ever done before. At Antibes they had a beautiful villa, and
later a mansion at Milan.

By this time Napoleon had routed the Austrians in Italy, and all France
was ringing with his name. What was Pauline like in her maidenhood?
Arnault says:

She was an extraordinary combination of perfect physical beauty and the
strangest moral laxity. She was as pretty as you please, but utterly
unreasonable. She had no more manners than a school-girl--talking
incoherently, giggling at everything and nothing, and mimicking the most
serious persons of rank.

General de Ricard, who knew her then, tells in his monograph of the
private theatricals in which Pauline took part, and of the sport which
they had behind the scenes. He says:

The Bonaparte girls used literally to dress us. They pulled our ears and
slapped us, but they always kissed and made up later. We used to stay in
the girls' room all the time when they were dressing.

Napoleon was anxious to see his sisters in some way settled. He proposed
to General Marmont to marry Pauline. The girl was then only seventeen,
and one might have had some faith in her character. But Marmont was
shrewd and knew her far too well. The words in which he declined the
honor are interesting:

"I know that she is charming and exquisitely beautiful; yet I have
dreams of domestic happiness, of fidelity, and of virtue. Such dreams
are seldom realized, I know. Still, in the hope of winning them--"

And then he paused, coughed, and completed what he had to say in a sort
of mumble, but his meaning was wholly clear. He would not accept the
offer of Pauline in marriage, even though she was the sister of his
mighty chief.

Then Napoleon turned to General Leclerc, with whom Pauline had for
some time flirted, as she had flirted with almost all the officers of
Napoleon's staff. Leclerc was only twenty-six. He was rich and of good
manners, but rather serious and in poor health. This was not precisely
the sort of husband for Pauline, if we look at it in the conventional
way; but it served Napoleon's purpose and did not in the least interfere
with his sister's intrigues.

Poor Leclerc, who really loved Pauline, grew thin, and graver still
in manner. He was sent to Spain and Portugal, and finally was made
commander-in-chief of the French expedition to Haiti, where the famous
black rebel, Toussaint l'Ouverture, was heading an uprising of the
negroes.

Napoleon ordered Pauline to accompany her husband. Pau