happy and contented." In another letter containing the same advice, he says: "I wish you to be gay and to give a little life to the capital." And, finally, one can see to the depths of the tragedy when one reads between the lines of this sentence in one of these letters:
"I wish you to have more strength. I am told you are always crying. Fie! How ugly that is!"
Josephine might well be "always crying." It was the visit to Poland and the love of Countess Walewska that led to her own final downfall. It gave Napoleon the idea of having children, founding a dynasty—in other words, of divorcing his wife.
XXIV.
THE DIVORCE.
Napoleon contemplated a divorce from Josephine, it will be remembered, at an early period of their married life. However, he and she got over their difficulties, and divorce did not finally come from any rupture of affection. I find it hard to decide what Napoleon really felt at this period of his life. His present apologist sees in his conduct in this, as in almost every other circumstance, nothing but sublime unselfishness; sublime unselfishness was not in Napoleon's nature. On the other hand, even Taine admits that he had sensibility, though he contends that it was a sensibility rather of nerves than of heart. At all
