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Empress Josephine: An Historical Sketch of the Days of Napoleon

by L. Mühlbach · English · Gutenberg #4226 · 987,080 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Empress Josephine: An Historical Sketch of the Days of Napoleon

Author: L. Mühlbach


        
Release date: July 1, 2003 [eBook #4226]
                Most recently updated: October 14, 2016

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EMPRESS JOSEPHINE: AN HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE DAYS OF NAPOLEON ***




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THE EMPRESS JOSEPHINE

AN HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE DAYS OF NAPOLEON

By Louise Muhlbach

Author Of: Daughter Of An Empress, Marie Antoinette, Joseph II and His
Court, Frederick The Great and His Family, Berlin And Sans-Souci, Etc.


Translated from the German by Rev. W. Binet, A M.



CONTENTS.

BOOK I.

THE VISCOUNTESS BEAUHARNAIS.

       I.  Introduction
      II.  The Young Maid
     III.  The Betrothal
      IV.  The Young Bonaparte
       V.  The Unhappy Marriage
      VI.  Trianon and Marie Antoinette
     VII.  Lieutenant Napoleon Bonaparte
    VIII.  A Page from History
      IX.  Josephine’s Return
       X.  The Days of the Revolution
      XI.  The 10th of August and the Letter of Napoleon Bonaparte
     XII.  The Execution of the Queen
    XIII.  The Arrest
     XIV.  In Prison
      XV.  Deliverance

BOOK II.

THE WIFE OF GENERAL BONAPARTE.

     XVI.  Bonaparte in Corsica
    XVII.  Napoleon Bonaparte before Toulon
   XVIII.  Bonaparte’s Imprisonment
     XIX.  The 13th Vendemiaire
      XX.  The Widow Josephine Beauharnais
     XXI.  The New Paris
    XXII.  The First Interview
   XXIII.  Marriage
    XXIV.  Bonaparte’s Love-Letters
     XXV.  Josephine in Italy
    XXVI.  Bonaparte and Josephine in Milan
   XXVII.  The Court of Montebello
  XXVIII.  The Peace of Campo Formio
    XXIX.  Days of Triumph

BOOK III.

THE EMPRESS AND THE DIVORCED.

     XXX.  Plombieres and Malmaison
    XXXI.  The First Faithlessness
   XXXII.  The 18th Brumaire
  XXXIII.  The Tuileries
   XXXIV.  The Infernal Machine
    XXXV.  The Cashmeres and the Letter
   XXXVI.  Malmaison
  XXXVII.  Flowers and Music
 XXXVIII.  Prelude to the Empire
   XXXIX.  The Pope in Paris
      XL.  The Coronation
     XLI.  Days of Happiness
    XLII.  Divorce
   XLIII.  The Divorced
    XLIV.  Death




BOOK I. THE VISCOUNTESS BEAUHARNAIS.


CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION.


“I win the battles, Josephine wins me the hearts.” These words of
Napoleon are the most beautiful epitaph of the Empress Josephine, the
much-loved, the much-regretted, and the much-slandered one. Even while
Napoleon won battles, while with lofty pride he placed his foot on the
neck of the conquered, took away from princes their crowns, and from
nations their liberty--while Europe trembling bowed before him, and
despite her admiration cursed him--while hatred heaved up the hearts of
all nations against him--even then none could refuse admiration to the
tender, lovely woman who, with the gracious smile of goodness, walked
at his side; none could refuse love to the wife of the conqueror, whose
countenance of brass received light and lustre from the beautiful eyes
of Josephine, as Memnon’s statue from the rays of the sun.

She was not beautiful according to those high and exalted rules of
beauty which we admire in the statues of the gods of old, but her whole
being was surrounded with such a charm, goodness, and grace, that the
rules of beauty were forgotten. Josephine’s beauty was believed in,
and the heart was ravished by the spell of such a gracious, womanly
apparition. Goethe’s words, which the Princess Eleonore utters in
reference to Antonio, were not applicable to Josephine:

“All the gods have with one consent brought gifts to his cradle, but,
alas! the Graces have remained absent, and where the gifts of these
lovely ones fail, though much was given and much received, yet on such a
bosom is no resting-place.”

No, the Graces were not absent from the cradle of Josephine; they, more
than all the other gods, had brought their gifts to Josephine. They had
encircled her with the girdle of gracefulness, they had imparted to her
look, to her smile, to her figure, attraction and charm, and given
her that beauty which is greater and more enduring than that of youth,
namely loveliness, that only real beauty. Josephine possessed the beauty
of grace, and this quality remained when youth, happiness, and grandeur,
had deserted her. This beauty of grace struck the Emperor Alexander as
he came to Malmaison to salute the dethroned empress. He had entered
Paris in triumph, and laid his foot on the neck of him whom he once had
called his friend, yet before the divorced wife of the dethroned emperor
the czar, full of admiration and respect, bowed his head and made her
homage as to a queen; for, though she was dethroned, on her head shone
the crown in imperishable beauty and glory, the crown of loveliness, of
faithfulness, and of womanhood.

She was not witty in the special sense of a so-called “witty woman.”
 She composed no verses, she wrote no philosophical dissertations, she
painted not, she was no politician, she was no practising artist, but
she possessed the deep and fine intuition of all that which is beautiful
and noble: she was the protectress of the arts and sciences. She knew
that disciples were not wanting to the arts, but that often a Maecenas
is needed. She left it to her cousin, the Countess Fanny Beauharnais, to
be called an artist; hers was a loftier destiny, and she fulfilled that
destiny through her whole life--she was a Maecenas, the protectress of
the arts and sciences.

As Hamlet says of his father, “He was a man, take him for all in all, I
shall not look upon his like again;” thus Josephine’s fame consists not
that she was a princess, an empress anointed by the hands of the pope
himself, but that she was a noble and true wife, loving yet more than
she was loved, entirely given up in unswerving loyalty to him who
rejected her; languishing for very sorrow on account of his misfortune,
and dying for very grief as vanished away the star of his happiness.
Thousands in her place, rejected, forgotten, cast away, as she
was--thousands would have rejoiced in the righteousness of the fate
which struck and threw in the dust the man who, for earthly grandeur,
had abandoned the beloved one and disowned her love. Josephine wept over
him, lamented over his calamities, and had but a wish to be allowed to
share them with him. Josephine died broken-hearted--the misfortunes of
her beloved, who no more loved her, the misfortunes of Napoleon, broke
her heart.

She was a woman, “take her for all in all”--a noble, a beautiful woman,
a loving woman, and such as belongs to no peculiar class, to no peculiar
nation, to no peculiar special history; she belongs to the world, to
humanity, to universal history. In the presence of such an apparition
all national hatred is silent, all differences of political opinion are
silent. Like a great, powerful drama drawn from the universal history of
man and represented before our eyes, so her life passes before us; and
surprised, wondering, we gaze on, indifferent whether the heroine of
such a tragedy be Creole, French, or to what nation she may owe her
birth. She belongs to the world, to history, and if we Germans have no
love for the Emperor Napoleon, the tyrant of the world, the Caesar of
brass who bowed the people down into the dust, and trod under foot
their rights and liberties--if we Germans have no love for the conqueror
Napoleon, because he won so many battles from us, yet this does not
debar us from loving Josephine, who during her lifetime won hearts to
Napoleon, and whose beautiful death for love’s sake filled with tears
the eyes of those whose lips knew but words of hatred and cursing
against the emperor.

To write the life of Josephine does not mean to write the life of a
Frenchwoman, the life of the wife of the man who brought over Germany
so much adversity, shame, and suffering, but it means to write a woman’s
life which, as a fated tragedy or like a mighty picture, rises before
our vision. It is to unfold a portion of the world’s history before our
eyes--and the world’s history is there for our common instruction and
progress, for our enlightenment and encouragement.

I am not afraid, therefore, of being accused of lacking patriotism,
because I have undertaken to write the life of a woman who is not a
German, who was the wife of Germany’s greatest enemy and oppressor. It
is, indeed, a portion of the universal drama which is unfolded in the
life of this woman, and amid so much blood, so much dishonor, so many
tears, so much humiliation, so much pride, arrogance, and treachery, of
this renowned period of the world’s history, shines forth the figure
of Josephine as the bright star of womanhood, of love, of
faithfulness--stars need no birthright, no nationality, they belong to
all lands and nations.




CHAPTER II. THE YOUNG MAID.


On the 23d of July, 1763, to the Chevalier Tascher de la Pagerie,
ex-lieutenant of the royal troops, a resident of the insignificant
spot of the Trois Islets, on the island of Martinique, was borne by his
young, rich, and beautiful wife, a first child.

The loving parents, the relatives and friends had longed for this child,
but now that it was come, they bade it welcome without joy, and even
over the brow of the young father hung the shadow of a cloud as he
received the intelligence of the birth of his child. For it was a girl,
and not the wished-for boy who was to be the inheritor of the valuable
family-plantation, and the inheritor also of the ancient and respectable
name of Tascher de la Pagerie.

It was, however, useless to murmur against fate. What was irrevocable
had to be accepted, and welcome made to the daughter, who, instead of
the expected heir, would now lay claim to the rights of primogeniture.
As an inheritance reserved for him who had not come, the daughter
received the name which had been destined to the son. For two hundred
years the name of Joseph had been given to the eldest son of the family
of Tascher de la Pagerie, but now that there was none to whom the
Chevalier, Ex-lieutenant Joseph de la Pagerie could leave his name as a
legacy, the family had to be satisfied to give the name to his daughter,
and consequently she received at baptism the name of Joseph Marie Rosa.

There was, however, one being who gladly and willingly forgave the fault
of her birth, and who consecrated to the daughter the same love she
would have offered to the son. This being was the mother of the little
Joseph Marie Rosa.

“Contrary to all our wishes,” writes she to her husband’s sister, the
beautiful Madame Renaudin, in Paris--“contrary to all our wishes, God
has given me a daughter. My joy is not therefore diminished, for I look
upon my child as a new bond which binds me still closer to your brother,
my dear husband, and to you. Why should I have such a poor and meagre
opinion of the female sex, that a daughter should not be welcomed by
me? I am acquainted with many persons of our sex who concentrate in
themselves as many good qualities as one would only with difficulty find
in the other sex. Maternal love already blinds me and fosters in me the
hope that my daughter may be like them, and if even I cannot enjoy
this satisfaction, yet I am thankful to my child that by means of her
existence I am gathering so much happiness.”

Indeed, extraordinary joy, since the birth of the child, reigned in the
house of M. Tascher de la Pagerie; joy reigned all over Martinique,
for the long war between France and England was ended, and a few months
before the birth of little Joseph Marie Rosa, the peace which secured
to France the possession of her maritime colonies had been signed.
Martinique, so often attacked, bombarded, besieged by English
ships--Martinique was again the unconditional property of France, and
on the birthday of the little Marie Joseph Rosa the French fleet entered
into the harbor of Port Royal, landed a French garrison for the island,
and brought a new governor in the person of the Marquis de Fenelon, the
nephew of the famous Bishop de Fenelon.

Joyously and quietly passed away the first years of the life of the
little Joseph, or little Josephine, as her kind parents called her. Only
once, in the third year of her life, was Josephine’s infancy troubled
by a fright. A terrible hurricane, such as is known to exist only in the
Antilles, broke over Martinique. The historians of that period know not
how to depict the awful and calamitous events of this hurricane, which,
at the same time, seemed to shake the whole earth with its convulsions.
In Naples, in Sicily, in the Molucca Islands, volcanoes broke out in
fearful eruptions; for three days the earth trembled in Constantinople.
But it was over Martinique that the hurricane raged in the most
appalling manner. In less than four hours the howling northwest’ wind,
accompanied by forked lightning, rolling thunder, heavy water-spouts,
and tremendous earth-tremblings, had hurled down into fragments all the
houses of the town, all the sugar-plantations, and all the negro cabins.
Here and there the earth opened, flames darted out and spread round
about a horrible vapor of sulphur, which suffocated human beings. Trees
were uprooted, and the sugar and coffee plantations destroyed. The
sea roared and upheaved, sprang from its bounds, and shivered as mere
glass-work barks and even some of the larger ships lying in the harbor
of Port Royal. Five hundred men perished, and a much larger number
were severely wounded. Distress and poverty were the result of this
astounding convulsion of nature.

The estate of M. Tascher de la Pagerie was made desolate. His residence,
his sugar-plantations, were but a heap of ruins and rubbish, and as
a gift of Providence he looked upon the one refuge left him in his
sugar-refinery, which was miraculously spared by the hurricane. There M.
Tascher saved himself, with Josephine and her younger sister, and there
his wife bore him a third child. But Heaven even now did not fulfil
the long-cherished wishes of the parents, for it was to a daughter that
Madame de la Pagerie gave birth. The parents were, however, weary with
murmuring against fate, which accomplished not their wish; and so to
prove to fate that this daughter was welcome, they named the child born
amid the horrors of this terrific hurricane, Desiree, the Desired.

Peaceful, happy years followed;--peaceful and happy, in the midst of the
family, passed on the years of Josephine’s infancy. She had every thing
which could be procured. Beloved by her parents, by her two sisters,
worshipped by her servants and slaves, she lived amid a beautiful,
splendid, and sublime nature, in the very midst of wealth and affluence.
Her father, casting away all ambition, was satisfied to cultivate his
wide and immense domains, and to remain among his one hundred and fifty
slaves as master and ruler, to whom unconditional and cheerful obedience
was rendered. Her mother sought and wished for no other happiness than
the peaceful quietude of the household joys. Her husband, her children,
her home, constituted the world where she breathed, in which alone
centred her thoughts, her wishes, and her hopes. To mould her daughters
into good housekeepers and wives, and if possible to secure for them
in due time, by means of a brilliant and advantageous marriage, a happy
future--this was the only ambition of this gentle and virtuous woman.

Above all things, it was necessary to procure to the daughters an
education suited to the claims of high social position, and which would
fit her daughters to act on the world’s stage the part which their
birth, their wealth, and beauty, reserved for them. The tender mother
consented to part with her darling, with her eldest daughter; and
Josephine, not yet twelve years old, was brought, for completing her
education, to the convent of our Lady de la Providence in Port Royal.
There she learned all which in the Antilles was considered necessary
for the education of a lady of rank; there she obtained that light,
superficial, rudimentary instruction, which was then thought sufficient
for a woman; there she was taught to write her mother tongue with a
certain fluency and without too many blunders; there she was instructed
in the use of the needle, to execute artistic pieces of embroidery;
there she learned something in arithmetic and in music; yea, so as to
give to the wealthy daughter of M. Tascher de la Pagerie a full and
complete education, the pious sisters of the convent consented that
twice a week a dancing-master should come to the convent to give to
Josephine lessons in dancing, the favorite amusement of the Creoles.
[Footnote: “Histoire de l’Imperatrice Josephine,” par Joseph Aubenas.
vol. i., p. 36.]

These dancing-lessons completed the education of Josephine, and,
barely fifteen years old, she returned to her parents and sisters as an
accomplished young lady, to perform the honors of the house alongside
of her mother, to learn from her to preside with grace and ease over
a large mansion, and above all things to be a good mistress, a
benefactress, and a protectress to her slaves. Under her mother’s
guidance, Josephine visited the negro cabins to minister unto the sick,
to bring comfort and nourishment to the old and to the weak, to pray
with the dying, to take under her loving guardianship the new-born babes
of the negro women, to instruct in the catechism the grown-up children,
to excite them to industry, to encourage them through kindness and
friendliness, to protect them, and to be a mediator when for some
offence they were condemned to severe punishment.

It was a wonderfully peaceful and beautiful life that of the young
Josephine, amid a bountiful nature, in that soft, sunny clime which
clothed her whole being with that tender, pleasing grace, that lovely
quietude, that yielding complacency, and at the same time with that
fiery, passionate nature of the Creoles. Ordinarily dressed only with
the “gaule,” a wide, loose garment of white muslin, falling loosely
about the waist, where no belt gathered its folds, the beautiful head
wrapped up in the many-colored madras, which around the temples was
folded up into graceful knots holding together her chestnut-brown
hair--in this dress Josephine would swing for hours in her hammock
made of homespun silk and ornamented with borders of feathers from the
variegated iridescent birds of Cayenne.

Round about her were her young female slaves, watching with their
brilliant dark eyes their young mistress, ever ready to read every
wish upon that dreamy, smiling countenance, and by their swarthy tinge
heightening the soft, tender whiteness of her own complexion.

Then, wearied with the stillness and with her dreams, Josephine would
spring up from the hammock, dart into the house with all the lightness
of the gazelle to enliven the family with her own joyousness, her merry
pleasantry, and accompanied by her guitar to sing unto them with her
lovely youthful voice the songs of the Creoles. As the glowing sun
was at its setting, away she hastened with her slaves into the garden,
directed their labors, and with her own hands tended her own cherished
flowers, which commingled together in admirable admixture from all
climes under the genial skies of the Antilles. In the evening, the
family was gathered together in the light of the moon, which imparted
to the nights the brightness of day and streamed upon them her soft
blue rays, upon the fragrant terrace, in front of the house, where the
faithful slaves carefully watched the little group close one to another
and guarded their masters from the approaches of poisonous serpents,
that insidious progeny of the night.

On Sundays after Josephine had religiously and faithfully listened to an
early mass, she gladly attended in the evening the “barraboula” of the
negroes, dancing their African dances in the glare of torches and to the
monotonous sound of the tam-tam.

On festivals, she assisted her mother to put all things in order, and
to preside at the great banquets given to relatives and friends, who
afterward were visited in their turn, and then the slaves carried their
masters in hammocks, or else, what was far more acceptable, the young
maidens mounted small Spanish horses, full of courage and daring,
and whose firm, quick step made a ride to Porto Rico simply a rushing
gallop.

Amidst this dreamy, sunny, joyous existence of the young maiden gleamed
one day, as a lightning-flash, a prophetic ray of Josephine’s future
greatness.

This happened one afternoon as she was walking alone and thoughtful
through the plantation. A group of negresses, in the centre of which was
an old and unknown woman, attracted her attention. Josephine approached.
It was an old negro woman from a neighboring plantation, and she
was telling the fortune of the young negro women of M. Tascher de la
Pagerie. No sooner did the old woman cast her eyes on Josephine than
she seemed to shrink into one mass, whilst an expression of horror and
wonder stole over her face. She vehemently seized the hand of the young
maiden, examined it carefully, and then lifted up her large, astonished
eyes with a searching expression to the face of Josephine.

“You must see something very wonderful in my face and in my hand?”
 inquired Josephine, laughing.

“Yes, something very wonderful,” repeated the negro woman, still
intently staring at her.

