The Empress Josephine had long been jealous of one of her readers, Madame Gazani, and treated her with coolness. The latter complained to the Emperor, who spoke of it to Josephine, urging her to be more kindly toward her reader, whose attachment to her person deserved better treatment, and adding that she was wrong in supposing that there might still be even the slightest connection between Madame and himself. Although not convinced of the truth of this last assertion, the Empress had nevertheless ceased to avoid Madame Gazani, when one morning the Emperor, who seemed to fear lest the fair Genoese might regain some influence over him, came abruptly into the apartment of the Empress, saying: "I don't want to see Madame Gazani here again; she must return to Italy." This time it was the good Josephine who undertook the defence of her reader. She said to His Majesty: "You know very well, my friend, that the best means you have of delivering yourself from Madame Gazani's presence is to leave her with me. Let me keep her. We will weep together; she and I understand each other well."

From that moment the Empress was in reality extremely kind to Madame Gazani, who accompanied her to Malmaison and Navarre. She treated her all the better because she believed her to be suffering on account of the Emperor's inconstancy. For my part, I have always doubted the sincerity of Madame Gazani's attachment for the Emperor.

Her self-love might have suffered when she saw herself neglected, but she easily found consolation amidst the homage and adoration which naturally surround so pretty a woman.

In mentioning the name of the Empress Josephine, I am reminded of two anecdotes which the Emperor himself took pleasure in relating. The outrageous waste that went on in the household of the Empress was a constant source of annoyance to him, and he had forbidden certain purveyors to enter her door, knowing by experience their proneness to abuse her too easy confidence.

One morning, having entered the apartment of the Empress without being expected, he found there several ladies who formed the secret council of the toilet, and a celebrated milliner, who was making an official report on the costliest and most sought for novelties. She was one of the very persons whom he had strictly forbidden to enter the palace, and he did not expect to find her there. Still, he made no fuss, and Josephine, who knew him better than any one else, was the only one who comprehended the irony of his glance when he withdrew, saying: "Go on, ladies; I am sorry to have disturbed you." The milliner, much astonished at not having been put rudely out of doors, made haste to retire. But on reaching the last step of the staircase leading to Her Majesty's apartments she was accosted by an agent of the police, who invited her, with all possible politeness, to enter a cab which was waiting in the court of the Carrousel. It was of no use for her to protest that she preferred to depart on foot; the agent, who had received precise instructions, seized her arm in a fashion which obviated all necessity for a reply. She had to obey, and to take the road to the Bicêtre along with this sorry companion.

News came to the Emperor that this arrest had created a great scandal all over Paris, that he was loudly accused of wishing to restore the Bastille, that many persons had been to see and condole with the captive, and that a file of carriages stood in line before the door of the Bicêtre prison. His Majesty disregarded this, but was greatly amused by the interest excited, as he said, by a maker of pompons. Another time, speaking on the same subject, he said: "I shall allow these gossips, who are so proud of ruining themselves for chiffons, to chatter as much as they please. But I want some one to make that old Jewess understand that I had her put indoors because she had forgotten that I put her out of doors."

Another celebrated milliner also excited the surprise and anger of His Majesty by some observations which not a person in France with the exception of this man would have had the hardihood to make. The Emperor, as I have already said, was accustomed to settle his household accounts at the end of every month; he found the bill of the milliner in question exorbitant, and told me to send for him. I did so; in less than ten minutes he came, and I introduced him into the chamber of His Majesty, who was at his toilet. "Monsieur," remarked the Emperor, who had the man's bill before him, "your prices are foolish, more foolish, if that is possible, than the ninnies and dunces who fancy they have need of your industry. Reduce that bill for me in a reasonable way, or I will undertake the reduction myself." The merchant, who held a duplicate of his bill in his hand, began to justify, article by article, the price of his goods, and concluded this tolerably long enumeration by expressing a sort of surprise and regret that the sum total should not have been greater. The Emperor, whom I was dressing while all this twaddle went on, could hardly restrain his impatience, and I already foresaw that this singular scene might have a disagreeable ending, when the man-milliner capped the climax by permitting himself to remark to His Majesty that the sum he allotted for the toilet of the Empress was insufficient, and that there were simple bourgeois who expended more than that. I own that I trembled for the shoulders of this imprudent person at this last impertinence, and anxiously watched the Emperor's movements. However he contented himself with crumpling in his hand the bill of the audacious milliner, and with arms crossed on his breast, he made two steps toward him, saying only the one word: Really! with such an accent and such a look that the man rushed to the door and took to his heels without waiting for his settlement.

