“Either a few months or six years. All depends upon circumstances. I must win Egypt to civilization. I will gather there artists, learned men, mechanics of all trades, even women—dancers, songstresses, and actresses. I want to mould Egypt into a second France. One can do a great deal in six years. I am now twenty-nine years old, I shall be thirty-five when I return—that is not old. But I shall want more than six years if I go to India.” [Footnote: Bourrienne, vol. ii., p. 49.]
Josephine cried aloud with anguish and horror, and, embracing him in her arms, implored him with all the delicate tenderness of her anxious affection not to thrust her aside, but to allow her to accompany him to Egypt.
But Bonaparte refused, and this time her tears, which he had never before denied, were fruitless. He felt that Josephine’s presence would damp his ardent courage, retard his onward march, and that he would not have the necessary fearless energy to incur risks and perils if Josephine were to be threatened by their consequences. He could not expose her to the privations and restless wanderings of a campaign, and his burning love for her was too real for him to yield to her wishes.
Josephine, meanwhile, was not silenced by his refusal; she persevered in her supplications, and Bonaparte, at last softened by her prayers, was obliged to come to terms. It was decided that Josephine should follow him to Egypt, that he would select a place of residence and prepare every thing for her reception there, so that she might without danger or too much inconvenience undertake the journey.
But before commencing such an undertaking, Josephine’s health needed recruiting; she was to go to the baths of Plombieres, and Bonaparte was to hold a ship in readiness in Toulon to bring her to Egypt.
The ship which was chosen to transport her was the Pomona, the same in which, when only sixteen years old, she had come from Martinique to France. Then she had gone forth to an unknown world and to an unknown husband; now she was on the same ship to undertake a journey to an unknown world, but it was a beloved husband whom she was going to meet, and love gave her the strength to do so.
Josephine, full of the sweetest confidence that she was soon to follow Bonaparte, and hereafter to see him again, accompanied him to Toulon. She had the strength to repress her tears as she bade him farewell, and to smile as he entreated her to keep her heart faithful to him.
She showed herself at this separation stronger than Bonaparte himself, for while her eyes were bright with joyous love, his were sad and obscured by tears.
The difference was this: Bonaparte knew that he was bidding farewell to Josephine for long years; she trusted that in a few months she would be reunited to him.
Bonaparte imprinted a last kiss on the lips of Josephine. She embraced him tenderly in her arms, and, to shield herself against the deep anguish of the separation, she cried aloud: