silence and recollection which afforded a touching contrast with the noisy gaiety which was even then animating an immense crowd on the outside who had been drawn into the neighborhood of the Tuileries from all parts of Paris by the magnificent illuminations and splendid fireworks.
Madame Blanchard, who had started in a balloon an hour after the King of Rome was born, to spread the news in the places she should pass through on her aerial voyage, had first descended at Saint-Tiébault, near Lagny. But as the wind failed her there, she returned to Paris. Her balloon went up again after her departure, and fell anew in a markettown six leagues distant. The inhabitants, finding nothing in it but some clothes and provisions, never doubted that the intrepid balloonist had been wrecked, but just as the news of her death was sent to Paris, Madame Blanchard herself arrived there and dispelled all anxiety.
A great many persons had doubted the pregnancy of Marie-Louise. Some thought that it was feigned. I have never been able to understand the stupid arguments put forward on the subject by these persons, and which malevolence sought to foist upon the public. The singular thing about it, and what proves that for the most part it proceeded from bad faith and folly, was that while some accused the Emperor of libertinage, the others believed him incapable of making a nineteen-year-old princess a mother. Thus hatred falsifies the judgment. If Napoleon had had illegitimate children, why could he not have legitimate ones, especially with a young wife whose health was generally known to be flourishing? For the rest, this was not the first, nor was it the last false rumor of the sort that Napoleon gave rise to. His position was too high and his glory too brilliant not to occasion exaggerated sentiments, whether of admiration or of hatred.
There were also malevolent persons who were pleased to say that Naopleon was somewhat incapable of tender sentiments, and that the happiness of being a father did not penetrate to the depths of this soul devoured by ambition. Among a thousand traits I can cite one little anecdote which touches me particularly, and which I am all the better pleased to relate because, while it gives a victorious reply to the calumnies of which I speak, it also proves the very special kindliness with which His Majesty honored me. Both as a father and a faithful servant, I experience a satisfaction, sweet though painful, in setting it down in these Memoirs. Napoleon was very fond of children. One day he asked me to bring him mine. I went out to look for him. Meanwhile M. de Talleyrand was introduced to the Emperor's apartment. The conversation lasted a long time. My child grew tired of waiting, and I took him back to his mother. Not long afterwards, he was attacked by the croup. This cruel malady, against which His Majesty had thought himself bound to make a special appeal to the medical faculty of Paris, carried off many children from their families. Mine died in Paris; we were then at the château of Compiègne. I received the sad tidings just as it was time to go down to the toilet. I was too overwhelmed by this loss to repair to my duties. The Emperor sent to inquire what prevented me from coming, and when he was told that I had just heard of the death of my son, he said kindly: "That poor Constant! What a horrible affliction! We fathers, we know what that is!"
Not long afterwards my wife went to see the Empress Josephine at Malmaison.
This amiable princess deigned to receive her in the little salon which
led into her sleeping-room. There she made her sit down beside her, and
tried to console her by affecting words. She said we were not the only
ones stricken by this misfortune, that she also had lost her grandson by
the same malady. As she said so she began to weep, for this souvenir renewed
in her soul her recent griefs. My wife bathed the hands of this excellent
princess with her tears. Josephine added a thousand touching things, seeking
to alleviate her troubles by sharing them, and thus to reawaken resignation
in the heart of a poor mother. The memory of this kindness soothed our
former sorrows, and I own that it is both an honor and a consolation for
us to remember the august sympathies which the loss of this dear infant
excited in the hearts of Napoleon and Josephine. No one will ever know
how sensitive and compassionate this princess was, especially to the griefs
of others, and what treasures of kindliness her beautiful soul contained.
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