These superb grays, however, were--excepting the laurels of Arcola,
Marengo, and Mantua, the only spoils of war that Bonaparte brought back
with him from his famous Italian campaign--the only gift which the
general had not refused to accept.

It is true that the six grays could not be very conveniently hitched to
a simple private carriage, but they had an imposing look attached to the
gilded coach of state in which, a year later, the first consul made his
solemn entry into the Tuileries.



CHAPTER VI.

BONAPARTE IN ITALY.

Josephine, now the wife of General Bonaparte, had but a few weeks in
which to enjoy her new happiness, and then remained alone in Paris,
doubly desolate, because she had to be separated, not only from her
husband, but from her children. Eugene accompanied his young step-father
to Italy, and Hortense went as a pupil to Madame Campan's
boarding-school. The former, lady-in-waiting to Queen Marie Antoinette,
had, at that time, opened an establishment for the education of young
ladies, at St. Germain, and the greatest and most eminent families of
newly-republicanized France liked to send their daughters to it, so that
they might learn from the former court-lady the refined style and
manners of old royalist times.

Hortense was, therefore, sent to that boarding-school, and there, in the