Joseph Bonaparte was deeply disgusted by Josephine’s reckless expenditures, and it was only with the greatest difficulty that she was able to get any money from him. He was the more disobliging because he and other members of the family believed that they now had proofs which surely would convince Napoleon that Josephine was faithless and would cause him to secure a divorce as soon as he returned from Italy. And, indeed their cause had already advanced in Egypt far beyond their knowledge. Joseph had, before Napoleon’s sailing, put such suspicions of Josephine’s infidelity into his mind and referred him to such members of his own staff for proof, that the General once at sea had investigated the matter and become convinced of the truth of the charges. The revelation caused him weeks of gloom. There was nothing left to live for, he wrote Joseph. At twenty-nine he was disillusioned. Honors wearied him, glory was colorless, sentiment dead, men without interest. He should return to France and retire to the country. But he could not abandon his post at once, and as the weeks went on recklessness succeeded to gloom. If his wife was faithless, why should he be faithful? From that time Josephine’s exclusive sway was broken. The man who had for her sake spurned all women rode openly through the streets of Cairo with a pretty little madame whose husband had been sent suddenly to France. The glory of love was gone forever for Bonaparte, and poor Josephine had lost the rarest jewel of her life. Perhaps the saddest of it all was that she had never realized what she possessed, never knew her loss. How much Josephine knew of her husband’s change of feeling towards her is uncertain. There is a letter in existence purporting to be hers, written at this time in answer to accusations which Napoleon had made from Egypt, in which she repels the charges with virtuous indignation and attributes them to her enemies, presumably the Bonapartes:— It is impossible, General (she writes), that the letter I have just received comes from you? I can scarcely credit it when I compare that letter with others now before me, to which your love imparts so many charms! My eyes, indeed, would persuade me that your hand traced these lines; but my heart refuses to believe that a letter from you could ever have caused the mortal anguish I experience on perusing these expressions of your displeasure, which afflict me the more when I consider how much pain they must have cost you.