She was always of great service to Napoleon in his relations with the men of whom he wished to make use; fascinating them and drawing them over to him, she charmed such persons as Barras, Gohier, Fouche, Moreau, Talleyrand, Sieyes, and others.  By her skill she kept hidden Napoleon’s plans until all was ripe for them.  She was in the secret of the 18th Brumaire; “nothing was concealed from her.  In every conference at which she was present, her discretion, gentleness, grace, and the ready ingenuity of her delicate and cool intelligence were of great service.”  During the Directorate she allayed jealousies and appeased the differences between Republicans and Royalists.  As wife of the First Consul, she conciliated the emigres.  At that time she was probably the most important figure in France.  The emigres would call at her salon in the morning so as to avoid meeting her husband, with whom they refused to associate.  Her task was not easy, but she knew so well how to say a kind word to all, and her tact was so great that when she became empress the duties and requirements of that office were natural to her.  She won the Republicans by her friendship with Fouche, the representative of the revolutionary element—­the aristocracy, by her dignity and refinement.  Her whole appearance had a peculiar charm.

In 1803 the conditions began to be reversed.  In 1796 Josephine had worried Napoleon on account of her inconstancy; she was then young and beautiful, while he was penniless and ailing.  In 1803 he was thirty-four and she forty—­he in his prime, wealthy and popular, she faded and powerless, no longer able to give cause for suspicion.  However, nothing could make Napoleon reject her, because she was useful to him.  “Her kindness was a weapon against her enemies, a charm for her friends, and the source of her power over her husband.”  “I gained battles, Josephine gained me hearts,” are the well-known words of Napoleon.  As empress she had every wish gratified, but she realized that a woman of her age could not continue indefinitely her fascination over a man as capricious as Napoleon.  In the brilliant court of Fontainebleau she held the highest place, and no one could suspect the anxieties that tormented her, so cool and happy did she appear.

Josephine did many things that later on gradually helped reconcile Napoleon to a divorce:  her pride, her aristocratic tendencies, extravagance and lavishness; her objection to the marriage of Hortense to General Duroc on the grounds of humble birth; her religious tendencies; her difficulty in keeping secrets, which led to highly tragic scenes between her and Bonaparte; the encouragement she gave to the jealousies and hatred of her brothers and sisters-in-law, who maliciously slandered her at every opportunity; and finally, her barrenness.

Her career after her divorce was honorable, and to-day Josephine is still held in the highest esteem in France and in the world at large.  Her greatness is not in having been the wife of a great emperor, but in knowing how to adapt herself to the conditions in France into which she was suddenly thrust.  As a conciliator and a mediator between two almost hopelessly irreconcilable classes of society, she deserves a prominent place among great French women.