Bonaparte smiled.  “You are mistaken,” said he; “I have been under many obligations to you for a long time past.  Do you not know that to you I am indebted for my first laurels?  You came with the Duke d’Orleans to Brienne for the purpose of distributing the prizes at the great examination, and when you placed on my head the laurel-crown, which has since been followed by others, you said, ’May it bring you happiness!’ It is commonly believed that I am a fatalist; it is therefore very natural that I should not have forgotten my first coronation, and that it is still fresh in my memory.  It would afford me much pleasure to be of service to you; besides, you can be useful to me.  The tone of good society has nearly perished in France; we would like to renew it again with your assistance.  I need some of the traditions of days gone by—­you can assist my wife with them; and when a distinguished foreigner comes to Paris you can give him a reception which will convince him that nowhere else can so much gentleness and amiableness be found.” [Footnote:  “Memoires de Mdlle.  Ducrest,” vol. i., p. 9.]

That Madame de Montesson might have a striking proof of Bonaparte’s good-will, he renewed her yearly pension of one hundred and eighty thousand francs, which the duke had donated to her in his will, and which Bonaparte restored to her as the property which the revolution had confiscated for the nation’s welfare.  She manifested her gratitude to the first consul for this liberal pension by opening the saloons to the “parvenues of the Tuileries;” and leading the aristocrats of the Faubourg St. Germain into the drawing-rooms of Josephine, and then assisting her to form out of these elements a court whose lofty and brilliant centre was to be Josephine herself.  The ladies of the Faubourg St. Germain were no longer ashamed to appear at the new court of the Tuileries, but excused themselves by saying:  “We flatter Josephine, so as to keep her on our side, and to strengthen her loyalty to the king.  She will, by her entrancing eloquence, persuade the consul to recall our King Louis XVIII., and give him his crown.”

But too soon, alas! were they made aware of their error.  It was not long before they became convinced that, if Bonaparte’s hands were busy in raising a throne, in lifting up from the earth the fallen crown of royalty, he was not doing this to place it on the brow of the Count de Lille; he had a nearer object in view—­he considered his own head better suited to wear it.

The conqueror of terrorism and of the revolution was not inclined to be defeated by the enemies of the republic, who were approaching the frontiers of France, to restore the Bourbons.  He took up the glove which Austria had thrown down—­for she had made alliance with England.

On the 6th of May, 1800, Bonaparte left Paris, marched with his army over Mount St. Bernard, and assumed the chief command of the army in Italy, which recently had suffered so many disastrous defeats from Suwarrow and the Archduke Charles.