Page:Helen Leah Reed - Napoleons young neighbour.djvu/287

Rh had even for a time been thrown into prison. Like Napoleon she, too, had sometimes not known when she should get her next meal. She had even had to borrow money to pay her rent. She had suffered everything, when the execution of her first husband, Alexandre de Beauharnais, during the Reign of Terror, had left her and her two children destitute.

All the circumstances of her past life may not have flashed before Josephine's mind at the moment of the Coronation. Yet it is not improbable that wearing the crown and realizing the responsibilities of her new position, she may have sighed for a day of freedom from care, such as she had known in Martinique.

On that December day in 1805 when Napoleon puts on the Imperial crown more than three years have passed since England signed the short-lived Peace of Amiens. The war that is now renewed between France and England is to continue until Waterloo. As Emperor, however, Napoleon seems to be master of Europe. All the European courts, except England, Russia, and Sweden, acknowledge his new title.