Marie Louise was certainly attached to Napoleon, but we may doubt whether she was really in love with him. He was twenty-two years her senior; and if she was a wife who suited him in every particular, probably he was not the husband of whom she had dreamed. He possessed too much power, too much genius, too much majesty; a quiet home would have pleased her better than the Imperial Olympus, of which he was the Jupiter, and she the Juno. Doubtless his glory was unrivalled, but he had won the best part of it through Austrian defeats. Arcola and Marengo, Austerlitz and Wagram, were names that wounded Austrian ears. Had she been free to choose, she would perhaps have preferred to this all-powerful Emperor any petty German prince, who possessed neither great wealth nor vast territories, but who shared her memories, ideas, and hopes. Yet she had resolved to love her husband, and she easily succeeded in so doing. She was grateful for his kindness, his consideration, his respect; and in her affectionate but not passionate devotion there was no trace of reluctance. She sincerely thought that she would always be faithful to him. She was not only attached to him, she was also jealous of him; the proximity of Josephine annoyed and disturbed her. In fact, there was something singular in the simultaneous presence in France of two empresses sharing almost equally the official honors. Marie Louise knew how popular Josephine was; and this offended her, although she pitied a woman of whom the rigid laws of public policy had required so cruel a sacrifice. Possibly, too, she feared that she could not count too absolutely on the feelings of a man who, for reasons of state, had abandoned a wife whom a short time before he had really loved. Who knows, indeed, but what she dreaded the same fate for herself, in case she should bear no children? She felt really sure only when she had borne a son. Before that she was so jealous that one day when she heard that Napoleon had made a visit to Josephine, she was seen to shed tears, for the first time since her arrival in France. Another time, when the Emperor had suggested to her to take advantage of the absence of the first Empress, who had gone to Aix, in Savoy, and to visit Malmaison, her face suddenly became so sad that Napoleon at once abandoned the plan. But after the birth of King of Rome, Marie Louise was no longer jealous. Under the conviction that she had finally reconciled Austria and France, and that her son was the pledge of the peace and happiness of all Europe, she thought that she had so well accomplished her destiny that she could always count on her husband's affection and gratitude.