me after his marriage, what a meeting was that!  How many tears I shed!  The days on which he comes are to me days of misery, for he spares me not.  How cruel to speak of his expected heir.  Bourrienne, you cannot conceive how heart-rending all this is to me!  Better, far better to be exiled a thousand leagues from hence!  However,” added Josephine, “a few friends still remain faithful in my changed fortune, and that is now the only thing which affords me even temporary consolation.”  The truth is that she was extremely unhappy, and the most acceptable consolation her friends could offer her was to weep with her.  Yet such was still Josephine’s passion for dress, that after. having wept for a quarter of an hour she would dry her tears to give audience to milliners and jewellers.  The sight of a new hat would call forth all Josephine’s feminine love of finery.  One day I remember that, taking advantage of the momentary serenity occasioned by an ample display of sparkling gewgaws, I congratulated her upon the happy influence they exercised over her spirits, when she said, “My dear friend, I ought, indeed, to be indifferent to all this; but it is a habit.”  Josephine might have added that it was also an occupation, for it would be no exaggeration to say that if the time she wasted in tears and at her toilet had been subtracted from her life its duration would have been considerably shortened.

The vast extent of the French Empire now presented a spectacle which resembled rather the dominion of the Romans and the conquests of Charlemagne than the usual form and political changes of modern Europe.  In fact, for nearly two centuries, until the period of the Revolution, and particularly until the elevation of Napoleon, no remarkable changes had taken place in the boundaries of European States, if we except the partition of Poland, when two of the co-partitioners committed the error of turning the tide of Russia towards the west!  Under Napoleon everything was overturned with astonishing rapidity:  customs, manners, laws, were superseded

—­[The so-called “French” armies of the time, drawn from all parts of the Empire and from the dependent States, represented the extraordinary fusion attempted by Napoleon.  Thus, at the battle of Ocana there were at least troops of the following States, viz.  Warsaw, Holland, Baden, Nassau, Hesse-Darmstadt, Frankfort, besides the Spaniards in Joseph’s service.  A Spanish division went to Denmark, the regiment from Isembourg was sent to Naples, while the Neapolitans crossed to Spain.  Even the little Valais had to furnish a battalion.  Blacks from San Domingo served in Naples, while sixteen nations, like so many chained dogs, advanced into Russia.  Such troops could not have the spirit of a homogeneous army.

Already, in 1808, Metternich had written from Paris to his Court, “It is no longer the nation that fights:  the present war (Spain) is Napoleon’s war; it is not even that of