The Emperor could not endure my going to a distance from the château, and wanted to know that I was within reach even when my work was done and he had no need of me. I do not know whether it was with the intention of keeping me near him that His Majesty sometimes desired me to do copying for him. Sometimes, also, the Emperor, wishing to have notes taken while he was in bed or in his bath, would say to me: "Constant, take a pen and write." But I always refused, and went to summon M. de Menneval. I have already related how it was that the misfortunes of the Revolution had caused my primary instruction to be less carefully attended to than it should have been. But had I been as well taught as I am the reverse, I doubt very much whether I could ever have been induced to write from the Emperor's dictation. Assuredly it was not an easy task to fulfil that Office. It required great practice. He talked fast, all in a breath, made no pauses, and was impatient if he were called on to repeat.

In order to have me always at his disposal, the Emperor gave me leave to hunt in the park of Saint-Cloud. His Majesty had been so kind as to notice that I was very fond of hunting, and in granting me this privilege he deigned to tell me that he was glad to have hit upon this means of reconciling my pleasure with his convenience. I was the only person who had permission to hunt in the park. At the same time the Emperor made me a present of a superb double-barrelled gun which had been given him at Liège, and which I have still in my possession. His Majesty did not like double-barrelled guns for his own use, but availed himself of some small single-barrelled ones which had belonged to Louis XVI., and on which that monarch, an excellent gunsmith, was said to have worked with his own hands.

The sight of his guns often led the Emperor to speak of Louis XVI., and he never did so without feeling and expressing respect and pity for him. "That unfortunate prince," said the Emperor, "was good, wise, and learned. At another epoch he would have been an excellent king, but he was good for nothing in a time of revolution. He lacked resolution and firmness, and could not resist either the follies of the court or the insolence of the Jacobins. The courtiers threw him to the Jacobins, who conducted him to the scaffold. In his place I would have mounted a horse, and with a few concessions on one side and a few blows of the whip on the other, I would have restored everything to order."

When the diplomatic corps came to salute the Emperor at Saint-Cloud (and the same usage existed for the Tuileries), tea, coffee, chocolate, or whatever these gentlemen asked for, was served in the salon of ambassadors. M. Colin, the chief steward, was present at this breakfast, which was put on the table by the apartment waiters.

At Saint-Cloud there was a salon that the Emperor was very fond of; it opened on a fine alley of chestnut trees in the closed park, where he could walk at all times without being seen. This apartment was hung with full-length life-size portraits of all the princesses of the imperial family; it was called the family salon.

Their Highnesses were standing, surrounded by their children; the Queen of Westphalia alone was sitting, because the upper portion of her body was very fine, as I have said before, but the rest of it less graceful. Her Majesty the Queen of Naples was represented with her four children, Queen Hortense with only one, the eldest of her living sons, the Queen of Spain with her two daughters; the Princess Elisa with hers, dressed like a boy; the Vice-queen alone, as she had no children at that epoch; the Princess Pauline was likewise alone.

