ety.

"Well," Bonaparte inquired, "what ails you?"

"I am afraid!" said Josephine.

"Of what? Those fools of the Directory, or the lawyers of the two
Councils? Come, come! I have Sieyes with me in the Ancients, and Lucien
in the Five Hundred."

"Then all goes well?"

"Wonderfully so!"

"You sent me word that you were waiting for me here, and I feared you
had some bad news to tell me."

"Pooh! If I had bad news, do you think I would tell you?"

"How reassuring that is!"

"Well, don't be uneasy, for I have nothing but good news. Only, I have
given you a part in the conspiracy."

"What is it?"

"Sit down and write to Gohier."

"That we won't dine with him?"

"On the contrary, ask him to come and breakfast with us. Between those
who like each other as we do there can't be too much intercourse."

Josephine sat down at a little rosewood writing desk "Dictate," said
she; "I will write."

"Goodness! for them to recognize my style! Nonsense; you know better
than I how to write one of those charming notes there is no resisting."

Josephine smiled at the compliment, turned her forehead to Bonaparte,
who kissed it lovingly, and wrote the following note, which we have
copied from the original:

To the Citizen Gohier, President of the Executive Directory of the
French Republic--

"Is that right?" she asked.

"Perfectly! As he won't wear this title of President much longer, we
won't cavil at it."

"Don't you mean to make him something?"

"I'll make him anything he pleases, if he does exactly what I want. Now
go on, my dear."

Josephine picked up her pen again and wrote:

Come, my dear Gohier, with your wife, and breakfast with us
to-morrow at eight o'clock. Don't fail, for I have some very
interesting things to tell you.

Adieu, my dear Gohier! With the sincerest friendship,
Yours, LA PAGERIE-BONAPARTE.

"I wrote to-morrow," exclaimed Josephine. "Shall I date it the 17th
Brumaire?"

"You won't be wrong," said Bonaparte; "there's midnight striking."

In fact, another day had fallen into the gulf of time; the clock chimed
twelve. Bonaparte listened gravely and dreamily. Twenty-four hours only
separated him from the solemn day for which he had been scheming for a
month, and of which he had dreamed for years.

Let us do now what he would so gladly have done, and spring over those
twenty-four hours intervening to the day which history has not yet
judged, and see what happened in various