days later the writer and author of the plan became aware of the impression he had made: it seemed clear that he had a reality in hand worth every possibility in the Orient. He therefore wrote to Joseph that he was going to remain in Paris, explaining, as if incidentally, that he could thus be on the lookout for any desirable vacancy in the consular service, and secure it, if possible, for him. [Footnote 52: Chaptal: Mes souvenirs sur Napoléon, p. 198.] Dreams of another kind had supplanted in his mind all visions of Oriental splendor; for in subsequent letters to the same correspondent, written almost daily, he unfolds a series of rather startling schemes, which among other things include a marriage, a town house, and a country residence, with a cabriolet and three horses. How all this was to come about we cannot entirely discover. The marriage plan is clearly stated. Joseph had wedded one of the daughters of a comparatively wealthy merchant. He was requested to sound his brother-in-law concerning the other, the famous Désirée Clary, who afterward became Mme. Bernadotte. Two of the horses were to be supplied by the government in place of a pair which he might be supposed to have possessed at Nice in accordance with the rank he then held, and to have sold, according to orders, when sent on the maritime expedition to Corsica. Where the third horse and the money for the houses were to come from is inscrutable; but, as a matter of fact, Napoleon had already left his shabby lodgings for better ones in Michodière street, and was actually negotiating for the purchase of a handsome detached residence near that of Bourrienne, whose fortunes had also been retrieved. The country-seat which the speculator had in view, and for which he intended to bid as high as a million and a half of francs, was knocked down to another purchaser for three millions or, as the price of gold then was, about forty thousand dollars! So great a personage as he now was must, of course, have a secretary, and the faithful Junot had been appointed to the office.