While, therefore, the Court of the First Consul partook of such features as those, the circle of Josephine possessed attractions totally different. There, amid her intimate friends, all the charm and fascination of French society held sway. Each evening saw assembled around her the wittiest and most polished persons of the day,--the gay and spirited talkers who so pre-eminently gave the tone to Parisian society: the handsomest women, and the most distinguished of the litterateurs of the period, found ready access to one whose own powers of pleasing have left an undying impression on some, who even still can recall those delightful moments. Such were, in brief, the leading features of the Court then held in the Tuileries; and such the germ of that new order of things which was so soon to burst forth upon astonished Europe under the proud title of The Empire. CHAPTER XXIII. A SURPRISE. I WAS sitting one evening alone in my quarters, an open volume before me, in which I persuaded myself I was reading, while my thoughts were far otherwise engaged, when my comrade Tascher suddenly entered the room, and throwing himself into a chair, exclaimed, in a tone of passionate impatience,-- “_Pardieu!_ it is a fine thing to be nephew to the first man in France!” “What has happened?” said I, when I perceived that he stopped short without explaining further. “What has happened!--enough to drive one mad. Just hear this. You know how fond I am of Paris, and how naturally I must wish to be near the Tuileries, where I have the _entrée_ to my aunt's soirees. Well, there was a vacancy occurred yesterday in the huitieme hussars,--a corps always stationed here or at Versailles,--and as I am longing to have a cavalry grade, I waited on Madame Bonaparte to solicit her interest in my favor. She promised, of course. The General was to breakfast with her, and it was all settled: she was to ask him for the promotion, and I had not a doubt of success; in fact, if I must confess, I told two or three of my friends, and actually received their congratulations. “It so fell out, however, that he did not come to breakfast, nor dinner either,--there's no knowing that man. But what think you? He walked in this evening, just as we were preparing to act a proverb. Such a scene as it was, to be sure. No one expected him. Most of us were dressed up in costumes of one kind or other; and I, _ma foi!_--ridiculous enough, I suppose,--I was costumed like a galley slave. He stood for a second or two at the door with his arms folded, and his stern eyes wandering over the whole room. There was not one amongst us would not have wished himself many a mile away; even my aunt herself seemed quite confused, and blushed, and grew pale, and blushed again. “'Ha!' cried he at last, in his dry, short voice. 'Pardon, ladies and gentlemen, I have made a mistake; I believed I was in the Palace of the Tuileries, and I find this is the Porte St. Martin.'