When Napoleon returned to Paris after the meeting at Tilsit, Josephine was prepared to do all that was possible to reconquer the place in her husband’s heart, which many months’ absence had certainly weakened. She even had Hortense’s little son Louis with her, a constant reminder to the Empire that here was an heir of Bonaparte and Beauharnais blood. Her hopes were soon shattered by Fouché, who made an appeal to her. For the sake of the country, the dynasty, Napoleon, would she not herself voluntarily offer to withdraw. Panicstricken, yet not daring to go directly to her husband to know if this was his will, Josephine could only weep. Napoleon saw her sorrow, but had not the courage to talk with her. Finally Talleyrand, taking the case in hand, persuaded Josephine to speak first to Napoleon. Overcome completely, the Emperor feigned amazement, stormed at the baseness of Fouché, wept over Josephine, swore he could not leave her; but he did not deceive her—or himself. Josephine took a clever course—she told him she would consent to his will quietly for love of him and for the sake of the throne—if he commanded her. But that Napoleon could not do. He ordered that the question of divorce be dropped, gave Fouché such treatment as perhaps a man never before received for carrying out his superior’s will, and for a time bestowed upon Josephine lover-like attentions so marked that the whole court looked on and wondered. [Illustration: EMPRESS JOSEPHINE. Fragment from the picture of the marriage of Jerome Bonaparte and the Princess Catherine.] The fall of 1807 the Emperor strove to make very gay, and during the sojourns at Rambouillet for the hunt and the month at Fontainebleau the Empress was really at the height of her power. He could not give her up, could not, in spite of his dynasty, in spite of Mme. Walewski, the woman who had sacrificed herself to him for the sake of Poland, and for whom he had a great respect as well as ardent passion. Josephine was necessary to him. It was a tenderness born of association—of all of the thousand sweet ties which twelve years of life together had wrought. What matter if she was growing old; what matter that he might have a royal princess for his wife—that his heart was with Mme. Walewski, it was Josephine, and no one ever had aroused such a wealth of tenderness as she—no one could again. The court could only look on and wonder to see the weakness of the tyrant before this woman. They even noted how jealous he was of her that fall, when the young German prince of Mecklenburg-Schwerin fell in love with her and did not hesitate to show it. Josephine herself laughed at the young man’s ardor, but Napoleon looked askance and doubled his tenderness.