Josephine appeared to have every wish, satisfied; her good fortune exceeded her wildest dreams; never had a more wonderful romance actually happened, and yet the Empress of the French, the Queen of Italy, was not happy. A cruel passion which brings no pleasures, but only cruel sufferings, disturbed her happiness and tormented her heart. This passion, jealousy, which had tortured Napoleon in the early days of his wedded life, now Josephine in her turn had to endure with all its keen anguish. She felt that for her, a woman of forty-one, to hold fast the affections of a man of thirty-five, covered with glory and full of charm, was a difficult task; but this reflection, far from consoling her, only disturbed her the more, and she made desperate efforts to triumph in an almost hopeless contest. As was said by Mademoiselle Avrillon, her reader, she seemed not to understand that if the highest rank is a safeguard for a woman, because few men are bold enough to pursue her, the same is not true of a sovereign whose glory dazzles the inexperience of the young, and whose slightest attention arouses coquetry and flatters vanity.

Josephine had not a moment's peace. In the hope of pleasing her, many women of the court, who were, so to speak, on the watch for the Emperor's attentions, hastened to torture her with their interested revelations. For several years now her beauty had been fading. Napoleon, on the other hand, had never been better looking. His health, which formerly had been delicate, had much improved. He had grown stouter, and this was very becoming. His head was like that of a Caesar. Full of self-confidence, fortunate, flattered on every side, at the height of power, he imagined that in love, as in war, he had but to appear to say, veni, vidi, vici, "I came, I saw, I conquered." Many of the beauties of the time did their best to confirm him in this good opinion of himself, and as Madame de RÉmusat says of him, he in his court was not unlike the Grand Turk in his harem.

"The Emperor," we read in Constant's Memoirs, "used to say that a good man was to be known by the way he treated his wife, his children, and his servants. He added that immorality was the most dangerous vice a sovereign could have, because it established a precedent for his subjects. What he meant by immorality, was giving scandalous publicity to relations which should have been kept secret; these relations he was by no means disposed to refuse when they presented themselves before him." The faithful valet de chambre goes on in an attempt to defend his master: "Others perhaps would have succumbed oftener. Heaven forbid that I should undertake to apologize for him; I will even acknowledge that he did not always practise what he preached, but it was none the less a good deal for a sovereign to hide his distractions from the public, to prevent scandal, and, what is worse imitation; and from his wife, to save her pain."

Napoleon was by no means so indifferent to women as he professed to be. He was averse to being ruled by them, but he was far from being insensible to their charms. Opposition exasperated him; all his caprices found many obsequious allies ready to further his suit, and more than one woman made a deep, if brief, impression upon him. His disdain of woman has, we are sure, been much exaggerated. At Saint Helena he declaimed against women, but his remarks were mere paradoxes, not meant to be taken seriously.

Count Las Cases, in the Memorial, reports these remarks of the Emperor to the ladies who shared, his captivity. "We Occidentals," he said, with a smile full of malice, "have spoiled women by treating them too well. We have made the mistake of raising them almost to an equality with ourselves. The Orientals showed more intelligence and justice: they declared they were men's property; and, in fact, nature has made them our slaves, and it is only by our whimsicalness that they presume to be our sovereigns; they abuse their advantages to mislead and control us. For one who inspires us to our good there are a hundred who make us do stupid things." Then he went on to praise polygamy in a very unchivalrous and unsentimental way, saying ironically: "What cause of complaint do you have, after all? Have we not acknowledged that you have a soul? You know that there are philosophers who have weighed it. Do you claim equality? But that is absurd; women are our property, we are not theirs; for she gives us children, men give them none. So she is his property, as a fruit- tree is a gardener's property. Nothing but a lack of judgment, of common sense, and a defective education, can make a woman think that she is her husband's equal. And there is nothing degrading in the difference; each sex has its qualities and its duties: your qualities are beauty, grace, charm; your duties are dependence and submission."

Napoleon was often malicious with women; often he teased them; but at heart he honored faithful wives and good mothers. His ideas were far more moral than those of the men of the Directory, and his court was far purer than that of the kings of France. We will add that Josephine was the only woman he ever loved for a long time and seriously. The others appealed to his senses, not to his heart.

Fortunately for herself, Josephine had a shallow character; her impressions were keen, but evanescent. The pleasures of sovereignty outweighed the griefs. She felt that the crown was heavy at times, but it adorned her and kept her young; and in spite of the jealousy it gave rise to, the court satisfied her vanity and brought her sufficient consolation. To the satisfaction of her pride she found another purer and more lasting emotion, which she valued more, in the opportunity of doing good. She had, besides, passed through so many vicissitudes in her life that nothing could surprise her, and her soul, accustomed to suffering, was prepared for the most violent emotions, the most terrible anguish. She wept readily, but her tears were soon dried; the rainbow followed close upon the storm, and Josephine would smile through her tears.