official entertainments succeeded one another with startling rapidity.
Josephine, who was wildly fond of dress, was glad of an excuse to indulge
her extravagant tastes. The Emperor's three sisters lived like real
princesses, rivalling one another in magnificence. Princes Joseph and
Louis displayed the pomp of future kings.

Almost all the women of the court were young and pretty. It would have
been hard to confer on any one, to the exclusion of the rest, the palm of
beauty. There were three who were especially distinguished: Madame Maret
(later the Duchess of Bassano); Madame Savary (later the Duchess of
Rovigo); and Madame de Canisy (later the Duchess of Vicenza). The last
named had married M. de Canisy, the Emperor's equerry. Later, she got a
divorce and married M. de Caulaincourt, Duke of Vicenza and Grand Equerry.

At Saint Helena Napoleon thus recounted the origin of this famous beauty:
"Madame de Lomene, the Cardinal's niece, before being put to death in the
Revolution, entrusted to Father Patrault her two young daughters. When the
terror was over, Madame de Brienne, their aunt, who had weathered the
storm and still possessed a large fortune, demanded them of Father
Patrault, who refused to give them up for a long time, on the ground that
their mother had urged him to bring them up as peasants." And Napoleon
went on: "I was then General of the Army of the Interior; and was able to
secure the return of the two children, though with some difficulty, for
Patrault resisted in every way in his power. They were the women whom you
afterwards knew as Madame de Marnesia, and as the beautiful Madame de
Canisy."

The Duchess of Abrantes, in recalling the brilliant winter of 1804-5,
says, in her Memoirs: "One especially impressive beauty, particularly in
the ball-room, was Madame de Canisy, I have often compared her to a muse.