ook
command of the Army of Egypt. Josephine accompanied him to Toulon.
Standing upon a balcony, she with tearful eyes watched the receding
fleet which bore her husband to that far-distant land, until it
disappeared beneath the horizon of the blue Mediterranean. Eugene
accompanied his father. Hortense remained with her mother, who took up
her residence most of the time during her husband's absence at
Plombieres, a celebrated watering-place.

Josephine, anxious in every possible way to promote the popularity of
her absent husband, and thus to secure his advancement, received with
cordiality all who came to her with their congratulations. She was
endowed with marvellous power of pleasing. Every one who saw her was
charmed with her. Hortense was bewitchingly beautiful and attractive.

Josephine had ample means to indulge her taste in entertainments, and
was qualified eminently to shine in such scenes. The consequence was
that her saloons were the constant resort of rank and wealth and
fashion. Some enemy wrote to Napoleon, and roused his jealousy to a very
high degree, by representing Josephine as forgetting her husband,
immersed in pleasure, and coquetting with all the world.

Napoleon was exceedingly disturbed, and wrote Josephine a very severe
letter. The following extract from her reply fully explains the nature
of this momentary estrangement:

"Is it possible, general, that the letter I have just received comes
from you? I can scarcely credit it when I compare that letter with
others to which your love imparts so many charms. My eyes, indeed, would
persuade me that your hands traced these lines, but my heart refuses to
believe that a letter from you could ever have caused the mortal anguish
I experience on perusing these expressions of your displeasure, which
afflict me the more when I consider how much pain they must have caused
you.

"I know not what I have done to provoke some malignant enemy to destroy
my peace by disturbing yours. But certainly a powerful motive must
influence some one in continually renewing calumnies against me, and
giving them a sufficient appearance of probability to impose on the man
who has hitherto judged me worthy of his affection and confidence. These
two sentiments are necessary to my happiness. And if they are to be so
soon withdrawn from me, I can only regret that I was ever blest in
possessing them or knowing you.

"On my first acquaintance with you, the affliction with which I