During a sojourn at Saint-Cloud, I received a visit from a distant cousin whom I had not seen for many years. All he had heard of the luxury that surrounded the Emperor, and of the magnificence of the court, excited his curiosity to the utmost point. I took pleasure in satisfying it; he was wonder-stricken at every step. One evening, when there was a play at the château, I conducted him to my box, which was on the level of the pit and near it. The spectacle afforded by the theatre when it was filled enchanted my relative. I had to name every personage, for his indefatigable curiosity passed them all in review, one after the other. It was not long before the Emperor's marriage with the Archduchess of Austria, and the court was more brilliant than ever. I pointed out to my cousin successively Their Majesties, the King of Bavaria, the King and Queen of Westphalia, the King and Queen of Naples, the Queen of Holland, Their Highnesses the Grand Duchess of Tuscany, the Prince and Princess Borghese, the Princess of Baden, the Grand Duke of Wurtzburg, etc., without reckoning all the dignitaries, princes, marshals, and ambassadors, of whom the hall was full. My cousin was in ecstasy, and felt taller by a foot on finding himself included in this gilded multitude. Hence he paid no attention to the play; the interior of the hall interested him far more than what was passing on the stage, and when we left the theatre he could not tell me what piece had been played. His enthusiasm, however, did not carry him so far as to make him forget the stories he had heard in his own province concerning the incredible skill of the pickpockets of the capital, and the warnings given him on that head. In our excursions, at the play, or at any sort of assembly, my cousin guarded with anxious solicitude his watch, his purse, and his handkerchief. His habitual prudence did not desert him at the court theatre. Just as we were leaving our box to mingle with the brilliant throng coming from the pit and descending from the boxes, he said to me with the greatest coolness, putting his hand over the chain and seals of his watch; "After all, it is well to take precautions. We don't know everybody here."

At the time of his marriage, the Emperor was still more overwhelmed than usual with petitions, and he granted, as I shall relate further on, a great number of favors and pardons.

All the petitions presented to the Emperor were handed by him to the aide-de-camp on duty, who took them to His Majesty's cabinet, where orders were given to render him an account of them the following day. Perhaps, ten times in all, I may have found some in the Emperor's pockets, which I always carefully examined; when there were any there, it was simply because the aide-de-camp was not at hand when they were presented. It is not true then, though it has been said and printed, that the Emperor deposited in a special pocket, which was called the good pocket, the requests he intended to grant even without looking at them; all petitions that were worth the trouble were replied to. I have presented a great many to His Majesty; he never put them in his pocket, and nearly always I was lucky enough to find them successful. I must, however, except several which I presented for the brothers Cerf-Berr, who claimed payment for supplies furnished to the armies of the Republic; to them the Emperor was always inflexible. People said this was because MM. Cerf-Berr had refused General Bonaparte a sum he had need of at the time of the Italian campaign.

These gentlemen had greatly interested me, and I several times presented their petitions to the Emperor. In spite of the pains I took never to do so unless I saw that he was in a cheerful humor, I received no response. Nevertheless, I continued to offer him petition on petition, though I noticed that whenever he glanced at them he was always vexed. At last, one morning, the toilet being ended, I handed him as usual his gloves, handkerchief, and snuff-box, and again I added this unlucky paper. His Majesty went into his study, and I remained in the chamber, where I had various matters to attend to. I was busy with them when I saw the Emperor returning with a paper in his hand. He said to me: "Look here, Constant, read this; you will see they are misleading you. The government owes nothing to the brothers Cerf-Berr. Don't mention them to me again; they are Arabs." I glanced at the paper, reading a few words through obedience. I comprehended little or nothing of it, but I could not but be certain from that moment that he would never decide in favor of these gentlemen. I was distressed about it, and knowing them to be unfortunate, I offered them services which they refused. In spite of my failure to succeed, MM. Cerf-Berr were convinced of the zeal with which I had striven for justice toward them, and thanked me for it. Every time that I presented a petition to the Emperor, I saw M. de Menneval, whom I would ask to concern himself about it; he was extremely obliging, and would kindly tell me whether or not my request was likely to be granted. He had said to me, apropos of that of MM. Cerf-Berr, that he did not believe the Emperor would ever allow the justice of it.

And in fact, this once wealthy family, which had lost an immense patrimony in advances made to the Directory, has never obtained the liquidation it applied for, and which was confided to a man of great probity, but perhaps rather too well disposed to justify the nickname 1 given him at this period.

