A royal couch in the Serbelloni Palace; never has he lain so soft before. But it is far too wide for one! Where is Josephine? What are triumphal entries and victories worth, without her? Fireworks and flags! Why has she not come? Is she really ill? Has she a lover?—He lies awake for hours.

From the very first this man, who inspired respect even in the veterans among the generals, imperilled that respect by his way of showing his wife’s picture to all and sundry, and when he was in the middle of a conversation about service matters. “You will come soon, won’t you?” So he wrote in one of his almost daily letters. “You must come to me. I want you on my heart, in my arms! Quick! Fly, fly!” He knows her frivolous disposition; that her senses are easily aroused; that she is always ready to give herself up to new impressions, new admirers. But now, now! What can be keeping her? He had expected her to come to Milan. His ambition had been to escape thither from the savagery of the campaign, that in one of the palaces of that city he might give her capricious charms a splendid setting worthy of her and himself.

But there is something which our great calculator has left out of his calculations. By his very feats of arms, he has kept her away from his side. For years in Paris she has been living in the half-world. Now, in this city which she loves, she wishes to shine forth in an assured position, as wife of the great commander whose name is in every newspaper, on every one’s lips. Does the little general really think she married him for love? When the first captured colours are exhibited, she drives out among the people, and, while she is loudly cheered, she thinks to herself how much more gratifying this is than to rough it in foreign towns surrounded by unmannerly soldiers. She seldom writes to him. His own words grow ever more urgent. “Have you a lover, have you taken up with some stripling of nineteen? If so, you have reason to dread Othello’s fist!” She laughs, and says to Tallien: “A queer fellow, this Bonaparte!”

Another day, in the middle of a letter to Carnot dealing with urgent affairs, he writes: “I am in despair. My wife won’t come here. I am sure she must have a lover, and that that is what keeps her in Paris. I loathe women, one and all!” Then comes a letter in which she grasps at an expedient. Since there is no other way of avoiding the dangers and the dirt of camp life, she writes to him that she has hopes....

Thunder and lightning! Have all the spirits of good fortune united to shower blessings on him? Among his successes, that was the only thing he lacked to complete his happiness. For, if destiny is to carry him to the lofty altitudes he foresees, to the heights he has resolved to scale, then his greatest need is to have heirs. But this battle is only planned, not yet won; new dangers are impending. He shudders. Is it true? Is it his child?

“I am sorry!”—the words are penned in his almost illegible handwriting on the commander-in-chief’s official stationery. “I have been pestering you with complaints, and you are ill. Love had robbed me of reason. Forgive me, but I think I shall never be reasonable again. My life is an unending dream; gloomy forebodings make it hard for me to breathe; I have lost all hope. Write me ten pages, for nothing else can console me. You are ill, you love me, you are with child, and I never see you. Who takes care of you? Hortense? I love the sweet girl more than ever when I think of her as taking care of you.... Soon you are to have in your arms a child as fascinating as yourself. If I could only spend a whole day with you. You know, if I saw a lover with you, I should instantly tear the man to pieces!”

But who is to help her through her time of trouble? There is no friendship in the world, only the ties of blood. “I am in despair,” he writes to Joseph under the same date. “My wife is ailing; I do not know whether I am standing on my head or my heels; dreadful forebodings rack my heart. Write to me, I implore you. Since early childhood, we have been bound together by kinship and affection. Do for her what I would so eagerly do for you.... You know how much I love her; know her ardent nature; know that I have never loved so passionately, that Josephine is the first woman whom I have adored. Her condition drives me crazy.... But as soon as she is well again, well enough to travel, she must come to me. I must have her in my arms; I love her to distraction, and cannot live without her. If she no longer loves me, there is nothing more for me in the world. Oh, mon ami, do not keep the courier more than six hours in Paris; send him back to me with an answer which will give me new life. Be happy! For myself, nature has doomed me to win none but outward victories!”

On the same day, he dictates, inter alia: Order to Berthier to occupy Alessandria; dispatch to the Directors concerning urgently needed reinforcements; ultimatum to the Genoese Senate anent the murder of soldiers; letter introducing Murat to the same Senate; plan to sell some cannon which are still left on the Riviera; order to Masséna to procure ammunition from the arsenal in Venice; order to Lannes to advance no farther; order to send all suspects to Tortona; order to send a division to Toulon; report to Kellermann that money and troops are on the way.

His letter has an effect. Joseph asks Josephine to come with him to Milan. What pretext can she find for refusing? She sighs, packs her trunks, sheds tears at a farewell festival in the Luxembourg, gets into the carriage. After all, to-morrow is the thirtieth of June, the season is at an end, and she has good company for the journey. Of course Joseph, her vis-à-vis, is a homely fellow, but Junot is a dapper young man; Fortuné, her lap-dog, is a darling, as ever. Then there is Charles, another young officer whose acquaintance she has recently made, and who has danced attendance on her ever since. Is he on the lookout for a career, or a conquest? What a choice Christian name, Hippolyte! How fine he looks in his chasseur uniform. He tells such amusing stories, has an expert knowledge of the latest shawls and wigs, and his legs are so well turned!

Milan. Bonaparte is away? More battles near Verona? No matter, this is a lovely place! Such a splendid palace; they all flock to pay their respects. But Hippolyte is hors concours; no one can rival the grace with which, sword clanking, he strides up and down the Corso. What a pity one has to be circumspect in one’s behaviour under so many prying eyes. But Hippolyte knows his way about, and has found a discreet staircase....

Suddenly there is a stir of excitement. The commander-in-chief is coming from Verona. For two days and two nights, the lava of this volcano overwhelms her.