uld not easily undo, and proffered
his support--biding his time. Across the English Channel he looked and
stared with envious eyes. Josephine had tasted success and known defeat.
Napoleon had only tasted success. She begged that he would rest content
and hold secure that which he had gained. Success in its very nature must
be limited, she said. He laughed and would not hear of it. For the first
time she felt her influence over him was waning. She had given her all; he
greedily absorbed, and now had come to believe in his own omniscience. He
told her that on a pinch he could get along without her--within himself
he held all power. Then he kissed her hand in mock gallantry and led her
to the door, as he would be alone.

When Napoleon started on the Egyptian campaign, Josephine begged to go
with him; other women went, dozens of them. They seemed to look upon it as
a picnic party. But Napoleon, insisting that absence makes the heart grow
fonder, said his wife should remain behind.

Josephine was too good and great for the wife of such a man. She saw
through him. She understood him, and only honest men are willing to be
understood. He was tired of her, for she no longer ministered to his
vanity. He had captured her, and now he was done with her. Besides that,
she sided with the peace party, and this was intolerable. Still he did not
beat her with a stick; he treated her most graciously, and installing her
at beautiful Malmaison, provided her everything to make her happy. And if
"things" could make one happy, she would have been.

And as for the Egyptian campaign, it surely was a picnic party, or it was
until things got so serious that frolic was supplanted by fear. You can't
frolic with your hair on end like quills upon the fretful porcupine.
Napoleon did not write to his wife. He frolicked. Occasionally his
secretary sent her a formal letter of instruction, and when she at last
wrote him asking an explanation for such strange silence, the Little Man
answered her with accusations of infidelity.

Josephine decided to secure a divorce, and there is pretty good proof that
papers were prepared; and had the affair been carried along, the courts
would have at once allowed the separation on statutory grounds. However,
the papers were destroyed, and Josephine decided to live it out. But
Napoleon had heard of these proposed divorce proceedings and was furious.
When he came back, it was with the intention of immediate legal
separat