He liked to see a woman with a tall flexible figure glide through the dusky shrubberies of the park; only that woman must be dressed in white.

He hated gowns of a dark color and had a horror of stout women.

As for pregnant women, he had such an aversion for them that it was very seldom he invited one to his soirees or his fetes.

For the rest, with little gallantry in his nature, too overbearing to attract, scarcely civil to women, it was rare for him to say, even to the prettiest, a pleasant thing; in fact, he often produced a shudder by the rude remarks he made even to Josephine's best friends.

To one he remarked: "Oh! what red arms you have!" To another, "What an ugly headdress you are wearing!" To a third, "Your gown is dirty; I have seen you wear it twenty times"; or, "Why don't you change your dressmaker; you are dressed like a fright." One day he said to the Duchesse de Chevreuse, a charming blonde, whose hair was the admiration of everyone: "It's queer how red your hair is!" "Possibly," replied the duchess, "but this is the first time any man has told me so." Bonaparte did not like cards; when he did happen to play it was always vingt-et-un.