‘The sad incidents of the day had not yet been exhausted. Josephine had remained unseen, sorrowing in her chamber, till Napoleon’s usual hour of retiring to rest. He had just placed himself in bed, silent and melancholy, when suddenly the private door opened, and the Empress appeared, her hair in disorder, and her face swollen with weeping. Advancing with a tottering step, she stood, as if irresolute, near the bed, clasped her hands, and burst into an agony of tears. Delicacy seemed at first to have arrested her progress, but, forgetting everything in the fulness of her grief, she threw herself on the bed, clasped her husband’s neck, and sobbed as if her heart would break. Napoleon also wept while he endeavoured to console her, and they remained a few minutes locked in each other’s arms, silently mingling their tears, until the Emperor, perceiving Constant[20] in the room, dismissed him to the ante-chamber. ‘After an interview of about an hour, Josephine parted, for ever, from the man whom she so long and so tenderly loved. On seeing the Empress retire, which she did in tears, the attendant entered to remove the lights, and found the chamber silent as death, and Napoleon sunk among the bed-clothes, so as to be invisible. Next morning he still showed the marks of suffering. At eleven, Josephine was to bid adieu to the Tuileries, never to enter the palace more. The whole household assembled on the stairs, in order to obtain a last look of a mistress whom they loved, and who carried with her into exile the hearts of all who had enjoyed the happiness of access to her presence. Josephine was veiled from head to foot, and, entering a close carriage with six horses, drove rapidly away, without casting one look backward on the scene of past greatness and departed happiness.’ The only drawback to Memes’s narrative is, that it does not exactly tally with the ‘Register of the Conservative Senate,’ of Saturday, December 6, 1809, extracts from which are given in the ‘Times’ of December 27, 1809. In that document Napoleon makes a speech, a portion of which is as follows:-- ‘The politics of my monarchy, the interest, and the wants, of my people, which have constantly guided all my actions, require that, after me, I should leave to children, inheritors of my love for my people, that throne on which Providence has placed me. Notwithstanding, for several years past, I have lost the hope of having children by my well-beloved consort, the Empress Josephine. This it is which induces me to sacrifice the sweetest affections of my heart; to attend to nothing but the good of the State, and to wish the dissolution of my marriage.