Whilst near the wells of Messoudiah, on the way to El-Arish, I one day saw Bonaparte walking alone with Junot, as he was often in the habit of doing.  I stood at a little distance, and my eyes, I know not why, were fixed on him during their conversation.  The General’s countenance, which was always pale, had, without my being able to divine the cause, become paler than usual.  There was something convulsive in his features—­a wildness in his look, and he several times struck his head with his hand.  After conversing with Junot about a quarter of an hour he quitted him and came towards me.  I never saw him exhibit such an air of dissatisfaction, or appear so much under the influence of some prepossession.  I advanced towards him, and as soon as we met, he exclaimed in an abrupt and angry tone, “So!  I find I cannot depend upon you.—­These women!—­Josephine! —­if you had loved me, you would before now have told me all I have heard from Junot—­he is a real friend—­Josephine!—­and I 600 leagues from her—­you ought to have told me.—­That she should thus have deceived me!—­’Woe to them!—­I will exterminate the whole race of fops and puppies!—­As to her—­divorce!—­yes, divorce! a public and open divorce!—­I must write!—­I know all!—­It is your fault—­you ought to have told me!”

These energetic and broken exclamations, his disturbed countenance and altered voice informed me but too well of the subject of his conversation with Junot.  I saw that Junot had been drawn into a culpable indiscretion; and that, if Josephine had committed any faults, he had cruelly exaggerated them.  My situation was one of extreme delicacy.  However, I had the good fortune to retain my self-possession, and as soon as some degree of calmness succeeded to this first burst, I replied that I knew nothing of the reports which Junot might have communicated to him; that even if such reports, often the offspring of calumny, had reached my ear, and if I had considered it my duty to inform him of them, I certainly would not have selected for that purpose the moment when he was 600 leagues from France.  I also did not conceal how blamable Junot’s conduct appeared to me, and how ungenerous I considered it thus rashly to accuse a woman who was not present to justify or defend herself; that it was no great proof of attachment to add domestic uneasiness to the anxiety, already sufficiently great, which the situation of his brothers in arms, at the commencement of a hazardous enterprise, occasioned him.

Notwithstanding these observations, which, however, he listened to with some calmness, the word “divorce” still escaped his lips; and it is necessary to be aware of the degree of irritation to which he was liable when anything seriously vexed him, to be able to form an idea of what Bonaparte was during this painful scene.  However, I kept my ground.  I repeated what I had said.  I begged of him to consider with what facility tales were fabricated and circulated, and that gossip such as that which had been repeated