“Is it a good or a bad fortune which awaits me?”

The old prophetess slowly shook her head.

“Who can tell,” said she, gravely, “what is a good or a bad fortune
for human beings? In your hand I see evil, but in your face
happiness--great, lofty happiness.”

“Well,” cried out Josephine, laughing, “you are cautious, and your
oracle is not very clear.”

The old woman lifted up her eyes to heaven with a strange expression.

“I dare not,” said she, “express myself more clearly.”

“Speak on, whatever the result!” exclaimed Josephine, whose curiosity
was excited by the very diffidence of the fortune-teller. “Say what you
see in my future life. I wish it, I order you to do so.”

“Well, if you order it, I must obey,” said she, with solemnity. “Listen,
then. I read in your countenance that you are called to high destinies.
You will soon be married. But your marriage will not be a happy one. You
will soon be a young widow, and then--”

“Well, and then?” asked Josephine, passionately, as the old woman
hesitated and remained silent.

“Well, and then you will be Queen of France--more than a queen!” shouted
the prophetess, with a loud voice. “You will live glorious, brilliant
days, but at the last misfortune will come and carry you to your grave
in a day of rebellion.”

Afraid of the pictures which her prophetic vision had contemplated in
the future, the old hag forced her way through the circle of negro women
around, and rushed away through the field as fast as her feet could bear
her on.

Josephine, laughing, turned to her astonished women, who had followed
with their eyes the flight of the prophetess, but who now directed their
dark eyes with an expression of awe and bewilderment to their young
mistress, of whom the fortune-teller had said she would one day be Queen
of France. Josephine endeavored to overthrow the faith of her swarthy
servants in the fortune-teller, and, by pointing to the ridiculous
prophecy in reference to herself, and which predicted an impossible
future, she tried to prove to them what a folly it was to rely on the
words of those who made a profession of foretelling the future.

But against her will the prophetic words of the old woman echoed in the
heart of the young maiden. She could not return home to her family
and talk, laugh, and dance, as she had been accustomed to do with her
sisters. Followed by her slaves, she went into her garden and sank in
a hammock, hung amid the gigantic leaves of a palm-tree, and, while the
negro girls danced and sang round her, the young maid was dreaming about
the future, and her beating heart asked if it were not possible that the
prophecy of the negro woman might one day be realized.

She, the daughter of M. Tascher de la Pagerie--she a future “Queen
of France! More than a queen!” Oh, it was mere folly to think on such
things, and to busy herself with the ludicrous prophecies of the old
woman.

And Josephine laughed at her own credulity, and the slaves sang and
danced, and against her will the thoughts of the young maiden returned
to the prophecy again and again.

What the old fortune-teller had said, was it so very ridiculous, so
impossible? Could not that prophecy become a reality? Was it, then, the
first time that a daughter of the Island of Martinique had been exalted
to grandeur and lofty honors?

Josephine asked these questions to herself, as dreaming and thoughtful
she swung in the hammock and gazed toward the horizon upon the sea,
which, in its blue depths and brilliancy, hung there as if heaven had
lowered itself down to earth. That sea was a pathway to France, and
already once before had its waves wafted a daughter of the Island of
Martinique to a throne.

Thus ran the thoughts of Josephine. She thought of Franchise d’Aubigne,
and of her wondrous story. A poor wanderer, fleeing from France to
search for happiness beyond the seas in a foreign land, M. d’Aubigne
had landed in Martinique with his young wife. There Franchise was born,
there passed away the first years of her life. Once, when a child of
three years old, she was bitten by a venomous serpent, and her life was
saved only through the devotion of her black nurse, who sucked alike
poison and death from the wound. Another time, as she was on a voyage
with her parents, the vessel was in danger of being captured by a
corsair; and a third time a powerful whirlwind carried into the waves of
the sea the little Francoise, who was walking on the shore, but a large
black dog, her companion and favorite, sprang after her, seized her
dress with its teeth, and carried the child back to the shore, where
sobbing for joy her mother received her.

Fate had reserved great things for Francoise, and with all manner of
horrors it submitted the child to probation to make of it a strong and
noble woman.

A severer blow came when her father, losing in gambling all the property
which he had gathered in Martinique, died suddenly, leaving his family
in poverty and want. Another blow more severe still came when on her
return to France, whither her mother was going with her, she lost this
last prop of her youth and childhood. Madame d’Aubigne died, and her
body was committed to the waves; and, as a destitute orphan, Francoise
d’Aubigne touched the soil of France.

And what became of the poor orphan of the Creole of Martinique?

She became the wife of a king, and nearly a queen! For Francoise
d’Aubigne, the widow of Scarron, the governess of the children of Louis
XIV, had caused the mother of these children, the beautiful Madame de
Montespan, to be cast away, and she became the friend, the beloved,
the secret spouse of the king: and the lofty Louis, who could say of
himself, “L’etat c’est moi” he, with all the power of his will, with all
his authority, was the humble vassal of Franchise d’Aubigne, Marquise de
Maintenon!

This was the first princess whom Martinique had given to the world!

Was it not possible that the prophecies of the old negro woman could be
realized? could not once more a daughter of the Island of Martinique be
exalted into a princess?

“You will be Queen of France!” the negress had said.

No, it was mere folly to believe in such a ridiculous prophecy. The
throne of France was now occupied. Alongside of her consort, the
good, the well-beloved Louis XVI, the young and beautiful Queen Marie
Antoinette, the daughter of the mighty Empress Maria Theresa, sat on the
throne. She was young, she was beloved throughout France, and she had
already, to the great delight of her husband and of his people, borne an
heir to the throne of France.

The throne of the lilies stood then on firm and sure foundations,
and the prophecies of the old negress belonged only to the kingdom of
fables. [Footnote: This prophecy, nearly as related above, was told by
the Empress Josephine herself to her maids of honor in the castle of
Navarra.--See “Memoires sur l’Imperatrice Josephine, la Ville, la Cour
et les Salons de Paris sous l’Empire, par Madame Georgette Ducrest.”]




CHAPTER III. THE BETROTHAL.


Six months had barely elapsed since Josephine’s return from the convent
when the family Tascher de la Pagerie received from their relatives in
Paris letters which were to be of the greatest importance for the whole
family.

The beautiful Madame de Renaudin, sister of M. Tascher de la Pagerie,
had settled in Paris after having rid herself of an unhappy marriage
with a man, coarse and addicted to gambling, and after having, through
a legal separation, reobtained her freedom. She lived there in the
closest, intimacy with the Marquis de Beauharnais, who, for many
years, at an earlier period, had resided as governor on the Island of
Martinique, and there had bound himself to the whole family of Tascher
de la Pagerie by the ties of a cordial friendship. His wife, during her
residence in Martinique, had been the most tender friend of Madame de
Renaudin, and when the marchioness bore a second son to her husband,
Madame de Renaudin had stood as godmother, and promised to love and
protect the child of her friend as if she were his mother.

Chance brought on the opportunity of accomplishing this promise and of
fulfilling the oath made to God before the altar. The Marchioness de
Beauharnais returned to France in the year 1763 with her husband and
her two sons, but died there a short time after; and Madame de Renaudin,
true to her oath, hastened to replace the natural guardian, the mother.

Perhaps she had but followed the dictates of her heart, perhaps against
her will a sentiment of joy had passed over her at the death of the
poor marchioness, for, by this death, one at least of the two obstacles
intervening between Madame de Renaudin and the Marquis de Beauharnais
had been removed. Both married, both of the Catholic religion, death
alone could make their hands free, and confer upon them the right of
joining hands together for all their days.

They loved one another, they had ceased long ago to make a secret of it;
they avowed it to each other and to their dependants, for their brave,
loyal, and noble hearts would not stoop to falsehood and deception, and
they had the courage to acknowledge what their sentiments were.

Death had then made free the hand of the Marquis de Beauharnais, but
life held yet in bondage the hand of the Baroness de Renaudin.

As long as her husband lived, she could not, though legally divorced
from him, conscientiously think of a second marriage.

But she possessed the courage and the loyalty of true love; she had seen
and experienced enough of the world to despise its judgments, and with
cheerful determination do what in her conscience she held to be good and
right.

Before God’s altar she had promised to the deceased Marchioness de
Beauharnais to be a mother to her son; she loved the child and she loved
the father of this child, and, as she was now free, as she had no duties
which might restrain her footsteps, she followed the voice of her heart
and braved public opinion.

She had purchased not far from Paris, at Noisy-le-Grand, a country
residence, and there passed the summer with the Marquis de Beauharnais,
with his two sons and their tutor.

The marquis owned a superb hotel in Paris, in Thevenot Street, and
there, during winter, he resided with his two sons and the Baroness de
Renaudin, the mother, the guardian of his two orphan sons, the friend,
the confidante, the companion of his quiet life, entirely devoted to
study, to the arts, to the sciences, and to household pleasures.

Thus the years passed away; the two sons of the Marquis de Beauharnais
had grown up under the care of their maternal friend: they had
been through their collegiate course, had been one year students at
Heidelberg, had returned, had been through the drill of soldier and
officer, a mere form which custom then imposed on young men of high
birth; and the younger son Alexander, the godchild of the Baroness de
Renaudin, had scarcely passed his sixteenth year when he received his
commission as sub-lieutenant.

A year afterward his elder brother married one of his cousins, the
Countess Claude Beauharnais, and the sight of this youthful happy love
excited envy in the heart of the young lieutenant of seventeen years,
and awoke in him a longing for a similar blessedness. Freely and without
reserve he communicated his wishes to his father, begged of him to
choose him a wife, and promised to take readily and cheerfully as such
her whom his father or his sponsor, his second mother, would select for
him.

A few months later reached Martinique the letters which, as already
said, were to be of the utmost importance to the family of M. Tascher de
la Pagerie.

The first of these letters was from the Marquis de Beauharnais, and
addressed to the parents of Josephine, but with a considerate and
delicate tact the marquis had not written the letter with his own hand,
but had dictated it to his son Alexander, so as to prove to the family
of his friend De la Pagerie that the son was in perfect unison of
sentiment with the father, and that the latter only expressed what the
son desired and approved.

“I cannot express,” wrote the marquis, “how much satisfaction I have
in being at this moment able to give you a proof of the inclination and
friendship which I always have had for you. As you will perceive, this
satisfaction is not merely on the surface.

“My two sons,” continues he, “are now enjoying an annual income of forty
thousand livres. It is in your power to give me your daughter to enjoy
this income with my son, the chevalier. The esteem and affection he
feels for Madame de Renaudin makes him passionately desire to be united
with her niece. I can assure you that I am only gratifying his wishes
when I pray you to give me for him your second daughter, whose age
corresponds at best with his. I sincerely wish that your eldest daughter
were a few years younger, for then she would certainly have had the
preference, the more so that she is described to me under the most
advantageous colors. But I confess my son, who is but seventeen and a
half years old, thinks that a young lady of fifteen is too near him
in age. This is one of those cases in which reasonable and reflecting
parents will accommodate themselves to circumstances.”

M. de Beauharnais adds that his son possesses all the qualities
necessary to make a woman happy. At the same time he declares that, as
regards his future daughter-in-law, he has no claims to a dowry, for
his son already possesses an income of forty thousand livres from his
mother’s legacy, and that after his father’s death he will inherit
besides an annual income of twenty-five thousand livres. He then
entreats M. de la Pagerie, as soon as practicable, to send his daughter
to France, and, if possible, to bring her himself. The marquis then
addresses himself directly to the wife of M. de la Pagerie, and repeats
to her in nearly the same words his proposal, and endeavors also to
excuse to her the choice of the second daughter.

“The most flattering things have been told me,” writes he, “of your
eldest daughter, but my son finds her, with her fifteen years, too old
for him. My son is worthy of becoming your son-in-law; Nature has gifted
him with good and fine parts, and his income is sufficiently large to
share it with a wife qualified to render him happy. Such a one I trust
to find in your second daughter; may she resemble you, madame, and I can
no longer doubt of my son’s happiness! I feel extremely happy to see my
long-cherished wishes satisfied! I can not express to you how great
will be my joy to see riveted forever, by means of this union of our two
families, the inclination and the friendship which have already so long
chained us together. I trust that Mademoiselle de la Pagerie will not
refuse her consent. Allow me to embrace her and already to greet her as
my own beloved daughter.” [Footnote: Aubenas, “Histoire de l’Imperatrice
Josephine,” vol. i., p. 78.]

To this letter was addressed a note from Madame de Renaudin to her
brother and to her sister-in-law. She openly acknowledges that she
it was who desired this union, and who had brought the matter to its
present stage, and she endeavors to meet the objection that it would
appear strange for a young lady to undertake a long journey in search of
a future husband, whilst it would be more expedient that the bridegroom
should make the journey to his bride, to receive her at the hands of
her parents, and bring her with him to a new home. But this bride of
thirteen years must first be trained for her future destiny; she is
not to be in the house of her future father-in-law, but in the house of
Madame de Renaudin, her aunt, and she is there to receive the completion
of her education and that higher culture which her parents, even with
all the necessary means, could not give her in Martinique.

“We are of opinion,” she writes, “that the young people must see one
another and please each other, before we bring this matter to a close,
for they are both too dear to us to desire to coerce them against their
inclination. Your daughter will find in me a true and kind mother, and
I am sure that she will find the happiness of her future life in the
contemplated union, for the chevalier is well qualified to make a wife
happy. All that I can say of him exhausts by no means the praise he
deserves. He has a pleasant countenance, an excellent figure, wit,
genius, knowledge, and, what is more than this, all the noble qualities
of heart and soul are united in him, and he must consequently be loved
by all who know him.”

Meanwhile, before these letters reached Martinique, chance had already
otherwise decided the fate of Mary, the second daughter of M. de la
Pagerie. With one sentence it had destroyed all the family schemes.
After three days of confinement to a bed of sickness, Mary had died of a
violent fever, and when the letter, in which the Marquis de Beauharnais
asked for her hand, reached her father, she had been buried three
months.

M. Tascher de la Pagerie hastened to announce her death to the Marquis
and to Madame de Renaudin; and to prove to them how much he also had at
heart a union of the two families, he offered to his son, the chevalier,
the hand of his third daughter, the little twelve-year-old Desiree.
Undoubtedly it would have been more gratifying to him if the choice of
the marquis had fallen upon his eldest daughter, and he makes this known
very clearly in his answer to Madame de Renaudin.

“My eldest daughter,” writes he, “Josephine, who is lately returned from
the convent, and who has often desired me to take her to France, will,
believe me, be somewhat sensitive at the preference given to her younger
sisters. Josephine has a beautiful head, beautiful eyes and arms, and
also a wonderful talent for music. During her stay in the convent I
procured her a guitar-teacher; she has made the best of the instruction
received, and she has a glorious voice. It is a pity she has not the
opportunity of completing her education in France; and were I to have my
wish, I would bring her to you instead of my other two daughters.”

Meanwhile the Marquis de Beauharnais, as well as his son, found that the
youngest daughter of M. de la Pagerie was too young for their impatient
desire to bring to a favorable issue these important family concerns,
and that the eldest of the daughters ought to have the preference. The
son of the marquis especially pronounced himself decidedly in favor of
Josephine, and father and son, as well as Madame de Renaudin, turned
imploringly to M. Tascher de la Pagerie, praying that he would bring
them his eldest daughter.

Now, for the first time, when the choice of the Beauharnais family
had irrevocably fallen upon Josephine, now for the first time was this
proposed marriage made known to her, and her consent asked.

Josephine, whose young heart was like a blank sheet of paper, whereon
love had as yet written no name, Josephine rejoiced at the prospect
of accomplishing the secret wish of her maiden heart, to go to
Paris--Paris, the burning desire of all Creoles--Paris, after all the
narratives and descriptions, which had been made to Josephine, rose
before the soul of the young maiden as a golden morning dream, a
charming fairy world; and full of gratitude she already loved her future
husband, to whom she owed the happiness of becoming acquainted with the
city of wonders and pleasures.

She therefore acquiesced without regret at being separated from
her parents and from her sister, from the home of all her sweet
reminiscences of youth, and joyously, in August of the year 1779, she
embarked on board the vessel which was to take her with her father to
France.

In the middle of October they both, after a stormy passage, touched
the soil of France and announced to their relatives their safe arrival.
Alexandre de Beauharnais, full of impatient longings to see his unknown
young bride, hastened to Brest to bid her and her father welcome, and to
accompany them to Paris.

The first meeting of the young couple decided their future. Josephine,
smiling and blushing, avowed to her father that she was willing and
ready to marry M. Alexandre Beanharnais; and, the very first day of
his meeting with Josephine, Alexandre wrote to his father that he was
enchanted with the choice made, and that he felt strongly convinced
that, at the side of so charming, sweet, and lovely a being, he would
lead a happy and sunny life.

The love of the children had crowned all the schemes of the parents,
and on the 13th of December, 1779, the marriage of the young couple took
place. On the 13th of December, Mademoiselle Josephine Tascher de la
Pagerie became the Viscountess Josephine de Beauharnais.




CHAPTER IV. THE YOUNG BONAPARTE.


In the same year, 1779, in which Josephine de la Pagerie for the first
time left Martinique for Prance, a vessel which had sailed from Corsica
brought to France a boy who, not only as regards Josephine’s life,
but also as regards all Europe, yea, the whole world, was to be of the
highest importance, and who, with the iron step of fatality, was to
walk through Europe to subvert thrones and raise up new ones; to tread
nations in the dust, and to lift up others from the dust; to break
tyranny’s chains in which people languished, so as to impose upon them
his own chains.

This boy was Napoleon Bonaparte, the son of the advocate Charles de
Bonaparte.

From Ajaccio, the principal town of Corsica, came the ship which brought
to France the boy, his father, and his two elder brothers. In Ajaccio
the family of the Bonapartes had been settled for more than a century.
There also Napoleon had passed the first years of his life, in the
family circle with his parents, and in joyous amusements with his five
brothers and sisters.

His father, Charles de Bonaparte, belonged to one of the noble families
of Corsica, and was one of the most influential men on the island. His
mother, Letitia Ramolina, was well known throughout the island for her
beauty, and the only woman who could have been her rival, for she was
her equal in beauty, youth, and grace, was her dearest friend, the
beautiful Panonia de Comnene, afterward the mother of the Duchess
d’Abrantes.

The beautiful Letitia Ramolina was married to Charles de Bonaparte the
same year that her friend Panonia de Comnene became the wife of M.
de Permont, a high French official in Ajaccio. Corsica was then the
undisputed property of the kingdom of France, and, however proud the
Corsicans were of their island, yet they were satisfied to be called
subjects of France, and to have their beautiful island considered as a
province of France.

