No. 2
The date of this is Tuesday, December 19th, while No. 3 is Wednesday the 20th.
Savary, always unpopular with the Court ladies, has now nothing but kind words for Josephine. “She quitted the Court, but the Court did not quit her; it had always loved her, for never had any one been so kind.... She never injured any one in the time of her power; she protected even her enemies”—such as Fouché at this juncture, and Lucien earlier. “During her stay at Malmaison, the highroad from Paris to this château was only one long procession, in spite of the bad weather; every one considered it a duty to present themselves at least once a week.”
Later, Marie Louise became jealous of this, and poor Josephine had to go to the château of Navarre, and finally to leave France.
Queen of Naples.—For some reason Napoleon had not wanted this sister at Paris this winter, and had written her to this effect from Schoenbrunn on October 15th. “If you were not so far off, and the season so advanced, I would have asked Murat to spend two months in Paris. But you cannot be there before December, which is a horrible season, especially for a Neapolitan.”83 But sister Caroline, “with the head of a Cromwell on the shoulders of a pretty woman,” was not easy to lead; and her husband had in consequence to bear the full weight of the Emperor’s displeasure. Murat’s finances were in disorder, and Napoleon wrote Champagny on December 30th to tell Murat plainly that if the borrowed money was not returned to France, it would be taken by main force.84
The hunt.—In pouring rain, in the forest of St. Germain.