The sympathy of the Empress-Queen had been, in fact, warmly excited by the memorial of the captive of Fenestrella. Every word of the petition conveyed the most touching appeal to her feelings. Josephine herself was an almost idolatrous lover of flowers; as the permanent advantages derived in France from her liberal encouragement of botanical science and patronage of its professors continue to attest. Escaping from the cares and splendours of sovereignty, often did the empress recede from the courtier throng, to watch the expansion of some rare exotic, in her fine conservatories at Malmaison. There was the favourite empire of Josephine! She loved the imperial purple of the rich cactus, at that period a splendid novelty to European eyes, better than the hues of the rich mantle adorning her throne; and the delicate fragrance of her clustering magnolias proved more intoxicating than the soothing but fatal breath of courtly adulation. At Malmaison she reigned despotic over thousands of beauteous subjects, collected from all quarters of the globe. She knew them face by face, name by name—was fond of disposing them in classes, castes, or regiments; and when some fresh subject presented itself for the first time at her levee, was able to interrogate the new-comer, so as to ascertain his family and connections, and assign him an appropriate station in the community of which every brigade had its banner, and every banner a fitting standard-bearer. Following the example of Napoleon, she respected the laws and customs of those she rendered tributary. Plants of all countries found their native soil and climate restored to them by her providence. Malmaison was a world in miniature; within whose circumscribed limits were to be found rocks and savannas—the soil of virgin forests and the sand of the desert—banks of marl or clay—lakes, cascades, and strands liable to inundation. From the heat of a tropical climate, you might fly to the refreshing coolness of the temperate zone; and in these varied specimens of atmosphere and soil, flourished, side by side, the various races of vegetative kind, divided only by green edges or an intrenchment of glass windows.