No. 9
The only suitable places... are either Milan or Navarre.—Milan had been her own suggestion conveyed by Eugène, but Napoleon, two months later, had told her she could spend the winter in France, and in spite of danger signals (“inspired by diplomacy rather than devotion”91) from Madame de Rémusat (in her fulsome and tedious “despatch” sent from Paris in September, and probably inspired by the Emperor himself) she manages to get to Navarre, and even to spend the first fortnight of November at Malmaison. Before leaving Switzerland Josephine refuses to risk an interview with Madame de Staël. “In the first book she publishes she will not fail to report our conversation, and heaven knows how many things she will make me say that I have never even thought of.”