Josephine, however, loved her young husband too fondly not to
cheerfully comply with all his wishes, not to strive to replace what
he reproached her to be lacking.
On a sudden she left the brilliant, enchanting Paris, which had
entranced her with its many joys and its many distractions, and, as
her husband had to be for some time at Blois with his regiment, she
went to Noisy, to her aunt's residence, so as to labor at her higher
mental culture, at the side of the lovely and intellectual Madame de
Renaudin.
Josephine had hitherto, as a simple, sentimental young lady, played
the guitar, and chirped with it, in her fresh but uncultivated
voice, her sweet songs of love. She gave up the guitar, the favorite
instrument of the creoles, and exchanged it for the harp, for which
attainment as well as for the art of singing she procured the best
and ablest masters. Even a dancing-master had to come to Noisy to
give to the young viscountess that perfection of art which would
enable her, without fear, to dance at a ball alongside of the
Viscount de Beauharnais, "the beautiful dancer of Versailles." With
her aunt she read the works of the writers and poets who were then
praised and loved, and with wonderful predilection she also studied
botany, to which science she ever clung during her life, and which
threw on her existence gleams of joy when the sun of her happiness
had long set.
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