nions have perhaps changed since.

After the ceremony the Empress, on the arm of the president, passed into
the hall of conference, where her Majesty's table had been prepared under
a magnificent dais of crimson silk, and covers for nearly three hundred
guests had been laid by the caterer Robert, in the different halls of the
palace. To the dinner succeeded a brilliant ball. The most remarkable
thing in this fete was the indescribable luxury of flowers and shrubs,
which must doubtless have been collected at great expense, owing to the
severity of the winter. The halls of Lucrece and of La Reunion, in which
the dancing quadrilles were formed, resembled an immense parterre of
roses, laurel, lilac, jonquils, lilies, and jessamine.

CHAPTER XXIII.

It was the 2d of January, 1805, exactly a month after the coronation,
that I formed with the eldest daughter of M. Charvet a union which has
been, and will I trust ever be, the greatest happiness of my life. I
promised the reader to say very little of myself; and, in fact, how could
he be interested in any details of my own private life which did not
throw additional light upon the character of the great man about whom I
have undertaken to write? Nevertheless, I will ask permission to return
for a little while to this, the most interesting of all periods to me,
and which exerted such an influence upon my whole life. Surely he who
recalls and relates his souvenirs is not forbidden to attach some
importance to those which most nearly concern himself. Moreover, even in
the most personal events of my life, there were instances in which their
Majesties took a part, and which, from that fact, are of importance in
enabling the reader to form a correct estimate of the characters of both
the Emperor and the Empress.

My wife's mother had been presented to Madame Bonaparte during the first
campaign in Italy, and she had been pleased with her; for Madame
Bonaparte, who was so perfectly good, had, in her own experience, also
endured trials, and knew how to sympathize with the sorrows of others.

She promised to interest the General in the fate of my father-in-law, who
had just lost his place in the treasury. During this time Madame Charvet
was in correspondence with a friend of her husband, who was, I think, the
courier of General Bonaparte; and the latter having opened and read these
letters addressed to his courier, inquired who was this young woman that
wrote such interesting an