About the middle of November, the court came to Paris; but still the Emperor delayed, he could not say the word. The constraint between the two became constantly greater; the suffering of both, it was evident to all their intimate friends, was increasing. At last, on November 30th, after a silent and wretched dinner, Napoleon led Josephine into a salon, dismissed their followers, and told her of his decision. Josephine grasping nothing in his broken words but that they were to be separated, burst into tears, and fell upon a couch, where she lay sobbing aloud. She was carried to her apartment, where her attendants vainly sought to check her wild grief. Nor was her calm restored until late in the evening, when Hortense came to her with an explanation of the situation, which seems to have been entirely new to her mind. The Emperor, overwhelmed by Josephine’s outburst, had strengthened his own mind by summoning immediately to his side certain advisors who favored the divorce. After talking with them, he had sent for Hortense, and begun rather brutally by telling her that tears would do no good, that he had made up his mind that the divorce was necessary to the safety of the Empire, and that she and her mother must accept it as inevitable. Hortense replied with dignity that the Empress, whatever her grief, would obey his will, and that she and Eugène would follow her into exile; that none of them would complain at their disgrace, that all would remember his past kindness. This seems to have been Napoleon’s first glimmer of the idea of the divorce which the Beauharnais entertained. He began to weep. “What!” he cried, “do you and Eugène mean to desert me? You must not do it, you must stay with me. Your position, the future of your children, require it. However cruel the divorce for both your mother and me, it must be consummated with the dignity which the circumstances require.” Everything which could be done to soften the situation for Josephine should be done, he said. She should remain the first in rank after the Empress on the throne. She should receive the honors due her sacrifice; she should remain in France. Her income should be fit for her rank, she should be given palaces, a retinue—all that a grateful France could do, in short, should be done. As for Hortense and Eugène, he looked upon them as his children, and should do for them as he would for his own. This new idea of her fate had great effect on Josephine; and when her friends came to her to console her, weep as she might, she defended Napoleon, and presented the divorce as a sacrifice which they were together making for France. “The Emperor is as nearly heart-broken as I am,” she sobbed. “It cannot be helped. There must be an heir to consolidate the Empire.”