s, with tears almost
blinding her eyes, read the billet where she stood, by the light of a
torch which an attendant had brought her. She immediately drew from her
finger a valuable diamond ring, and presented it to the bearer of the
joyful message. The messenger was Moustache the Mameluke, who had
accompanied Napoleon from Egypt, and who was so celebrated for the
devotion of his attachment to the emperor. He had ridden on horseback
one hundred and fifty miles within twelve hours.

Napoleon was exceedingly sensitive to any apparent want of affection
or attention on the part of Josephine. A remarkable occurrence,
illustrative of this sensitiveness, took place on his return from his
last Austrian campaign. When he arrived at Munich, where he was delayed
for a short time, he dispatched a courier to Josephine, informing her
that he would be at Fontainebleau on the evening of the twenty-seventh,
and expressing a wish that the court should be assembled there to meet
him. He, however, in his eagerness, pressed on with such unanticipated
speed, that he arrived early in the morning of the twenty-sixth,
thirty-six hours earlier than the time he had appointed. He had actually
overtaken his courier, and entered with him the court-yard at
Fontainebleau. Very unreasonably annoyed at finding no one there to
receive him, he said to the exhausted courier, as he was dismounting
from his horse, "You can rest to-morrow; gallop to St. Cloud, and
announce my arrival to the empress." It was a distance of forty miles.
Napoleon was very impatient all the day, and, in the evening, hearing a
carriage enter the court-yard, he eagerly ran down, as was his
invariable custom, to greet Josephine. To his great disappointment, the
carriage contained only some of her ladies. "And where is the empress?"
he exclaimed, in surprise. "We have preceded her by perhaps a quarter of
an hour," they replied. The emperor was now in very ill humor. "A very
happy arrangement," said he, sarcastically; and, turning upon his heel,
he ascended to the little library, where he had been busily employed.

Soon Josephine arrived. Napoleon, hearing the carriage enter the court,
coldly asked who had come. Being informed that it was the empress, he
moved not from his seat, but went on very busily with his writing. The
attendants were greatly surprised, for he never before had been known
to omit meeting the empress at her carriage. Josephine, entirely
unconscious of any fault, and