It was the end of June before Josephine arrived in Milan. The palace which awaited her was the princely home of the Duke de Serbelloni;—the society the choicest of Italy. She at once found herself literally living like a princess. Unhappily for her, however, there was no opportunity to remain long quietly at Milan and enjoy the pleasures open to her. Bonaparte was in active campaign—unable to stay but a couple of days after her arrival, and he soon began to beg that she join him in the field. At the end of July, she did go to Brescia, where she experienced a series of exciting adventures. The Austrians were pressing close on the French—closer than Napoleon realized; twice he and she narrowly escaped capture together; once she was under fire. Finally Bonaparte was obliged to send her, by way of Bologna and Ferrara to Lucques, a journey that she made in safety, but in tears. Henceforth Josephine had an excellent reason for not joining her husband in the field. And Napoleon did not ask her to do so. All he asked now was letters, letters, letters. “Your health and your face are never out of my mind. I cannot be at peace until your letters are received. I wait them impatiently. You cannot conceive my unrest.” And again, “I do not love you at all; on the contrary, I detest you. You are a wretched, awkward, stupid little thing. You do not write me any more at all; you do not love your husband. You know the pleasure that your letters give me, and yet write me not more than six lines and that by chance. What are you doing all day long, Madame? But seriously, I am very much disturbed, my dear, at not hearing from you. Write me four pages quickly of those kind of things which fill my heart with pleasure.” A few days later he writes, “No letters from you. Truly that disturbs me. I am told you are well and that you have even been to Lake Como. I look impatiently every day for the courier who will bring me news of you.” And again, “I write you very often, my dear, and you write me so rarely.” And so it went on through the entire summer and fall of 1796. While she received at Milan the honors due the wife of a conqueror who held the fate of states in his hands, he in the field exhausted himself in a frenzied struggle for victory—not victory for himself, so he told Josephine, and so for a time, perhaps, he persuaded himself; but victory because it pleased her that he win it; honor because she set store by it; otherwise, said he, “I should leave all to throw myself at your feet.”