n 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 letter from
her godmother, Madame Hochon, to whom she replied with commonplaces,
paying no heed to the advice which that pious and excellent woman gave
to her, disguised in cautious words.

Some time before the death of Doctor Rouget, Madame Hochon had written
to her goddaughter warning her that she would get nothing from her
father's estate unless she gave a power of attorney to Monsieur Hochon.
Agathe was very reluctant to harass her brother. Whether it were that
Bridau thought the spoliation of his wife in accordance with