Why should not France, if it ceases to be free, prefer the race of her ancient kings?  You surely know it.  You had not been married two years when, on returning from Italy, your husband told me that he aspired to royalty.  Now he is Consul for life.  Would he but resolve to stop there!  He already possesses everything but an empty title.  No sovereign in Europe has so much power as he has.  I am sorry for it, Madame, but I really believe that, in spite of yourself, you will be made Queen or Empress.”

Madame Bonaparte had allowed me to speak without interruption, but when I pronounced the words Queen and Empress she exclaimed, “My God!  Bourrienne, such ambition is far from my thoughts.  That I may always continue the wife of the First Consul is all I desire.  Say to him all that you have said to me.  Try and prevent him from making himself King.”—­“Madame,” I replied, “times are greatly altered.  The wisest men, the strongest minds, have resolutely and courageously opposed his tendency to the hereditary system.  But advice is now useless.  He would not listen to me.  In all discussions on the subject he adheres inflexibly to the view he has taken.  If he be seriously opposed his anger knows no bounds; his language is harsh and abrupt, his tone imperious, and his authority bears down all before him.”—­“Yet, Bourrienne, he has so much confidence in you that of you should try once more!”—­“Madame, I assure you he will not listen to me.  Besides, what could I add to the remarks I made upon his receiving the letters of Louis XVIII., when I fearlessly represented to him that being without children he would have no one to whom to bequeath the throne—­that, doubtless, from the opinion which be entertained of his brothers, he could not desire to erect it for them?” Here Josephine again interrupted me by exclaiming, “My kind friend, when you spoke of children did he say anything to you?  Did he talk of a divorce?”—­“Not a word, Madame, I assure you.”—­“If they do not urge him to it, I do not believe he will resolve to do such a thing.  You know how he likes Eugene, and Eugene behaves so well to him.  How different is Lucien.  It is that wretch Lucien, to whom Bonaparte listens too much, and of whom, however, he always speaks ill to me.”—­“I do not know, Madame, what Lucien says to his brother except when he chooses to tell me, because Lucien always avoids having a witness of his interviews with your husband, but I can assure you that for two years I have not heard the word ‘divorce’ from the General’s mouth.”—­“I always reckon on you, my dear Bourrienne; to turn him away from it; as you did at that time.”—­“I do not believe he is thinking of it, but if it recurs to him, consider, Madame, that it will be now from very different motives:  He is now entirely given up to the interests of his policy and his ambition, which dominate every other feeling in him.  There will not now be any question of scandal, or of a trial before a court, but of an act of authority which complaisant laws will justify and which the Church perhaps will sanction.”—­“That’s true.  You are right.  Good God! how unhappy I am.”