Napoleon I. was at the heyday of his glory. About him was a court circle that did not look overclosely into peoples' antecedents. Napoleon's brother-in-law, Murat, had started life as a tavern waiter; Napoleon himself was the son of a poor Corsican lawyer and had never been able to learn to speak French without a barbarous accent. As for his sister, Pauline, if "a virtuous woman is a crown to her husband," Pauline's spouse, Prince Borghese, had not a ghost of a chance of skipping into the king row. Nor was Napoleon's first wife, Josephine, of flawless repute. Altogether, it was a coterie unlikely to ask many questions about Betty's early history. The fascinations of Madame Jumel and the vast wealth of Monsieur Jumel were not to be withstood. Speedily the husband and wife were in the turgid center of things; part and parcel of imperial court life. As Betty had charmed level-headed New York, there is no need to describe in windy detail what she did to Paris. Her conquests there--like the stars of the Milky Way--shine indistinct and blurred because of their sheer numbers. But through the silvery blur gleams forth the name of Lafayette. The old marquis was delighted, at sight, with the lovely young American; and he eagerly offered to act as her sponsor at court. Which he did, to the amusement of many and to the indefinite advancement of Betty's social hopes. The great Napoleon glanced in no slightest disfavor on Lafayette's social protegee. He willingly set the seal of imperial approval on the court's verdict. The emperor was Stephen Jumel's idol. Himself a self-made man, the old merchant worshiped this self-made demigod, the model and unattainable example of every self-making man since his day. Jumel's hero-worship took a practical form. He placed his resources at the emperor's service, and once tactlessly, but generously, offered his own wealth and his New York home as solace and refuge in the increasingly probable event of the emperor's mislaying his crown. To which Napoleon replied--speaking, as ever, to the gallery: "Whatever reverses Fortune may inflict on me, Duty will chain me to France. It would be unworthy my greatness and an insult to my empire for me to seek asylum across the seas." Yet, when the inevitable Day dawned, the fugitive emperor made plans to do that very thing. And Jumel met him more than halfway by crossing from New York to Havre on his own yacht--the Elizabeth, named for his wife--and seeking to bear away his fallen idol to safety. The plan, of course, fell through, and Napoleon in consequence was almost the only Bonaparte who did not sooner or later come to New York.