d 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 delighted at the idea of having diamonds that would
eclipse all the gems which Josephine possessed; for, like all of the
Bonapartes, she detested her brother's wife. So she would be married
and show her diamonds to Josephine. It was a bit of feminine malice
which she could not resist.

The marriage took place very quietly at Joseph Bonaparte's house,
because of the absence of Napoleon; but the newly made princess was
invited to visit Josephine at the palace of Saint-Cloud. Here was to be
the triumph of her life. She spent many days in planning a toilet that
should be absolutely crushing to Josephine. Whatever she wore must be a
background for the famous diamonds. Finally she decided on green velvet.

When the day came Pauline stood before a mirr