"I am very well pleased with Louis.[B] He responds to my hopes, and to the expectations which I had formed for him. He is a fine fellow; ardor, vivacity, health, talent, exactness in business, kindness, he unites every thing. You know, my friend, that I live for the benefits which I can confer upon my family. If my hopes are favored by that good-fortune which has never abandoned my enterprises, I shall be able to render you happy, and to fulfill your desires. I feel keenly the absence of Louis. He was of great service to me. Never was a man more active, more skillful, more winning. He could do at Paris whatever he wished." [Footnote B: Napoleon's younger brother, father of Napoleon III.] None of the members of the Bonaparte family were ever ashamed to remind themselves of the days of their comparative poverty and obscurity. "One day," writes Louis Napoleon, now Napoleon III., "Joseph related that his brother Louis, for whom he had felt, from his infancy, all the cares and tenderness of a father, was about to leave Marseilles to go to school in Paris. Joseph accompanied him to the diligence. Just before the diligence started he perceived that it was quite cold, and that Louis had no overcoat. Not having then the means to purchase him one, and not wishing to expose his brother to the severity of the weather, he took off his own cloak and wrapped it around Louis. This action, which they mutually recalled when they were kings, had always remained engraved in the hearts of them both, as a tender souvenir of their constant intimacy."[C] [Footnote C: Oeuvres de Napoleon III., tome deuxieme, p. 451.] [Illustration: JOSEPH GIVING HIS CLOAK TO HIS BROTHER LOUIS.] On the 6th of March, 1796, Napoleon was married to Josephine Beauharnais. "Thus vanished," writes Joseph Bonaparte, "the hope which my wife and I had cherished, for several years, of seeing her younger sister Eugenie united in marriage with my brother Napoleon. Time and separation disposed of the event otherwise." A few days after Napoleon's marriage he took command of the Army of Italy, and hastened across the Alps to the scene of conflict. After the victory of Mondovi, Napoleon, cherishing the hope of detaching the Italians from the Austrians, sent Joseph to Paris to urge upon the Directory the importance of making peace with the Court of Turin. General Junot accompanied Joseph, to present to the Directory the flags captured from the enemy. The astonishing victories which Napoleon had gained excited boundless enthusiasm in Paris. Carnot, one of the Directors, gave a brilliant entertainment in honor of the two ambassadors, Joseph and Junot. During the dinner he opened his waistcoat and showed the portrait of Napoleon, which was suspended near his heart. Turning to Joseph, he said,