[31] It has been asserted that when Josephine found the divorce to be inevitable she herself suggested the alliance with Marie Louise. One reason for believing that this might be the case lies in the fact that the affection of Josephine's children for Napoleon suffered no diminution on account of the divorce--indeed, Eugene took a leading part in the negotiations for the marriage. [32] In the notorious "Letters from the Cape," addressed to Lady Clavering and variously attributed to an Englishman, Las Cases, and even Napoleon himself, there is noted a curious coincidence with regard to the two Franco-Austrian alliances. Both marriage contracts were signed under somewhat similar circumstances, and in both cases fetes were held in honour of the event. At the marriage fete of Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette a calamity occurred which resulted in the loss of about two thousand lives. To celebrate the union of Napoleon and Marie Louise, Prince Schwartzenberg gave a fete, at which a fire occurred, the Prince's wife and some twenty other people being burnt to death. The superstitious drew attention to the coincidence, and it is said that Napoleon looked upon it as an evil omen. CHAPTER VII RELIGIOUS NOTIONS OF NAPOLEON In contrast with members of the oligarchy, who threw all moral restraints to the winds, Napoleon towers above them. Take any grounds--administrative, strategical, religious, domestic--he was preeminent above his contemporaries. On religious grounds alone, those thoughts of his which have been recorded not only disclose the insight of a man of affairs, but reveal the thinking mind of a deeply religious being. His conversations with Gourgaud on religious subjects, some of which are quoted in Lord Rosebery's admirable book, "The Last Phase," are so contradictory that they cannot be taken as authentic beliefs. It greatly depended to whom he was talking as to the line he took. It is evident that the Emperor took a delight in arguing with and contradicting the devout Catholic for sheer intellectual exercise. At one time he declares to his refractory companion, "If I had to choose a religion, I would worship the sun, because the sun gives to all things life and fertility." At another time he torments the Count, after tying him into a knot and exposing his superficial knowledge, by saying that "the Mohammedan religion is the finest of all." But when his mind seriously dwells on sacred things, he declares "that religion lends sanctity to everything." "The remission of sins is a beautiful idea." "It makes the Christian religion so attractive that it will never perish. No one can say 'I do not believe and I never shall believe.'"