renounce all hope of having a child, she often let fall allusions to a
great political fraud, and at length openly proposed it to him. I make
no doubt Bonaparte made use of words to this effect, but I do not believe
the assertion. I recollect one day that Bonaparte, on entering our
cabinet, where I was already seated, exclaimed in a transport of joy
impossible for me to describe, "Well, Bourrienne, my wife is at last
enceinte!" I sincerely congratulated him, more, I own, out of courtesy
than from any hope of seeing him made a father by Josephine, for I well
remembered that Corvisart, who had given medicines to Madame Bonaparte,
had nevertheless assured me that he expected no result from them.
Medicine was really the only political fraud to which Josephine had
recourse; and in her situation what other woman would not have done as
much? Here, then, the husband and the wife are in contradiction, which
is nothing uncommon. But on which side is truth? I have no hesitation
in referring it to Josephine. There is indeed an immense difference
between the statements of a women--trusting her fears and her hopes to
the sole confidant of her family secrets, and the tardy declaration of a
man who, after seeing the vast edifice of his ambition leveled with the
dust, is only anxious, in his compulsory retreat, to preserve intact and
spotless the other great edifice of his glory. Bonaparte should have
recollected that Caesar did not like the idea of his wife being even
suspected.




CHAPTER XII.

1802.