Napoleon Bonaparte was the fifth child of his parents, the favorite of
his beautiful mother Letitia, who was the life of the household, the
ruler of the family. She governed the house, she educated the children;
she knew, with the genuine ability of a housekeeper, of a mother, how to
spend with careful frugality the moderate income of her husband; how
to economize, and yet how to give to each what was needed. As to the
father, in the hours of leisure which business, political debates, and
amusements allowed him to give to his home and family, his children were
an agreeable recreation, an interesting pastime; and when the children,
carried away by the sparkling fire of youth, shouted or cried too loud,
the father endeavored to palliate their misdemeanor, and obtain their
pardon from their mother. Then Letitia’s eyes were fastened with a
flaming glance upon her husband, and, imperatively bidding him leave the
children, she would say: “Let them alone. Their education concerns you
not. I am the one to keep the eyes upon them.”

She trained them up with the severity of a father and with the
tenderness of a mother. Inexorable against every vice of heart and
character, she was lenient and indulgent toward petty offences which
sprang up from the inconsiderateness and spiritedness of youth. Every
tendency to vulgar sentiments, to mean envy or selfishness, she strove
to uproot by galling indignation; but every thing which was great and
lofty, all sentiments of honor, of courage, of large-heartedness, of
generosity, of kindness, she nursed and cherished in the hearts of her
children. It was a glorious sight to contemplate this young mother
when with her beautiful, rosy countenance glowing with enthusiasm and
blessedness, she stood among her children, and in fiery, expressive
manner spoke to the listening group of the great and brave of old, of
the deeds of a Caesar, of a Hannibal; when she spoke of Brutus, who,
though he loved Caesar, yet, greater than Caesar, and a more exalted
Roman in his love for the republic, sacrificed his love to the
fatherland; or when she, with that burning glow which all Corsicans, the
women as well as the men, cherish for their home and for the historical
greatness of their dear island, told them of the bravery and self-denial
even unto death with which the Corsicans for centuries had fought for
the freedom of their island; how, faithful to the ancient sacred law of
blood, they never let the misdeed pass unpunished; they never feared the
foe, however powerful he might be, but revenged on him the evil which he
had committed against sister or brother, father or mother.

And when Letitia thus spoke to her children in the beautiful and
harmonious language of her country, the eyes of the little Napoleon
were all aflame, his childish countenance suddenly assumed a grave
expression, and on the little body of the child was seen a man’s head,
glowing with power, energy, and pride.

These narratives of his mother, these enthusiastic stories of heroes
of the past, which the boy, with loud-beating heart, with countenance
blanched by mental excitement, gathered from the beautiful lips of his
mother, were the highest pleasure of the little Napoleon, and often in
future years has the emperor amid his glory thought of those days never
to be forgotten, when the child’s heart and soul hung on his mother’s
lips, and listened to her wondrous stories of heroes.

These narratives of Letitia, this enthusiasm which her glowing language
awoke in the heart of the child, this whole education which Letitia gave
to her children, became the corner-stone of their future. As a sower,
Letitia scattered the seed from which hero and warrior were to spring
forth, and the grain which fell into the heart of her little Napoleon
found a good soil, and grew and prospered, and became a laurel-tree,
which adorned the whole family of the Bonapartes with the blooming crown
of immortality.

Great men are ever much more the sons of their mother than of the
father, while seldom have great men seen their own greatness survive in
their sons. This is a wonderful secret of Nature, which perhaps cannot
be explained, but which cannot be denied.

Goethe was the true son of his talented and noble mother, but he could
leave as a legacy to his son only the fame of a name, and not his
genius. Henry IV., the son of a noble, spiritual and large-hearted
Jeanne de Navarre, could not leave to France, which worshipped and loved
her king, could not leave to his people, a successor who resembled him,
and who would inherit his sharp-sightedness, his prudence, his courage,
and his greatness of soul. His son and successor was Louis XIII., a king
whose misfortune it was ever to be overruled, ever to be humbled, ever
to stand in the shade of two superior natures, which excited his envy,
but which he was never competent to overcome; ever overshadowed by the
past glories which his father’s fame threw upon him, overshadowed by the
ruler and mentor of his choice, his minister, the Cardinal de Richelieu,
who darkened his whole sad existence.

Napoleon was the son of his mother, the large-hearted and high-minded
Letitia Ramolina. But how distant was the son of the hero, who, from a
poor second lieutenant, had forced his way to the throne of France! how
distant the poor little Duke de Reichstadt from his great father! Even
over the life of this son of an eminent father weighed a shadow--the
shadow of his father’s greatness. Under this shadow which the column of
Vendome cast from Paris to the imperial city of Vienna, which the steep
rock of St. Helena cast even upon the castle of Schonbrunn, under this
shadow died the Duke de Reichstadt, the unfortunate son of his eminent
father.

The little Napoleon was always a shy, reserved, quiet boy. For hours
long he could hide in some obscure corner of the house or of the garden,
and sit there with head bent low and eyes closed, half asleep and half
dreaming; but when he opened his eyes, what a life in those looks! What
animation, what exuberance in his whole being, when awaking from his
childish dreams he mixed again with his brothers, sisters, and friends!

Letitia’s words and example had penetrated the soul of the child with
the highest emotions of honor and human dignity, and the little boy of
seven years exhibited oftentimes the sentiments of honor, pride, and
obstinacy of a man. Every bodily correction to which he was submitted
made him turn pale and tremble, not from pain but for shame, filled him
with indignation, and was apt to bring on sickness. In Corsica still
prevailed the custom of severe discipline for children, and in all the
classes of the school the rod was applied as a means of punishment and
reformation. To beat one’s wife was considered in Corsica, as everywhere
else, an unpardonable brutality; but parents as well as teachers whipped
children to mould them into noble, refined, honorable men.

The little Napoleon would not adapt himself to the blessings of this
education, and the mere threats of the rod-switching deprived the child
of his senses and threw him into convulsions. But though the little
Napoleon was gloomy, monosyllabic, and quiet, yet was he from early
childhood the favorite of all who knew him, and he already wielded over
brothers, sisters, and companions, a wonderful influence.

When a boy of four years old, Letitia sent him to a sort of play-school,
where boys and girls amused themselves together and learned the ABC. The
young Napoleon was soon the soul of the little company. The boys obeyed
him, and submitted to his will; the girls trembled before him, and yet
with a smile they pressed toward him merely to be near him and to have
a place at his side. And the four-year child already practised a tender
chivalry. One of his little school-companions had made an impression on
his heart; he honored her with special favors, sat at her side during
the lessons, and when they left school to return home, the little
Napoleon never missed, with complete gravity of countenance, to offer
his arm to his favorite of five years of age and to accompany her to her
home. But the sight of this gallant, with his diminutive, compact,
and broad figure, over which the large head, with its earnestness of
expression, seemed so incongruous, and which moved on with so much
gravity, while the socks fell from the naked calves over the heels--all
this excited the merriment of the other children; and when, arm-in-arm
with his little schoolmate, he thus moved on, the other urchins in
great glee shouted after him: “Napoleone di mezza calzetta dall’ amore
a Giacominetta!” (“Napoleon in socks is the lover of the little
Giacominetta!”)

The boy endured these taunts with the stoic composure of a philosopher,
but never after did he offer his arm to the little Giacominetta, and
never afterward did his socks hang down over his heels.

When from this “mixed school” he passed into a boys’ school, the little
Napoleon distinguished himself above all the other boys by his ambition,
his deep jealousy, his perseverance at learning and studying, and he
soon became the favorite of the Abbe Recco, [Footnote: Napoleon, in his
testament, written at St. Helena, willed a fixed sum of money to this
Professor Recco, in gratitude for the instruction given him in his
youth.] who taught at the royal college of Ajaccio as professor. A few
times every week the worthy professor would gather his pupils in a large
hall, to read them lectures upon ancient history, and especially upon
the history of Rome; and, in order to give to this hall a worthy and
significant ornament, he had it adorned on either side with two large
and costly banners, one of which had the initials S. P. Q. E., and
represented the standard of ancient Rome; facing it and on the opposite
side of the hall was the standard of Carthage.

Under the shadows of these standards were ranged the seats for the
scholars, and in the vacant centre of the large hall was the professor’s
chair, from which the Abbe Recco dictated to his pupils the history of
the heroic deeds of ancient Rome.

The elder children sat under the larger standard, under the standard of
Rome, and the junior boys immediately opposite, under the standard of
Carthage; and as Napoleon Bonaparte was the youngest scholar of the
institution, he sat near the Carthaginian standard, whilst his brother
Joseph, his senior by five years, had his seat facing him on the Roman
side. Though at the commencement of the lectures Napoleon’s delight had
been great, and though he had listened with enthusiasm to the history
of the struggles, and to the martial achievements of the ancient Romans,
the little Napoleon soon manifested an unmistaken repugnance to attend
these lectures. He would turn pale, as with his brother he entered the
hall, and with head bowed low, and dark, angry countenance, took his
seat. A few days afterward he declared to his brother Joseph, his lips
drawn in by anguish, that he would no more attend the lectures.

“And why not?” asked Joseph, astonished. “Do you take no interest in the
Roman history? Can you not follow the lecture?”

The little Napoleon darted upon his brother a look of inexpressible
contempt. “I would be a simpleton if the history of heroes did not
interest me,” said he, “and I understand everything the good Professor
Recco says--I understand it so well that I often know beforehand what
his warriors and heroes will do.”

“Well, then, since you have such a lively interest in the history of the
Romans, why will you no more follow the lectures?”

“No, I will not, I cannot,” murmured Napoleon, sadly.

“Tell me, at least, the reason, Napoleon,” said his brother.

The boy looked straight before him, for a long time hesitating and
undecided; then he threw up his head in a very decided manner, and gazed
on his brother with flaming eyes.

“Yes,” cried he, passionately, “I will tell you! I can no longer endure
the shame to sit down under the standard of the conquered and humiliated
Carthaginians. I do not deserve to be so disgraced.”

“But, Napoleon,” said Joseph, laughing, “why trouble yourself about the
standard of the old Carthaginians? One is just as well under it as under
the Roman standard.”

“Is it, then, the same to you under which standard you sit? Do you not
consider it as a great honor to sit under the standard of the victorious
Romans?”

“I look upon the one as being without honor, and upon the other as being
without shame,” said Joseph, smiling.

“If it is so,” cried out the little Napoleon, throwing himself on his
brother’s neck, “if it is for you no great sacrifice, then, I implore
you to save me, to make me happy, for you can do it! Let us change
seats; give me your place under the standard of Rome, and take my place
instead.”

Joseph declared himself ready to do so, and when the two brothers came
next time to the lecture, Napoleon, with uplifted head and triumphant
countenance, took his seat under the standard of victorious Rome.

But soon the expression of joy faded away from his face, and his
features were overcast, and with a restless, sad look, he repeatedly
turned himself toward his brother Joseph, who sat facing him under the
standard of the conquered race.

Silent and sad he went home with Joseph, and when his mother questioned
him about the cause of his sorrow, he confessed, with tears in his
eyes, that he was a heartless egotist, that he had been unjust and cruel
toward Joseph, that he had cheated his brother of his place of honor and
had seated himself in it.

It required the most earnest assurances of Joseph that he placed no
value whatever on the seat; it required all the persuasiveness and
authority of Letitia to appease the boy, and to prevail upon him to
resume the conquered seat. [Footnote: “Memoires du Roi Joseph,” vol. i.,
p.40.]

As the course of instruction which the boys had received in Ajaccio was
not sufficient for the times, and for the capacities of his sons, their
father passed over to France with Joseph and Napoleon, to take advantage
of the favorable resources for a more complete education.

Napoleon saw the time of departure approach with an apparently
indifferent mind, only his face was somewhat paler, he was still more
monosyllabic and more reserved than before; and his eyes, full of an
indescribable expression of tenderness and admiration, followed all the
movements of his mother, as if to print deeply in his soul the beloved
image, so as to take it with him beyond the seas, in all its freshness
and beauty.

He wept not as he bade her farewell; not a word of sorrow or regret
did he speak, but he embraced his mother with impassioned fondness,
he kissed her hands, her forehead, her large black eyes, he sank down
before her and kissed her feet, then sprang up, and, after casting upon
her whole figure a deep, glowing look, he rushed away to embark at once,
without waiting for brother or father, who were yet bidding a touching
farewell to relatives and friends.

Letitia gazed after her Napoleon with glowing and wide-open eyes; she
wept not, she complained not, but she pressed her two hands on her heart
as if to keep it from breaking asunder, from bleeding to death; then she
called all her children around her, and, folding them up in her arms,
exclaimed: “Join your hands and pray with me that our little Napoleon
may return home to us a noble and great man.”

As soon as they had prosperously landed in France, the father placed
his two sons in the college of Autun, and then travelled farther on
to Paris, there to obtain, through the influence of his patrons and
friends, a place for his daughter Marianne (afterward Elise) in St.
Cyr, an institution for the daughters of noblemen, and also a place for
Napoleon in the military school of Brienne. His efforts were crowned
with success; and whilst Joseph remained at college in Autun, Napoleon
had to part with him and go to Brienne.

When the brothers bade farewell one to another, Joseph wept bitterly,
and his sighs and tears choked the tender words of farewell which his
quivering lips would have uttered.

Napoleon was quiet, and as his eye moistened with a tear, he endeavored
to hide it, and turned aside ashamed of himself and nearly indignant,
for he did not wish the Abbe Simon, one of the professors of the
college, who was present at the parting of the brothers, to see his
unmanly tenderness.

But the Abbe Simon had seen that tear, and when Napoleon was gone he
said to Joseph: “Napoleon has shed but one tear, but that tear proves
his deep sorrow as much as all your tears.” [Footnote: “Memoires du Roi
Joseph,” vol. i., p.26.]

Taciturn and quiet as he had been in Ajaccio, the little Napoleon was
equally so at the military school of Brienne, where he remained from
his eleventh to his sixteenth year. His character had always something
sombre and hidden; his eye seemed turned more inwardly than outwardly;
and his fellowship with his books seemed to procure him a more pleasant
recreation than the company of his schoolmates, whose childish joys
and pleasures he despised or pretended to do so, because his limited
pecuniary resources did not allow him to share with them pleasures of an
expensive nature.

But, though still and reserved, he always was friendly and courteous to
his comrades, grateful for every mark of friendship and kindness, and
always ready to protect the young and feeble against the overbearing
and the strong, censuring with grave authority every injustice, and with
Spartan harshness throwing his contempt into the very face of him who,
according to his standard, had offended against honor, the lofty spirit
and the dignity of a freeman.

It could not fail that soon Napoleon should win over his schoolmates
a marked moral influence; that they would listen to him as if he were
their superior; that they should feel something akin to fear in presence
of the flashing eyes of this little boy of barely fourteen years, whose
pale, expressive countenance, when illumined with anger, almost seemed
to them more terrible than that of the irritated face of the teacher,
and whom they therefore more willingly and more unconditionally obeyed
than the principal of the establishment.

One day the latter had forbidden the scholars to go to the fair in a
neighboring locality, because they had lately been guilty of excesses
on a similar occasion; and, so as to be sure that the scholars would not
trespass against his orders, the principal had the outside gate in the
front yard locked.

This last circumstance kindled Napoleon’s anger; he considered it as an
insult that the scholars should be treated as prisoners.

“Had we been ordered in the name of the law to remain here,” cried
he, “then honor itself would have claimed from us to remain, for law
commands obedience to our superiors. But since we are treated as slaves,
who are by main force compelled to submission, then honor claims from us
to prove to our oppressors that we are free beings, and that we desire
to remain such. We are treated as prisoners of war, kept under lock and
bolt, but no one has demanded our word of honor that we will make no
effort to escape this subjection. Whosoever has a brave heart and a soul
full of honor’s love, let him follow me!”

All the youngsters followed him without hesitation. More submissive to
this pale, small boy of fourteen years, than to the severe, strong,
and exalted principal, none dared oppose him as he stood in the garden,
facing a remote place in the wall, and giving orders to undermine it,
so as to make an outlet. All obeyed the given orders, all were animated
with burning zeal, with cheerful alacrity; and after an hour of earnest
labor the work was done, and the passage under the wall completed.

The scholars wanted to rush with jubilant cries through the opening, and
gain their freedom outside of the wall, but Napoleon held them back.

“I will go first,” said he. “I have been your leader throughout this
expedition, now I will be the first to pass out, that upon me may fall
the punishment when we are discovered.”

The young men fell back silently and respectfully, while, proud and
stately as a field-marshal who gives the signal for the battle, Napoleon
passed through their ranks, to be the first from the crowd to go through
the newly-made passage.

It could not fail that the daring of these “prisoners of war” should be
discovered, that the principal should be the very same day informed that
the young men had, notwithstanding his strict orders, notwithstanding
the closed gate, made a way for themselves, and had visited the
prohibited fair, while the principal believed them to be in the garden.

A strict inquiry took place the next morning. With threatening tones,
the principal ordered the young men to name him who had guided them
to so unheard-of a deed, who had misled them into disobedience and
insubordination. But all were still; none wished to be a traitor, not
even when the principal promised to all full pardon, full impunity, if
they would but name the instigator of their guilty action.

But as no one spoke, as no one would name him, Napoleon gave himself up
as the culpable one.

“I alone am guilty,” cried he, proudly. “I alone deserve punishment.
These have done only what I commanded them--they have but followed my
orders, nothing more. The guilt and the punishment are mine alone.”

The principal, glad to know the guilty one, kept his promise, and,
forgiving the rest, decided to punish only the one who acknowledged
himself to have been the leader.

Napoleon was, therefore, sentenced to the severest and most degrading
punishment known in the institution--to the so-called “monk’s penalty.”
 That is to say, the future young soldier, in the coarse woollen garment
of a mendicant friar, was on his knees, to devour his meal from an
earthen vessel in the middle of the dining-room, while all the other
boys were seated at the table.

A deathly pallor overspread the face of the boy when he heard this
sentence. He had been for many days imprisoned in a cell with bread and
water, and he had without a murmur submitted to this correction, endured
already on a former occasion, but this degrading punishment broke his
courage.

Stunned, as it were, and barely conscious, he allowed the costume of the
punishment to be put on, but when he had been led into the dining-room,
where all the scholars were gathered for the noonday meal, when he was
forced upon his knees, he sank down to the ground with a heavy sigh, and
was seized with violent convulsions.

The rector himself, moved with deepest sympathy for the wounded spirit
of the boy, hastened to raise up Napoleon. At the same moment rushed
into the hall one of the teachers of the institution, M. Patrault, who
had just been informed of the execution which was about to be carried
out on Napoleon. With tears in his eyes, he hastened to Napoleon, and
with trembling hands tore from his shoulders the detestable garment, and
broke out at the same time in loud complaints that his best scholar,
his first mathematician, was to be dishonored and treated in an unworthy
manner.

