so splendid. The diamonds lavishly scattered over the women's dresses,
and the gold and silver embroidery on the uniforms contrasted so
strongly with the penury of the Republic, that the wealth of the globe
seemed to be rolling through the drawing-rooms of Paris. Intoxication
seemed to have turned the brains of this Empire of a day. All the
military, not excepting their chief, reveled like parvenus in the
treasure conquered for them by a million men with worsted epaulettes,
whose demands were satisfied by a few yards of red ribbon.

At this time most women affected that lightness of conduct and
facility of morals which distinguished the reign of Louis XV. Whether
it were in imitation of the tone of the fallen monarchy, or because
certain members of the Imperial family had set the example--as certain
malcontents of the Faubourg Saint-Germain chose to say--it is certain
that men and women alike flung themselves into a life of pleasure with
an intrepidity which seemed to forbode the end of the world. But there
was at that time another cause for such license. The infatuation of
women for the military became a frenzy, and was too consonant to the
Emperor's views for him to try to check it. The frequent calls to
arms, which gave every treaty concluded between Napoleon and the rest
of Europe the character of an armistice, left every passion open to a
termination as sudden as the decisions of the Commander-in-chief of
all these busbys, pelisses, and aiguillettes, which so fascinated the
fair sex. Hearts were as nomadic as the regiments. Between the first
and fifth bulletins from the /Grand Armee/ a woman might be in
succession mistress, wife, mother, and widow.

Was it the prospect of early widowhood, the hope of a jointure, or
that of bearing a name promised to history, which made the soldiers so
attractive? Were women drawn to them by the certainty that the secret