We have just glanced at Paris in the Year VII. Let us now see what place was taken there by Madame Bonaparte, her relatives and friends, and the society of which she formed a part.

Josephine did not return directly to Paris after her husband sailed from Toulon, but went to Plombieres for the waters, and stayed there three months. She met with an alarming accident there: a wooden balcony on which she was standing with several ladies of her acquaintance, gave way, and she was severely bruised by the fall, so that for some days she was in danger.

At Plombieres she received her first tidings from the Egyptian expedition, from the capture of Malta to that of Cairo, and learned from Bonaparte's letters that she must give up all hope of joining him there. Later she heard that the Pomone, the ship in which she meant to sail to Egypt, had returned to France, and had been captured by an English cruiser just as it had left the harbor of Toulon.

At the end of September, 1798, Josephine returned to Paris and bought the estate of Malmaison, near the village of Rueil. It cost one hundred and sixty thousand francs, and she paid for it in part with her dowry, in part with her husband's money. Here she passed the late autumn of 1798 and the summer of 1799. The winter she spent in Paris in her little house in the rue de la Victoire.

Her position at this time was not a wholly happy one. No one knew when her husband would come back from Egypt. He had himself told her when he left that he might be gone five or six years; and possibly he carried with him some suspicions about his wife which had been carefully strengthened by Joseph and Lucien, who were jealous of their sister-in-law's influence over their brother. Josephine's detractors asserted that she was untrue to her husband, but they could give no proof of their insinuations.

Besides, when there is no public scandal, history has no right to pry into such matters. For all their malevolence, Bonaparte's brothers were unable to tarnish the reputation of a woman who, far from her husband and son, had no one to defend her.

Madame do Remusat describes, in her Memoirs, a visit which she and her mother, Madame de Vergennes, made at Malmaison.

"Madame Bonaparte," she says, "was naturally expansive, and even somewhat indiscreet; and she had no sooner seen my mother than she confided to her a number of things about her absent husband, her brothers-in-law, in short, about a world of which we knew nothing. Bonaparte was looked upon as lost to France; his wife was neglected. My mother took pity on her; we paid her some attentions, which she never forgot." Does not this language betray some of the scorn which the people of the old regime felt for the new?

Legitimist society had no more respect for Bonaparte than for the other prominent persons of the Revolution, and tried to turn to ridicule this family of insignificant Corsican gentry who would have cut such a modest figure at the court of Louis XIV. It found fault with Madame Bonaparte for her relations with Madame Tallien and the set of the Directory. The habitues of Coblentz did not respect even military glory, and those who, a few years later, were to throng the Emperor's palace, spoke contemptuously of the Republican general. If the hero of Arcole had fanatical admirers, he had also implacable detractors.

When he was leaving for Egypt, these satirical lines were in circulation :

What talents are thrown into the water!
What fortunes squandered!
How many are hastening to the grave,
To carry Bonaparte to the clouds!
This warrior is worth his weight in gold.
In France no one doubts this;
But he would be worth still more
If he were worth what he costs us."

Madame Bonaparte, whose main interest lay in the fragments of the Faubourg Saint Germain, suffered much from these pin-pricks. She especially dreaded the beautiful and caustic Madame de Contades, daughter and sister of the MM. de Bouille, whose name is inseparably connected with the affair of Varennes.

"Everything about her was eccentric," says the Duchess of Abrantes, speaking of this lady, who had recently returned to France. "She was not melancholy, far from it, yet no one would have dared to laugh in the room where she was, unless she had set the example. Her hatred for Bonaparte was most amusing. She would not even acknowledge that he deserved his reputation. 'Come, come,' she used to say when my mother spoke of all his victories in Italy and Egypt; 'I could do as much with a glance."'

Let us listen to the Duchess of Abrantes as she describes a ball at the Thelusson mansion (at the end of the rue Cerutti, now rue Laffitte).

"'Who are those two ladies?' asked Madame de Damas of the old Marquis d'Hautefort, on whose arm she was.'

'What! don't you recognize the Viscountess de Beauharnais? That is she with her daughter. She is now Madame Bonaparte. Stop! Here is a place at her side; sit down here, and renew your acquaintance.'

Madame de Damas' sole reply was to shove the old marquis so hard that she hustled him into one of the little rooms before the large rotunda.

'Are you mad?' she asked when they were in the other room. 'A nice place, upon my word, next to Madame Bonaparte! Ernestine would have had to be introduced to her daughter. You are beside yourself, Marquis.'

'Not at all! Why in the world shouldn't Ernestine make her acquaintance, or even become a friend of Mademoiselle Hortense de Beauharnais? She is a charming person, gentle and amiable.'

'What difference does that make to me? I don't want to have anything to do with such women. I don't like people who dishonor their misfortunes.' The Marquis d'Hautefort shrugged his shoulders and made no reply."

