Indeed, Napoleon might now almost say that his chief foes were the members of his own household.  The question of hereditary succession had already reawakened and intensified all the fierce passions of the Emperor’s relatives.  Josephine saw in it the fatal eclipse of a divorce sweeping towards the dazzling field of her new life, and Napoleon is known to have thrice almost decided on this step.  She no longer had any hopes of bearing a child; and she is reported by the compiler of the Fouche “Memoirs” to have clutched at that absurd device, a supposititious child, which Fouche had taken care to ridicule in advance.  Whatever be the truth of this rumour, she certainly used all her powers over Napoleon and over her daughter Hortense, the spouse of Louis Bonaparte, to have their son recognized as first in the line of direct succession.  But this proposal, which shelved both Joseph and Louis, was not only hotly resented by the eldest brother, who claimed to be successor designate, it also aroused the flames of jealousy in Louis himself.  It was notorious that he suspected Napoleon of an incestuous passion for Hortense, of which his fondness for the little Charles Napoleon was maliciously urged as proof; and the proposal, when made with trembling eagerness by Josephine, was hurled back by Louis with brutal violence.  To the clamour of Louis and Joseph the Emperor and Josephine seemed reluctantly to yield.

New arrangements were accordingly proposed.  Lucien and Jerome having, for the present at least, put themselves out of court by their unsatisfactory marriages, Napoleon appeared to accept a reconciliation with Joseph and Louis, and to place them in the order of succession, as the Senate recommended.  But he still reserved the right of adopting the son of Louis and of thus favouring his chances of priority.  Indeed, it must be admitted that the Emperor at this difficult crisis showed conjugal tact and affection, for which he has received scant justice at the hands of Josephine’s champions.  “How could I divorce this good wife,” he said to Roederer, “because I am becoming great?” But fate seemed to decree the divorce, which, despite the reasonings of his brothers, he resolutely thrust aside; for the little boy on whose life the Empress built so many fond hopes was to be cut off by an early death in the year 1807.

Then there were frequent disputes between Napoleon and Joseph.  Both of them had the Corsican’s instinct in favour of primogeniture; and hitherto Napoleon had in many ways deferred to his elder brother.  Now, however, he showed clearly that he would brook not the slightest interference in affairs of State.  And truly, if we except Joseph’s diplomatic services, he showed no commanding gifts such as could raise him aloft along with the bewildering rush of Napoleon’s fortunes.  The one was an irrepressible genius, the other was a man of culture and talent, whose chief bent was towards literature, amours, and the art of dolce far niente, except when his