Napoleon, however, was not always the reserved, grave boy who took
no part in the recreations and pleasures of the rest of his young
schoolmates. Whenever these amusements were of a more serious, of a
higher nature, Napoleon gladly and willingly took a part in them. Now
and then in the institution, on festivals, theatrical representations
took place, and on these occasions the citizens of Brienne were allowed
to be present.

But to maintain respectable order, every one who desired to be present
at the representation had to procure a card of admission signed by the
principal. On the day of the exhibition, at the different doors of the
institution, were posted guards who received the admission cards, and
whose strict orders were to let no one pass in without them. These
posts, which were filled by the scholars, were under the supervision
of superior and inferior officers, and were confided only to the most
distinguished and most praiseworthy students.

One day, Voltaire’s tragedy, “The Death of Caesar,” was exhibited.
Napoleon had the post of honor of a first lieutenant for this festivity,
and with grave earnestness he filled the duties of his office.

Suddenly at the entrance of the garden arose a loud noise and vehement
recriminations of threatening and abusive voices.

It was Margaret Haute, the porter’s wife, who wanted to come in, though
she had no card of admission. She was well known to all the students,
for at the gate of the institution she had a little stall of fruits,
eggs, milk, and cakes, and all the boys purchased from her every day,
and liked to jest and joke with the pleasant and obliging woman.

Margaret Haute had therefore considered it of no importance to procure a
card of admission, which thing she considered to be superfluous for such
an important and well-known personage as herself. The greater was her
astonishment and anger when admission was refused, and she therefore
began to clamor loudly, hoping by this means to attract some of the
scholars, who would recognize her and procure her admittance. Meanwhile
the post guardian dared not act without superior orders, and the
inferior officer hastened to communicate the important event to the
first lieutenant, Napoleon de Bonaparte, and receive his decision.

Napoleon, who ordinarily was kind to the fruit-vender, and gladly
jested with the humorous and coarse woman, listened to the report of
the lieutenant with furrowed brow and dark countenance, and with severe
dignity gave his orders: “Remove that woman, who takes upon herself
to introduce licentiousness into the camp.” [Footnote: Afterward, when
First Consul, Napoleon sent for this woman and her husband to come to
Paris, and he gave them the lucrative position of porter at the castle
of Malmaison, which charge they retained unto their death.]




CHAPTER V. THE UNHAPPY MARRIAGE.


While the boy Napoleon de Bonaparte pursued his studies as a student in
Brienne, she, who was one day to share his greatness and his fame, had
already appeared on the world’s stage as the wife of another. Josephine
Tascher de la Pagerie was already received in the highest society of
Paris as the Viscountess de Beauharnais.

Every thing seemed to promise to the young couple a happy, secure
future, free from care. They were both young, wealthy, of good family,
and though the parents had planned this marriage and joined together
the hands of the young couple, yet it was their good fortune that love
should tie and strengthen the bond which mere expediency had formed.

Yes, they loved one another, these young married people of sixteen and
eighteen. How could it have been otherwise, when they both met each
other with the candid and honest desire to make one another happy; when
each of them had been so well adapted to the other that their brilliant,
good, and beautiful qualities were so prominent that their eyes were
blinded to the possibility of imperfections and vices which perchance
remained in the obscure background of their virtue and of their
amiableness?

Josephine had entered upon her marriage with a pure maiden heart, and
soon this heart glowed with enthusiasm for her young husband, who in
reality was well qualified to excite enthusiasm in a young maid and
instil into her a passionate attachment. Alexandre de Beauharnais was
one of the most brilliant and most beloved personages at the court
of Versailles. His face had all the beauty of regularity; his figure,
marked by a lofty, even if somewhat heavy form, was tall, well knit,
and of wonderful elasticity and energy; his manners were noble and
prepossessing, fine and natural. Even in a court so distinguished as
that of Versailles for many remarkable chevaliers, the Viscount de
Beauharnais was considered as one of the most lovely and most gifted:
even the young Queen Marie Antoinette honored him with special
distinction. She had called him the most beautiful dancer of Versailles,
and consequently it was very natural that up to the time of his marriage
he should be invited to every court-ball, and there should each time
enjoy the pleasure of being requested to dance with the queen.

This flattering distinction of the Queen Marie Antoinette had naturally
made the young viscount the mark of attention of all these beautiful,
young, and coquettish ladies of Versailles. They used to say of him,
that in the dancing-room he was a zephyr, fluttering from flower to
flower, but at the head of his regiment he was a Bayard, dreaming only
of war and carnage.

It was, therefore, quite natural that so brilliant and so preferred
a cavalier, a young man of so many varied accomplishments, a being
so impassioned, so gallant, should soon become the object of the most
tender and passionate fondness from a young wife, who in her quiet
native land had seen none to compare with him, and who became for her
the ideal of beauty, chivalry, elegance, and whom, in her devoted and
admiring love, she used to call her own Achilles.

Josephine loved her husband; she loved him with all the devotedness and
fire of a creole; she loved him and breathed but for him, and to be with
him seemed to her life’s golden, blessed dream. Added to all this,
came the joys and raptures of a Parisian life--these new, unknown,
diversified pleasures of society, these manifold distractions and
entertainments of the great city. Josephine abandoned herself to all
this with the joy and wantonness of an innocent, unsuspicious being.
With all these glorious things round about her, she felt as if
surrounded by a sea of blessedness and pleasure, and she plunged into it
with the quiet daring of innocency, which foresees not what breakers and
abysses this sea encloses under the shining surface.

But these breakers were there, and against them was the happiness of
Josephine’s love soon to be dashed to pieces.

She loved her young husband with her whole heart, with all her soul. But
he, the young, the flattered Viscount Alexandre de Beauharnais, he also
loved his young wife, whom the wish and will of his superiors had placed
at his side.

He had not chosen her because he loved her, but only because he had
thought it expedient and advisable to become married, and because the
unknown Mademoiselle de la Pagerie had been offered to him as “a good
settlement.” Perhaps, also, he had contracted this marriage to get rid
all at once of those manifold ties, intrigues, and attachments which his
open, unrestrained life of youth had woven around him, for his marriage
with the young creole had put an end to many love-intrigues which
perchance threatened to be inconvenient and burdensome.

At first charmed by her foreign, unaccustomed appearance, transported by
her ingenuous grace, her sweet, lovely amiableness and freshness, he had
fully decided to love his young wife, and, with all the triumphant pride
of a lover, he had led Josephine into society, into the saloons.

But his eye was not blinded by the ravishment of a real and true love,
and in the drawing-room he saw what, in the solitude of the residence
of Noisy, where the young couple had retired for a few weeks after their
marriage, he might never have missed--he saw that Josephine possessed
not the lofty elegance and the exquisite manners of the ladies of the
Parisian saloons. She always was a charming, artless, graceful young
woman, but she lacked the striking advantages of a real drawing-room
lady; she lacked that perfect self-possession, that pliancy of
refinement, that sparkling wit, and that penetration, which then
characterized the ladies of the higher Parisian society, and which the
young viscount had but lately so fondly and passionately admired in the
beautiful and celebrated Baroness de B.

The viscount saw all these deficiencies of his young wife’s social
education, and this darkened his brow and brought on his cheek the flush
of shame. He was cruel enough to reproach Josephine, in somewhat harsh
and imperious tones, of her lack of higher culture, and thus the first
matrimonial difference clouded the skies of marriage happiness, which
the young unsuspecting wife had believed would ever be bright with
sunshine.

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.

Josephine, who out of pure love for her husband learned and studied
zealously, communicated to the viscount, in her letters, every
advancement she made in her studies; and she was proud and happy when he
applauded her efforts, and when in his letters he praised her assiduity
and her progress.

But evidently these letters of the viscount contained nothing of that
love and ardor which the young fiery creole longed for from her
husband; they were not the utterances of a young, anxious lover, of an
enthusiastic, worshipping husband; but they were addressed to Josephine
with the quiet, cool benignity of a considerate friend, of a mentor, of
a tutor who knows full well how much above his pupil soars his own mind,
and with what supreme deference this pupil must look up to him.

“I am delighted,” wrote he once--“delighted at your zeal to acquire
knowledge and culture; this zeal, which we must ever cherish, is ever
the source of purest enjoyments, and possesses the glorious advantage,
when we follow its dictates, of never producing any grief. If you
persevere in the resolution you have taken, if you continue to labor
with unabated zeal at your personal improvement, be assured that the
knowledge you will have acquired will exalt you highly above all others;
and whereas science and modesty will be combined in you, you will
succeed in becoming an accomplished woman. The talents which you
cultivate have their pleasant side, and if you devote to them a portion
of the day, you will unite the agreeable to the useful.” [Footnote:
“Histoire de l’Imperatrice Josephine,” vol. i., p. 110.]

This is what Alexandre de Beauharnais wanted. His wife, through her
knowledge, was to be highly exalted above all others. She was to study
the sciences, and become what is now called a learned woman, but what
was then termed a philosophical woman.

The ambition of the ardent viscount required that his young wife should
be the rival of his learned, verse-writing aunt, the Baroness Fanny
de Beauharnais; that Josephine, if not the most beautiful and most
intellectual woman of Paris, should be the most accomplished.

But these extravagant expectations did not, unfortunately, coincide
entirely with the tastes and mental tendencies of Josephine. No one was
less qualified than she to be a philosophical woman, and to make the
sciences a serious study. It was far from her ambition to desire to
shine by her knowledge; and the learned and scientific Baroness de
Beauharnais only excited fear and antagonism on account of her stiff and
pretentious pedantry, which seemed to Josephine to have but little in
harmony with a woman’s being.

Josephine loved the sciences and the arts, but she did not wish to
convert herself into their devoted priestess. She wished merely to adorn
herself with their blossoms, to take delight in their fragrance, and to
rejoice in their beauty. With instinctive sentiment she did not wish to
have the grace and youthful freshness of her womanly appearance marred
by knowledge; her heart longed not for the ambition of being called a
learned woman; she only wished to be a beloved wife.

But the viscount, instead of recognizing and cherishing the tender and
sacred treasures which reposed in the heart of his young wife, ridiculed
her for her sensitiveness; allowed himself, through displeasure at her
uncultivated mind, to utter unreasonable reproaches, and to act harshly
toward his wife; and her tears were not calculated to conciliate him
or to gain his heart. He treated Josephine with a sort of contemptuous
compassion, with a mocking superiority, and her young, deeply-wounded
soul, intimidated and bleeding, shrank back into itself. Josephine
became taciturn, embarrassed, and mute, in her husband’s presence; she
preferred being silent, rather than by her conversation, which might not
appear intellectual and piquant enough for the viscount, to annoy and
irritate him.

Confidence and harmony had flown away from the household of the young
couple. From his timid, silent wife, with tears in her eyes and a mute
complaint on her trembling lips, the husband rushed away into the world,
into society, to the boisterous joys of a garrison’s life, or else to
the dangerous, intoxicating amusements which the refined world of the
drawing-rooms offered him.

Scarcely after a two years’ marriage, the young bridegroom was again the
zephyr of the drawing-room; and, breaking asunder the bonds with which
the marriage and the household had bound him, he fluttered again from
flower to flower, was once more the gallant cavalier of the belles,
forgot duty and wife, to pay his attentions and bring his homage to the
ladies of the court.

But this neglect which she now experienced from her husband, this
evident preference for other women, suddenly awoke Josephine from her
painful resignation, from her quiet melancholy. The young, patient,
retreating wife was changed at once into an irritated lioness, and,
amid the refinements of the French polish, with all its gilded
accompaniments, uprose the glowing, impassioned, threatening creole.

Josephine, wounded both in her vanity and in her love--Josephine wished
not and could not bear, as a passive, silent sufferer, the neglect of
her husband; he had insulted her as a woman, and the wrath of a woman
rose within her. She screened not her jealousy from her husband; she
reproached him for preferring other women to his wife, for neglecting
her for the sake of others, and she required that to her alone he should
do homage, that to her alone he should consecrate love and allegiance.
She wept, she complained, when she learned that, whilst she was left
at home unnoticed, he had been here and there in the company of other
women; she allowed herself to be so carried away by jealousy as to make
violent reproaches against her husband.

But tears and reproaches are not in the least calculated to bring back
to a wife the heart of a husband, and jealousy recalls not a husband’s
love, when that love has unfolded his pinions and flown away. It only
causes the poor butterfly to feel that marriage had tied its wings
with a thread, and that it constantly recalls him away, with the severe
admonitions of duty, from the beautiful flowers toward which he desires
to fly.

The complaints and reproaches of Josephine, however much they proved her
love, had precisely the contrary effect from what she expected. Through
them she wanted to bring back her husband to her love, but she repelled
him further still; he flew away from her complaints to the merry society
of his friends, male and female, and left Josephine alone at Noisy to
weep over her wretchedness.

Notwithstanding all this, they were both to be again reunited one to
another in a new bond of love and happiness. On the 3d of September,
1781, Josephine presented to her husband a son, the heir of his name,
and for whom the father had already so long craved. Alexandre came to
Noisy to be present at the birth of his child, and with true, sincere
affection he embraced son and mother, and swore everlasting love and
fidelity to both.

But circumstances were stronger than the will of this young man of
twenty-two years. The monotonous life of Noisy, the quietude which
prevailed in the house on account of the young mother, could not long
retain captive the fiery young man. He endured this life of solitude, of
watching at the bedside, of listening to the child’s cries, for a whole
week, and then was drawn away with irresistible attraction to Paris;
the father’s tenderness could no longer restrain the glowing ardor, the
impassioned longings for distraction in the young man; and the viscount
left Noisy to lead once more in Paris or with his garrison the free,
unrestrained dissipations of his earlier days.

Josephine was comfortless. She had hoped the son would retain the
father, but he left her alone, alone with the child, and with all the
torments of her jealousy.

It is true, he came back now and then to see his son, his little Eugene,
and also to make amends to the young, sick, and suffering mother, by a
few days’ presence, for the many days of absence.

But Josephine, irritated, jealous, too young, too inexperienced to
reflect, Josephine committed the fault of receiving her husband every
time he came, with reproaches and complaints, and of meeting him
with violent scenes of jealousy and of offended dignity. The viscount
himself, so young, so impassioned, had not the patience to go with
calm indifference through the purgatory of such scenes. His proud heart
rebelled against the chains with which marriage would bind him; he was
angry with this woman who dared reproach him; he was the more vexed
that his conscience told him she was unjust toward him, that he was the
innocent one. He returned her complaints with deriding scorn; he allowed
himself to be carried away by her reproaches to the manifestation of
violent anger; and the tempest of matrimonial discord raged through this
house, which at first seemed to have been built for a temple of peace
and happiness.

The parents of the young couple saw with deep, heartfelt concern the gap
deepening between them both, and which every day widened more and more,
and as their warnings and wishes now remained fruitless, they resolved
to try if a long absence might not heal the wounds which they both had
inflicted upon their own hearts. At the request of his father and of
Madame de Renaudin, the viscount undertook a long journey to Italy, from
which he returned only after nearly nine months’ absence.

What the relatives had hoped from this journey seemed to be realized.
The viscount returned home to his Josephine with a penitent, tender
heart; and Josephine, enchanted with his tenderness, with the pliant
loveliness of his whole being--Josephine, with a smile of blessedness
and with happy dreams of the future, rested once more on the bosom of
the man whom, even in her angry moods, she had never ceased to love.

But after a few months passed in happiness and harmony, the viscount
was once more obliged to separate himself from his wife, to meet his
regiment, which was now in Verdun. Absence soon broke the slender
threads which had bound together the hearts of husband and wife.
Alexandre abandoned himself to his tendencies to dissipation, and
Josephine to her jealousy. During the frequent visits which the viscount
paid to his wife in Noisy, he was received with tears and reproaches,
which always ended in violent scenes of anger and bitterness.

Such an existence, full of ever-recurring storms and ceaseless discord,
weighed heavily on the hearts of both husband and wife, and made them
long for an issue from this Labyrinth of an unhappy marriage. Yet
neither of them dreamed of a separation; not only their son, the little
Eugene, kept them from such thoughts, but also the new hopes which
Josephine carried in her bosom would have made such thoughts appear
criminal. It was necessary to endeavor to bear life as well as one
could, and not allow one’s self to be too much lacerated by its thorns,
even if there was no further hope of gathering its roses.

Alexandre de Beauharnais, even if he lacked the skill of being a
faithful, devoted husband, was a noble and goodnatured man, whose
generous heart wanted to punish himself alone for the error of this
marriage, which weighed so heavily on husband and wife; and, in order
to procure peace to both, he resolved to become an exile, to tear away
pitilessly the attractive ties which society, friends, and women, had
woven around him. If he could not be a good husband, he might at least
be a good soldier; and, whereas his heart could not adopt the resolution
of devoting itself with exclusive affection to his wife, he resolved
to devote himself entirely to that love to which he had never been
disloyal, the love of fame. His ambitious nature longed for honors
and distinction; his restless, youthful courage craved for action and
battle-fields; and, as no opportunity offered itself on land, Alexandre
de Beauharnais decided to search on the seas for what was denied him on
land.

The Marquis de Bouille, governor of Martinique, had just arrived in
France, to propose to the government a new expedition against the
British colonies in the Antilles. Already this fearless and enterprising
man, since he had been in Martinique, with the forces at his disposal,
with the help of the young creoles, and supported by the squadrons which
lay in Port Royal, had conquered Dominique, Grenada, St. Vincent, St.
Christophe, Mievres, and Montserrat, and now he contemplated an attack
upon the rich and important island of Jamaica, whose conquest he trusted
would force the English into peace.

Alexandre de Beauharnais wanted nothing more attractive than to join
this important and daring enterprise of the Marquis de Bouille. With
recommendations from his uncle, the Duke de la Rochefoucauld, the
viscount hastened to the Marquis de Bouille, begged of him instantly the
privilege of serving under him, and offered his services as adjutant.

The marquis received with kindness a young man so earnestly recommended,
and gave him the hope of fulfilling his wishes. These hopes were not,
however, realized; and the viscount, no longer able to endure the burden
of uncertainty and of domestic discord, decided to leave France on his
own responsibility, to sail for Martinique, and there to enlist as a
simple volunteer, under the orders of the governor.

