s cold,
proud, and haughty in her manner, and unconciliating in her ordinary
address. Her time was much spent in private, in the exercise of
religious duty, or in needle-work and drawing; and her favourite seat at
St Cloud was between two windows, from one of which she had a view over
the beautiful woods which clothe the banks of the river, and from the
other a distant prospect of the towers and domes of Paris.

Very different was the character which belonged to the former Empress,
the first wife of Bonaparte, Josephine: She passed the close of her life
at the delightful retreat of Malmaison, a villa charmingly situated on
the banks of the Seine, seven miles from Paris, on the road to St
Germain. This villa had been her favourite residence while she continued
Empress, and formed her only home after the period of her divorce;--here
she lived in obscurity and retirement, without any of the pomp of a
court, or any of the splendour which belonged to her former
rank,--occupied entirely in the employment of gardening, or in
alleviating the distresses of those around her. The shrubberies and
gardens were laid out with singular beauty, in the English taste, and
contained a vast variety of rare flowers, which she had for a long
period been collecting. These shrubberies were to her the source of
never-failing enjoyment; she spent many hours in them every day, working
herself, or superintending the occupations of others; and in these
delightful occupations seemed to return again to all the innocence and
happiness of youth. She was beloved to the greatest degree by all the
poor who inhabited the vicinity of her retreat, both for the gentleness
of her manner, and her unwearied attention to their sufferings and their
wants; and during the whole period of her retirement, she retained the
esteem and affection of all classes of French citizens. The Emperor
Alexander visited her repeatedly during the stay of the allied armies
in Paris; and her death occasioned an universal feeling of regret,
rarely to be met with amidst the corruption and selfishness of the
French metropolis.

There was something singularly striking in the history and character of
this remarkable woman:--Born in a humble station, without any of the
advantages which rank or education could afford, she was early involved
in all the unspeakable miseries of the French revolution, and was
extricated from her precarious situation only by being united to that
extraordinary ma