Josephine received all this homage with the enchanting and smiling quietude of a woman who, without exaltation or pride, feels no surprise at any flattery or homage, but kindly and thankfully accepts what is due to her.  Among this brilliant Italian aristocracy which surrounded her—­among the ambassadors of the powers who sued not so much for alliance with France as for General Bonaparte’s favor—­among the generals and superior officers who had shared with Bonaparte the dangers of the battle-field and the laurels of victory—­among learned men, artists, and poets, whom Bonaparte had often invited to Montebello—­among so brilliant, so wealthy, so superior, so intelligent a society, Josephine shone as the resplendent sun around which all these planets moved, and from which they all received life, light, and happiness.  She received the ambassadors of sovereigns with the dignity and affability of a princess; she conversed with the most distinguished ladies in cheerful simplicity, and with the unaffected joyousness and harmless innocency of a young maiden; she conversed with men of learning and artists in profound and serious tones, about their labors, their efforts, and success; she allowed the generals to relate the momentous events of the late great battles, and her eye shone with deeper pride and pleasure when from the mouth of the brave she heard the enthusiastic praise of her husband.

Then her keen looks would be directed toward Bonaparte, who perchance stood in a window recess, engaged in some grave, solemn conversation with an eminent ambassador; her eyes again would glance from her husband to her son, to this young officer of seventeen years, who now laughed, jested, and played, as a boy, and then with respectful attention listened to the conversation of the generals, and whose countenance beamed with inspiration as they spoke to him of the mighty deeds of war and the plans of battle of his step-father, whom Eugene loved with the affection of a son, and the enthusiasm of a disciple who looks up to and reveres his master.

Yes, Josephine was happy in these days of Montebello.  The past, with its sad memories, its deceptions and errors, had sunk behind her, and a luminous future sent its rays upon her at the side of the man whom jubilant Italy proclaimed “her deliverer,” and whom Josephine’s joyous heart acknowledged to be her hero, her beloved.  For now she loved him truly, not with that love of fifteen years past, with the marmoreal pulse, of which Bonaparte had spoken to her in his letters, but with all the depth and glow of which a woman’s heart is capable, with all the passion and jealousy of which the heart of a creole alone is susceptible.

Happy, sunny days of Montebello! days full of love, of poetry, of beauty, of happiness!—­full of the first, genial, undisturbed, mutual communion!—­days of the first triumphs, of the first homage, of the first dawn of a brilliant future!  Never could the memory of those days fade away from Josephine’s heart; never could the empress, in the long series of her triumphs and rejoicings, point to an hour like one of those she had, as the wife of the general, enjoyed at Montebello!