satisfy it. Repose he deemed but the beginning of death.

"If I remain here inactive any longer, I am lost," said he. "They retain
the resemblance of nothing whatever in Paris; one celebrity blots out
another in this great Babylon; if I show myself much oftener to the
public, they will cease to look at me, and if I do not soon undertake
something new, they will forget me."

And he did undertake something new, something unprecedented, that filled
all Europe with astonishment. He left the shores of France with an army
to conquer, for the French Republic, that ancient land of Egypt, on
whose pyramids the green moss of long-forgotten ages was flourishing.

Josephine did not accompany him. She remained behind in Paris; but she
needed consolation and encouragement to enable her to sustain this
separation, which Bonaparte himself had confessed to her might be just
as likely to last six years as six months. And what could afford better
consolation to a heart so tender as Josephine's than the presence of her
beloved daughter? She had willingly given up her son to her husband, and
he had accompanied the latter to Egypt, but her daughter remained, and
her she would not give up to any one, not even to Madame Campan's
boarding-school.

Besides, the education of Hortense was now completed. She who had come
to St. Germain as a child, left the boarding-school, after two years'
stay, a handsome, blooming young lady, adorned with all the charms of
innocence, youth, grace, and refinement.

Although she was now a young lady of nearly sixteen, she had retained
the thoughts and ways of her childhood. Her heart was as a white sheet