isfied, but on the contrary praised
Madame D---- for her fidelity to duty, and approved her conduct highly.

In 1804 her imperial highness Princess Murat had in her household a young
reader named Mademoiselle E----, seventeen or eighteen years of age,
tall, slender, well made, a brunette, with beautiful black eyes,
sprightly, and very coquettish. Some persons who thought it to their
interest to create differences between his Majesty and the Empress, his
wife, noticed with pleasure the inclination of this young reader to try
the power of her glances upon the Emperor, and his disposition to
encourage her; so they stirred up the fire adroitly, and one of them took
upon himself all the diplomacy of this affair. Propositions made through
a third party were at once accepted; and the beautiful E---- came to the
chateau secretly, but rarely, and remained there only two or three,
hours. When she became enceinte, the Emperor had a house rented for her
in the Rue Chantereine, where she bore a fine boy, upon whom was settled
at his birth an income of thirty thousand francs. He was confided at
first to the care of Madame I----, nurse of Prince Achille Murat, who
kept him three or four years, and then Monsieur de Meneval, his Majesty's
secretary, was ordered to provide for the education of this child; and
when the Emperor returned from the Island of Elba; the son of
Mademoiselle E---- was placed in the care of her Majesty, the
Empress-mother. The liaison of the Emperor with Mademoiselle E---- did
not last long. She came one day with her mother to Fontainebleau, where
the court then happened to be, went up to his Majesty's apartment, and
asked me to announce her; and the Emperor, being exceedingly displeased
by this step, directed me to say to Mademoiselle E---- that he forbade
her to present herself before him again without his permission, and not
to remain a moment longer at Fontainebleau. In spite of this harshness
to the mother, the Emperor loved the son tenderly; and I brought him to
him often, on which occasions he caressed the child, gave him a great
many dainties, and was much amused by his vivacity and repartees, which
showed remarkable intelligence for his age.

This child and that of the Polish beauty, of whom I will speak later,

[This son of Countess Walewska became Count Walewski, a leading
statesman of the Second Empire, ambassador to London, 1852, minister
of foreign affairs, 1855, minister of state, 1860, pr