ublic affairs, and endeavoring to gain a position there, Josephine,
with the entire concentration of all her energies to his interests,
was gaining for him in Milan vast accessions of power. She had no
conception, indeed, of the greatness he was destined to attain. But she
loved her husband. She was proud of his rising renown, and it was her
sole ambition to increase, in every way in her power, the luster of his
name. Aristocracy circled around her in delighted homage, while poverty,
charmed by her sympathy and her beneficence, ever greeted her with
acclamations. The exploits of Napoleon dazzled the world, and the
unthinking world has attributed his greatness to his own unaided arm.
But the gentleness of Josephine was one of the essential elements in the
promotion of his greatness. In co-operation with her, he rose. As soon
as he abandoned her, he fell.

Josephine soon rejoined her husband in Paris, where she very essentially
aided, by her fascinating powers of persuasion, in disarming the
hostility of those who were jealous of his rising fame, and in attaching
to him such adherents as could promote his interests. In the saloons of
Josephine, many of the most heroic youths of France were led to ally
their fortunes with those of the young general, whose fame had so
suddenly burst upon the world. She had the rare faculty of diffusing
animation and cheerfulness wherever she appeared. "It is," she once
beautifully remarked, "a necessity of my heart to love others, and to be
loved by them in return." "There is only one occasion," she again said,
"in which I would voluntarily use the words _I will_, namely, when I
would say, '_I will_ that all around me be happy.'"

Napoleon singularly displayed his knowledge of human nature in the
course he pursued upon his return to Paris. He assumed none of the pride
of a conqueror. He studiously avoided every thing like ostentatious
display. Day after day his lieutenants arrived, bringing the standards
taken from the Austrians. Pictures, and statues, and other works of art
extorted from the conquered, were daily making their appearance, keeping
the metropolis in a state of the most intense excitement. The Parisians
were never weary of reading and re-reading those extraordinary
proclamations of Napoleon, which, in such glowing language, described
his almost miraculous victories. The enthusiasm of the people was thus
raised to the highest pitch. The anxiety of the public to see this young