For two years after she mounted the throne, Josephine felt tolerably secure in its possession. It was not until the winter of 1806–1807, when Napoleon was busy with war against Russia and Prussia, that the spectre which had alarmed her at the beginning of the Life Consulate and again at the proclamation of the Empire, arose again. Her first alarm came from the fact that when she wanted to go to the Emperor from Mayence, whither she had taken her household, he put her off. Sometimes he even rebuked her for her persistence in clinging to the idea. “Talleyrand comes, and tells me that you do nothing but cry,” he wrote her on November 1st. “But what do you want? You have your daughter, your grandchildren, and good news; certainly you have the materials for happiness and contentment.” More often he flattered and petted, as when, on November 28th, he wrote from Warsaw: “All the Polish women are Frenchwomen, but there is only one woman for me. Do you know her? I could draw her portrait for you; but I should have to flatter it too much for you to recognize it; nevertheless, to tell the truth, my heart would have only good things to tell you.” And again, a few days later: “I have your letter of November 26th. I notice two things: you say, ‘I don’t read your letters’; that is unjust. I am sorry for your bad opinion. You tell me you are not jealous. I have long observed that people who are angry always say that they are not angry, that people who are afraid say they are not afraid; so you are convicted of jealousy; I am delighted! Besides, you are mistaken, and in the deserts of fair Poland one thinks but little about pretty women. Yesterday I was at a ball of the nobility of the province; rather pretty women, rather rich, rather ill dressed, although in the Paris fashion.” He continued all through December to try to dissuade her. “I have your letter of November 27th, and I see that your little head is much excited. I remember the line: ‘A woman’s wish is a devouring flame,’ and I must calm you. I wrote to you that I was in Poland, that when we should have got into winter quarters you might come; so you must wait a few days. The greater one becomes, the less will one must have; one depends on events and circumstances. You may go to Frankfurt or Darmstadt. I hope to summon you in a few days, but events must decide. The warmth of your letter convinces me that you pretty women take no account of obstacles; what you want must be; but I must say that I am the greatest slave that lives; my master has no heart, and this master is the nature of things.”