In September, 1782, he left Noisy for Brest, there to embark for
Martinique. At the hour of departure the love, which for so long had
been hidden under the dark cloud of jealousy and discord, awoke in all
its glow and energy in the hearts of the young couple. With streaming
eyes Josephine embraced her husband, and in the most touching tones
entreated him to remain with her, entreated him not to tear the father
away from the son, who already recognized him and stretched his little
hands toward him, nor from the child yet unborn in her bosom. Carried
away by so much intensity of affection, by such a fond, all-pardoning
love, Alexandre was deeply moved; he regretted the past, and the
decision he had taken to leave his wife and his family. All the sweet
emotions of peace, of home, of paternal bliss, of married life, overcame
him in this hour of farewell with, resistless power, and in Josephine’s
arms he wept bitter tears of repentance, of love, of farewell.

But these tears, no more than his wife’s regrets, could make him waver
in his determination.

The word of separation had been spoken, and it had to be fulfilled. Amid
the anguish of parting, he felt for himself the necessity of breaking,
by means of a long absence, with the evil practices of the past, and to
make amends for the sad errors of his youth.

He left his home to win in a distant land the happiness which he had
in vain sought at the side of his wife, of his son, and of his family.
Before the ship upon which he was to embark for his journey weighed
anchor, he took a last farewell of his family in a letter addressed to
Madame de Renaudin.

“I have,” said he, “received the letter which tells of your good wishes
for the future, and I have read with the deepest interest the assurances
of your attachment. These assurances would still have been more
flattering to me, could they have convinced me that my actual course has
your approbation, and that you estimate rightly my determination, and
the sacrifice I am making. However, I have on my side conscience, which
applauds me for preferring, to the real, actual joys of a quiet
and pleasurable existence, the prospect, even if a remote one,
of preferment, which may secure me a distinguished position and a
distinction which may be of advantage to my children. The greater have
been my sacrifices, the more commendable it is to have made them; and if
chance only favors my determination, then the laurels I will win shall
make ample amends for all troubles and hardships, and shall change all
my anguish into joy!--Be kind enough, I pray you, to embrace for me,
my father, my wife, and Eugene!” [Forward: “Histoire de l’Imperatrice
Josephine,” vol. i, p. 133.]

It is evident that Alexandre de Beauharnais had gone to Martinique to
win fame and to fight for laurels. But chance favored not his resolves.
He had no sooner landed in Martinique, than the news spread that
negotiations had begun between England and France. M. de Bouille
received strict orders to make no attack on Jamaica; and a few weeks
after, on the 20th of January, 1783, the preliminaries of peace were
signed at Versailles. A few months later, peace was concluded, and all
the conquests made by the Marquis de Bouille were returned to England.

Alexandre de Beauharnais had then come in vain to Martinique. No fame
was to be won--no laurels could be gathered there.

Unfortunately, however, the viscount found another occupation for his
restless heart, for the vague cravings of his affections. He made the
acquaintance there with a young creole, who had been a widow for the
last six months, and who had returned to Martinique from France to
pass there her year’s mourning. But her heart had no mourning for her
deceased husband; it longed for Paris, it craved for the world and its
joys. She was yet, though a few years older than the viscount, a young
woman; she was beautiful--of that wondrous, enticing beauty peculiar to
the creoles; she was an accomplished mistress in the difficult art
of pleasing, and she formed the design of gaining the heart of the
impulsive Viscount Alexandre de Beauharnais. This design was not
undertaken because he seemed worthy of love, but because she wanted to
revenge herself on the family of Tascher de la Pagerie, which family had
been for a long time at enmity with her own, and had given free and
open expression against the too easy manners and light behavior of
the beautiful widow. She wanted to take vengeance for these insults by
seducing from M. de la Pagerie his own son-in-law, and by enjoying the
triumph of having charmed away the husband from his daughter.

The proverb says, “What woman will, woman can!” and what the beautiful
Madame de Gisard wanted was not so very hard to achieve. All she wished
was to hold complete sway over the heart of a young man who felt heavily
burdened with the fetters of marriage; who, now that the schemes of
ambition had failed, reproached his young wife that she was the cause of
his misfortune; that for her sake he had exiled himself from home, and
sentenced himself to the dulness and loneliness of a village-life in
Martinique. The society of the beautiful Madame de Gisard brought at
least novelty and distraction to this loneliness; she gave occupation
to the heart weary with connubial storms; she excited his fancy and his
desires.

Madame de Gisard knew how to use all these advantages; she wanted to
triumph over the family of De la Pagerie, she wanted to return to Paris
in the company of a young, handsome, and distinguished lover.

It was not enough to win the love of the viscount; she had to drive
him into the resolution of separating from his wife, of accusing her of
unfaithfulness and guilt, so as to have the right of casting her away,
in order that she herself might openly occupy her place. Madame de
Gisard had the requisite talent to carry out her plans, and to acquire
full control over the otherwise rebellious and proud heart of the young
man. She first began to lead him into open rupture with his father
and mother-in-law. Through respect for them, the viscount had avoided
appearing in public with Madame de Gisard, and betraying the intimacy
which existed between them. Madame de Gisard ridiculed his bashfulness
and submissive spirit; she considered this servility to the head of
the family as absurd, and she drove the viscount by means of scorn and
sarcasm to open revolt.

Then, after separating him from his wife’s family, she attacked the wife
herself. With all the cunning and smoothness of a seducing demon, she
encompassed the young man’s heart, and filled it with mistrust against
Josephine. She accused the forsaken one with levity and unfaithfulness;
she filled his heart with jealousy and rancor; she used all the means of
perfidy and calumny of which a woman is capable, and in which she finds
a refuge when her object is to ruin, and she succeeded completely.

Alexandre de Beauharnais was now entirely hers; he was gathering against
Josephine anger and vengeance; and even when he received the news that,
on the 13th of April, 1783, his young wife had given birth to a daughter
at Noisy, his soul was not moved by soft emotions, by milder sentiments
of reconciliation.

Madame de Gisard had taught him that henceforth he need no more be on
the defensive in reference to the reproaches of Josephine, but that he
now must be the aggressor; that, to justify his own guiltiness, he must
accuse his wife of guilt. She had offered herself as the price of his
reconquered freedom; and the viscount, overcome with love, anger, and
jealousy, was anxious to become worthy of this price.

He left Martinique and returned to Noisy, not to embrace and bless his
daughter Eugenie Hortense, but to bow down the mother’s head with the
curse of shame. He accused, without listening to any justification, and,
with all the vehemence of misguided passion, he asked for an immediate
separation, an immediate divorce. Vain were the expostulations, the
prayers of his father and of Madame de Renaudin. Vain were the tears,
the assurances of innocence from Josephine. The tears of an injured
woman, the prayers of his sorrowing relatives, were impotent against the
whisperings and the seducing smiles of the beautiful Madame de Gisard,
who had secretly accompanied him to France, and who had now over him an
unconditional sway.

The viscount brought before Parliament a complaint for separation from
his wife, and based it upon the most improbable and most shameless
accusations.

Josephine, who, for two years in loneliness and abandonment, had awaited
the return of her husband; Josephine, who had always hoped, through the
voice of her children, to recall her husband to herself, saw herself
suddenly threatened with a new, unexpected tempest. Two years of
suffering were finally to be rewarded by a scandalous process, which
exposed her person to the idle and malicious tongues of the Parisians.

She had, however, to submit to fate; she had to bow her head to the
storm, and trust for her justification to the mercy of God and to the
justice of the Parliament. During the time of the process she withdrew,
according to custom, into a convent, and for nearly one year hid herself
with her shame and her anguish in the abbey of Pantemont, in the street
Grenelle, St. Germain. However, she was not alone; her aunt, Madame
de Renaudin, accompanied her, and every day came the Marquis de
Beauharnais, her husband’s father, bringing her the children, who,
during the time of the unfortunate process, were to remain at Noisy,
under the guardianship of their grandfather and of a worthy governess.
The members of her husband’s family rivalled each other in their
manifestations of affection to a woman so much injured and so
incriminated, and openly before the world they declared themselves
against the viscount, who, blinded by passion and entirely in the chains
of this ensnaring woman, was justifying the innocency of his wife by
his own indiscreet demeanor--by the public exhibition of his passion
for Madame de Gisard, and thus caused the accusations launched against
Josephine to recoil upon his own head.

At last, after one year of debates, of careful considerations and
investigations, of receiving evidence, and of hearing witnesses, the
Parliament pronounced its decision.

Josephine was declared absolutely innocent of the crimes brought against
her, and was entirely acquitted of the accusation of unfaithfulness. The
Parliament pronounced the solemn decree: The accusation directed against
the Viscountess de Beauharnais was simply a malicious calumny. The
innocency of the accused wife was evident, and consequently the Viscount
de Beauharnais was bound to receive again his wife into his house.
However, the viscountess was permitted and allowed not to share the same
residence with her husband, and to separate herself from him. In this
case the viscount was condemned to pay to his wife an annual pension of
ten thousand francs, and to leave with her mother his daughter Eugenie
Hortense, while he, the father, should provide for the education of the
son.

Exonerated from the disgraceful imputation of faithlessness, Josephine
was again free to leave the convent and return to the life of the world.
It was her husband’s family which now prepared for the poor young
woman the most beautiful and most touching triumph. The father of her,
accuser, the Marquis de Beauharnais, as well as his elder son and wife,
the Duke and Duchess de la Rochefoucauld, and the Baroness Fanny de
Beauharnais, came in their state carriages to the abbey to receive
Josephine and lead her back to Paris. They had been joined by a great
number of the most respectable and most noble ladies of the Parisian
aristocracy, all in their state carriages, and in the splendor of their
armorial trappings and liveries, as if it were to accompany a queen
returning home.

Josephine shed tears of blessed joy when quitting her small, sombre
rooms in the abbey. She entered into the reception-room to bid farewell
to the prioress, and there met all these friends and relatives, who
saluted her with looks of deepest tenderness and sympathy, and embraced
her in their arms as one found again, as one long desired. This hour of
triumph indemnified her for the sorrows and sufferings of the unhappy
year which the poor wife of scarcely twenty years of age, and fleeing
from calumny and hatred, liar! sighed away in the desolate and lonesome
convent. She was free, she was justified; the disgrace was removed from
her head; she was again authorized to be the mother of her children; she
saw herself surrounded by loving parents, by true friends, and yet in
her heart there was a sting. Notwithstanding his cruelty, his harshness,
though he had abandoned and despised her, her heart could not be forced
into hating the husband for whom she had so much wept and suffered.
Her tears had impressed his image yet deeper in her heart. He was
the husband of her first love, the father of her children; how could
Josephine have hated him, how could her heart, so soft and true, cherish
animosity against him?

At the side of her husband’s father, and holding her daughter in
her arms, Josephine entered Paris. Behind them came a long train of
brilliant equipages, of relatives and friends. The passers-by stopped to
see the brilliant procession move before them, and to ask what it meant.
Some had recognized the viscountess, and they told to others of the
sufferings and of the acquittal of the poor young woman; and the people,
easily affected and sympathizing, rejoiced in the decision of the
Parliament, and with shouts and applause followed the carriage of the
young wife.

The marquis, her father-in-law, turned smilingly to Josephine.

“Do you see, my daughter,” said he, “what a triumph you enjoy, and how
much you are beloved and recognized?”

Josephine bent down toward the little Hortense and kissed her.

“Ah,” said she, in a low voice, “we are returning home, but the father
of my children will not bid us welcome. For a pressure of his hand,
for a kind word from him, I would gladly give the lofty triumph of this
hour.”

No, Alexandre de Beauharnais did not bid welcome to Josephine in his
father’s house, which they had occupied together. Ashamed and irritated,
he had sped away from Paris, and returned to his regiment at Verdun.

On the arm of the Marquis de Beauharnais, Josephine traversed the
apartments in which she had lived with her husband, and which she now
saw again as a widow, whom not death but life had separated from her
husband. Her father-in-law saw the tears standing in her eyes, and,
with the refined sympathy of a sensitive mind, he understood the painful
thoughts which agitated the soul of the young wife.

He fondly folded her in his arms, and laid his blessing hand on the head
of the little Hortense.

“I have lost my son Alexandre,” said he, “but I have found in his stead
a daughter. Yes, Josephine, you are and will remain my daughter, and to
you and to your children I will be a true father. My son has parted from
us, but we remain together in harmony and love, and as long as I live my
daughter Josephine will never want a protector.”




CHAPTER VI. TRIANON AND MARIE ANTOINETTE.


Whilst the Viscountess Josephine de Beauharnais, the empress of the
future, was living in enforced widowhood, the life of Marie Antoinette,
the queen of the present, resembled a serene, golden, sunny dream; her
countenance, beaming with youth, beauty, and grace, had never yet been
darkened with a cloud; her large blue eyes had not yet been dimmed with
tears.

In Fontainebleau, whither Josephine had retired with her father-in-law,
who through unfortunate events had lost the greatest part of his
fortune--in Fontainebleau lived the future Empress of France in sad
monotony; in Versailles, in Trianon, lived the present Queen of France
in the dazzling splendor of her glory, of her youth, and of her beauty.
In Trianon--this first gift of love from the king to his wife--the Queen
of France dreamed life away in a pleasant idyl, in a joyous pastoral
amusement; there, she tried to forget that she was queen, that is to
say, that she was the slave of etiquette; there she tried to indemnify
herself for the tediousness, the emptiness, the heartlessness of the
great festivals in the Tuileries and in Versailles.

In Trianon, Marie Antoinette desired to be the domestic wife, the
pleasant, youthful woman, as in the Tuileries and at Versailles she was
the proud and lofty queen. Marie Antoinette felt her days obscured by
the splendors of royalty; the crown weighed heavily on her beautiful
head, which seemed made for a crown of myrtle and roses; life’s
earnestness had not yet cast its breath on those rosy cheeks and robbed
of youth’s charm the smile on those crimson lips.

And why should not Marie Antoinette have smiled and been joyous? Every
thing shone round about her; every thing seemed to promise an enduring
harvest of felicity, for the surface of France was calm and bright, and
the queen’s vision had not yet been made keen enough by experience to
penetrate below this shining surface and see the precipices already
hidden underneath.

These precipices were yet covered with flowers, and the skies floating
above them seemed yet cloudless. The French people appeared to retain
yet for the royal family that enthusiastic devotedness which they had
manifested for centuries; they fondly proclaimed to the queen, whenever
she appeared, their affection, their admiration; they were not weary
with the expressions of their rapture and their worship, and Marie
Antoinette was not weary of listening to these jubilant manifestations
with which she was received in the theatre, on the streets, in the
gardens of the Tuileries, on the terraces of Versailles; she was not
weary of returning thanks with a friendly nod or with a gracious smile.

All the Parisians seemed still to be, as once, at the arrival of the
Dauphin, they had been called by the Baron de Vesenval, “the queen’s
lovers,” and also to rival one another in manifesting their allegiance.

Even the fish-women of Paris shared the general enthusiasm; and when,
in 1781, the queen had given to her husband a son, and to his people
a future monarch, the ladies of “the Halls” were amongst the most
enthusiastic friends of the queen. They even came to Versailles to
congratulate the royal couple on the dauphin’s birth, to salute the
young dauphin as the heir to the crown of France, and to sing under the
window of the king some songs, one of which so pleased the king that
oftentimes afterward, in his quiet and happy hours, he used to sing
a verse of it with a smile on his lip. This Terse, which even Marie
Antoinette sang, ran thus:

    “Ne craignez pas, cher papa,
        D’ voir augmenter vot’ famille,
     Le bon Dieu z’y pourvoira:
        Faits-en taut qu’ Versailles en fourmille;
     Yeut-il cent Bourbons cheu nos
        Ya du pain, du laurier pour tous.”

[Footnote: Madaine ile Carapan, “Histoire de Marie Antoinette,” vol. i.,
p. 218.]

In Trianon, Marie Antoinette passed her happiest hours and days; there,
the queen changed herself into a shepherdess; there, vanished from her
the empty splendors of purple and ermine, of etiquette and ceremonial;
there, she enjoyed life in its purity, in its innocency, in its
naturalness; such was the ideal Marie Antoinette wished to realize in
Trianon.

A simple dress of white muslin, a light kerchief of gauze, a straw hat
with a gayly-colored ribbon, such was the attire of the queen and of the
princesses whom Marie Antoinette invited. For the only etiquette which
prevailed at Trianon was this: that no one from the court, even princes
or princesses, should come to Trianon without having received an
invitation from the queen to that effect. Even the king submitted to
this ceremonial, and had expressly promised his consort never to come to
Trianon without an invitation, and, so as to please the queen, no sooner
did she announce her intention of retiring to her country-residence,
than he was always the first who hastened to obtain the favor of an
invitation.

In Trianon, Louis ceased to be king as well as Marie Antoinette ceased
to be queen. There Louis XVI. was but the farmer of the lady of the
castle; the Count d’Artois was the miller, and the learned Count de
Provence, the schoolmaster. For each of them had been erected in
the gardens of Trianon a separate house suited to their respective
avocations.

The farmer Louis had his farm-house built in Swiss style, with a balcony
of finely-carved wood at the gable-end, and with stalls attached to the
house, and where bellowed the stately red cows of Switzerland; behind
the house was a small garden in which the variegated convolvulus and the
daisy shed their fragrance.

The Count d’Artois had, near the stream which flowed through the park,
his miller’s house, with an enormous wheel, made of wooden spokes joined
together, and which moved lustily in the water, and adorned the clear
brook with wavelets of foam.

The Count de Provence had, under the shadow of a mulberry-tree,
his house, with a large school-room in it; and oftentimes the whole
court-society were converted into scholars of both sexes, who took their
seats on the benches of the school-room, whilst the Count de Provence,
in a long coat with lead buttons and with an immense rod in his hand,
ascended the cathedra and delivered to his school-children a humorous
and piquant lecture, all sparkling with wit.

The princesses also had in this “grove of Paradise,” as Marie Antoinette
called the woods of Trianon, their cottages, where they milked cows,
made butter, and searched for eggs in the hens’ nests. In the midst of
all these cottages and Swiss houses stood the cottage of the farming
Marie Antoinette; it was the finest and the most beautiful one of all,
adorned with vases full of fragrant blossoms and surrounded by flowering
plants and by cozy bowers of verdure. This cottage was the highest
delight of the queen’s life, the enchanting toy of her happiness. Even
the little castle of Trianon, however simple and modest, seemed too
splendid for the taste of the pastoral queen. For in Trianon one
was always reminded that the lady of this castle was a queen; there,
servants were in livery; there, officials and names and titles were to
be found, even when etiquette was forbidden entrance into the halls of
the little castle of Trianon. Marie Antoinette was no more queen there,
it is true, but she was the lady of the palace to whom the highest
respect was shown, and who therefore had been constrained expressly and
strictly to order that at her entrance into the drawing-rooms the ladies
would not interrupt the piece begun on the piano, nor stand up if seated
at their embroidery, and that the gentlemen would keep on undisturbed
their billiard-party or their game at trictrac.

