There are some writers who pretend, The lady’s virtue to defend; For, in the character they draw, She’s guilty of but one _faux pas_; But others, probably censorious, Declare her lapses were notorious, And that, devoid of sense and shame, She even gloried in the same; So reckoning all things, the amount is, She was a _condescending_ countess. The lady was, as it appears, Older than Nap by twenty years; But, for a man, who scorned to prove The votary or slave of love-- Whispering soft nonsense, and such stuff-- She certainly was good enough. Short, like himself, and rather bulky, But not so insolent and sulky. As by Barras, too, recommended (No matter from what stock descended), It certainly must be allow’d Of such a wife he should be proud. So, locked together, soon were seen, Brave Boney and fair Josephine. The pictorial caricaturist, Gillray, gives us February 20, 1805, ‘Ci-devant occupations, or Madame Tallien, and the Empress Josephine Dancing Naked before Barras, in the Winter of 1797--a fact.’[29] [Illustration] At the foot of this etching, which depicts the sensual _bon viveur_, Barras, looking on at the lascivious dancing of his two mistresses, Madame Tallien and Josephine, it says: ‘Barras (then in power), being tired of Josephine, promised Bonaparte a promotion, on condition that he would take her off his hands. Barras had, as usual, drank freely, and placed Bonaparte behind a screen, while he amused himself with these two ladies, who were then his humble dependents. Madame Tallien is a beautiful woman, tall and elegant. Josephine is smaller, and thin, with bad teeth something like cloves. It is needless to add that Bonaparte accepted the promotion, and the lady, now Empress of France!’ Barre, who notoriously wrote against Napoleon, says:[30] ‘And not satisfied by procuring him a splendid appointment, he made him marry his mistress, the Countess de Beauharnais, a rich widow, with several children; and who, although about twenty years older than Bonaparte, was a very valuable acquisition to a young man without any fortune. The reputation of the Countess de Beauharnais was well established, even before the Revolution: but Buonaparte had not the least right to find fault with a woman presented to him by Barras.’ At all events they were married, and here is G. Cruikshank’s idea of the ceremony, and here, also, he depicts the bridesmaids and groomsmen. [Illustration]