Many Royalists could not forgive Bonaparte either the 13th Vendemiaire or his indirect participation in the 18th Fructidor, and blamed Josephine for her friendship with regicides. They thought that these ties on the part of the wife of a guillotined nobleman ill became her birth and antecedents, and that in her new position there was something like apostasy.

She consoled herself, however, for the intensity of some of the Legitimists with others who, with more forethought, were already paying their court to her in anticipation of the near future. The Marquis of Caulaincourt (the father of the future Duke of Vicenza) saw her very often and gave her wise advice. In the drawing-room of Madame de Permoii (mother of the future Duchess of Abrantes) she met all that was left of the former society of the Faubourg Saint Germain, and the brilliant circle of fashionable young men, de Noailles, de Montealm, de Perigord, de Montron, de Rastignac, de l'Aigle, de Montaigu, de la Feuillade, de Sainte-Aulaire. Josephine appeared very well in this centre of elegance. The life of Paris suited her to a charm. She liked balls dinner parties, concerts, the theatre, pleasure-parties. She was a delightful hostess, and presided with great success over a circle of friends and admirers. Her Thursday receptions in the rue de la Victoire were deservedly famous. Among the women she knew intimately were the Countess Fanny de Beauharnais, Madame Caffarelli, the Countess of Houdetot, Madame Andrdossy, and the two rival beauties, Madame Tallien and Madame Regnault de Saint-Jean- d'Angely.

Although indifferently educated, Josephine had a vague notion of literature, and gladly received famous writers and artists. It was at her house, at the time of the Egyptian expedition, that Legouve read his Merite des Femmes, and that Bailly recited his drama, the Abbe de l'Epee. In her drawing-room there used to meet Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, Ducis, Lemercier, Joseph Chenier, Mahal, Talma, Volney, Andrieux, Picard, Colin d'Harleville, Baour-Lormian, Alexandre Duval.

With the Bonapartes Josephine exercised diplomacy. With great tact she concealed her discontent with them, and avoided an open breach with any of the members of this vindictive family, who were all annoyed by her influence over Napoleon.

Before he left for Egypt, he had desired to see his mother and brothers and sisters comfortably settled in Paris. Although younger than Joseph, he already regarded himself as the head of the Bonaparte family, and was determined to assert his authority. In his absence, his mother, Madame Letitia, who was born at Leghorn in 1750, and still preserved traces of marvellous beauty, still held much control over her children. She was a woman of great energy, with an impetuous character and an iron will, firm to the point of obstinacy, economical even to avarice for herself, but generous to the poor, and lavish so far as her son Napoleon's glory was concerned; she was kind at heart, though with a cold exterior, but with no breeding.

Madame Letitia, who was rather a Roman matron than a modern woman, never forgave Josephine her frivolous ways, her extravagance, her inordinate love of dress. She would have preferred for Napoleon a more serious and more economical wife, and deeply regretted a marriage which she thought had not made her son happy.

Joseph, the oldest child, was an honest man, gentle, sympathetic, well-bred, straightforward; his manners were courteous, his face was attractive. He was born in 1768, and had married, at the end of 1794, a rich young woman of Marseilles, Mademoiselle Marie Julie Clary, and was the possessor of a moderate fortune for that time. After being Ambassador of the French Republic at Rome, he had returned to Paris, bringing with him, his wife's sister, Mademoiselle Desiree Clary, whom Napoleon had wished to marry. At that time she was in deep affliction on account of the tragic death of General Duphot, who had been killed at Rome, almost before her eyes, shortly before the day set for their marriage. After a few months of mourning, she was consoled, and August 16, 1798, while living with her brother-in-law, Joseph, in the rue du Rocher, she married the future King of Sweden, Bernadotte.

Lucien, who was born in 1775, was the youngest of the Deputies of the Council of Five Hundred. He possessed a rare intelligence, was well educated, and had a real passion for letters. He wrote much, composed verses, and aspired for fame of all sorts. He was a ready speaker, familiar with antiquity, a man of both imagination and action, and skilfully furthered his brother's glory and interests. He was active, ardent, full of resources, and, in spite of his youth, he exercised considerable influence on his colleagues in the Council of Five Hundred. He was considered a Republican, and he was one in fact; and even on the 18th Brumaire he imagined that he was still loyal to the Revolutionary cause.

In 1794 he had held a modest position as warehouseman in a little province village of the name of Saint Maximin, which, after 1793, had assumed the name of Marathon. He adopted the name of Brutus, Citizen Brutus Bonaparte for so the future Prince of Canino was called, fell in love with a pretty and respectable girl, Christine Boyer, whose father was an innkeeper at Saint Maximin. Lucien married her, and Napoleon was furious at a marriage which he looked upon as most unsuitable; but Madame Lucien Bonaparte, who was handsome and gentle, soon acquired the manners of good society, and was perfectly at home in the finest drawing-room.

