restore resignation to the heart of the poor mother. The remembrance of
this kindness helped to calm our grief, and I confess that it is at once
both an honor and a consolation to recall the august sympathy which the
loss of this dear child excited in the hearts of Napoleon and Josephine.
The world will never know how much sensibility and compassion Josephine
felt for the sorrows of others, and all the treasures of goodness
contained in her beautiful soul.




CHAPTER XXX.

Napoleon was accustomed to compare Marie Louise with Josephine,
attributing to the latter all the advantages of art and grace, and to the
former all the charms of simplicity, modesty, and innocence. Sometimes,
however, this simplicity had in it something childish, an instance of
which I received from good authority. The young Empress, thinking
herself sick, consulted M. Corvisart, who, finding that her imagination
alone was at fault, and that she was suffering simply from the
nervousness natural to a young woman, ordered, as his only prescription,
a box of pills composed of bread and sugar, which the Empress was to take
regularly; after doing which Marie Louise found herself better, and
thanked M. Corvisart, who did not think proper, as may well be believed,
to enlighten her as to his little deception. Having been educated in a
German court, and having learned French only from masters, Marie Louise
spoke the language with the difficulty usually found in expressing one's
self in a foreign tongue. Among the awkward expressions she often used,
but which in her graceful mouth were not without a certain charm, the one
which struck me especially, because it often recurred, was this: