in the palace. But a few years before, Josephine, in poverty, friendlessness, and intensest anguish of heart, had led her children by the hand through those halls to visit her imprisoned husband. From one of those apartments the husband and father had been led to his trial, and to the scaffold, and now this mother enters this palace virtually a queen, and her children have opening before them the very highest positions of earthly wealth and honor.
* * *
Chapter III.
Hortense and Duroc.
1799-1804
Calumnies.
It
child. He sought her acquaintance; this led to intimacy, to love, and to the proffer of marriage.
In the following letter to a friend Josephine expressed her views in reference to her marriage with General Bonaparte:
Josephine to her aunt.
"I am urged, my dear, to marry again by the advice of all