All this impetuous passion wearied Josephine more and more. No response was awakened in her heart. That she was proud of his love, there is no doubt. She told everybody of his devotion, as well she might: it was her passport to power. But she could not answer it in kind, and she found excuses for her neglect in her health, which was not good at this time, and in the social requirements of her brilliant and conspicuous position, and frequently, too, in the fact that the life at Milan, gay as it was, did not please her. She was homesick for Paris. “Monsieur de Serbelloni will tell you, my dear aunt,” she wrote early in September, “how I have been received in Italy, fêted wherever I have gone, all the princes of Italy entertaining me, even the Grand Duke of Tuscany. Ah, well! I would rather be a simple private individual in France; I do not like the honors of this country, I am bored to death. It is true that my health does much to make me sad; I am not well at all. If happiness could bring health, I ought to be well. I have the kindest husband that one could possibly find; I have not time to want anything; my will is his; he is on his knees before me all day long, as if I were a divinity. One could not have a better husband. M. de Serbelloni will tell you how much I am loved; he writes often to my children and is very fond of them.” [Illustration: JOSEPHINE. By J. B. Isabey. (Collection of M. Edmond Taigny.) This portrait in crayon, lightly touched with color, was executed at Malmaison, probably in the course of the year 1798. It is very little known. Isabey, whose pencil was quick and sure, must have requested Josephine to pose for a few minutes after a walk in the park. This sketch was given to M. Taigny by Isabey himself.—A. D.] Not only did Josephine neglect to write to this “best husband in the world”, as she herself called Bonaparte, but she spent many hours at Milan in conspicuous flirtations with young officers who were glad enough to pay her court. Vague rumors of these flirtations came to Napoleon’s ears, no doubt, though it is certain he thought little of them. There are references in his letters which might be attributed to jealousy, but it is clear that his confidence in Josephine at this time was such that a denial from her, an aggrieved look, a tear of reproach, made him sue for pardon and forget his fears.