times I have fits of melancholy enough to kill me." But on the very
brink of the grave she retained all her amiability, all her love of
dress, and the graces and resources of a drawing-room society. The
immediate cause of her death was a bad cold she caught in taking a
drive in the park of Malmaison on a damp cold day. She expired on
the noon of Sunday, the 26th of May, in the fifty-third year of her
age. Her body was embalmed, and on the sixth day after her death
deposited in a vault in the church of Ruel, close to Malmaison. The
funeral ceremonies were magnificent, but a better tribute to the
memory of Josephine was to be found is the tears with which her
children, her servants, the neighbouring poor, and all that knew her
followed her to the grave. In 1826 a beautiful monument was erected
over her remains by Eugene Beauharnais and his sisters with this
simple inscription:

TO JOSEPHINE.

EUGENE. HORTENSE.




CHAPTER II.

1814.

Italy and Eugene--Siege of Dantzic-Capitulation concluded but not
ratified-Rapp made prisoner and sent to Kiow--Davoust's refusal to
believe the intelligence from Paris--Projected assassination of one
of the French Princes--Departure of Davoust and General Hogendorff