“I have received all your letters, but none has made such an impression on me as the last. How can you think, my dear love, of writing to me in such a way? Don’t you believe my position is already cruel enough, without adding to my regrets and tormenting my soul? What a style! What feelings are those you describe! It’s like fire; it burns my poor heart. My only Josephine, away from you there is no happiness; away from you, the world is a desert in which I stand alone, with no chance of tasting the delicious joy of pouring out my heart. You have robbed me of more than my soul; you are the sole thought of my life. If I am worn out by all the torments of events, and fear the issue, if men disgust me, if I am ready to curse life, I place my hand on my heart; your image is beating there. I look at it, and love is for me perfect happiness; and everything is smiling, except the time that I see myself absent from my love. By what art have you learned how to captivate all my faculties, to concentrate my whole being in yourself? To live for Josephine! That’s the story of my life. I do everything to get to you; I am dying to join you. Fool! Do I not see that I am only going farther from you? How many lands and countries separate us! How long before you will read these words which express but feebly the emotions of the heart over which you reign!...” * * * * * “Don’t be anxious; love me like your eyes—but that’s not enough—like yourself; more than yourself, than your thoughts, your mind, your life, your all. But forgive me, I’m raving. Nature is weak when one loves....” * * * * * “I have received a letter which you interrupt to go, you say, into the country; and afterwards you pretend to be jealous of me, who am so worn out by work and fatigue. Oh, my dear!... Of course, I am in the wrong. In the early spring the country is beautiful; and then the nineteen-year old lover was there, without a doubt. The idea of wasting another moment in writing to the man three hundred leagues away, who lives, moves, exists only in memory of you; who reads your letters as one devours one’s favorite dishes after hunting for six hours!” [Illustration: JUNOT (1771–1813).] CHAPTER V THE FIRST ITALIAN CAMPAIGN—NAPOLEON’S WAY OF MAKING WAR But Napoleon had much to occupy him besides his separation from Josephine. Extraordinary difficulties surrounded his new post. Neither the generals nor the men knew anything of their new commander. “Who is this General Bonaparte? Where has he served? No one knows anything about him,” wrote Junot’s father when the latter at Toulon decided to follow his artillery commander.