charming background for Josephine’s white muslin, for her green velvet it was something deplorable. Josephine, of course, could not be accused of having planned this; it was Pauline’s own forgetfulness which had wrought her confusion. The white gown and the regal manner were a favorite device of Josephine when she suspected that some young and fascinating woman was preparing to outshine her. One very difficult task for Josephine in her court was holding her own with the women of noble birth who were gradually being admitted, but she did it by a combination of graciousness, deference, and majesty which was not to be analyzed, and which only an all but infinite tact explain. It was tact born of good will—a good will which everybody about her admitted. “No one ever denied the exquisite goodness of Madame Bonaparte,” Mlle. Avrillon says. “She was extremely affable with everybody about her. I do not believe that there ever was a woman who made her companions feel their dependence less than she.” Madame de Remusat says that to goodness she joined a remarkably even disposition, and the faculty of forgetting any evil that any one had done to her. Another member of her household has said of her goodness, that it was as inseparable from her character as grace from her person; “she was good to excess, sensitive beyond all expression, generous to prodigality; she tried to make everybody happy about her, and no woman was ever more loved by those who served her and merited it more.... As she had known unhappiness, she knew how to sympathize with the troubles of others. Her temper was always sweet, always even, as obliging for her enemies as for her friends; she made peace wherever there was trouble or discord.” Josephine was no less happy when on her journeys than at home. She won everybody. No one was presented who did not go away feeling that in some way the Empress had especially distinguished him. As a matter of fact, she prepared herself carefully for her meetings with foreigners by employing an instructor who informed her about their families, their deeds, their books, their diplomatic victories. She mastered this instruction so thoroughly that she always had some flattering reference at her tongue’s end. The diligence and energy she showed in preparing herself for official functions is the more surprising when one remembers her natural indolence.