His mind was still very much disturbed with the reports
which had reached him respecting Josephine. Frejus was six hundred miles
from Paris--a long journey, when railroads were unknown. The
intelligence of his arrival was promptly communicated to the metropolis
by telegraph. Josephine received the news at midnight. Without an hour's
delay she entered her carriage with Hortense, taking as a protector
Napoleon's younger brother Louis, who subsequently married Hortense, and
set out to meet her husband. Almost at the same hour Napoleon left
Frejus for Paris.

When Josephine reached Lyons, a distance of two hundred and forty-two
miles from Paris, she learned, to her consternation, that Napoleon had
left the city several hours before her arrival, and that they had passed
each other by different roads. Her anguish was dreadful. For many months
she had not received a line from her husband, as all communication had
been intercepted by the British cruisers. She knew that her enemies
would be busy in poisoning the mind of her husband against her. She had
traversed the weary leagues of her journey without a moment's
intermission, and now, faint, exhausted, and despairing, she was to
retrace her steps, to reach Paris only many hours after Napoleon would
have arrived there. Probably in all France there was not then a more
unhappy woman than Josephine.

The mystery of human love and jealousy no philosophy can explain. Secret
wretchedness was gnawing at the heart of Napoleon. He loved Josephine
with intensest passion, and all the pride of his nature was roused by
the conviction that she had trifled with him. With these conflicting
emotions rending his soul, he entered Paris and drove to his dwelling.
Josephine was not there. Even Josephine had bitter enemies, as all who
are in power ever must have. These enemies took advantage of her absence
to fan the flames of that jealousy which Napoleon could not conceal. It
was represented to him that Josephine had fled from her home, afraid to
meet the anger of her injured husband. As he paced the floor in anguish,
which led him to forget all his achievements in the past and all his
hopes for the future, an enemy maliciously remarked,

"Josephine will soon appear before you with all her arts of fascination.
She will explain matters, you will forgive all, and tranquillity will be
restored."

Napoleon, striding nervously up and down the floor, replied with pallid
cheek and trembling lip,

"N