.
Madame de Coutades, her most jealous rival, had found a rich revenge.

General Leclerc did not live long to play the slave to his little
autocrat; and when he died at San Domingo, the beautiful widow returned
to France, accompanied by his embalmed body, with her glorious hair,
which she had cut off for the purpose, wreathing his head! She had not,
however, worn her weeds many months before she was once more surrounded
by her court of lovers--actors, soldiers, singers, on each of whom in
turn she lavished her smiles; and such time as she could spare from
their flatteries and ogling she spent at the card-table, with
fortune-tellers, or, chief joy of all, in decking her beauty with
wondrous dresses and jewels.

But the charming widow, sister of the great Napoleon, was not long to be
left unclaimed; and this time the choice fell on Prince Camillo
Borghese, a handsome, black-haired Italian, who allied to a head as vain
and empty as her own the physical graces and gifts of an Admirable
Crichton, and who, moreover, was lord of all the famed Borghese riches.

Pauline had now reached dizzy heights, undreamed of in the days, only
ten short years earlier, when she was coquetting in home-made finery
with the young tradesmen of Marseilles. She was a Princess, bearing the
greatest name in all Italy; and to this dignity her gratified brother
added that of Princess of Gustalla. All the world-famous Borghese jewels
were hers to deck her beauty with--a small Golconda of priceless gems;
there was gold galore to satisfy her most extravagant whims; and she was
still young--only twenty-five--and in the very zenith of her loveliness.

Picture, then, the pride with which, one early day of her new bridehood,
she drove to the Palace of St Cloud in the gorgeous Borghese State
carriage, behind six horses, and with an escort of torch-bearers, to pay
a formal call on her sister-in-law, Josephine, Empress-to-be. She had
decked herself in a wonderful creation of green velvet; she was ablaze
from head to foot with the Borghese diamonds. Such a dazzling vision
could not fail to fill Josephine with envy--Josephine, who had hitherto
treated her with such haughty patronage.

As she sailed into the _salon_ in all her Queen of Sheba splendour, it
was to be greeted by her sister-in-law in a modest dress of muslin,
without a solitary gem to relieve its simplicity; and--horror!--to find
that the room had been re-decorated in blue by the artful Josephine--