The winter of 1807 and 1808 was spent in Paris, and the shadow was not large. It was true that Mme. Walewski was now in the city; but if Josephine knew anything of this _liaison_, she ignored it completely. So long as she was Empress infidelities had little effect on her. Mme. de Remusat says that not only did Josephine shut her eyes to them, but she “pushed her complacency to the point of granting particular favors to some of his mistresses.” In the spring and summer her hold on the Emperor seemed to herself and to those about her to have been strengthened by the four and a half months which the two spent with only a small suite at Bayonne, where the Emperor’s presence was necessary to direct the affairs with Spain. Napoleon had preceded the Empress, who waited in Bordeaux for news of Hortense, to whom a third son was born on April 20, 1808. The news brought great joy to Josephine, and no doubt had something to do with her happiness in the next few months. It provided a second heir, and made divorce seem less imperative. In spite of the sinister events of the sojourn at Bayonne—it was here that the King of Spain, Charles IV., and his heir, Ferdinand, abdicated their rights and that Joseph Bonaparte was made King of Spain—there was much gaiety around Josephine. There were dinners and fêtes and drives, and the French Empress and the Spanish Queen Louise seemed to enjoy each other’s society as if a throne were not changing hands and a noble house falling, because of the disgraceful inaction and jealousy of one ruler and the cynical ambition and self-confidence of the other. The really delightful part of Josephine’s life at Bayonne was the informal intimacy which she and Napoleon enjoyed. Never since the days at Malmaison had they been together so long and so freely. They made the most of their liberty, even romping before the eyes of the members of their small suite in a most unroyal way. The Castle of Marrac, which they occupied, was near the shore, and they spent much time on the beach, where the Emperor, dragging the Empress to the water, would push her into it or dash sand over her, laughing like a teasing boy as he did so. In one of these romps the little, low silk slippers which the Empress always wore slipped off, and Napoleon, seizing them, threw them into the surf, making Josephine walk back to her carriage in stocking feet. It was with such frolics that the two enlivened the days at Marrac, in the summer of 1808. Their journey back to Paris was a triumphal procession, wherein Josephine, by her tact, her amiability, her unflagging interest, won every heart. Never had she seemed more admirable to Napoleon as an Empress, never more charming as a woman.