amiability, and kind-heartedness, have won as many
subjects for your majesty as your battles. Sire, all France loves and
worships the Empress Josephine; all France would weep with her if her
enemies succeed in removing her from her throne, and from the side of
her adored husband, and the tears and imprecations of a whole people
would be the festive welcome with which France would receive a new
empress!"

"You paint in very glaring colors," exclaimed Napoleon, gloomily, "but,
then, I know you to be one of Josephine's admirers. She is really a good
wife, and I never had room for complaint. But for one consideration, I
should never think of separating from her. Fate is against her, and I am
afraid it will compel me--ah, let us not dare to pry into the future.
Let us rather attend to the present. You have told me the suppositions
of Lannes and Talleyrand, but not your own. What did you say?" He looked
at Duroc with his eagle eyes, and repeated, "What did you say?"

"Sire," replied Duroc, "I said nothing."

"You said nothing, because you know what ails me," said Napoleon,
vehemently, "because you can fathom the pain, the anger, and grief of my
heart!"

He rose from his easy-chair, and paced the room, with his arms behind
him. "Duroc," he said, after a long pause, and in a husky, tremulous
voice, "is it not a disgrace that this should happen? The world is
bowing to me, and recognizing me as its master, and a woman dares resist
me--a fair, delicate little creature that I could crush, as it were, in
my hands--that an angry breath from my mouth could destroy as a lily in
the blast of the desert. Duroc, she dares resist me, and opposes a cold,
stubborn silence to my request--nay, to my fervent supplications!"

"Sire, she is married," said Duroc, timidly, "she is married, and--"

"She is married to a husband whom she does not--cannot love," exclaimed
Napoleon, impetuously. "He is a white-haired old man--a man of sixty
years, to whom her parents have sold her!"

"But her husband is said to love his beautiful wife passionately."

"Let him dare molest her with his love," exclaimed Napoleon, menacingly;
"let him touch only with the tip of his finger this flower that I myself
would have! She has not deserved the sorry fate of withering at the side
of a decrepit old man; she serves to bloom at the heart of an emperor!
Oh, how beautiful she is! When I saw her, for the first time, at the
ball in Warsaw, I fell in love with her, a