pieces of aromatic aloes wood out of the basket and
throwing them on to the fire.

'Napoleon likes the smell of burning aloes,' said she. 'There was never
anyone who had such a nose as he, for he can detect things which are
quite hidden from me.'

'The Emperor has an excellent nose for many things,' said Talleyrand.
'The State contractors have found that out to their cost.'

'Oh, it is dreadful when he comes to examine accounts--dreadful,
Monsieur de Talleyrand! Nothing escapes him. He will make no
allowances. Everything must be exact. But who is this young gentleman,
Monsieur de Talleyrand? I do not think that he has been presented to
me.'

The minister explained in a few words that I had been received into the
Emperor's personal service, and Josephine congratulated me upon it with
the most kindly sympathy.

'It eases my mind so to know that he has brave and loyal men round him.
Ever since that dreadful affair of the infernal machine I have always
been uneasy if he is away from me. He is really safest in time of war,
for it is only then that he is away from the assassins who hate him.
And now I understand that a new Jacobin plot has only just been
discovered.'

'This is the same Monsieur de Laval who was there when the conspirator
was taken,' said Talleyrand.

The Empress overwhelmed me with questions, hardly waiting for the
answers in her anxiety.

'But this dreadful man Toussac has not been taken yet,' she cried.
'Have I not heard that a young lady is endeavouring to do what has
baffled the secret police, and that the freedom of her lover is to be
the reward of her success?'

'She is my cousin, your Imperial Majesty. Mademoiselle Sibylle Bernac
is her name.'

'You have only been in France a few days, Monsieur de Laval,' said
Josephine, smiling, 'but it seems to me that all the affairs of the
Empire are already revolving round you. You must bring this pretty
cousin of yours--the Emperor said that she is pretty--to Court with you,
and present her to me. Madame de Remusat, you will take a note of the
name.'

The Empress had stooped again to the basket of aloes wood which stood
beside the fireplace. Suddenly I saw her stare hard at something, and
then, with a little cry of surprise, she stooped and lifted an object
from the carpet. It was the Emperor's soft flat beaver with the little
tricolour cockade. Josephine sprang up, and looked from the hat in her
hand to the imperturbable face of the