But, as the wishes of men always aspire still farther the farther they advance, Bonaparte was no longer content with the possession of a small house in Paris. He now wanted an establishment in the country also.
"Look me up a little place in your beautiful valley of the Yonne," he wrote about this time to Bourrienne, who was then living on his property near Sens; "and as soon as I get the money, I will buy it. Then I will retire to it. Now, don't forget that I do not want any of the national domains[5]."
[5] Bourrienne, vol. i, p. 103.
As for the carriage, the peace of Campo Formio brought the victorious General Bonaparte a magnificent team of six gray horses, which was a present to the general of the French Republic from the Emperor of Austria, who did not dream that, scarcely ten years later, he would have him for a son-in-law.
These superb grays, however, were--excepting the laurels of Arcola, Marengo, and Mantua, the only spoils of war that Bonaparte brought back with him from his famous Italian campaign--the only gift which the general had not refused to accept.
It is true that the six grays could not be very conveniently hitched to a simple private carriage, but they had an imposing look attached to the gilded coach of state in which, a year later, the first consul made his solemn entry into the Tuileries.
CHAPTER VI.
BONAPARTE IN ITALY.
Josephine, now the wife of General Bonaparte, had but a few weeks in which to enjoy her new happiness, and then remained alone in Paris, doubly desolate, because she had to be separated, not only from her husband, but from her children. Eugene accompanied his young step-father to Italy, and Hortense went as a pupil to Madame Campan's boarding-school. The former, lady-in-waiting to Queen Marie Antoinette, had, at that time, opened an establishment for the education of young ladies, at St. Germain, and the greatest and most eminent families of newly-republicanized France liked to send their daughters to it, so that they might learn from the former court-lady the refined style and manners of old royalist times.