Page:Pleasant Memories of Pleasant Lands.djvu/290

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TOMB OF JOSEPHINE.

��THE monument to Josephine, in the village church at Ruel, was erected by her children. Two hands, sculptured in marble, and grasping each other, appear as the symbols of their united filial love ; and only this simple inscription marks the stone :

To Josephine, From Eugene and Hortense.

It is well known that her love to Napoleon survived the divorce to which he exacted her consent. In her seclusion, she rejoiced at his prosperity, or wept at the evils which his ambition drew upon him. One of our own writers has condensed, in a few forcible sentences, the sequel of her life.

"When his son was born, she only regretted that she was not near him in his happiness ; and when he was sent to Elba, she begged that she might be per mitted to share his prison, and cheer his woes. Every article that he had used at her residence, remained as he had left it. She would not suffer a chair on which he had sat to be removed. The book in which he had

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