superintended the improvements he had
ordered. Occasionally, and especially at first, he would wander beyond
the limits of the estate; but these excursions were thought dangerous by
the police, and given up entirely after the conspiracy of the Arena and
the affair of the infernal machine.

The revenue derived from Malmaison, calculated by Bonaparte himself, on
the supposition that he should sell his fruits and vegetables, did not
amount to more than six thousand francs.

"That's not bad," he said to Bourrienne; "but," he added with a sigh,
"one must have thirty thousand a year to be able to live here."

Bonaparte introduced a certain poesy in his taste for the country. He
liked to see a woman with a tall flexible figure glide through the dusky
shrubberies of the park; only that woman must be dressed in white. He
hated gowns of a dark color and had a horror of stout women. As for
pregnant women, he had such an aversion for them that it was very seldom
he invited one to his soirees or his fetes. For the rest, with little
gallantry in his nature, too overbearing to attract, scarcely civil to
women, it was rare for him to say, even to the prettiest, a pleasant
thing; in fact, he often produced a shudder by the rude remarks he made
even to Josephine's best friends. To one he remarked: "Oh! what red arms
you have!" To another, "What an ugly headdress you are wearing!" To a
third, "Your gown is dirty; I have seen you wear it twenty times"; or,
"Why don't you change your dressmaker; you are dressed like a fright."

One day he said to the Duchesse de Chevreuse, a charming blonde, whose
hair was the admiration of everyone:

"It's queer how red your hair is!"

"Possibly," replied the duchess, "but this is the first time any man has
told me so."

Bonaparte did not like cards; when he did happen to play it was always
vingt-et-un. For the rest, he had one trait in common with Henry IV.,
he cheated; but when the game was over he left all the gold and notes he
had won on the table, saying:

"You are ninnies! I have cheated all the time we've been playing, and
you never found out. Those who lost can take their money back."

Born and bred in the Catholic faith, Bonaparte had no preference for any
dogma. When he re-established divine worship it was done as a political
act, not as a religious one. He was fond, however, of discussions
bearing on the subject; but he defined his own part in advance by
saying: "My reason makes me a d