But in her cottage all rank disappeared; there, was no distinction;
there, ceased the glory of name and title, and no sooner was the castle
abandoned for the cottages than each named the other with some Arcadic,
pastoral appellation, and each busied himself with his rural avocations.
How lustily the laughter, how merrily the song sounded from these
cottages amid these bowers and groves; how the countenance of the
farming-lady was lighted up with happiness and joy; with what delight
rested upon her the eye of the farmer Louis, who in his blue blouse,
with a straw hat on his head, with a rosy, fleshy, good-natured face,
was exactly fitted for his part, and who found it no difficult task to
hide under the farmer’s garment the purple of the king!

How often was Marie Antoinette seen in her simple white dress, her
glowing countenance shaded by a straw hat, bounding through the garden
as light as a gazelle, and going from the barn to the milk-room,
followed by the company she had invited to drink of her milk and eat of
her fresh eggs! How often, when the farmer Louis had secreted himself
in a grove for the sake of reading, how often was he discovered there by
the queen, torn away from his book and drawn to a dejeuner on the
grass! When that was over, and Louis had gone back to his book, Marie
Antoinette hastened to her cows to see them milked, or she went into the
rocking-boat to fish, or else reposed on the lawn, busy as a peasant,
with her spindle.

But this quiet occupation detained not long the lively, spirited
farming-lady; with a loud voice, she called to her maids or companions
from the cottages, and then began those merry, unrestrained amusements
which the queen had introduced into society, and which since then have
been introduced not only into the drawing-rooms of the upper classes,
but also into the more austere circles of the wealthy burghers.

Then the queen with her court played at blindman’s bluff, at pampam,
or at a game invented by the Duke de Chartres, the future Duke Philippe
d’Orleans, Egalite, and which game was called “descamper,” a sort of
hide-and-seek amusement, in which the ladies hid themselves in the shady
bushes and groves, to be there discovered by the gentlemen, and then
to endeavor by flight to save themselves, for if once caught and seized
they had to purchase their liberty with a kiss.

When evening came all left the cottages for the little castle, and
the pastoral recreations gave way to the higher enjoyments of refined
society. Marie Antoinette was not in the castle of Trianon queen again,
but she was not either the simple lady of the farm, she was the lady of
the castle, and--the first amateur in the theatrical company which twice
a week exhibited their pieces in the theatre of Trianon.

These theatrical performances were quite as much the queen’s delight as
her pastoral occupations in her farm cottages, and Marie Antoinette
was unwearied in learning and studying her parts. She had chosen for
teachers two pensioned actors, Caillot and Dazincourt, who had to come
every day to Trianon to teach to the noble group of actors the
small operas, vaudevilles, and dramas, which had been chosen for
representation, and in which the queen naturally always played the
part of first amateur, while the princesses, the wives of the Counts de
Provence and Artois, the two Countesses de Polignac, undertook the other
parts, even those of gentlemen, when the two brothers of the king, the
only male members of this theatrical company, could not assume all the
gentlemen’s parts.

At first the audience at these representations was very limited. Only
the king, the princes and the princesses of the royal household, not
engaged in the performance, constituted the audience; but afterward it
was found that to encourage the actors a little, a larger audience
was needed; then the boxes were filled with the governesses of the
princesses, the queen’s waiting-women, whose sisters and daughters with
a few other select ladies had been invited.

It was natural that those who had been thus preferred, and who enjoyed
the privilege of seeing the Queen of France, the princes and princesses,
appear as actors, should be full of admiration and applause at the
talents displayed by the royal troupe; and as they alone formed the
select audience, whose presence had for object to animate the artistes,
they had also assumed the duty to excite and to vitalise the zeal
and the fire of the players by their enthusiasm and by their liberal
praises.

This applause of a grateful public blinded the royal actors as to their
real merits, and excited in them the ambition to exhibit their artistic
talents before a larger audience and to be admired. Consequently, the
queen granted to the officers of the lifeguard and to the masters of the
king’s stalls and to their brothers, admittance into the theatre; the
gentlemen and ladies of the court had seats in the gilt boxes; a larger
number of ladies were invited, and soon from all sides came requests for
tickets of admission to the theatrical performances in the Trianon.

The same privileges which had been allowed to a few could not be, and
it was not desirable that they should be, granted to all; those who were
purposely refused revenged themselves of this refusal by an unsparing
criticism on the performers and by bitter sarcasm at the Queen of
France, who so far forgot her dignity as to play comedies before her
subjects, and who played her part not always in such a manner as to give
to a sharp criticism no reason for blame.

The queen possessed, it is true, the desire, but not the ability, to be
an actress or a songstress. When she played the part of a comedian, no
one felt tempted to laugh; but contrariwise it might often happen that,
when her part was tragical, impressive and touching even to tears, the
faces of her auditors brightened with involuntary laughter.

Once even it happened that a person from the audience, when the queen
had not yet left the stage, cried aloud, and perhaps with the intention
of being heard by her: “One must confess that royal acting is bad
acting!”

Though she understood the words, yet the smile on her lips vanished not
away; and as the Countess Diana de Polignac wished to persuade her to
allow the impertinent one who had spoken these words, to be sought out
and punished, the queen, shrugging her shoulders answered: “My friend, I
say as Madame de Maintenon: ‘I am upon the stage, and must therefore be
willing to be applauded or hissed.’”

Yes, she had to endure the applause or the hissing. Unfortunately, the
number of those who hissed grew every day. The queen had provoked public
expression since she bade it defiance. On the day she banished etiquette
from its watchful duty at the apartments of the Queen of France, the
public expression with its train of slanders and maliciousness entered
in through the open portals. The queen was blamed for her theatricals as
well as for her simple, unadorned toilet, yet she was imitated in these
two things, as even before the costly and luxurious toilet, the high
head-gears of the queen, and also blindman’s buff and descamper, had
been imitated. Every woman now wanted such a simple negligee, such a
headdress, such a feather as Marie Antoinette. As once before, Madame
Bertin, the celebrated milliner of the queen, had been circumvented to
furnish a pattern of the queen’s coiffure, so now all the ladies rushed
upon her in flocks to procure the small caps, fichus, and mantelets,
after the queen’s model. The robes with long trains, the court-dresses
of heavy silk, jewels and gold ornaments, were on a sudden despised;
every thing which could add brilliancy and dignity to the toilet was
banished, the greatest simplicity and nonchalance were now the fashion;
every lady strove, if possible, to resemble a shepherdess of Watteau,
and it was soon impossible to distinguish a duchess from an actress.

Not only the ladies but also the gentlemen were carried away by this
flood of novelty. They gave up the boots with red heels, the embroidered
garments, as already before they had given up laces, bandelets, gold
fringes, and diamond buttons on the hats; they put on simple coats of
cloth as the burgher and the man of the people wore; they abandoned
their equipages, with their brilliant armorial trappings and the golden
liveries, and found satisfaction in promenading the streets, with cane
in hand, and with boots instead of buckled shoes.

It is true these street promenadings of the nobility were not oftentimes
without inconvenience and molestation. As without the insignia of their
rank and position they mixed with the society of the streets, entered
into taverns and cafes, the people took them for what they seemed to be,
for their equals, and instead of respectfully making way for them,
the people claimed as much attention from them as they themselves were
willing to give. Often enough disputes and scuffles took place between
the disguised nobleman and the man of the people, the laborer, or the
commissionnaire, and at such experiments of hand to hand the victory was
not to the nobleman, but to the fist of the man, of the people.

The novelty of such scenes excited the fastidious aristocracy; it became
a sort of passion to mix with the people, to frequent the cabarets, to
strike some bargain at trade, to be the hero of a fist-fight, even if
it ended by the stout workmen throwing down the aristocrats who had
despised them. To be thrown down was no more considered by the nobility
as a disgrace, and they applauded these affrays as once they had
applauded duelling.

The aristocracy mixed with the people, adopted their manners and usages,
even much of their mode of thinking, of their democratic opinions, and,
by divesting themselves of their external dignity, of their halo, the
nobility threw down the barrier of separation which stood between them
and the democracy; that respect and esteem which the man of the people
had hitherto maintained toward the nobleman vanished away.

The principle of equality, which was to have such fatal consequences for
France, arose from the folly of the aristocracy; and Marie Antoinette
was the one who, with her taste for simplicity, with her opposition to
etiquette and ceremony, had called this principle into life.

Not only was the queen imitated in her simplicity, she was also imitated
in her love of comedy. These theatrical amusements of the queen were
a subject of reproach, and yet these private recreations of Marie
Antoinette were the fashion of the day. The taste for theatrical
representations made its way into all classes of society; soon there was
no nobleman, no banker, not even a respectable, well-to-do merchant,
who had not in his house a small theatre, and who, with his family and
friends, endeavored not to emulate on his own narrow stage the manners
of the celebrated actors.

Before these days, a nobleman would have considered himself insulted and
dishonored if he had been supposed to have become a comedian, or even
to have assumed a comedian’s garb, were it but in the home-circle. The
queen by her example had now destroyed this prepossession, and it was
now so much bon ton to act a comedy that even men of gravity, even the
first magistrate of Paris, could so much forget the dignity of position
as to commit to memory and even to act some of the parts of a buffoon.
[Footnote: Montjoie, “Histoire de Marie Antoinette, Reine de France.”]

It was also soon considered to be highly fashionable to set one’s self
against the prejudice which had been hitherto fostered against
actors; and, whereas the queen took lessons in singing from Garat, the
opera-singer, and even sang duets with her, she threw down the wall of
partition which had hitherto separated the artistes of the stage from
good society.

Unfortunate queen, who, with the best qualities of the heart, was
preparing her own ruin; who understood not that the freedom and license
which she herself granted, would soon throw on the roof of the Tuileries
the firebrand which reduced to dust and ashes the throne of the
Bourbons!--unfortunate queen, who in her modesty would so gladly forget
her exaltation and her majesty, and who thereby taught her subjects to
make light of majesty and to despise the throne!

She saw not yet the abyss opening under her feet; the flowers of Trianon
hid it from her view! She heard not the distant mutterings of the public
mind, which, like the raging wave of the storm, swelled up nearer and
nearer the throne to crush it one day under the howling thunders of the
unshackled elements of the unloosed rage of the people!

The skies, arching over the fragrant blossoms of the charming Trianon,
and over the cottages of the farming queen, were yet serene and
cloudless, and the voice of public opinion was yet drowned in the joyous
laughter which echoed from the cottages of Trianon, or in the sweet
harmonies which waved in the concert-hall, when the queen, with Garat,
or with the Baron de Vaudreuil, the most welcome favorite of the ladies,
and the most accomplished courtier of his day, sang her duets.

Repose and peace prevailed yet in Trianon, and the loyal subjects of the
King of France made their pilgrimages to Trianon, there to admire the
idyls of the queen and to watch for the favorable opportunity of espying
the queen, Marie Antoinette, in her rustic costume, with a basket of
eggs on her arm, or the spindle in hand, and to be greeted by her with
a salutation, a friendly word. For Marie Antoinette in Trianon was only
the lady of the mansion, or the farming-lady--so much so, that she had
allowed the very last duties of etiquette, which separated the subject
from the queen, to be abandoned, that even when with her gay company she
was in Trianon, the gates of the park and of the castle were not closed
to visitors, but were opened to any one who had secured from the keeper
a card of admission; the benefit arising from these cards was applied by
order of the queen to the relief of the poor of Versailles. It is true,
one condition of small importance was attached, “by order of the queen,”
 to the obtaining of such a card. It was necessary to belong to the
nobility, or to the higher magistracy, so as to be entitled to purchase
a card of admission into the Trianon, and this sole insignificant
condition contained the germ of much evil and of bitter hatred. The
merchant, the spicier, was conscious of a bitter insult in this order,
which banished him from Trianon, which made it impossible for him to
satisfy his curiosity, and to see the queen as a shepherdess, and the
king as a farmer. This order only whetted more and more the hatred and
the contempt for the preferred classes, for the aristocrats, and turned
the most important class of the population, the burgesses, into enemies
of the queen. For it was the queen who had given this order which kept
away from Trianon the tradesmen; it was the queen alone who ruled in
Trianon: and, to vent vengeance on the queen’s order, she was blamed
for assuming a right belonging only to the King of France. Only he, the
king, was entitled to give laws to France, only he could set on the very
front of the law this seal: “DE PAR LE ROI.”

And now the queen wanted to assume this privilege. In the castles of
pleasure presented by the king to the queen, in Trianon as well as in
St. Cloud, was seen at the entrance of the gardens a tablet, containing
the regulations under which admission was granted to the public, and
these two tablets began with the formula, “DE PAR LA HEINE!” This
unfortunate expression excited the ill-will and the anger of all France;
every one felt himself injured, every one was satisfied to see therein
an attack on the integrity of the monarchy, on the sovereignty of the
king.

“It is no more the king alone who enacts laws,” they said, “but the
queen also assumes this right; she makes use of the formalities of the
state, she issues laws without the approbation of the Parliament. The
queen wants to place our king aside and despoil us of our rights, so as
to take the king’s place!”

And these complaints, these reproaches became so vehement, so loud, that
their echoes resounded in the chambers of the king, so that even one of
the ministers could make observations to the king on that subject, and
say: “It is certainly immoral and impolitic for a queen of France to own
castles for her own private use” [Footnote: Campan, “Memoires,” vol. i.,
p. 274.]

The good Louis therefore ventured to speak to his consort on this
subject, and to ask of her to remove this expression which gave so much
offence, and which had so violently excited the public sentiment.

But the pure heart of Marie Antoinette rebelled against such a
supposition; her pride was stirred up that she, a queen, the daughter of
the Caesars, should make concession to public opinion; that she should
submit to this imaginary and invisible power, which dared despise her as
a queen, which she recognized not and would not recognize!

This power, the public opinion, stood yet behind Marie Antoinette as an
invisible, an unobserved phantom, which soon was to be transformed into
a cruel monster, whose giant hand would pitilessly crush the happiness
and the peace of the queen.

The prayers and expostulations of the king were in vain. Marie
Antoinette would not bow to the public sentiment; she would not depart
from her regulations, she would not strike off her “De par la reine” for
the sake of “De par le peuple”

“My name is there in its right place,” said she, with a countenance
beaming with resolution and pride; “these gardens and castles are my
property, and I can very well issue orders in them, without interfering
with state rights.”

And the “De par la reine” remained on the regulation-tablets in Trianon
as well as in St. Cloud; and the people, who, through birth or through
official position, were not entitled to enter Trianon, came thither at
least to read the tablets of rules at the gate of entrance, and to
fill up their hearts with scorn and contempt, and to utter loud curses
against this presumptuous and daring “De par la reine.”

And this woman, whose pride and imperiousness kept away and scorned away
the burgesses from the gates of Trianon, came to Trianon there to rest
from the unbending majesty of her sovereignty, and she herself used to
say to her ladies, with her own enchanting smile, “To forget that she
was queen.”

The numberless fairy-tales related about the enchanted castle of the
queen had found their way to Fontainebleau, and had been re-echoed in
the quiet, lonely house where lived the Marquis de Beauharnais and
his family. The marquis, always extremely attentive to procure for his
beloved daughter-in-law some distraction and some recreation, proposed
to Josephine to visit this Trianon, which furnished so much material
for admiration and slander, and to make thither with a few friends a
pleasure excursion.

Josephine gladly accepted the invitation; she longed for diversion and
society. Her young, glowing heart had been healed and strengthened after
the deep wound which the ever-beloved husband had inflicted; she had
submitted to her fate; she was a divorced woman, but Parliament had by
its judgment kept her honor free from every shadow; public opinion had
pronounced itself in her favor; the love of her parents, of the father
of him who had so shamefully accused her, so cruelly deserted her,
endeavored to make compensation for what she had lost. Josephine could
not trouble, with her sorrows, with her sad longings of soul, those who
so much busied themselves in cheering her up. She had, therefore, so
mastered herself as to appear content, as to dry here tears; and her
youth, the freshness and elasticity of her mind, had come to the help
of her efforts. She had at first smiled through effort, she soon did
it from the force of youthful pleasure; she had at first repressed her
tears by the power of her will, soon her tears were dried up and her
eyes irradiated again the fire of youth and hope, of the hope once
more to win her husband’s heart, to return her two graceful and beloved
children to their father, whom their youth needed, for whom every
evening she raised to the God of love the prayers which their mother
with low, trembling voice and tears in her eyes made them say after her.

Josephine, then, in company with her aunt Madame de Renaudin and
with her father-in-law the Marquis de Beauharnais, undertook this
pleasure-excursion to Trianon. The sight of these glorious parks, these
gardens so artistically laid out, charmed her and filled her with the
sweet reminiscences of the loved home, of the beautiful gardens in
Martinique, which she herself with her slaves had cultivated, in which
she had planted those beautiful flowers whose liveliness of color and
whose fragrance of blossom were here in hot-houses so much praised. The
love of plants and flowers had ever remained fresh amid the storms
and sorrows which in the last years had passed over her heart, and
oftentimes she had sought in the study of botany forgetfulness and
refreshment. With a vivacity and a joyfulness such as had not been seen
in her for a long time, Josephine wandered about this beautiful park,
these hot-houses and gardens, and, transported with joy and admiration,
she exclaimed: “Oh, how happy must the queen be to call this paradise
her own!”

The sound of approaching voices interrupted her in her observations and
in her admiration, which, perchance, was not entirely free from envy.
Through the foliage of the trees was seen a large company approaching
the queen’s farm-house, before which stood Josephine with her escort. At
the curve of the path near the grove where Josephine stood, appeared
a woman. A white muslin dress, not expanded by the stiff, ceremonious
hoop-petticoat, but falling down in ample folds, wrapped up her tall,
noble figure, a small lace kerchief covered the beautiful neck, and
in part the splendid shoulders. The deep-blond unpowdered hair hung
in heavy, curly locks on either side of the rosy cheeks; the head was
covered with a large, round straw hat, adorned with long, streaming silk
ribbons; on the arm, partly covered with a black knit glove, hung an
ornamented woven basket, which was completely filled with eggs.

“The queen!” murmured Josephine, trembling within herself, and,
frightened at this unexpected meeting, she wanted to withdraw behind the
grove, in the hope of being unnoticed by the farmer’s wife passing by.

