“Oh, you want to mock me, my friend,” said Josephine, reproachfully.
“By no means, I am in dead earnest, and should like to know what the pretenders did say about me. State to us, then, madame, with your seductive voice, the tempting promises of the Bourbons.”
“General, there was no talk of promises, but of the admiration the Count d’Artois felt for you,” said Marianne, almost timidly, and with downcast eyes. “We conversed about politics in general, and Madame de Guiche, in her charming innocence, took the liberty to ask the Count d’Artois how the First Consul of France might be rewarded in case he should restore the Bourbons.”
“Ah, you conversed about this favorite theme of the emigres, about the restoration question!” said Bonaparte, shrugging his shoulders. “And what did the prince reply?”
“The Count d’Artois replied: ‘In the first place, we should appoint the first consul Connetable of France, if that would be agreeable to him. But we should not believe that that would be a sufficient reward; we should erect on the Place du Carrousel a lofty and magnificent column to be surmounted by a statue of Bonaparte crowning the Bourbons!’” [Footnote: Las Cases, “Memorial de Sainte-Helene,” vol. i., p. 337.]
“Is not that a beautiful and sublime idea?” exclaimed Josephine, joyfully, while the princess searchingly fixed her eyes on Bonaparte’s face.
“Yes,” he said, calmly, “it is a very sublime idea; but what did you reply, Josephine, when this was communicated to you?”
“What did I reply?” asked Josephine. “Good Heaven! what should I have replied?”
“Well,” said Bonaparte, whose face now assumed a grave, stern expression, “you might have replied, for instance, that the pedestal of this beautiful column would have to be the corpse of the First Consul.” [Footnote: Bonaparte’s own words.—Ibid., vol. ii., p. 337.]
“Oh, Bonaparte, what a dreadful idea that is!” exclaimed Josephine, in dismay—“dreadful and withal untrue, for did not the Count d’Artois say the Bourbons would appoint you Connetable of France?”