CHAPTER XXIX.

Days of triumph.

On the 5th of December, 1797, Bonaparte returned to Paris; and, a few days after, Josephine arrived also.  In her little hotel, in the Street Chautereine, where she had passed so many bright and happy days, she hoped, after so many storms and hardships, to enjoy again new and cheerful sunny days of domestic enjoyments—­she hoped to rest from all those triumphs which had accompanied at each step both her and her husband.

This hope, however, was not to be realized, for greater triumphs still than those she had enjoyed in Italy awaited Bonaparte in Paris.  The days of quietude, and the pleasures of home, which Josephine so much loved, and which she so well understood how to embellish with friendships and joys, were now forever past away.  Placed at the side of a hero whose fame already filled all Europe, she could no longer calculate upon living in modest retirement, as she would have wished to do:  it was her lot to share his burden of glory, as she also was illumined by its beams.

From this moment nothing of former days remained; all was changed, all was altered by Bonaparte’s laurels and victories.  He was no more the servant of the republic, he was nearly its master; he had not only defeated Austria in Italy, but he had also defeated in France the Directory, which had sent him as its general to Italy, and which now saw him return home as the master of the five monarchs of France.

Every thing now, as already said, assumed a new shape:  even the house in which they lived, the street in which this house stood, had to be changed.  Hitherto this street had been called “Rue Chautereine;” since Bonaparte’s return the municipality of Paris gave it the name “Rue de la Victoire,” and now to this Street of Victory the people of Paris streamed forth to see the conqueror; to stand there patiently for hours before the little hotel, and watch for the moment when at one of the windows the pale countenance of Bonaparte, with his long, smooth hair, might appear.

Even the little hotel was to be altered.  Bonaparte—­who, in earlier days, had described, as his dream of happiness, the possession of a house, of a cabriolet, and to have at his table the company of a few friends, with his Josephine—­now found that the little house in the Rue de la Victoire was too small for him; that it must be altered even as the street had been.  The modest and tasteful arrangements which had sufficed the Widow Josephine de Beauharnais, appeared now to her young husband as insufficient; the little saloon, in which at one time he had felt so happy at the side of the viscountess, was no longer suited to his actual wants.  Large reception-rooms and vestibules were needed, magnificent furniture was necessary, for the residence of the conqueror of Italy, in the Rue de la Victoire.

Architects were engaged to enlarge and transform the small house into a large hotel, and it was left to Josephine’s taste to convert the hitherto elegant private dwelling into a magnificent residence for the renowned general who had to be daily in readiness to receive official visits, delegations of welcome from the authorities, and the institutions of Paris, and from the other cities of France.