RECOLLECTIONS OF THE PRIVATE LIFE OF NAPOLEON, V3

By CONSTANT

PREMIER VALET DE CHAMBRE

TRANSLATED BY WALTER CLARK

1895




CHAPTER XIII.

The First Consul left Boulogne to return to Paris, in order to be present
at the marriage of one of his sisters. Prince Camille Borghese,
descendant of the noblest family of Rome, had already arrived at Paris
to--marry Madame Pauline Bonaparte, widow of General Leclerc, who had
died of yellow fever in San Domingo. I recollect having seen this
unfortunate general at the residence of the First Consul some time before
his departure on the ill-starred expedition which cost him his life, and
France the loss of many brave soldiers and much treasure. General
Leclerc, whose name is now almost forgotten, or held in light esteem, was
a kind and good man. He was passionately in love with his wife, whose
giddiness, to put it mildly, afflicted him sorely, and threw him into a
deep and habitual melancholy painful to witness. Princess Pauline (who
was then far from being a princess) had married him willingly, and of her
own choice; but this did not prevent her tormenting her husband by her
innumerable caprices, and repeating to him a hundred times a day that he