Page:Napoleon (O'Connor 1896).djvu/278

262 an act of madness had it not been one of speculation. Something of this came to my ears, so censuring the young man, however amiable a personage he might be, for subjecting himself to the necessity of beginning by paying an old woman, I said to Bonaparte, 'It seems that you have taken La Beauharnais for one of the soldiers of the thirteenth Vendemiaire, whom you should have included in the distribution of money. You would have done better to have sent this money to your family, which needs it, and to whom I have just rendered further assistance.' Bonaparte blushed, but did not deny having made presents of considerable value. As I was bantering him about his generosity, wherein I pretended to see the effects of a boundless passion, he himself began to laugh, and said to me, 'I have not made presents to my mistress; I have not sought to seduce a virgin; I am one of those who prefer love ready made than to make it myself. . . . Well, then, in whichever of these states Madame Beauharnais may be, if the relations between us were really serious, if the presents which you blame me for having made were wedding presents, what, then, would you have to find fault with, citizen Director?—"This woman whom you accuse," said Tallien, after the ninth Thermidor, "this woman is mine!"—I do not intend to give you absolutely the same answer just now, but I might say to you, Were this woman to become mine, what would be the objection?' 'I