The small inner roams were filled with them, as with artists of all sorts. She had a mania for having herself painted, and gave her portraits to whoever wished for one, relations, 'femmes de chambre', even to tradesmen. They never ceased bringing her diamonds, jewels, shawls, materials for dresses, and trinkets of all kinds; she bought everything without ever asking the price; and generally forgot what she had purchased. . . All the morning she had on a shawl which she draped on her shoulders with a grace I have seen in no one else.
Bonaparte, who thought her shawls covered her too much, tore them off, and sometimes threw them into the fire; then she sent for another (Remusat, tome ii. pp. 343-345). After the divorce her income, large as it was, was insufficient, but the Emperor was more compassionate then, and when sending the Comte Mollien to settle her affairs gave him strict orders "not to make her weep" (Meneval, tome iii. p.237]--The amiable Josephine had not less ambition in little thins than her husband had in great. She felt pleasure in acquiring and not in possessing. Who would suppose it? She grew tired of the beauty of the park of Malmaison, and was always asking me to take her out on the high road, either in the direction of Nanterre, or on that of Marly, in the midst of the dust occasioned by the passing of carriages. The noise of the high road appeared to her preferable to the calm silence of the beautiful avenues of the park, and in this respect Hortense had the same taste as her mother. This whimsical fancy astonished Bonaparte, and he was sometimes vexed at it. My intercourse with Josephine was delightful; for I never saw a woman who so constantly entered society with such an equable disposition, or with so much of the spirit of kindness, which is the first principle of amiability. She was so obligingly attentive as to cause a pretty suite of apartments to be prepared at Malmaison for me and my family.
She pressed me earnestly, and with all her known grace, to accept it; but almost as much a captive at Paris as a prisoner of state, I wished to have to myself in the country the moments of liberty I was permitted to enjoy. Yet what was this liberty? I had bought a little house at Ruel, which I kept during two years and a half. When I saw my friends there, it had to be at midnight, of at five o'clock in the morning; and the First Consul would often send for me in the night when couriers arrived.
It was for this sort of liberty I refused Josephine's kind offer.
Bonaparte came once to see me in my retreat at Ruel, but Josephine and Hortense came often: It was a favourite walk with these ladies.
At Paris I was less frequently absent from Bonaparte than at Malmaison.
We sometimes in the evening walked together in the garden of the Tuileries after the gates were closed. In these evening walks he always wore a gray greatcoat, and a round hat. I was directed to answer, "The First Consul," to the sentinel's challenge of, "Who goes there?"
These promenades, which were of much benefit to Bonaparte, and me also, as a relaxation from our labours, resembled those which we had at Malmaison. As to our promenades in the city, they were often very amusing.
At the period of our first inhabiting the Tuileries, when I saw Bonaparte enter the cabinet at eight o'clock in the evening in his gray coat, I knew he would say, "Bourrienne, come and take a turn." Sometimes, then, instead of going out by the garden arcade, we would take the little gate which leads from the court to the apartments of the Due d'Angouleme. He would take my arm, and we would go to buy articles of trifling value in the shops of the Rue St. Honore; but we did not extend our excursions farther than Rue de l'Arbre Sec. Whilst I made the shopkeeper exhibit before us the articles which I appeared anxious to buy he played his part in asking questions.
Nothing was more amusing than to see him endeavouring to imitate the careless and jocular tone of the young men of fashion. How awkward was he in the attempt to put on dandy airs when pulling up the corners of his cravat he would say, "Well, Madame, is there anything new to-day?
Citizen, what say they of Bonaparte? Your shop appears to be well supplied. You surely have a great deal of custom. What do people say of that buffoon; Bonaparte?" He was made quite happy one day when we were obliged to retire hastily from a shop to avoid the attacks drawn upon us by the irreverent tone in which Bonaparte spoke of the First Consul.
