The intervention of Josephine in Charney’s favour had not proved so efficient as might have been supposed. At the conclusion of her mild intercessions in favour of the prisoner and his plant, when she proceeded to place in the hands of Napoleon the handkerchief inscribed with his memorial, the Emperor recalled to mind the singular indifference—so mortifying to his self-love—with which, during the warlike evolutions of the morning at Marengo, Josephine had cast her vacant, careless gaze upon the commemoration of his triumph. And thus predisposed to displeasure, the obnoxious name of Charney served only to aggravate his ill-humour. “Is the man mad?” cried he, “or does he pretend to deceive me by a farce? A Jacobin turned botanist?—about as good a jest as Marat descanting in the tribune on the pleasures of a pastoral life; or Couthon presenting himself to the Convention with a rose in his button-hole!” Josephine vainly attempted to appeal against the name of Jacobin thus lightly bestowed upon the Count; for, as she commenced her remonstrance, a chamberlain made his appearance to announce that the general officers, ambassadors, and deputies of Italy, were awaiting their majesties in the audience-chamber; where, having hastily repaired, Napoleon immediately burst forth into a denunciation against visionaries, philosophers, and liberals, mainly inspired by the recent mention of the Count de Charney. In an imperious tone, he threatened that all such disturbers of public order should be speedily reduced to submission; but the loud and threatening tone he had assumed, which was supposed to be a spontaneous outbreak of passion, was, in fact, a premeditated lesson bestowed on the assembly; and more especially on the Prussian ambassador, who was present at the scene. Napoleon seized the opportunity to announce to the representatives of Europe the divorce of the Emperor of the French from the principles of the French revolution! By way of homage to the throne, the subordinates of the Emperor hastened to emulate his new profession of faith. The general commandant at Turin, more especially, Jacques-Abdallah Menon, forgetting or renouncing his former principles, burst forth into a furious diatribe against the pseudo Brutuses of the clubs and taverns of Italy and France; on which signal arose from the minions of the empire a unanimous chorus of execrations against all conspirators, revolutionists, and more especially Jacobins, till, overawed by their virulence, Josephine began to tremble at the storm she had been unwittingly the means of exciting. At length, drawing near to the ear of Napoleon, she took courage to whisper, in a tone of mingled tenderness and irony, “What need, sire, of all these denunciations? My memorial regards neither a Jacobin nor a conspirator; but simply a poor plant, whose plots against the safety of the empire should scarcely excite such vast tumults of consternation.”