“QO God! watch over Napoleon while he remains in the 
desert of this world. Alas! though he hath committed great 
faults, hath he not expiated them by great sufferings? Just 
God, thou hast looked into his heart, and hath seen by how 
ardent a desire for useful and durable improvements he was 
animated. Deign to approve my last petition. And may this 
image of my husband bear me witness that my last wish and 
prayer were for him and my children.” For a short while 
silence ensued, then, yet looking at the portrait of Napoleon, 
she suddenly exclaimed: “L’isle d’Elbe—Napoleon!” and died. 
The Emperor Alexander, as he gazed upon her lifeless re- 
mains, burst into tears, then uttered the following affecting 
and just tribute of respect to her memory: “She is no more; 
that woman whom France named the beneficent, that angel 
of goodness is no more. Those who have known Josephine 
can never forget her, whereupon she dies regretted by her off- 
spring, her friends, and her contemporaries.” 
For four days her body remained in state for its burial; 
during this time more than twenty thousand of the people of 
France visited her beloved remains, and on the 2d of June, 
at mid-day, the funeral procession moved from Malmaison to 
Ruel, where the body was deposited in a tomb of the vill 
church. Here the funeral services were conducted with tee 
greatest magnificence, as the sovereigns of the allies’ armies 
united with the French in doing honor to her memory. Thus, 
when all had left the church but Eugene and Hortense, they 
knelt beside their mother’s grave, and for a long time mingled 
their prayers and tears. 
A beautiful monument of white marble, representing the 
empress kneeling in her coronation robes, is erected over her 
burial-place, with this simple, yet affecting inscription: 
EUGENE AND HORTENSE 
to 
JOSEPHINE 
