Page:Napoleon (O'Connor 1896).djvu/284

268 and that she had hardly recovered her strength. Give Barras my best thanks,' she adds, on dismissing my aide-de-camp, 'and tell him that you left me with his best friend.

on to some scenes that are so atrocious in language and in thought that I have hesitated for a long time whether I should have them or not; but, after all, the characters of Napoleon and Josephine have passed into history, and there is no room left for any reticence about them. And I believe they will injure most their author:

"My best friend was there waiting impatiently to learn the result of the step he had been the first to advise. Everything had been fully concerted between the pair, but each of them was vying in deceiving the other with astounding readiness. The following is an illustration of the way in which they played their farce. As a consequence of having told Bonaparte of her alleged indisposition, it was necessary to give some reason for this indisposition to the man who was about to become her protector for life. I heard some time afterwards of the story the cajoling courtesan had invented. According to her I had a long while courted her without success; she had constantly repulsed my advances because I was not the man