ect oval and a clear whiteness of complexion,
without the faintest tinge of color, in spite of her golden hair. More
than one artist, looking at the pure brow, the discreet, composed
mouth, the delicate nose, the small ears, the long lashes, and the
dark-blue eyes filled with tenderness,--in short, at the whole
countenance expressive of placidity,--has asked the great artist, "Is
that a copy of a Raphael?" No man ever acted under a truer inspiration
than the minister's secretary when he married this young girl. Agathe
was an embodiment of the ideal housekeeper brought up in the provinces
and never parted from her mother. Pious, though far from
sanctimonious, she had no other education than that given to women by
the Church. Judged, by ordinary standards, she was an accomplished
wife, yet her ignorance of life paved the way for great misfortunes.
The epitaph on the Roman matron, "She did needlework and kept the
house," gives a faithful picture of her simple, pure, and tranquil
existence.

Under the Consulate, Bridau attached himself fanatically to Napoleon,
who placed him at the head of a department in the ministry of the
interior in 1804, a year before the death of Doctor Rouget. With a
salary of twelve thousand francs and very handsome emoluments, Bridau
was quite indifferent to the scandalous settlement of the property at
Issoudun, by which Agathe was deprived of her rightful inheritance.
Six months before Doctor Rouget's death he had sold one-half of his
property to his son, to whom the other half was bequeathed as a gift,
and also in accordance with his rights as heir. An advance of fifty
thousand francs on her inheritance, made to Agathe at the time of her
marriage, represented her share of the property of her father and
mother.

Bridau idolized the Emperor, and served him with the devotion of a
Mohammedan for his prophet; striving to carry out the vast conceptions
of the modern demi-god, who, finding the whole fabric of France
destroyed, went to work to reconstruct everything. The new official
never showed fatigue, never cried "Enough." Projects, reports, notes,
studies, he accepted all, even the hardest labors, happy in the
consciousness of aiding his Emperor. He loved him as a man, he adored
him as a sovereign, and he would never allow the least criticism of
his acts or his purposes.

From 1804 to 1808, the Bridaus lived in a handsome suite of rooms on
the Quai Voltaire, a few steps from the ministry of the