of dissimulation, for, instead of testifying any displeasure against M. Czernischeff, he continued to receive him with the same marks of favour which he had shown to him during his former missions to Paris.  Being, nevertheless, desirous to get rid of him, without evincing a suspicion that his clandestine proceedings had been discovered, he entrusted him with a friendly letter to his brother of Russia, but Alexander was in such haste to reply to the flattering missive of his brother of France that M. Czernischeff was hurried back to Paris, having scarcely been suffered to enter the gates of St. Petersburg.  I believe I am correct in the idea that Napoleon was not really displeased at the intrigues of M. Czernischeff, from the supposition that they afforded an indication of the hostile intentions of Russia towards France; for, whatever he might say on this subject to his confidants, what reliance can we place on the man who formed the camp of Boulogne without the most distant intention of attempting a descent upon England, and who had deceived the whole world respecting that important affair without taking any one into his own confidence?

During the period of my stay in Paris the war with Spain and Portugal occupied much of the public attention; and it proved in the end an enterprise upon which the intuition of Josephine had not deceived her.  In general she intermeddled little with political affairs; in the first place, because her doing so would have given offence to Napoleon; and next, because her natural frivolity led her to give a preference to lighter pursuits.  But I may safely affirm that she was endowed with an instinct so perfect as seldom to be deceived respecting the good or evil tendency of any measure which Napoleon engaged in; and I remember she told me that when informed of the intention of the Emperor to bestow the throne of Spain on Joseph, she was seized with a feeling of indescribable alarm.  It would be difficult to define that instinctive feeling which leads us to foresee the future; but it is a fact that Josephine was endowed with this faculty in a more perfect decree than any other person I have ever known, and to her it was a fatal gift, for she suffered at the same time under the weight of present and of future misfortunes.

I often visited her at Malmaison, as Duroc assured me that the Emperor had no objection to my doing so; yet he must have been fully aware that when Josephine and I were in confidential conversation he would not always be mentioned in terms of unqualified eulogy; and in truth, his first friend and his first wife might well be excused for sometimes commingling their complaints.