e ce sang sans
se mesallier." The bourgeois Voltairien was more biting in his sarcasm.
In his speech to the grand officers of State and corporations, Napoleon
had alluded to Empress Josephine: "France has not forgotten that for the
last seventy years foreign princesses have only ascended the steps of
the throne to see their race scattered and proscribed, either by war or
revolution. One woman alone appears to have brought the people better
luck, and to have left a more lasting impression on their memory, and
that woman, the modest and kindly wife of General Bonaparte, was not
descended from royal blood." Then, speaking of the empress that was to
be, he concluded, "A good and pious Catholic, she will, like myself,
offer up the same prayers for the welfare and happiness of France; I
cherish the firm hope that, gracious and kind as she is, she will, while
occupying a similar position, revive once more the virtues of
Josephine." All of which references to the undoubtedly skittish widow of
General de Beauharnais made the satirically inclined bourgeois, who knew
the chronique scandaleuse of the Directoire quite as well as
Louis-Napoleon, sneer. Said one, "It is a strange present to put into a
girl's trousseau, the virtues of Josephine; the Nessus-shirt given to
Hercules was nothing to it."

The Faubourg St.-Germain made common cause for once with the Orleanists
salons, which were avenging the confiscation of the princes' property;
and both, if less brutal than the speaker just quoted, were not less
cruel. The daughter had to bear the brunt of the mother's reputation.
Public securities went down two francs at the announcement of the
marriage. There was but one man who stood steadfast by the Emperor and
his bride, Dupin the elder; but his ironical defence of the choice was
nearly as bad as his opposition to it could have been. "People care very
little as to what I say and think, and perhaps they are right," he
remarked; "but still, the Emperor acts more sensibly by marrying the
woman he likes than by eating humble-pie and bargaining for some
strait-laced, stuck-up German princess, with feet as large as mine. At
any rate, when he kisses his wife, it will be because he feels inclined,
and not because he feels compelled."[60]

[Footnote 60: Dupin's feet were enormous, and, furthermore,
invariably shod in thick, hobnailed bluchers. He himself was
always jestingly alluding to them; and one day, on the occ