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 interior and close
to the Tuileries. A cook and footman were the only servants of the
household during this period of Madame Bridau's grandeur. Agathe, early
afoot, went to market with her cook. While the latter did the rooms, she
prepared the breakfast. Bridau never went to the ministry before
eleven o'clock. As long as their union lasted, his wife took the same
unwearying pleasure in preparing for him an exquisite breakfast, the
only meal he really enjoyed. At all seasons and in all weathers, Agathe
watched her husband fr