She little suspected that while she was hastening toward Lyons, Bonaparte had already arrived in Paris.  He had changed the plan of his journey, and, entirely controlled by his impatient desires, he had driven to Paris by the shortest route.  Josephine was not there to receive him in her house; she was not there to welcome the returning one—­and the old serpent of jealousy and mistrust awoke again within him.  To add to this, his brothers and sisters had seized the occasion to give vent to their ill-will by suspicions and accusations against their unwelcome sister-in-law.  Bonaparte, full of sad apprehension at her absence, perhaps secretly wishing to find her guilty, listened to the whisperings of her enemies.

He therefore did not go to meet Josephine the next day on her return from her unsuccessful journey.  A few hours after, he opened his closed doors and went to see her.  She advanced toward him with looks full of love and tenderness, and opened her arms to him, and wanted to press him closely to her heart.

But he coldly held her back, and with deliberate severity and an expression of the highest indifference, he saluted her, and asked if she had returned happy and satisfied from her pleasure excursion with her light-haired friend.

Josephine’s tears gushed forth, and, as if annihilated, she sank down, but she had not a word of defence or of justification against the cruel accusation.  Her heart had been too deeply wounded, her love too much insulted, to allow her to defend herself.  Her tearful eyes only responded to Bonaparte’s cruel question, and then in silence she retired to her apartments.

For three days they did not see each other.  Josephine remained in her rooms and wept.  Bonaparte remained in his rooms and complained.  To Bourrienne, who then was not only his private secretary but also his confidant, he complained bitterly of the faithlessness and inconstancy of Josephine, of the unheard-of indifference that she should undertake a pleasure-journey when she knew that he was soon to be in Paris.  It was in vain that Bourrienne assured him that Josephine had undertaken no pleasure-excursion, that she had left Paris only to meet him, and to be the first to bid him welcome.  He would not believe him, for in the melancholy gloominess of his jealousy he believed in the slanders which Josephine’s enemies, and his brothers and sisters, had whispered in his ear, that Josephine had left Paris for a parti de plaisir with Charles Botot, the beautiful blondin whom Bonaparte so deeply hated.  How profound his sadness was, may be seen by a letter which at this time he wrote to his brother Joseph, and in which he says: 

“I have a great deal of domestic sorrow ... your friendship to me is very dear; to become a misanthrope, there was nothing further needed than to lose her and to be betrayed by you.  It is a sad situation indeed to have in one single heart all these emotions for the same person.