“Your letters are as cold as fifty years of age; one would think they had been written after we had been married fifteen years. They are full of the friendliness and feelings of life’s winter,... What more can you do to distress me? Stop loving me? That you have already done. Hate me? Well, I wish you would; everything degrades me except hatred; but indifference, with a calm pulse, fixed eyes, monotonous walk!... A thousand kisses, tender, like my heart.”
It was not merely indolence and indifference that caused Josephine’s neglect. It was coquetry frequently, and Napoleon, informed by his couriers as to whom she received at Milan or Genoa, and of the pleasures she enjoyed, was jealous with all the force of his nature. More than one young officer who dared pay homage to Josephine in this campaign was banished “by order of the commander-in-chief.” Reaching Milan once, unexpectedly, he found her gone. His disappointment was bitter.
“I reached Milan, rushed to your rooms, having thrown up everything to see you, to press you to my heart—you were not there; you are traveling about from one town to another, amusing yourself with balls.... My unhappiness is inconceivable.... Don’t put yourself out; pursue your pleasure; happiness is made for you.”
It was between such extremes of triumphant love and black despair that Napoleon lived throughout the Italian campaign.
BONAPARTE AT MALMAISON.
The title on the engraving reads: “Bonaparte, dédié à Madame Bonaparte.” Engraved in 1803 by Godefroy, after Isabey.
CHAPTER VI
NAPOLEON’S RETURN TO PARIS—THE EGYPTIAN CAMPAIGN—THE 18th BRUMAIRE
In December, 1797, he returned to Paris. His whole family were collected there, forming a “Bonaparte colony,” as the Parisians called it. There were Joseph and his wife; Lucien, now married to Christine Boyer, his old landlord’s daughter, a marriage Napoleon never forgave; Eliza, now Madame Bacciochi; Pauline, now Madame Leclerc. Madame Letitia was in the city, with Caroline; Louis and Jerome were still in school. Josephine had her daughter Hortense, a girl of thirteen, with her. Her son Eugène, though but fifteen years old, was away on a mission for Napoleon, who, in spite of the boy’s youth, had already taken him into his confidence. According to Napoleon’s express desire, all the family lived in great simplicity.
The return to Paris of the commander-in-chief of the Army of Italy was the signal for a popular ovation. The Directory gave him every honor, changing the name of the street in which he lived to rue de la Victoire, and making him a member of the Institute; but, conscious of its feebleness, and inspired by that suspicion which since the Revolution began had caused the ruin of so many men, it planned to get rid of him.