But Napoleon was unrelenting. His family should
not appear before the people as disregarding the sanctity
of the marriage bond. For state reasons he had
separated from his wife, and for state reasons he could
not give his consent to the dissolution of the union
of his brother and step-daughter. They must,
therefore, continue to drag the chain that united
them; and they did, but with angry hearts.
Louis returned to Holland in a more depressed state
of mind than ever; while Hortense and her two children,
in obedience to Napoleon’s express command,
remained in Paris for some time. They were to
attend the festivities that were soon to take place
at the imperial court in honor of the marriage of
the emperor with the Archduchess Marie Louise of Austria.
The daughter of the divorced empress, with the emperor’s
sisters, had been selected to carry the train of the
new empress on the marriage-day. Napoleon wished
to prove to France and to all Europe that there was
no other law in his family than his will, and that
the daughter of Josephine had never ceased to be his
obedient daughter also. Napoleon wished, moreover,
to retain near his young wife, in order that she might
have at her side a gentle and tender mentor, the queen
who had inherited Josephine’s grace and loveliness,
and who, in her noble womanhood, would set a good
example to the ladies of his court. Hortense
mutely obeyed the emperor’s command; on the 1st
of April, 1810, the day of the union of Marie Louise
with the emperor, she, together with his sisters,
bore the train of the new empress. She alone did
this without making any resistance, while it was only
after the most violent opposition to Napoleon’s
command that his sisters, Queen Caroline of Naples,
the Duchess Pauline of Guastalla, and the Grand-duchess
Elise of Tuscany, consented to undergo the humiliation
of walking behind their new sovereign as humble subjects.
And the emperor’s sisters were not the only
persons who regarded the imperial pair with displeasure
on the day of the marriage celebration. Only
a small number of the high dignitaries of the Church
had responded to the invitation of the grand-master
of ceremonies, and attended the marriage celebration
in the chapel in the Tuileries.
The emperor, who did not wish to punish his sisters
for their opposition, could at least punish the absence
of the cardinals, and he did this on the following
day. He exiled those cardinals who had not appeared
in the chapel, forbade them to appear in their red
robes thenceforth, and condemned them to the black
penitent’s dress.
The people of Paris also received the new empress
with a languid enthusiasm. They regarded the
new “Austrian” with gloomy forebodings;
and when, on the occasion of the ball given by Prince
Schwartzenberg in honor of the imperial marriage,
a short time afterward, the fearful fire occurred
that cost so many human lives and destroyed so much
family happiness, the people remembered with terror
that other misfortune that had occurred on the day
of the entry of Marie Antoinette into Paris, and called
this fire an earnest of the misfortunes which the “Austrian”
would bring upon France and the emperor.
