But putting aside the unpardonable breach of faith in allowing a renewal of the intimacy with such a man, the fact of a lady in her position being mixed up with a firm of this character might have seriously compromised Napoleon, and for this reason alone her act was highly reprehensible.  Charles was not slow to avail himself of Josephine’s hospitality, and became a regular visitor.  This further lapse of loyalty to the absent husband was transmitted to Egypt, and very naturally determined him on the necessity of taking proceedings to get a divorce, but although Napoleon had ceased, so far as he could, to be the dreadful simpleton lover of other days, he failed to gauge the grip the old fascination had of him.

He believed the avenging spirit that guided him to definite conclusions was real, and with the thought of “divorce, public and sensational divorce,” buzzing in his head, combined with another of State policy lurking in the background, he set sail for France, and created wild excitement in domestic and Directorial circles by unexpectedly landing at Frejus.

He then made his way, as quickly as the enthusiasm of the cheering populace allowed him, towards his house in the Rue de la Victoire; but the penitent (?) Josephine was not there.  She had gone to meet him, taken the wrong road, and missed throwing herself into his arms as was her intention.  He asks excitedly, “Is she ill?” and the significant wink of her enemies threw him into paroxysms of grief.  His friend Collot calls and reminds him that the hope of the nation is centred on him.  His wrath is proof that he is still in love, and Collot fears that the magical effect of her appearance will bring forgiveness.  “Never,” shouts the irate husband.  “How little you know me, Collot.  Rather than abase myself, I would tear my heart out and throw it on the fire.”

But Collot knew him better than he chose to admit he knew himself, and we shall see that his heart was not thrown “on the fire,” but given again to the erring Josephine, who was travelling back post-haste from Lyons.  She arrived broken in spirit and wearied unto death.  Napoleon, obviously not quite sure of his determination to refuse her admittance, had bolted the door, and was stamping about the room with a glare in his piercing eye as though he were planning an onslaught that was to be furiously contested.  Josephine arrives, knocks at the door, implores him to open it, and addresses him as “Mon ami, mon bon ami.”  There is no response, and in her frenzy of despair she weeps and beats her head against the door, and piteously pleads for the opportunity of justifying herself.  But still he holds out.  And then her unfailing resource suggests that Hortense and Eugene, whom he loves so well, shall be brought as the medium of compassion to their distracted mother.  They come, and the bolts are drawn.  Their stepfather admits them to his presence.  They kneel at his feet and appeal to him to continue to be the good, kind father he has ever been, and to receive their mother back to his affections.