she was in grief; from what did that arise?"--"From passing events, Sire;
from your Majesty's position last year."--" Ah! she used to speak of me
then?"--"Very often." Here Napoleon drew his hand across his eyes, which
seemed filled with tears. He then went on. "Good woman!--Excellent
Josephine! She loved me truly--she--did she not? . . . Ah! She was a
Frenchwoman!"--"Yes, Sire, she loved you, and she would have proved it
had it not been for dread of displeasing you: she had conceived an idea."
--"How? ... What would she have done?" She one day said that as Empress
of the French she would drive through Paris with eight horses to her
coach, and all her household in gala livery, to go and rejoin you at
Fontainebleau, and never quit you mare."--"She would have done it--she
was capable of doing it!"

Napoleon again betrayed deep emotion, on recovering from which he asked
the physician the most minute questions about the nature of Josephine's
disease, the friends and attendants who were around her at the hour of
her death, and the conduct of her two children, Eugene and Hortense.




CHAPTER V.

1815.

Message from the Tuileries--My interview with the King--
My appointment to the office of Prefect of the Police--Council at
the Tuileries--Order for arrests--Fouches escape--Davoust
unmolested--Conversation with M. de Blacas--The intercepted letter,
and time lost--Evident understanding between Murat and Napoleon--