and the object of my life. Be happy, do not reproach me, care nothing about the fidelity of a man who lives only through you; enjoy only your own pleasures and your own happiness. In asking for a love equal to mine, I was wrong. How can I expect lace to weigh as heavily as gold? In sacrificing to you all my desires, all my thoughts, every instant of my life, I simply yield to the ascendency that your charms, your character, and your whole heart have obtained over my unhappy heart. I am unhappy if nature did not endow me with attractions sufficient to captivate you, but what I deserve at the hands of Josephine is at least consideration and esteem, for I love you madly and solely. . . . Ah! Josephine, Josephine!"
Josephine, meantime, was surrounded by young officers, who adored and flattered and courted her, and the memoir writers have no hesitation in declaring that she was unfaithful to Napoleon; but this may not be true, for French memoir writers are not sparing of women's reputations. At all events, Napoleon banished several officers from his army who were suspected of paying too much devotion to his wife; and from the moment when, returning to Milan, he found that she had gone and not awaited him, there is a gradually increasing coldness in his letters. The romance was over; Josephine herself had killed it.
