Josephine was in this nervous condition when she took a severe cold, and on May 25th her condition was so serious that the best physicians of Paris were summoned. The Emperor of Russia sent his private physician, and went himself frequently to Malmaison. Everything that could be done was done, but poor Josephine’s power of resistance was at an end. Restlessly tossing hour after hour on her pillow, murmuring at intervals—“Bonaparte”—“Elba”—“Marie Louise”—she lay for four days. On the morning of the 29th, it was evident to Hortense and Eugene, evident to Josephine herself, that she could not live long. The priest was summoned, and alone with him she confessed for the last time, while in the chapel below her children knelt and listened to the mass said for their mother. After the confession, the members of the household gathered about her bed while the sacrament was administered. A few moments after the last words of the solemn service were said, the Empress was pronounced dead. * * * * * The news of the death of Josephine produced a profound impression in Paris. She had died of grief, they said, grief at Napoleon’s downfall. Even those who had no sympathy for her in life were moved by the tragic circumstances of her end and hastened to pay a last tribute to her memory. For three days the body of the Empress lay on a catafalque in the vestibule of the chateau at Malmaison, and in that time over 20,000 persons looked upon it. At the funeral, which took place on June 2nd, in the little church at Reuil, near Malmaison, royal honors were accorded Josephine; though the really touching feature of the procession and service was the presence of hundreds of people—soldiers, peasants, old men, children—who came to pay the only tribute possible to them to the “good Josephine,” the “Star” of the Emperor. The Empress still lies in the little church at Reuil, where she was laid eighty-six years ago, and her grave and the Chateau of Malmaison have remained until to-day, places of pilgrimage for those who knew and loved her in life as well as for many thousands whose hearts have been touched by the melancholy story of her life of adventure, glory, and sorrow. In June, 1815, before departing for Waterloo, Napoleon visited the chateau. Hortense, who had not been there since her mother’s death, received him. For an hour he walked in the park talking of Josephine; then he went over the chateau, looking at every room, at almost every article of furniture. At the door of the room where Josephine had died, it is told that he stopped and said to Hortense, “My daughter, I wish to go in alone.” When he came out his eyes were wet. Scarcely more than two weeks later he returned to Malmaison. Defeated at Waterloo, he was an outcast unless France rallied to him. That the country could not do. It was thus from the home of Josephine that Napoleon went into captivity.