facts. She
asks a female friend for advice on the question of the match. After a
jocular introduction of her suitor as anxious to become a father to
the children of Alexandre de Beauharnais and the husband of his widow,
she gives a sportive but merciless dissection of her own character,
and declares that while she does not love Buonaparte, she feels no
repugnance. But can she meet his wishes or fulfil his desires? "I
admire the general's courage; the extent of his information about all
manner of things, concerning which he talks equally well; the
quickness of his intelligence, which makes him catch the thought of
another even before it is expressed: but I confess I am afraid of the
power he seems anxious to wield over all about him. His piercing
scrutiny has in it something strange and inexplicable, that awes even
our directors; think, then, how it frightens a woman."[61] The writer
is also terrified by the very ardor of her suitor's passion. Past her
first youth, how can she hope to keep for herself that "violent
tenderness" which is almost a frenzy? Would he not soon cease to love
her, and regret the marriage? If so, her only resource would be
tears--a sorry one, indeed, but still the only one. "Barras declares
that if I marry the general, he will secure for him the chief command
of the Army of Italy. Yesterday Buonaparte, speaking of this favor,
which, although not yet granted, already has set his colleagues in
arms to murmuring, said: 'Do they think I need protection to succeed?
Some day they will be only too happy if I give them mine. My sword is
at my side, and with it I shall go far.' What do you think of this
assurance of success? Is it not a proof of confidence arising from
excessive self-esteem? A general of brigade protecting the heads of
the government! I don't know; but sometimes this ridiculous
self-reliance leads me to the point of believing everything possible
which this strange man would have me do; and with his imagination, who
can reckon what he would undertake?" This letter, though often quoted,
is so remarkable that, as some think, it may be a later invention. If
written later, it was probably the invention of Josephine herself.[62]

[Footnote 61: Given in Aubenas: Histoire de
l'imperatrice Josephine, I, 293. This writer is frankly
not an historian but an apologist.]

[Footnote 62: Coston: Premieres annees de Napoleon
Bonaparte