particularly if they were handled discreetly. The fall of 1797, Napoleon passed in negotiations with Austria. For a time Josephine was with him. Then restless and eager to see Italy, she left him in October and went to Venice, where a splendid reception was given her. From there she travelled as her fancy dictated in Northern Italy. Everywhere she went she was received royally, and loaded with gifts. She did not reach Paris until the first of January, 1798, nearly a month after Napoleon. She came back to find her husband the most talked of man in Europe. She found, too, that her return was eagerly looked for because the General absolutely refused to be lionized—even to appear at public functions, without her. Her coming was thus the signal for a round of gaieties, where, it must be confessed, Bonaparte played rather the part of a bear. He would not leave Josephine’s side; he wanted to talk with her alone, and he openly declared that he would rather stay at home with her than go to the most brilliant reception Paris could offer. “I love my wife,” he said seriously to those who chaffed him or remonstrated. With all his dreams of ambition, it is certain that she filled his life as completely now as she had nearly two years before, when he married her. As for Josephine herself, she seems to have been completely satisfied now that she was in Paris. She was the centre of an admiring circle; she was loaded daily with presents, not only from cities and statesmen, but from shop-keepers and manufacturers, eager to have her approval, to use her name. Not since her marriage had she been so contented. This satisfactory state of affairs was interrupted in May, when Bonaparte sailed for Egypt. Josephine went to Toulon to see him off, promising that she would soon follow him, and then retired to the springs at Plombières for a season. It was fall before she returned to Paris. When she did return, it was to plunge into a round of frivolity and extravagance. The most conspicuous of her indiscretions was the attentions she accepted from a young man—Hippolyte Charles—a former adjutant to one of Napoleon’s generals. She had known him before she went to Italy; indeed he had been in her party when she left for Milan in 1796. At Milan he had paid her so assiduous court and had been so encouraged that the news came to Napoleon’s ears, and Charles was suddenly dismissed from the service. He had found a place in Paris—through Josephine’s influence, the gossips said. At all events, this young man reappeared now that Bonaparte was in Egypt, and became a constant visitor at her house; and when, the summer following, she bought Malmaison and took possession, Charles was her first guest. “You had better get a divorce from Bonaparte and marry Charles,” some of her plain-speaking friends told her.