Bonaparte’s brothers, desirous of obtaining complete dominion over his mind, strenuously endeavoured to lessen the influence which Josephine possessed from the love of her husband.  They tried to excite his jealousy, and took advantage of her stay at Milan after our departure, which had been authorised by Bonaparte himself.  My intimacy with both the husband and the wife fortunately afforded me an opportunity of averting or lessening a good deal of mischief.  If Josephine still lived she would allow me this merit.  I never took part against her but once, and that unwillingly.  It was on the subject of the marriage of her daughter Hortense.  Josephine had never as yet spoken to me on the subject.  Bonaparte wished to give his stepdaughter to Duroc, and his brothers were eager to promote the marriage, because they wished to separate Josephine from Hortense, for whom Bonaparte felt the tenderest affection.  Josephine, on the other hand, wished Hortense to marry Louis Bonaparte.  Her motives, as may easily be divined, were to, gain support in a family where she experienced nothing but enmity, and she carried her point.

—­[Previous to her marriage with Louis, Hortense cherished an attachment for Duroc, who was at that time a handsome man about thirty, and a great favourite of Bonaparte.  However, the indifference with which Duroc regarded the marriage of Louis Bonaparte sufficiently proves that the regard with which he had inspired Hortense was not very ardently returned.  It is certain that Duroc might have become the husband of Mademoiselle de Beauharnais had he been willing to accede to the conditions on which the First Consul offered him his step-daughter’s hand.  But Duroc looked forward to something better, and his ordinary prudence forsook him at a moment when he might easily have beheld a perspective calculated to gratify even a more towering ambition than his.  He declined the proposed marriage; and the union of Hortense and Louis, which Madame Bonaparte, to conciliate the favour of her brothers-in-law, had endeavoured to bring about, was immediately determined on (Memoires de Constant).

   In allusion to the alleged unfriendly feeling of Napoleon’s brothers
   towards Josephine, the following observation occurs in Joseph
   Bonaparte’s Notes on Bourrienne: 

“None of Napoleon’s brothers,” he says, “were near him from the time of his departure for Italy except Louis who cannot be suspected of having intrigued against Josephine, whose daughter he married.  These calumnies are without foundation” (Erreurs, tome i. p. 244)]—­

On his arrival from Rastadt the most magnificent preparations were made at the Luxembourg for the reception of Bonaparte.  The grand court of the Palace was elegantly ornamented; and at its farther end, close to the Palace, a large amphitheatre was erected for the accommodation of official persons.  Curiosity, as on all like occasions, attracted multitudes, and the court was filled.