"What have I done, Sire! to deserve such treatment?" exclaimed Josephine,
trembling.
"If," answered Napoleon, "Madame Remusat, your favourite, has made a fool
of you, this is only to teach you that you shall not make a fool of me:
Had not De Segur fortunately for him--had the ingenuity to extricate us
from the dilemma into which my confidence and dependence on you had
brought me, I should have made a fine figure indeed on the first day of
my emperorship. Have patience, Madame; you have plenty of books to
divert you, but you must remain where you are until I am inclined to
release you." So saying, Napoleon locked the door and put the key in his
pocket.
It was near two o'clock in the afternoon when she was thus shut up.
Remembering the recent flattery of her courtiers, and comparing it with
the unfeeling treatment of her husband, she found herself so much the
more unfortunate, as the expressions of the former were regarded by her
as praise due to her merit, while the unkindness of the latter was
unavailingly resented as the undeserved oppression of a capricious
despot.
Business, or perhaps malice, made Napoleon forget to send her any dinner;
and when, at eight o'clock, his brothers and sisters came, according to
invitation, to take tea, he said coldly:
"Apropos, I forgot it. My wife has not dined yet; she is busy, I
suppose, in her philosophical meditations in her study."
Madame Louis Bonaparte, her daughter, flew directly towards the study,
and her mother could scarcely, for her tears, inform her that--she was a
prisoner, and that her husband was her gaoler.
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