a
colour absolutely fatal to her green magnificence! It was thus a very
disgusted Princess who made her early exit from the palace between a
double line of bowing flunkeys, masking her anger behind an affectation
of ultra-Royal dignity.

Still, Pauline was now a _grande dame_ indeed, who could really afford
to patronise even Napoleon's wife. Her Court was more splendid than that
of Josephine. She had lovers by the score--from Blanguini, who composed
his most exquisite songs to sing for her ears alone, to Forbin, her
artist Chamberlain, whose brushes she inspired in a hundred paintings of
her lovely self in as many unconventional guises. Her caskets of jewels
were matched by the most wonderful collection of dresses in France, the
richest and daintiest confections, from pearl embroidered ball-gowns
which cost twenty thousand francs to the mauve and silver in which she
went a-hunting in the forest of Fontainebleau. At Petit Trianon and in
the Faubourg St Honore, she had palaces that were dreams of beauty and
luxury. The only thorn in her bed of roses was, in fact, her husband,
the Prince, the very sight of whom was sufficient to spoil a day for
her.

When, at Napoleon's bidding, she accompanied Borghese to his
Governorship beyond the Alps, she took in her train seven wagon-loads of
finery. At Turin she held the Court of a Queen, to which the Prince was
only admitted on sufferance. Royal visits, dinners, dances, receptions
followed one another in dazzling succession; behind her chair, at dinner
or reception, always stood two gigantic negroes, crowned with ostrich
plumes. She was now "sister of the Emperor," and all the world should
know it!

If only she could escape from her detested husband she would be the
happiest woman on earth. But Napoleon on this point was adamant. In her
rage and rebellion she tore her hair, rolled on the floor, took drugs to
make her ill; and at last so succeeded in alarming her Imperial brother
that he summoned her back to France, where her army of lovers gave her a
warm welcome, and where she could indulge in any vanity and folly
unchecked.

Matters were now hastening to a tragic climax for Napoleon and the
family he had raised from slumdom in Marseilles to crowns and coronets.
Josephine had been divorced, to Pauline's undisguised joy; and her place
had been taken by Marie Louise, the proud Austrian, whom she liked at
least as little. When Napoleon fell from his throne, she alone of all
his