the age demanded, and which France, after having so dearly purchased, was now about to lose. The country looked for a man who was capable of restoring her to tranquillity; but as yet no such man had appeared. A soldier of fortune presented himself, covered with glory; he had planted the standard of France on the Capitol and on the Pyramids. The whole world acknowledged his superior talent; his character, his courage, and his victories had raised him to the very highest rank. His great works, his gallant actions, his speeches, and his proclamations ever since he had risen to eminence left no doubt of his wish to secure happiness and freedom to France, his adopted country. At that critical moment the necessity of a temporary dictatorship, which sometimes secures the safety of a state, banished all reflections on the consequences of such a power, and nobody seemed to think glory incompatible with personal liberty. All eyes were therefore directed on the General, whose past conduct guaranteed his capability of defending the Republic abroad, and liberty at home,—on the General whom his flatterers, and indeed some of his sincere friends, styled, "the hero of liberal ideas," the title to which he aspired.
Under every point of view, therefore, he was naturally chosen as the chief of a generous nation, confiding to him her destiny, in preference to a troop of mean and fanatical hypocrites, who, under the names of republicanism and liberty, had reduced France to the most abject slavery.
Among the schemes which Bonaparte was incessantly revolving in his mind may undoubtedly be ranked the project of attaining the head of the French Government; but it would be a mistake to suppose that on his return from Egypt he had formed any fixed plan. There was something vague in his ambitious aspirations; and he was, if I may so express myself, fond of building those imaginary edifices called castles in the air. The current of events was in accordance with his wishes; and it may truly be said that the whole French nation smoothed for Bonaparte the road which led to power. Certainly the unanimous plaudits and universal joy which accompanied him along a journey of more than 200 leagues must have induced him to regard as a national mission that step which was at first prompted merely by his wish of meddling with the affairs of the Republic.
This spontaneous burst of popular feeling, unordered and unpaid for, loudly proclaimed the grievances of the people, and their hope that the man of victory would become their deliverer. The general enthusiasm excited by the return of the conqueror of Egypt delighted him to a degree which I cannot express, and was, as he has often assured me, a powerful stimulus in urging him to the object to which the wishes of France seemed to direct him.
Among people of all classes and opinions an 18th Brumaire was desired and expected. Many royalists even believed that a change would prove favourable to the King. So ready are we to persuade ourselves of the reality of what we wish.
As soon as it was suspected that Bonaparte would accept the power offered him, an outcry was raised about a conspiracy against the Republic, and measures were sought for preserving it. But necessity, and indeed, it must be confessed, the general feeling of the people, consigned the execution of those measures to him who was to subvert the Republic. On his return to Paris Bonaparte spoke and acted like a man who felt his own power; he cared neither for flattery, dinners, nor balls,—his mind took a higher flight.
We arrived in Paris on the 24th Vendemiaire (the 16th of October). As yet he knew nothing of what was going on; for he had seen neither his wife nor his brothers, who were looking for him on the Burgundy road. The news of our landing at Fréjus had reached Paris by a telegraphic despatch. Madame Bonaparte, who was dining with M. Gohier when that despatch was communicated to him, as president of the Directory, immediately set off to meet her husband, well knowing how important it was that her first interview with him should not be anticipated by his brothers.
The imprudent communications of Junot at the fountains of Messoudiah will be remembered, but, after the first ebullition of jealous rage, all traces of that feeling had apparently disappeared. Bonaparte however, was still harassed by secret suspicion, and the painful impressions produced by Junot were either not entirely effaced or were revived after our arrival in Paris. We reached the capital before Josephine returned. The recollection of the past, the ill-natured reports of his brothers,
—[Joseph Bonaparte remarks on this that Napoleon met Josephine at Paris before his brothers arrived there, (Compare d'Abrantès, vol. 1, pp. 260-262 and Rémusat, tome i. pp. 147-148.)]—
and the exaggeration of facts had irritated Napoleon to the very highest pitch, and he received Josephine with studied coldness, and with an air of the most cruel indifference. He had no communication with her for three days, during which time he frequently spoke to me of suspicions which his imagination converted into certainty; and threats of divorce escaped his lips with no less vehemence than when we were on the confines of Syria. I took upon me the office of conciliator, which I had before discharged with success. I represented to him the dangers to be apprehended from the publicity and scandal of such an affair; and that the moment when his grand views might possibly be realized was not the fit time to entertain France and Europe with the details of a charge of adultery. I spoke to him of Hortense and Eugène, to whom he was much attached. Reflection, seconded by his ardent affection for Josephine, brought about a complete reconciliation. After these three days of conjugal misunderstanding their happiness was never afterwards disturbed by a similar cause.
—[In speaking of the unexpected arrival of Bonaparte and of the meeting between him and Josephine, Madame Junot says: "On the 10th October Josephine set off to meet her husband, but without knowing exactly what road he would take. She thought it likely he would come by way of Burgundy, and therefore Louis and she set off for Lyons.
"Madame Bonaparte was a prey to great and well-founded aspersions. Whether she was guilty or only imprudent, she was strongly accused by the Bonaparte family, who were desirous that Napoleon should obtain a divorce. The elder M. de Caulaincourt stated to us his apprehensions on this point; but whenever the subject was introduced my mother changed the conversation, because, knowing as she did the sentiments of the Bonaparte family, she could not reply without either committing them or having recourse to falsehood. She knew, moreover, the truth of many circumstances which M. de Caulaincourt seemed to doubt, and which her situation with respect to Bonaparte prevented her from communicating to him.
"Madame Bonaparte committed a great fault in neglecting at this juncture to conciliate her mother-in-law, who might have protected her against those who sought her ruin and effected it nine years later; for the divorce in 1809 was brought about by the joint efforts of all the members of the Bonaparte family, aided by some of Napoleon's most confidential servants, whom Josephine, either as Madame Bonaparte or as Empress, had done nothing to make her friends.
"Bonaparte, on his arrival in Paris, found his house deserted: but his mother, sisters, and sisters-in-law, and, in short, every member of his family, except Louis, who had attended Madame Bonaparte to Lyons, came to him immediately. The impression made upon him by the solitude of his home and its desertion by its mistress was profound and terrible, and nine years afterwards, when the ties between him and Josephine were severed for ever, he showed that it was not effaced. From not finding her with his family he inferred that she felt herself unworthy of their presence, and feared to meet the man she had wronged. He considered her journey to Lyons as a mere pretence.
"M. de Bourrienne says that for some days after Josephine's return Bonaparte treated her with extreme coldness. As he was an eyewitness, why does he not state the whole truth, and say that on her return Bonaparte refused to see her and did not see her? It was to the earnest entreaties of her children that she owed the recovery, not of her husband's love, for that had long ceased, but of that tenderness acquired by habit, and that intimate intercourse which made her still retain the rank of consort to the greatest man of his age. Bonaparte was at this period much attached to Eugène Beauharnais, who, to do him justice, was a charming youth. He knew less of Hortense; but her youth and sweetness of temper, and the protection of which, as his adopted daughter, she besought him not to deprive her, proved powerful