But Marie Antoinette had already seen her, and on her beautiful, smiling
countenance was not for a moment expressed either surprise or concern at
this unexpected meeting with uninvited strangers. She was so accustomed
to see curiosity-seekers in her lovely Trianon, and to meet them,
disturbed not in the least her unaffected serenity. A moment only she
stood still, to allow her followers, the Duchesses de Polignac, the
Princess de Lamballe, and the two Counts de Coigny, to draw near; then
lightly and smilingly she walked toward the house near which Josephine
bewildered and blushing stood, whilst the marquis bowed profoundly and
reverentially.

The queen, who was about to pass by and enter into the house, stood
still. Her large dark-blue eye was for a moment fixed with questioning
expression upon Josephine, then a smile illumined her beautiful
countenance. She had recognized the Viscountess de Beauharnais, though
she had seen her only twice. Although, through her husband’s rank and
station, Josephine was entitled to appear at court, yet she had always,
with all the retreating anxiety of inexperienced youth, endeavored to
evade the solemnity of an official presentation. The young, lively,
unaffected Creole had cherished an invincible horror for the stiff
court-etiquette, for the ceremonial court-dress of gold brocade, with
the court-mantle strictly embroidered after the established pattern, and
which terminated in a long, heavy train, for the majestic head-gear of
feathers, flowers, laces, and veils, all towering up nearly a yard high,
and, above all things, for those rules and laws which regulated and
fixed every word, every step, every movement, at a solemn presentation
at court.

Marie Antoinette had had compassion on the timidity of the young
Creole, and to spare her the solemnity of a rigid presentation had twice
received at a private audience the young Viscountess de Beauharnais, and
had then received also her homage. [Footnote: Le Normand, “Histoire de
l’Imperatrice Josephine,” vol. i., p. 97.]

The youthful, charming appearance of Josephine, her peculiar and at
the same time ingenuous and graceful attitude, had not been without
impression on the queen; and with the most sympathizing interest, she
had heard of the sad disturbances which had clouded the matrimonial
happiness of the young Creole.

No longer, as before, had Marie Antoinette requested the Viscount de
Beauharnais, the beautiful dancer of Versailles, to dance with her;
and when Parliament had given its sentence, and openly and solemnly had
proclaimed the innocency of Josephine, the accused wife, the queen also
had loudly expressed her satisfaction at this judgment, and the Viscount
de Beauharnais was no more invited to the court festivities.

About to enter into the house, the queen had recognized the young
viscountess, and with a friendly movement of the head she beckoned her
to approach, welcomed the marquis, whom her short-sightedness had not at
once recognized, to her beloved Trianon, and she requested them both
to visit her little kingdom as often as they would wish, and to examine
every thing attentively.

In the goodness and generosity of her heart, the queen gladly desired
to make amends to the young, timid woman, who, embarrassed and blushing,
stood before her, for the sufferings she had endured, for the disgrace
under which she had had to bow her head; she wanted to give the accused
innocent one a reparation of honor such as Parliament and public
sentiment had already done.

She was consequently all goodness, all condescension, all confidence;
she spoke to Josephine, not as a queen to her favored subjects, but as
a young woman to a young woman, as to her equal. With sympathetic
friendliness she made inquiries concerning the welfare of the
viscountess and her family; she invited her to come often to Trianon,
and, with a flattering allusion to the vast knowledge of the viscountess
in botany, she asked her if she was satisfied with the arrangements of
garden and hot-houses.

Josephine, with the sensitiveness and fine tact natural to her, felt
that the trivial flattery of a courtier would but be a wretched and
inappropriate return for so much goodness and loving-kindness; she
felt that frankness and truth were the thanks due to the queen’s
large-heartedness.

She therefore answered the queen’s questions with impartial sincerity,
and, encouraged by the kindness of the queen, she openly and clearly
gave her opinion concerning the arrangement of the hot-houses, and drew
the attention of the queen to some precious and choice plants which she
had noticed in the hot-houses.

Marie Antoinette listened to her with lively interest, and at parting
extended to her in a friendly manner her beautiful hand.

“Come soon again, viscountess,” said she, with that beautiful smile
which ever won her true hearts; “you are worthy to enjoy the beauty
of my beloved Trianon, for you have eyes and sense for the beautiful.
Examine everything closely, and when we see one another again, tell
me what you have observed and what has pleased you. It will ever be a
pleasure to see you.” [Footnote: The very words of the queen.--See Le
Normand, “Histoire,” &c., vol. i., p. 135.]

But Josephine was no more to see the beautiful queen, so worthy of
compassion; and these kind words which Marie Antoinette had spoken to
her were the last which Josephine was ever to hear from her lips.

A few days after this visit to Trianon, Josephine received from her
parents in Martinique letters which had for their object to persuade her
with the tenderness of love, with all the reasons of wisdom, to
return to her home, to the house of her parents, to withdraw with
bold resolution from all the inconveniences and humiliations of her
precarious and dangerous situation, and, instead of living in humble
solitude as a divorced, despised woman, sooner to come to Martinique,
and there in her parents’ home be again the beloved and welcomed
daughter.

Josephine hesitated still. She could not come to the resolution of
abandoning the hope of a reunion with Alexandre de Beauharnais; she
dreamt yet of the happiness of seeing the beloved wanderer return to his
wife, to his children.

But her aunt and her father-in-law knew better than she that there was
no prospect of such an event; they knew that the viscount was still the
impassioned lover of the beautiful Madame de Gisard; that she held him
too tightly in her web to look for a possibility of his returning to his
legitimate affection.

If any thing could rouse him from this love-spell, and bring him back to
duty and reason, it would be that sudden, unexpected departure; it would
be the conviction which would necessarily be impressed upon him,
that Josephine desired to be forever separated from him; that she was
conscious of being divorced from him forever, and that, in the pride of
her insulted womanhood, she wished to withdraw herself and her daughter
from his approaches, and from the scandal which his passion for Madame
de Gisard was giving.

Such were the reasons with which her relatives, even the grandfather
of her two children, sought to persuade her to a voyage to
Martinique--bitter though the anguish would be for them to be deprived
of the presence of the gentle, lovely young woman, whose youthful
freshness and grace had like sunshine cheered the lonely house in
Fontainebleau; to see also part from them the little Hortense, whose
joyous voice of childhood had now and then recalled the faithless son
to the father’s house, and which was still a bond which united Josephine
with her husband and with his family.

Josephine had to give way before these arguments, however much her heart
bled. She had long felt how much of impropriety and of danger there was
in the situation of a young woman divorced from her husband, and how
much more dignified and expedient it would be for her to return to
her father’s home and to the bosom of her family. She therefore took a
decided resolution; she tore herself away from her relatives, from her
beloved son, whom she could not take with her, for he belonged to the
father. With a stream of painful tears she bade farewell to the love of
youth, to the joys of youth, from which naught remained but the wounds
of a despised heart, and the children who gazed at her with the beloved
eyes of their father.

In the month of July of the year 1788, Josephine, with her little
five-year-old daughter Hortense, left Fontainebleau, went to Havre,
whence she embarked for Martinique.




CHAPTER VII. LIEUTENANT NAPOLEON BONAPARTE.


While the Viscountess Josephine de Beauharnais was, during long years of
resignation, enduring all the anguish, humiliations, and agonies of an
unhappy marriage, the first pain and sorrow had also clouded the days of
the young Corsican boy who, in the same year as Josephine, had embarked
from his native land for France.

In the beginning of the year 1785, Napoleon Bonaparte had lost his
father. In Montpellier, whither he had come for the cure of his diseased
breast, he died, away from home, from his Letitia and his children.
Only his eldest son Joseph stood near his dying couch, and, moreover,
a fortunate accident had brought to pass that the poor, lonely sufferer
should meet there a friendly home, where he was received with the most
considerate affection. Letitia’s companion of youth, the beautiful
Panonia Comnene, now Madame de Permont, resided in Montpellier with
her husband, who was settled there, and with all the faithfulness and
friendship of a Corsican, she nursed the sick husband of her Letitia.

But neither the skill of the renowned physicians of Montpellier, nor the
tender care of friends, nor the tears of the son, could keep alive the
unfortunate Charles de Bonaparte. For three days long he struggled with
death; for three days long his youth, his manhood’s powers, resisted the
mighty foe, which already held him in its chains; then he had to submit
to the conqueror. Exhausted with death’s pallor, Charles de Bonaparte
sank back on his couch, and as Death threw his dark shadows on his
face bathed in cold perspiration, Charles de Bonaparte, with stammering
tongue, in the last paroxysms of fancy, exclaimed: “It is in vain!
Nothing can save me! Even Napoleon’s sword, which one day is to triumph
over all Europe, even that sword cannot frighten away the dragon of
death which crouches on my breast!” [Footnote: See “Memoires du Roi
Joseph,” vol. i., p. 29.]

Wonderful vision of a dying man! The dimmed eye of the dying father
saw his son Napoleon’s sword, “which one day was to triumph over all
Europe;” as he prophesied its power, he sighed at the same time over the
impotency which holds all mankind in its bands, and leaves even the hero
as a powerless child in the hands of fate. The sword which was to be a
yoke to all Europe could not terrify from the breast of his father the
dragon of death!

Napoleon received the news of his father’s decease whilst at the
military school of Paris, where he had been placed for the last six
months, to the joy and satisfaction of his teachers as well as to that
of his schoolmates in Brienne. For the reserved, taciturn, proud boy,
who, rugged and blunt, stood aloof from his comrades, who even dared
speak rude and bitter words against his teachers and against the whole
military institution at Brienne, was oftentimes an inconvenience and a
burden as well to teachers as to schoolmates; and all felt relieved, as
from a depressing weight, when they no more feared the naming eyes of
the boy who observed every thing, who criticised every thing, and passed
judgment upon every thing.

But if he was not loved, it was impossible to refuse esteem to his
capacity, to his desire for learning; and the testimony which Monsieur
de Heralio, the principal of the institution of Brienne, sent with the
young Napoleon to Paris, was a tribute of respect and an acknowledgment
of merit. He portrayed him “as having an extremely capacious head,
especially skilled in mathematics, and of great powers and talents.” As
to his character, one of the professors of the institution had in the
testimonial written the remark: “A Corsican by birth and character. He
will do great things, if circumstances are favorable.”

But circumstances did not appear favorable, but contrariwise seemed to
bo roused in enmity against the poor Corsican boy. He had been scarcely
half a year in Paris when he lost his father, and this grief, of which
not a murmur escaped, which he kept within, devouring his heart, as
every thing else which affected him, made his existence still more
reserved, still more retired, and isolated him more and more. Moreover,
death had not only taken away the father, but also the support which
Napoleon received from him. The means of the Bonaparte family were very
meagre, and barely sufficed to the support of Signora Letitia and her
seven children. Napoleon could not and dared not require or accept
any help from his mother, on whom and on his brother Joseph it became
incumbent to educate and support the young family. He had to be
satisfied to live upon the bounty which the royal treasury furnished to
the young men at the military school.

But these limited means were to the ambitious boy a source of
humiliation and pain. The majority of his comrades consisted of young
aristocrats, who, provided with ample means, led a gay, luxurious,
dissipated life, had horses, servants, equipages, kept up one with
another expensive dinner-parties and dejeuners, and seized every
opportunity to organize a festivity or a pleasure-party. Every
departure, every admission of a scholar, was celebrated with brilliant
display; every birthday furnished the opportunity of a feast, and every
holiday became the welcomed occasion for a pleasure excursion which the
young men on horseback, and followed by their servants in livery, made
in the vicinity of Paris.

Napoleon could take no part in all these feastings and dissipations; and
as his proud heart could not acknowledge his poverty, he put on the mask
of a stoic, who, with contemptuous disregard, cast away vain pleasures
and amusements, and scorned those who with unrestrained zest abandoned
themselves to them.

He had scarcely been half a year in the military school when he gave
loud expression to his jealousy and envy; the young Napoleon, nearly
sixteen years old, undertook boldly to censure in the very presence of
the teachers the regulations of the institution. In a memorial which
he had composed, and which he presented to the second director of the
establishment, M. Berton, he gave utterance to his own views in the most
energetic and daring manner, imposing upon the professors the duty of
making a complete change in the institution; of limiting the number
of servants, so that the military pupils might learn to wait upon
themselves; of simplifying the noonday meal, so as to accustom them to
moderation; of forbidding banquets, dejeuners, and pleasure-excursions,
so that they might not become inured to a frivolous, extravagant mode of
life.

This mask of a censuring stoic, which he put on in the presence of
teachers and school-mates, he retained also with his few friends. Madame
de Permont, a short time after the death of Napoleon’s father, came with
her family to Paris, where her husband had obtained an important and
lucrative office; her son Albert attended the military school and was
soon the friend of Napoleon, as much as a friendship could be formed
between the young, lively M. de Permont, the son of wealthy and
distinguished parents, and the reserved, proud Napoleon Bonaparte, the
son of a poor, lonely widow.

However, Napoleon this time acquiesced in the wishes of his true friend,
and condescended to pass his holidays with Albert in the house of
Madame de Permont, the friend of his mother; and oftentimes his whole
countenance would brighten into a smile, when speaking with her of the
distant home, of the mother, and of the family. But as many times also
that countenance would darken when, gazing round, he tacitly compared
this costly, tastefully decorated mansion with the poor and sparingly
furnished house in which his noble and beautiful mother lived with her
six orphans, and who in her household duties had to wait upon herself;
when again he noticed with what solicitude and love Madame de Permont
had her children educated by masters from the court, by governesses
and by teachers at enormous salaries, whilst her friend Letitia had to
content herself with the very deficient institutions of learning to
be found in Corsica, because her means were not sufficient to bring to
Paris, to the educational establishment of St. Cyr, her young daughters,
like the parents of the beautiful Pauline.

The young Napoleon hated luxury, because he himself had not the means
of procuring it; he spoke contemptuously of servants, for his position
allowed him not to maintain them; he spoke against the expensive noonday
meal, because he had to be content with less; he scorned the amusements
of his school-mates, because, when they arranged their picnics and
festivities, his purse allowed him not to take a part in them.

One day in the military school, as one of the teachers was to bid it
farewell, the scholars organized a festivity, toward which each of them
was to contribute a tolerably large sum. It was perhaps not all accident
that precisely on that day M. de Permont, the father of Albert, came to
the military school to visit his son, and Napoleon, his son’s friend.

He found all the scholars in joyous excitement and motion; his son
Albert was, like the rest, intently busy with the preparations of the
feast, which was to take place in the garden, and to end in a great
display of fireworks. All faces beamed with delight, all eyes were
illumined, and the whole park re-echoed with jubilant cries and joyous
laughter.

But Napoleon Bonaparte was not among the gay company. M. de Permont
found him in a remote, lonesome path. He was walking up and down
with head bent low, his hands folded behind his back; as he saw M. de
Permont, his face became paler and gloomier, and a look nearly scornful
met the unwelcomed disturber.

“My young friend,” said M. de Permont, with a friendly smile, “I come to
bring you the small sum which you need to enable you to take a part in
the festivity. Here it is; take it, I pray you.”

But Napoleon, with a vehement movement of the hand, waved back the
offered money, a burning redness for a moment covered his face, then his
cheeks assumed that yellowish whiteness which in the child had always
indicated a violent emotion.

“No,” cried he, vehemently, “no, I have nothing to do with this
meaningless festivity. I thank you--I receive no alms.”

M. de Permont gazed with emotions of sympathizing sorrow in the pale
face of the poor young man for whom poverty was preparing so many
griefs, and in the generosity of his heart he had recourse to a
falsehood.

“This is no alms I offer you, Napoleon,” said he, gently, “but this
money belongs to you, it comes from your father. At his dying hour he
confided to me a small sum of money, with the express charge to keep it
for you and to give you a portion of it in pressing circumstances, when
your personal honor required it. I therefore bring you to-day the fourth
part of this sum, and retain the rest for another pressing occasion.”

With a penetrating, searching look. Napoleon gazed into the face of
the speaker, and the slight motions of a sarcastic smile played for an
instant around his thin, compressed lips.

“Well, then,” said he, after a pause, “since this money comes from my
father, I can use it; but had you simply wished to lend it to me,
I could not have received it. My mother has already too much
responsibility and care; I cannot increase them by an outlay, especially
when such an outlay is imposed upon me by the sheer folly of my
schoolmates.” [Footnote: Napoleon’s words.--See “Memoires de la Duchesse
d’Abrantes,” vol. i., p. 81.]

He then took the offered sum for which, as he thought, he was indebted
to no man, and hastened to pay his contribution to the festivity. But,
in respect to his principles, he took no part in the festivity, but
declaimed all the louder, and in a more biting tone, against the
criminal propensities for pleasure in the young men who, instead of
turning their attention to their studies, lavished away their precious
time in dissipation and frivolities.

These anxieties and humiliations of poverty Napoleon had doubly to
endure, not only for himself, but also for his sister Marianne (who
afterward called herself Elise). She had been, as already said, at her
father’s intercession and application, received in the royal educational
institute of St. Cyr, and there enjoyed the solid and brilliant
education of the pupils of the king. But the spirit of luxury and the
desire for pleasure had also penetrated into this institution, founded
by the pious and high-minded Madame de Maintenon, and the young ladies
of St. Cyr had among themselves picnics and festivals, as well as the
young men of the military school.

Napoleon, whose means, as long as he was in Brienne, never allowed him
to visit his beloved sister at St. Cyr, had now frequent opportunities
of seeing her, for Madame de Permont, in her royal friendship to the
Bonaparte family, took as lively an interest in the daughter as in the
son of her friend Letitia, and often drove to St. Cyr to visit the young
and beautiful Marianne.

A few days after the festival in the military school, a short vacation
had followed, and Napoleon passed it with his friend Albert in the house
of the family of Permont. To please young Napoleon, it was decided to
go to St. Cyr, and the glowing cheeks and the lively manner with which
Napoleon, during the journey, conversed with M. and Madame de Permont,
proved what satisfaction he anticipated in meeting his sister.

But Marianne Bonaparte did not seem to share this satisfaction. With
downcast countenance and sad mien she entered the reception-room and
saluted M. and Madame Permont, and even her brother, with a gloomy,
despairing look. As she was questioned about the cause of her sadness,
she broke into tears, and threw herself with vehement emotion into the
arms of Madame de Permont.

Vain were the prayers and expostulations of her mother’s friend to have
her reveal the cause of her sadness. Marianne only shook her head in a
negative manner, and ever a fresh flow of tears started from her eyes,
but she remained silent.

Napoleon, who at first, pale and silent, had looked on this outbreak of
sorrow, now excitedly approached his sister, and, laying his hand upon
her arm, said in angry tones: “Since you cry, you must also confess the
cause of your tears, or else we are afraid that you weep over some wrong
of which you are guilty. But woe to you if it is so! I am here in the
name of our father, and I will be without pity!” [Footnote: “Memoires de
la Duehesse d’Abrantes.”]

