"Were any one to hear with what persistency my brothers demand fresh sums of money from me, every day, he would really think that I had consumed from them the inheritance their father left," said Bonaparte, one day, to Bourrienne, after a violent scene between him and Jerome, which had ended, as they all did, in Jerome getting another draft on the private purse of the first consul.
Louis, however, never asked for money, but always appeared thankfully content with whatever Bonaparte chose to give him, unsolicited, and there never were any wranglings with tradesmen on his account, or any debts of his to pay.
This last circumstance was what filled Josephine with a sort of respectful deference for her young step-brother. He understood how to manage his affairs so well as never to run up debts, and this was a quality that was so sorely lacking in Josephine, that she could never avoid incurring debt. How many bitter annoyances, how much care and anxiety had not her debts cost her already; how often Bonaparte had scolded her about them; how often she had promised to do differently, and make no more purchases until she should be in a condition to pay at once!
But this reform was to her thoughtless and magnanimous nature an impossibility; and however greatly she may have feared the flashing eyes and thundering voice of her husband when he was angered, she could not escape his wrath in this one point, for in that point precisely was it that the penitent sinner continually fell into fresh transgression--and again ran into debt!
Louis, however, never had debts. He was as cautious and regular as her own Hortense, and therefore, thought Josephine, these two young, careful, thoughtful temperaments would be well adapted to each other, and would know how to manage their hearts as discreetly as they did their purses.
So she wished to make a step-son of Louis Bonaparte, in order to strengthen her own position thereby. Josephine already had a premonitory distrust of the future, and it may sometimes have happened that she took the mighty eagle that fluttered above her head for a bird of evil omen whose warning cry she frequently fancied that she heard in the stillness of the night.
The negress at Martinique had said to her, "You will be more than a queen." But now, Josephine had visited the new fortune-teller, Madame Villeneuve, in Paris, and she had said to her, "You will wear a crown, but only for a short time."
Only for a short time! Josephine was too young, too happy, and too healthful, to think of her own early death. It must, then, be something else that threatened her--a separation, perhaps. She had no children, yet Bonaparte so earnestly desired to have a son, and his brothers repeated to him daily that this was for him a political necessity.
Thus Josephine trembled for her future; she stretched out her hands for help, and in the selfishness of her trouble asked her daughter to give up her own dreams of happiness, in order to secure the real happiness of her mother.
Yet Hortense was in love; her young heart throbbed painfully at the thought of not only relinquishing her own love, but of marrying an unloved man, whom she had never even thought of, and had scarcely noticed. She deemed it impossible that she could be asked to sacrifice her own beautiful and blessed happiness, to a cold-blooded calculation, an artificial family intrigue; and so, with all the enthusiasm of a first love, she swore rather to perish than to forego her lover.