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.512 BETSY PATTERSON. had flattered himself that this favorite brother could be the man. If beauty of form and face could make a great commander, Jerome would have been a promising candi- date ; for on the day that he rode out to the Baltimore races in 1803, he was one of the most superb looking young men then living. They met ! All the world knows what followed. William Patterson, with his sturdy Scottish sense, per- ceived the utter incongruity and absurdity of such a match. He opposed it by every means in his power. He used both authority and persuasion. He sent her out of town, but she returned more infatuated than before. At length, discovering that both of them were set upon the marriage, he gave a reluctant consent ; and married they were, by the Roman Catholic bishop of Baltimore, her father taking every precaution to fulfill all the forms which the laws of both nations required. The Bonaparte family, with one exception, approved the match, and several of them congratulated the newly married pair. That one exception was Napoleon, the head of the family, First Consul, and about to declare himself Emperor. He refused to recognize the marriage. When, at length, Jerome stood in his presence to plead the case of his young and lovely wife, who was about to become a mother, Napoleon addressed him thus : " So, sir, you are the first of the family who has shame- fully abandoned his post. It will require many splendid actions to wipe off that stain from your reputation. As to your love affair with your little girl, I pay no regard to it." And he never did. Jerome had the baseness to abandon his wife, and she stooped to accept from Napo- leon an income of twelve thousand dollars a year, which was paid to her as long as the hand of that coarse soldier had the wasting of the French peoples' earnings. She