ttering to pieces on his return from Egypt.

Josephine had played her part in the drama with surprising shrewdness
and marked devotion to her husband's cause. He was rewarded by being
made First Consul, and she by becoming the first lady of the Republic
and the leader of society. They quickly availed themselves of the
distinction by removing from their humble habitation, first to the
Petit Luxembourg and then to the Tuileries, where she occupied the
bedroom of the famous Marie Antoinette and the apartments formerly
inhabited by Louis, which were immediately above. They gathered round
them men of merit representing science, art, literature, law,
politics, military notables, and fashion. They set up, in fact, a
little Court, but lived a quiet, unostentatious life, so far as it was
diplomatic and permissive.

It was not until the advent of the Empire that gaiety and grandeur
began, excelling and putting into the shade every other Court in
Europe. Josephine wallowed in it, but Napoleon adopted and encouraged
it more from policy than taste. In fact, when in a whimsical mood, he
often said it bored him. That is not to say that he did not adapt
himself to what he believed was a necessity. An Oriental potentate
could not have carried the dignity of splendour more naturally than
he. Whilst in his secret heart he loathed its pomp and extravagance,
fixed in his memory was the impression of poverty and suffering that
he had passed through in his boyhood days, when, in the streets of
Paris, he was on the verge of starvation and at one time obliged to
sell his meagre possession of books to find food for the mouth of his
brother Louis, and went without himself. To his intimate friends he
was accustomed to relate the story, not in a whining manner, but with
a vividness and pathos that brought tears to the eyes of every one who
heard it.

The wilful and false conception of Napoleon's character that existed
amongst thousands of those who were contemporary with him, and the
persistent efforts to defame him, even now, by a section of the
world's community, are extraordinary, when so many convincing proofs
are available which show him to have been the reverse of what they say
he was. As brother, son, husband, father, or friend, his love,
devotion, and loyalty were matchless. He was never once known to
upbraid Josephine after the condonement of her infidelities. He paid
her colossal debts, not without protest, but rather than make her
un