abits and fortune.
Finding that this devoted servant literally had nothing but his
situation, Napoleon recognized him as one of the incorruptible natures
which raised the character of his government and gave moral weight to
it, and he wished to surprise him by the gift of some distinguished
reward. But the effort to complete a certain work, involving immense
labor, before the departure of the Emperor for Spain caused the death
of the devoted servant, who was seized with an inflammatory fever.
When the Emperor, who remained in Paris for a few days after his
return to prepare for the campaign of 1809, was told of Bridau's
death he said: "There are men who can never be replaced." Struck by
the spectacle of a devotion which could receive none of the brilliant
recognitions that reward a soldier, the Emperor resolved to create an
order to requite civil services, just as he had already created the
Legion of honor to reward the military. The impression he received
from the death of Bridau led him to plan the order of the Reunion. He
had not time, however, to mature this aristocratic scheme, the
recollection of which is now so completely effaced that many of my
readers may ask what were its insignia: the order was worn with a blue
ribbon. The Emperor called it the Reunion, under the idea of uniting
the order of the Golden Fleece of Spain with the order of the Golden
Fleece of Austria. "Providence," said a Prussian diplomatist, "took
care to frustrate the profanation."

After Bridau's death the Emperor inquired into the circumstances of
his widow. Her two sons each received a scholarship in the Imperial
Lyceum, and the Emperor paid the whole costs of their education from
his privy purse. He gave Madame Bridau a pension of four thousand
francs, intending, no doubt, to advance the fortune of her sons in
future years.

From the time of her marriage to the death of her husband, Agathe had
held no communication with Issoudun. She lost her mother just as she
was on the point of giving birth to her youngest son, and when her
father, who, as she well knew, loved her little, died, the coronation
of the Emperor was at hand, and that event gave Bridau so much
additional work that she was unwilling to leave him. Her brother,
Jean-Jacques Rouget, had not written to her since she left Issoudun.
Though grieved by the tacit repudiation of her family, Agathe had come
to think seldom of those who never thought of her. Once a year she
received a