line flatly
refused, although she made this an occasion for ordering "mountains of
pretty clothes and pyramids of hats." But still she refused to go on
board the flag-ship. Leclerc expostulated and pleaded, but the lovely
witch laughed in his face and still persisted that she would never go.

Word was brought to Napoleon. He made short work of her resistance.

"Bring a litter," he said, with one of his steely glances. "Order
six grenadiers to thrust her into it, and see that she goes on board
forthwith."

And so, screeching like an angry cat, she was carried on board, and set
sail with her husband and one of her former lovers. She found Haiti and
Santo Domingo more agreeable than she had supposed. She was there a
sort of queen who could do as she pleased and have her orders implicitly
obeyed. Her dissipation was something frightful. Her folly and her
vanity were beyond belief.

But at the end of two years both she and her husband fell ill. He was
stricken down by the yellow fever, which was decimating the French
army. Pauline was suffering from the results of her life in a tropical
climate. Leclerc died, the expedition was abandoned, and Pauline
brought the general's body back to France. When he was buried she, still
recovering from her fever, had him interred in a costly coffin and paid
him the tribute of cutting off her beautiful hair and burying it with
him.

"What a touching tribute to her dead husband!" said some one to
Napoleon.

The emperor smiled cynically as he remarked:

"H'm! Of course she knows that her hair is bound to fall out after her
fever, and that it will come in longer and thicker for being cropped."

Napoleon, in fact, though he loved Pauline better than his other
sisters--or perhaps because he loved her better--was very strict
with her. He obliged her to wear mourning, and to observe some of the
proprieties; but it was hard to keep her within bounds.

Presently it became noised about that Prince Camillo Borghese was
exceedingly intimate with her. The prince was an excellent specimen of
the fashionable Italian. He was immensely rich. His palace at Rome was
crammed with pictures, statues, and every sort of artistic treasure.
He was the owner, moreover, of the famous Borghese jewels, the finest
collection of diamonds in the world.

Napoleon rather sternly insisted upon her marrying Borghese.
Fortunately, the prince was very willing to be connected with Napoleon;
while Pauline was delighte