Louis Bonaparte, who was born in 1779, had accompanied Napoleon to Egypt, but returned to Paris with despatches. Although later he was to prove more hostile to Josephine than either Joseph or Lucien, before the 18th Brumaire he maintained friendly relations with his sister-in-law, who perhaps thought of him as a son-in-law.

The youngest of Napoleon's brothers, Jerome, was born in 1784; he was lively, amiable, intelligent, clever; but rattle-pated, turbulent, fond of pleasure, and tired of always having Eugene de Beauharnais spoken of as the model whom he should imitate.

Madame Letitia lived in the rue du Rocher with her son Joseph and his wife, an agreeable and worthy woman.

Of Napoleon's three sisters, the eldest, Elisa, who was born in 1777, and married in 1797 to Felix Bacciochi, lived in the grande rue Verte, like Lucien. The second, Pauline, who was born in 1780, and during the Italian campaign had married General Leclerc, lived in the rue de la Ville l'Eveque. Caroline, who was born in 1782, was finishing her education at Madame Campan's school at Saint Germain, where she was a companion of Hortense de Beauharnais.

All these girls had inherited their mother's beauty, especially Pauline, who was called the handsomest woman in Paris, and was the belle of every ball at which she was present. With the ambition of a daughter of Caesars, and her irresistible beauty, she triumphed in every drawing-room as did her brother on the battle-field. She was one of those coquettes who wring from the public a cry of admiration and surprise as soon as they appear in sight; who make the most of all their advantages, and, regarding the world as a stage, are, so to speak, artistic beauties.

Madame Leclerc was moderately fond of her sister-in-law, Josephine, who, although older and less beautiful, held a much more important position in the Paris world. As for Caroline Bonaparte, she promised not only to possess great beauty, but even a more ambitious spirit than her sister Pauline.

It was not easy for Josephine to remain even on decorous, not to say affectionate, terms with this large and powerful family. Already the antagonism between the Bonapartes and the Beauharnais began to manifest itself: and the intrigues, the jealousies, the contesting influences to be seen in courts, appeared under the Republic, even before Napoleon attained power. The house in the rue de la Victoire was, so to speak, a palace of the Tuileries on a small scale; in it could be discerned the rising germs of the ambitions, heart-burnings, quarrels, which were to flourish full-grown under the Consulate and the Empire.

Besides these family annoyances, Josephine was often short of money. She spent vast sums on dress, and displayed that combination of luxury and want which distinguishes thriftless people. She owned costly jewels, and often lacked money to pay the most insignificant debts. Madame de Remusat tells us that at this period Madame Bonaparte showed her, at Malmaison, "the prodigious quantity of pearls, diamonds, and cameos which she possessed; they were already worthy to figure in the Thousand and One Nights, and were yet to be added to enormously. Italy, grateful after the invasion, had contributed to this abundance, and particularly the Pope, who was touched by the consideration displayed by the conqueror in denying himself the pleasure of planting his banners on the walls of Rome."

Madame de Remusat adds that the owner of these treasures, whose place was filled with pictures, statues, and mosaics, was often in want.

But Josephine bore her troubles very lightly; and the money troubles that beset her did not distress her beyond measure, for she had no doubts of the happy fortune that awaited her. Amiable, affectionate, insinuating, with gentle manners, an even temper, a deep voice, a kindly face, Josephine was a charming woman. Never offending any one, never disposed to argue about politics or anything else, distinctly obliging, endowed with that careless grace that distinguishes creoles, anxious to win every one's sympathy, pleasing people of every social position, she also possessed most fully the rare quality which covers every fault and is especially attractive in women, kindliness.

Royalists forgave the Republican origin of the hero of the 13th Venddmiaire, when they said, "His wife is so kind." People who had, dreaded a presentation to Bonaparte paid homage to Josephine. We shall see under the Consulate people of the old regime visiting Madame Bonaparte on the ground floor, without going a story higher, where the First Consul lived.

Josephine, while seeking Legitimist society, took care to be well received in Republican society. She went to all the entertainments of the Directory, and secured the good graces of the official world. Her relations with Barras, who had been one of the witnesses at her wedding, and the main author of her good fortune, continued to be excellent. She especially cultivated the friendship of a Republican lady of austere virtue, Madame Gohier, wife of one of the Directors. She thought, and rightly, that intimacy with a woman whose reputation was spotless would defend her own. Moreover, the Gohier conciliated those Republicans whose instinctive dread of her husband's ambition needed to be allayed.

According to Josephine, Bonaparte was the purest of patriots, and those who dared to doubt this were moved by malice or envy. This woman, in spite of her frivolous, insignificant appearance, intrigued like an experienced diplomatist. She did not think herself skilful, yet she was; just as many think they are, and are not. The greatest men have been aided by women, whether they knew it or not. Without Josephine, it is probable that Napoleon would never have become Emperor. It was in vain that he told her not to talk politics or to meddle with affairs: she was still the most efficient aid to his plans, and during his absence she prepared the field on which he was to show himself the master.