As the day drew near, a sense of the impropriety of Josephine remaining at Malmaison during the ceremonies, grew on Napoleon, and he asked her to spend the month of April at Navarre. She arrived there the very day that Marie Louise entered Paris. Navarre was not an attractive place to take possession of with a large household like Josephine’s at that season of the year, and the company, used to the luxury of Malmaison, found themselves obliged to camp out in great discomfort in an old, damp, half-furnished chateau, where neither doors nor windows would shut securely and where every chimney smoked. Repairs were quickly made, however, and furniture in quantities was sent from Paris. In the interval, the whole suite seems to have endured the experience good-naturedly, and Josephine made a really brave effort to adapt herself to her new situation and to forget her grief. She set herself to finding out the resources of her new estate, driving daily through the parks; she superintended the gardens, planned repairs and improvements in the chateau, looked up the poor and sick, invited in the people of Evreux whom she wanted to know, and every night played her favorite game of tric-trac with the bishop of the diocese. It was a good beginning for a useful and eventually a happy life for her, and all would have gone very well if she could have dismissed the idea that after all Napoleon did not mean to keep his promises to her—that it was only a question of time when he would lose his interest, withdraw his support, drive her from France. Two weeks passed after the marriage, and no word came to her from the Emperor. In the meantime, she was receiving letters from Eugène and Hortense, who were required to be present at the ceremonies, and every member of her suite had daily bulletins of the gaieties at the capital and of its gossip. Hints reached her that it was probable the Emperor would not consider it proper for her to return soon to Malmaison, if he did at all. Her worry became a veritable panic, and before she had been three weeks at Navarre, she asked permission to return to Malmaison. It was granted at once; thereupon she sent the Emperor a stilted letter of thanks. Her letter and the reply it brought from the Emperor are excellent examples of the masculine and feminine ways of looking at the same situation. Josephine’s letter read:— SIRE:—I have just received from my son the assurance that your Majesty consents to my return to Malmaison and that you have been good enough to advance to me the money that I have asked to make the Chateau of Navarre habitable. This double favor, Sire, dissipates largely the unrest and even the fears that the long silence of your Majesty had awakened. I was afraid of being entirely banished from your mind; I see that I have not been. I am less unhappy to-day in consequence; I am even as happy as it will ever be possible for me to be.