Thanking her warmly, Napoleon added, "I will keep it until my death."
On this occasion the Emperor was especially inclined to talk about his first wife, and Betsy, hearing him, wondered that he had been willing to separate himself from her.
"Josephine," he said, "was the most feminine woman I have ever known—all charm and sweetness and grace. Era la dama la piu graziosa in Francia." Then he continued: "Josephine was the goddess of the toilet. All fashions came from her. Besides this she was humane and always thoughtful of others. She was the best of women. Although the English and the Bourbons allow that I did some good, yet they generally qualify it by saying that it was chiefly through the instrumentality of Josephine. But the fact is that she never interfered in politics. Great as my veneration was for her, I could not bear to have it thought that she in any way ruled my public actions."
Napoleon's praises of Josephine continued to flow on.
"She was the greatest patroness of the arts known in France for years; but though I loved to attend to her whims, yet I always acted to please the nation, and whenever I obtained a fine statue or valuable picture I sent it to the Museum for the people's benefit. Josephine was grace personified. She never acted inelegantly during the whole time we lived together. Her toilet was perfection, and she resisted the inroads of time, to all appearances, by exquisite taste."
Napoleon spoke with deep emotion, "She was the best of women!"
Then, as if in answer to Betsy's unspoken question, he said:
"It was only political motives that led me to give her up. Nothing else would have separated me from a wife so tenderly loved. Thank God, she died without witnessing my last misfortune!"
From Josephine Napoleon turned to Maria Louisa, his second wife, the mother of his son, of whom he spoke tenderly and affectionately:
"She was an amiable and good wife. She would have followed me here, but they would not let her."