In June, 1796, Napoleon was made to believe that Josephine was in a fair way to become a mother. His raptures knew no bounds. The letter which he then wrote her is certainly the most ardently tender, furiously affectionate scrawl ever penned. It drives in upon the impartial reader the conviction that this strange man possessed the uxorious and paternal spirit in its most heroic form; and that had he been fitly mated, his developing character would have reached a perfect harmony and equilibrium. It was in him to have found exquisite enjoyment in home-life; it was in him to have bent caressingly over wife and child, to have found at the fireside repose and happiness. As it was, his marriage was one source of his ruin. In Josephine he found no loyalty, no sympathy of the higher sort, and she bore him no children. She froze his hot affection with that shallow amiability which smiled on him as it smiled on all the others. She outraged his best feelings by her infidelities. She destroyed his enthusiasm, his hopes, his ideal of pure and lofty womanhood. He waited on her too long for children. His character, undeveloped on that side, hardened into imperial lines, until he himself was the slave of political necessities. The second marriage, and the son he idolized, came too late. Napoleon, the lover-husband, who had quitted his bride in forty-eight hours after the marriage, repeatedly implored her to join him at headquarters. Josephine had no inclination to obey: Paris was too delightful. Upon various excuses she delayed, and it was not till July, 1796, that she reached Italy. Arrived in Milan, she was rapturously welcomed by Napoleon, and found herself treated by the Italians almost as a queen. She was lodged in a palace, surrounded with luxury, and flattered by the attentions of thronging courtiers. She moved from place to place as the months passed on, shared some of the dangers of the campaign, and by her grace, amiability, and tact made many a conquest useful to her many-sided lord. One conquest she made for herself, and not for her lord. A certain officer named Hypolite Charles, attached to Leclerc’s staff, was young, handsome, gallant,--_such_ a contrast to the wan, wasted, ungainly, skin-diseased Napoleon! Josephine looked upon Charles and found him pleasing. The husband, engrossed by war and business, was often absent. Charles was not engrossed with war, was present, and was not a Joseph. Here was youth, inclination, opportunity--and the old result. Scandal ensued, Napoleon’s sisters made shrill outcry, the husband heard the story, and Charles joined the absent. It was thought for a while that Napoleon would have him shot, but apparently there was some invincible reason to the contrary. He went to Paris and obtained a good position--rumor said by the influence of Josephine.