Madame Théodore Cerf-Berr, on my invitation, had come several times with her children, both to Rambouillet and Saint-Cloud, to implore justice from the Emperor. This worthy mother, whom nothing rebuffed, came once more to Compiegne with her eldest daughter in October, 1811. She waited for the Emperor in the forest, and having thrown herself amongst the horses, she succeeded in handing him her petition; but what came of it this time? Madame and Mademoiselle Cerf-Berr had scarcely re-entered their hotel when an officer of gendarmerie came and ordered them to follow him. He made them get into a wretched cart, filled with straw, and conducted them to the prefecture of police, in Paris, under the escort of two gendarmes. There they were obliged to sign an agreement never again to present themselves before the Emperor, and on these conditions they were restored to liberty.

An occasion in which my advances were more successful presented itself about this time. General Lemarrois, one of the oldest of His Majesty's aides-de-camp, a man of tried bravery, whose excellent qualities had gained all hearts, was for awhile in disgrace with the Emperor, and attempted several times to obtain an audience; but whether his request were not presented, or His Majesty was disinclined to grant it, at all events M. Lemarrois heard nothing from it. To know what he ought to think about it, it occurred to him to address himself to me, begging me to present his petition at an opportune moment. I was so happy as to succeed. M. the Count Lemarrois obtained his audience and came away satisfied, and it was not long after that he was appointed governor of Magdeburg.

The Emperor was sometimes very absent-minded, and often forgot what he had done with the petitions which were returned to him when they were left in his coats. I used to take them to His Majesty's study and hand them to M. Menneval and M. Fain. It happened occasionally that the Emperor would give me papers to lock up for him. I would then put them in a dressing-case to which I had the only key. One day there was a great commotion in the interior apartments over a paper Which was missing. This is how it happened. Near the cabinet of the Emperor, where the secretaries were, was a little salon, with a bureau on which notes or petitions were frequently deposited. It was in this salon that the cabinet usher usually remained, and the Emperor was accustomed to go in there in order to talk confidentially with persons whose conversation must not be overheard, even by His Majesty's secretaries. When the Emperor entered this salon, the usher withdrew, and waited at the exterior door. The responsibility for anything that might be taken from this apartment, which was never opened but by His Majesty's express orders, rested therefore upon him.

Marshal Bessières had presented some days before a request for advancement for an army colonel, and given it his most earnest support. One morning the Marshal entered the little salon of which I have just spoken, and finding on the bureau his recommandatory note, he saw nothing out of the way in taking it, and he carried it away with him, without the fact being perceived by my wife's uncle, who was on duty. A few hours later, the Emperor wished to re-read this petition. He was sure he had laid it down in the little salon; it could no longer be found there; it followed that the usher must have allowed some one to enter without His Majesty's orders. It was diligently hunted for in the chamber and cabinet of the Emperor and the apartments of the Empress, but at last it became necessary to tell His Majesty that the search had been in vain. Then the Emperor fell into one of those terrible, but luckily infrequent, rages which upset the whole château. The poor usher was ordered never to come within sight of him again. Finally Marshal Bessières, discovering what it was all about, came and accused himself. The Emperor quieted down, the usher returned to favor, and all was forgotten. But everybody took greater pains than ever that nothing should be disturbed, and that the Emperor should always find at his hand the papers he had need of.

The Emperor could not endure to have any person brought into his apartments or those of Her Majesty the Empress without his permission. As far as the servants were concerned, this was the only fault for which no pardon could be expected. I don't recall when it was that the wife of one of the palace porters allowed a lover that she had to enter the apartments of the Empress. This wretch, without the knowledge of his imprudent mistress, took an impression in soft wax of the lock of one of the jewel-cases, the one I have already mentioned as having belonged to Queen Marie-Antoinette. By means of a false key made from this impression he one day succeeded in stealing various jewels. The police soon discovered the thief, who was punished as he deserved. But another person was also punished who certainly did not deserve it; the poor husband lost his place.