iest
in the chapel of the Palace of Montebello.

There, too, at Montebello was Josephine.

Certainly the Bonapartes were not happy in their loves: the one dark
side to the young conqueror's life, all through this brilliant
campaign, was the cruelty of his bride. From her side he had in March,
1796, torn himself away, distracted between his almost insane love for
her and his determination to crush the chief enemy of France: to her
he had written long and tender letters even amidst the superhuman
activities of his campaign. Ten long despatches a day had not
prevented him covering as many sheets of paper with protestations of
devotion to her and with entreaties that she would likewise pour out
her heart to him. Then came complaints, some tenderly pleading, others
passionately bitter, of her cruelly rare and meagre replies. The sad
truth, that Josephine cares much for his fame and little for him
himself, that she delays coming to Italy, these and other afflicting
details rend his heart. At last she comes to Milan, after a
passionate outburst of weeping--at leaving her beloved Paris. In Italy
she shows herself scarcely more than affectionate to her doting
spouse. Marlborough's letters to his peevish duchess during the
Blenheim campaign are not more crowded with maudlin curiosities than
those of the fierce scourge of the Austrians to his heartless fair. He
writes to her agonizingly, begging her to be less lovely, less
gracious, less good--apparently in order that he may love her less
madly: but she is never to be jealous, and, above all, never to weep:
for her tears burn his blood: and he concludes by sending millions of
kisses, and also to her dog! And this mad effusion came from the man
whom the outside world took to be of steel-like coldness: yet his
nature had this fevered, passionate side, just as the moon, where she
faces the outer void, is compact of ice, but turns a front of molten
granite to her blinding, all-compelling luminary.

Undoubtedly this blazing passion helped to spur on the lover to that
terrific energy which makes the Italian campaign unique even amidst
the Napoleonic wars. Beaulieu, Wuermser, and Alvintzy were not rivals
in war; they were tiresome hindrances to his unsated love. On the eve
of one of his greatest triumphs he penned to her the following
rhapsody:

"I am far from you, I seem to be surrounded by the blackest night:
I need the lurid light of the thunder-bolts which we are about