etourdie'," replied Napoleon, smiling.

If Bonaparte, however, overlooks the intrigues of his sisters, he is not
so easily pacified when any reports reach him inculpating the virtues of
his sisters-in-law. Some gallants of Madame Joseph Bonaparte have
already disappeared to return no more, or are wandering in the wilds of
Cayenne; but the Emperor is particularly attentive to everything
concerning the morality of Madame Louis, whose descendants are destined
to continue the Bonaparte dynasty. Two officers, after being cashiered,
were, with two of Madame Louis's maids, shut up last month in the Temple,
and have not since been heard of, upon suspicion that the Princess
preferred their society to that of her husband.

Louis Bonaparte, whose constitution has been much impaired by his
debaucheries, was, last July, advised by his physicians to use the baths
at St. Amand. After his wife had accompanied him as far as Lille, she
went to visit one of her friends, Madame Ney, the wife of General Ney,
who commanded the camp near Montreuil. This lady resided in a castle
called Leek, in the vicinity, where dinners, concerts, balls, and other
festivities celebrated the arrival of the Princess; and to these the
principal officers of the camp were invited. One morning, about an hour
after the company had retired to bed, the whole castle was disturbed and
alarmed by an uproar in the anteroom of Princesse Louis's bedchamber. On
coming to the scene of riot, two officers were found there fighting, and
the Princesse Louis, more than half undressed, came out and called the
sentries on duty to separate the combatants, who were both wounded. This
affair occasioned great scandal; and General Ney, after having put the
officers under arrest, sent a courier to Napoleon at Boulogne, relating
the particulars and demanding His Majesty's orders. It was related and
believed as a fact that the quarrel originated about two of the maids of
the Princess (whose virtue was never suspected), with whom the officers
were intriguing. The Emperor ordered the culprits to be broken and
delivered up to his Minister of Police, who knew how to proceed. The
Princesse Louis also received an invitation to join her sister-in-law,
Madame Murat, then in the camp at Boulogne, and to remain under her care
until her husband's return from St. Amand.

General Murat was then at Paris, and his lady was merely on a visit to
her Imperial brother, who made her responsible for Madame Lo