It was just as she was stepping into her carriage, which was to follow closely that of the First Consul to the theatre, that General Rapp, who had always before appeared utterly unobservant of ladies' dress, remarked to Josephine, that the pattern of the shawl did not match her dress. She returned to the house, and ran up to her apartment to change it for another; the delay did not occupy more than three minutes, but they sufficed to save her life. Napoleon's carriage just cleared the explosion; had Josephine's been close behind, nothing could have saved her. In the happy days of love and confidence, Malmaison was the scene of great enjoyment: the hand of taste could be discerned in all its embellishments. Napoleon preferred it to any other residence. When he arrived there from the Luxemburg or the Tuileries, he was wild with delight, like a school-boy let loose from school--every thing enchanted him, but most of all, perhaps, the chimes of the village church-bells. It may have been partly owing to the associations which they awakened. He would stop in his rambles if he heard them, lest his foot-fall should drown the sound--he would remain as if entranced, in a kind of ecstasy, till they ceased. "Ah! how they remind me of the first years I spent at Brienne!" Napoleon added considerably to the domain of Malmaison by purchasing the noble woods of Butard, which joined it. He was in a perfect ecstasy with the improvement; and, in a few days after the purchase was completed, proposed that they should all make a party to see it. Josephine put on her shawl, and, accompanied by her friends, set out. Napoleon, in a state of enchantment, rode on before; but he would then gallop back, and take Josephine's hand. He was compared to a child who, in the eagerness of delight, flies back to his mother to impart his joy.