Note 272 — Chapter LXVII

The court of Napoleon were amused at this time by an incident connected with Soult's departure. As he had been designed to command in the German campaign, this new destination compelled him to sell his horses, and make various other inconvenient sacrifices to the hurry of the moment. His wife, the Duchess of Dalmatia, a lady of a spirit equal to that of the great soldier to whom she was wedded, went boldly into the Emperor's presence to state her grievances; to insist that her husband had been subjected to too much fatiguing service, and to remonstrate against his being employed in the Pyrenees. "Go, madam," said Napoleon sternly; "remember that I am not your husband, and if I were, you dared not use me thus. Go, and remember it is a wife's duty to assist her husband, not to tease him." Such was (with every respect to the lady, who might, notwithstanding, do well to be angry,) the Imperial "Taming of a Shrew."—S.—See Mémoires de Fouché, tom. ii., p. 144.