After the divorce Napoleon had withdrawn in solitude to the Trianon at Versailles, as if to mourn his widowhood the appointed and decent time in silence. The spot chosen had a significance with reference to the coming celebrations. For a week he spent his days in the unaccustomed but truly royal occupation of field sports. Once he visited Josephine at Malmaison. The next months he had spent again in Paris conducting the matrimonial negotiations and arranging every detail of the etiquette to be observed in the cumbrous ceremonial which he had devised for the celebration of his marriage in France. When all was completed to his satisfaction he left for Compiègne to supervise the arrangements made for the reception of his new consort, and spent the last week of waiting there. Of all his family the giddiest and most worldly was his sister Pauline. She and his sister-in-law, the sensible and charming Queen of Westphalia, were chosen to advise and counsel regarding matters of dress and behavior. The latter wrote to her brother a full account of the Emperor's passionate expectation. During these days his occupations were singularly human. Much of the time was spent in trying on gorgeous clothes: gold-laced coats, and embroidered waistcoats, which had been sent by Paris tailors. Some of it was passed in the acquisition of accomplishments, notably in learning to waltz. Every day he sent a letter with flowers to meet the new Empress at every stage of her progress, and every day he received a reply from her written in correct French.
At last she reached the close of the final stage, and her bridegroom went out to meet her. Half-way between Soissons and Compiègne were pitched three splendid pavilions. Her suite was to remain in that nearest their last lodging, his in that nearest the palace, the bridal pair were to meet in the central tent, where, according to the custom of feudalism, she was to kneel and pay homage to her liege as his foremost subject. But when the Emperor heard that his bride was so near, his impatience seemed to break through all bounds. Entering his carriage without ceremony or warning, and attended by only a single companion, the King of Naples, he drove far past Soissons until the carriages met, when he stepped out of his own, tore open the door of the other, and entered with the eagerness of a youthful lover to embrace his bride. The prearranged stops were countermanded, and the same evening, at ten, the wedding-train reached Compiègne. Such was the lover's ardor that he again flung propriety to the winds, and, claiming the validity of the procuratorial ceremony at Vienna, slept under the same roof with his bride, instead of in the chamber furnished for his use in one of the administrative buildings. As an excuse for this conduct he pleaded the example of Henry IV.