Marianne trembled, and cast a timid, anxious look upon her young
brother, whose voice had assumed such a peculiar, imperious
expression--whose eyes shone with the expression of a proud, angry
master.

“I am in no wise guilty, my brother,” murmured she, “and yet I am sad
and unhappy.”

And blushing, trembling, with broken words, interrupted by tears and
sighs, Marianne related that next day, a farewell festival was to take
place in the institution in honor of one of the pupils about to leave.
The whole class was taking a part in it, and each of the young ladies
had already paid her contribution.

“But I only am not able,” exclaimed Marianne, with a loud burst of
anguish, “I have but six francs; if I give them, nothing is left me, and
my pension is not paid until six weeks. But even were I to give all I
have, my miserable six francs would not be enough.”

Very unwillingly indeed had Napoleon, whilst Marianne thus spoke,
put his hand into his pocket, as if to draw out the money which his
sorrowing sister needed, but remembering his own poverty, his hand
dropped at his side; a deep glow of anger overspread his cheeks, and
wildly stamping down with the foot he turned away and walked to the
window, perhaps to allow none to notice the nervous agitation of his
countenance and his tears of vexation and shame.

But what Napoleon could not do, that did Madame de Permont. She gave to
the weeping young girl the twelve francs she needed to take a part in
the festivity, and Marianne, less proud and less disdainful than her
brother, accepted gladly, without opposition and without the need of a
falsehood, the little sum offered.

Napoleon allowed this to take place without contradiction, and hindered
not his sister to receive from Madame de Permont the alms which he
himself had so arrogantly refused.

But they had barely left the reception-room and entered the carriage,
than his suffering heart burst into a sarcastic philippic against the
contemptible administration of such royal establishments as St. Cyr and
the military school.

M. de Permont, who had at first patiently and with a smile listened to
these raving invectives, felt himself at last wounded by them; and the
supercilious and presumptuous manner in which the young man of barely
seventeen years spoke of the highest offices of the state, and of the
king himself, excited his anger.

“Hush, Napoleon!” said he, reluctantly. “It does not beseem you, who are
educated upon the king’s bounty, to speak thus.”

Napoleon shrank within himself as if he had been bitten by a serpent,
and a deadly pallor overspread his cheeks.

“I am not the pupil of the king, but of the state!” exclaimed he, in a
boisterous voice, trembling with passion.

“Ah, that is indeed a fine distinction which you have made there,
Napoleon,” said M. de Permont, laughing. “It is all the same whether you
are the pupil of the state or of the king; moreover, is not the king
the state also? However it may be, it beseems you not to speak of your
benefactor in such inappropriate terms.”

Napoleon concentrated all his efforts into self-control, and mastered
himself into a grave, quiet countenance.

“I will be silent,” said he, with an appearance of composure; “I will no
more say what might excite your displeasure. Only allow me to say,
were I master here, had I to decide upon the regulations of these
institutions, I would have them very different, and for the good of
all.”

“Were I master here!” The pupil of the military school, for whom poverty
was preparing so much humiliation, who had just now experienced a fresh
humiliation through his sister in the reception-room of St. Cyr, was
already thinking what he would do were he the ruler of France; and,
strange enough, these words seemed natural to his lips, and no one
thought of sneering or laughing at him when he thus spoke.

Meanwhile his harsh and repulsive behavior, his constant fault-finding
and censoriousness were by no means conducive to the friendship and
affection of those around him; he was a burden to all, he was an
inconvenience to all; and the teachers as well as the pupils of the
military school were all anxious to get rid of his presence.

As nothing else could be said to his reproach; as there was no denying
his assiduity, his capacities, and progress, there was but one means
of removing him from the institution--he had to be promoted. It was
necessary to recognize the young pupil of the military school as
competent to enter into the practical, active military service; it was
necessary to make a lieutenant out of the pupil.

Scarcely had one year passed since Napoleon had been received into the
military school of Paris, when he was nominated by the authorities of
the school for a vacancy in the rank of lieutenant, and he was promoted
to it in the artillery regiment of La Fere, then stationed at Valence.

In the year 1786 Napoleon left the military school to serve his country
and his king as second lieutenant, and to take the oath of allegiance.

Radiant with happiness and joy, proud alike of his promotion and of his
uniform, the young lieutenant went to the house of M. de Permont to show
himself to his friends in his new dignity and in his new splendors, and,
at their invitation, to pass a few days in their house before leaving
for Valence.

But, alas! his appearance realized not the wished-for result. As he
entered the saloon of Madame de Permont the whole family was gathered
there, and at the sight of Napoleon the two daughters, girls of six and
thirteen years, broke out into loud laughter. None are more alive than
children to the impression of what is ridiculous, and there was indeed
in the appearance of the young lieutenant something which well might
excite the laughing propensities of the lively little maidens. The
uniform appeared much too long and wide for the little meagre figure
of Napoleon, and his slender legs vanished in boots of such height and
breadth that he seemed more to swim than to walk with them.

These boots especially had excited the laughter of the little maidens;
and at every step which Napoleon, embarrassed as he was by the terrible
cannon-boots, made forward, the laughter only increased, so that the
expostulations and reproaches of Madame de Permont could not procure
silence.

Napoleon, who had entered the drawing-room with a face radiant with joy,
felt wounded by the children’s joyousness at his own cost. To be the
subject of scorn or sarcasm was then, as it was afterward, entirely
unbearable to him, and when he himself also tried to jest he knew not
how to receive the jests directed at him. After having saluted M. and
Madame de Permont, Napoleon turned to the eldest daughter Cecilia, who,
a few days before, had come from the boarding-school to remain a
short time at home, and who, laughing, had placed herself right before
monsieur the lieutenant.

“I find your laughter very silly and childish,” said he, eagerly.

The young maid, however, continued to laugh.

“M. Lieutenant,” said she, “since you carry such a mighty sword, you
no doubt wish to carry it as a lady’s knight, and therefore you must
consider it an honor when ladies jest with you.”

Napoleon gave a contemptuous shrug of the shoulders.

“It is evident,” said he, scornfully, “that you are but a little
school-girl.”

These sarcastic words wounded the vanity of the young maiden, and
brought a glow of anger on her face.

“Well, yes,” cries she, angrily, “I am a school-girl, but you--you are
nothing else than a puss in boots!”

A general laugh followed; even Madame de Permont, ordinarily so good
and so considerate, could not suppress laughter. The witty words of the
little school-girl were too keen and too applicable that she should be
subjected to reproach.

Napoleon’s wrath was indescribable. His visage was overspread with a
yellow-greenish pallor, his lips were contracted nervously, and already
opened for a word of anger. But he suppressed that word with an effort;
for though not yet familiar with all the forms and usages of society,
his fine tact and the instinct of what was becoming told him that when
the conversation ran into personalities the best plan was to be silent,
and that he must not return personal remarks, since his opponent was one
of the fair sex. He therefore remained silent, and so controlled himself
as to join in the general laughter and to show himself heartily amused
at the unfortunate nickname of the little Cecilia.

And that every one might be convinced how much he himself had been
amused at this little scene, he brought, a few days afterward, to the
youngest daughter of Madame de Permont, a charming little toy which he
had had made purposely for her. This toy consisted of a small gilt and
richly-ornamented carriage of papier-mache, before which leaped along a
very lovely puss in boots.

To this present for the little Lolotte (afterward Duchess d’Abrantes),
was added for Cecilia an elegant and interesting edition of the tales
of “Puss in Boots,” and when Napoleon politely presented it to the young
maid he begged her to receive kindly this small souvenir from him.

“That is too much,” said Madame de Permont, shaking her head. “The toy
for Loulou would have been quite enough. But this present to Cecilia
shows that you took her jest in earnest, and were hurt by it.”

Napoleon, however, affirmed that he had not taken the jest in earnest,
that he had been no wise hurt by it; that he himself when he put on
his uniform had to laugh at the nickname of “puss in boots” which dear
Cecilia had given him.

He had, however, endeavored no more to deserve this nickname, and the
unlucky boots were replaced by much smaller and closer-fitting ones.

A few days after this little incident the young second lieutenant left
Paris and went to meet his regiment La Fere at Valence.

A life of labor and study, of hopes and dreams, now began for the young
lieutenant. He gave himself up entirely to his military service, and
pursued earnest, scientific studies in regard to it. Mathematics, the
science of war, geometry, and finally politics, were the objects of his
zeal; but alongside of these he read and studied earnestly the works of
Voltaire, Corneille, Racine, Montaigne, the Abbe Raynal, and, above all,
the works of Jean Jacques Rousseau, whose passionate and enthusiastic
disciple Napoleon Bonaparte was at that time. [Footnote: “Memoires du
Roi Joseph,” vol. i., p. 33.]

Amid so many grave occupations of the mind it would seem that the heart
with all its claims had to remain in the background. The smiling boy
Cupid, with his gracious raillery and his smarting griefs, seemed
to make no impression on that pale, grave, and taciturn artillery
lieutenant, and not to dare shoot an arrow toward that bosom which had
mailed itself in an impenetrable cuirass of misanthropy, stoicism, and
learning.

But yet between the links of this coat-of-mail an arrow must have
glided, for the young lieutenant suddenly became conscious that there
in his bosom a heart did beat, and that it was going in the midst of
his studies to interrupt his dreams of misanthropy. Yes, it had come to
this, that he abandoned his study to pay his court to a young lady, that
at her side he lost his gravity of mien, his gloomy taciturnity, and
became joyous, talkative, and merry, as beseemed a young man of his age.

The young lady who exercised so powerful an influence upon the young
Bonaparte was the daughter of the commanding officer at Valence, M. de
Colombier. He loved her, but his lips were yet too timid to confess
it, and of what need were words to these young people to understand one
another and to know what the one felt for the other?

In the morning they took long walks through the beautiful park; they
spoke one to another of their childhood, of their brothers and
sisters, and when the young maid with tears in her eyes listened to the
descriptions which Napoleon made to her of his country, of his father’s
house, and, above all things, of his mother--when she with animation
and enthusiasm declared that Letitia was a heroine greater than whom
antiquity had never seen, then Napoleon would take her two hands in his
and thank her with tremulous voice for the love which she consecrated to
his noble mother.

If in the morning they had to separate, as an indemnification an evening
walk in the light of the moon was agreed upon, and the young maid
promised heroically to come without uncertainty, however imperative was
her mother’s prohibition. And truly, when her mother was asleep, she
glided down into the park, and Napoleon welcomed her with a happy smile,
and arm in arm, happy as children, they wandered through the paths,
laughing at their own shadows, which the light of the moon in wondrous
distortion made to dance before them. They entered into a small bower,
which stood in the shadow of trees, and there the young Napoleon had
prepared for the young maid a very pleasing surprise. There on the table
was a basket full of her favorite fruit--full of the sweetest, finest
cherries. Louise thanked her young lover with a hand-pressure for the
tender attention, but she declared that she would touch none of the
cherries unless Napoleon enjoyed them with her, and to please his
beloved he had to obey.

They sat down on the seat before the bower and enjoyed the golden light
of the moon, the night air amid the lime-trees, the joy of being thus
secretly together, and with infinite delight they ate of the sweet juicy
cherries. But when the last cherry was eaten, the moon became darkened,
a rude night breeze shook the trees, and made the young maid tremble
with cold. She must not remain from home any longer, she must not
expose herself to the dangerous night air; thus argued the considerate
tenderness of the young lieutenant, and, kissing her hand, he bade
farewell to Louise, and watched until the tender ethereal figure had
vanished behind the little door which led from the park into the house.
[Footnote: “Memorial de St. Helene,” p. 30.]

The sweet idyl of his first love had, however, come to a sudden and
unexpected end. The young Second-Lieutenant Bonaparte was ordered to
Lyons with his regiment, and the first innocent romance of his heart was
ended.

But he never forgot the young maid, whom he then had so tenderly loved,
and in the later days of his grandeur he remembered her, and when he
learned that she had lost her husband, a M. de Bracieux, and lived in
very depressing circumstances, he appointed her maid of honor to his
sister Elise, and secured her a very handsome competency.

The dream of his first love had been dreamed away; and, perhaps
to forget it, Napoleon again in Lyons gave himself up with deepest
earnestness to study. The Academy of Sciences in Lyons had offered
a prize for the answer to the question: “What are the sentiments and
emotions which are to be instilled into men, so as to make them happy?”

Napoleon entered the lists for this prize, and, if his work did not
receive the prize, it furnished the occasion for the Abbe Raynal, who
had answered the question successfully, to become acquainted with
the young author, and to encourage him to persevere in his literary
pursuits, for which he had exhibited so much talent.

Napoleon then, with all the fire of his soul, began a new work, the
history of the revolutions in Corsica; and, in order to make accurate
researches in the archives of Ajaccio, he obtained leave of absence to
go thither. In the year 1788, Napoleon returned to his native isle to
his mother, to his brothers and sisters, all of whom he had not seen for
nine years, and was welcomed by them with the tenderest affection.

But the joys of the family could draw away the young man but little
from his studies and researches; and, however much he loved his mother,
brothers and sisters, now much grown up, yet he preferred being alone
with his elder brother Joseph, making long walks with him, and in solemn
exchange of thoughts and sentiments, communicating to him his studies,
his hopes, his dreams for the future.

To acquire distinction, fame, reputation with the actual world, and
immortality with the future--such was the object on which all the
wishes, all the hopes of Napoleon were concentrated; and in long hours
of conversation with Joseph he spoke of the lofty glory to carve out an
immortal name, to accomplish deeds before which admiring posterity would
bow.

Did Napoleon then think of purchasing for himself an immortal name as
writer, as historian? At least he studied very earnestly the archives of
Ajaccio, and sent a preliminary essay of his history of the revolutions
of Corsica to Raynal for examination. This renowned savant of his day
warmly congratulated the young author on his work, and asked him to send
a copy that he might show it to Mirabeau.

Napoleon complied with these wishes; and when, a few weeks after, he
received a letter from Raynal, after reading it, he, with radiant eyes
and a bright smile, handed it to his brother Joseph.

In this letter of Raynal were found these words: “Monsieur de Mirabeau
has in this little essay found traits which announce a genius of the
first rank. He entreats the young author to come to him in Paris.”
 [Footnote: “Memoires du Roi Joseph,” vol. i., p. 33.]

But the young author could not at once obey the call of the Count de
Mirabeau. A sad family bereavement delayed him at the time in Corsica.
The brother of his grandfather, the aged Archdeacon Lucian, the faithful
counsellor and friend of Letitia and of her young family, was seized
with a mortal disease; the gout, which for years had tormented him, was
now to give him the fatal blow, and the whole family of the Bonapartes
was called to the bedside of the old man to receive his parting words.

Weeping, they all stood around his couch; weeping, Letitia bent over the
aged man, whose countenance was already signed with the hand of death.
Around kneeled the younger children of Letitia, for their great-uncle
had long been to them a kind father and protector; and on the other
side of the couch, facing Letitia and her brother, the Abbe Fesch, stood
Joseph and Napoleon, gazing with sad looks on their uncle.

His large, already obscured eyes wandered with a deep, searching glance
upon all the members of the Bonaparte family, and then at last remained
fixed with a wondrous brilliancy of expression on the pale, grave face
of Napoleon.

At this moment, the Abbe Fesch, with a voice trembling with emotion and
full of holy zeal, began to intone the prayers for the dead. But the old
priest ordered him with a voice full of impatience to be silent.

“I have prayed long enough in my life,” said he; “I have now but a few
moments to live, and I must give them to my family.”

The loud sobbings of Letitia and of her children interrupted him, and
called forth a last genial smile upon the already stiffening features.

“Letitia,” said he, in a loud, friendly tone, “Letitia, cease to shed
tears; I die happy, for I see you surrounded by all your children. My
life is no longer necessary to the children of my dear Charles; I
can therefore die. Joseph is at the head of the administration of
the country, and he will know how to take care of what belongs to his
family. You, Napoleon,” continued he, with a louder voice, “you will be
a great and exalted man.” [Footnote: “Tu poi. Napoleon, serai unomone”
 such were the words of the dying man, assures us King Joseph in his
memoirs; whilst Las Casas, in his memorial of St. Helena, makes Napoleon
relate that his uncle had told him, “You, Napoleon, will be the head of
the family.”]

His eyes turned on Napoleon, he sank back on the cushions, and his dying
lips murmured yet once more, “Tu serai unomone!”

After the body of the worthy great-uncle had been laid in the grave,
Napoleon left Corsica to return to France and to his regiment, for the
time of his leave of absence had expired.

For the second time the lips of a dying man had prophesied him a great
and brilliant future. His dying father had said that one day the sword
of his son Napoleon would make all Europe bow under the yoke; his
great-uncle had prophesied he would be a great and exalted personage.

To these prophecies of the dying is to be added Mirabeau’s judgment,
which called Napoleon a genius of the first stamp.

But this great and glorious future was yet screened under dark
clouds from the eyes of the young lieutenant of artillery, and the
blood-dripping hand of the Revolution was first needed to tear away
these clouds and to convert the king’s lieutenant of artillery into the
Emperor of France!




CHAPTER VIII. A PAGE FROM HISTORY.


The dark clouds which hung yet over the future of Napoleon Bonaparte,
the lieutenant of artillery, were gathering in heavier and heavier
masses over all France, and already were overshadowing the throne of the
lilies.

Marie Antoinette had already abandoned the paradise of innocency in
Trianon, and when she came there now it was to weep in silence, to cast
away the mask from her face, and under the garb of the proud, imperious,
ambitious queen to exhibit the pallid, anxious countenance of the woman.

Alas! they were passed away, those days of festivity, those innocent
joys of Trianon; the royal farmer’s wife had no more the heart to carry
the spindle, to gather eggs from the hens’ nests, and to perform with
her friends the joyous idyls of a pastoral life.

The queen had procured for herself a few years of freedom and license by
banishing from Versailles and from the Tuileries the burdensome Madame
Etiquette, who hitherto had watched over every step of a Queen of
France, but in her place Madame Politique had entered into the palace,
and Marie Antoinette could not drive her away as she had done with
Madame Etiquette.

For Madame Politique came into the queen’s apartments, ushered in by a
powerful and irresistible suite. The failure of the crops throughout
the land, want, the cries of distress from a famishing people, the
disordered finances of the state--such was the suite which accompanied
Politique before the queen; pamphlets, pasquinades, sarcastic songs
on Marie Antoinette, whom no more the people called their queen,
but already the foreigner, L’Autrichienne--such were the gifts which
Politique brought for the queen.

The beautiful and innocent days of Trianon were gone, no longer could
Marie Antoinette forget that she was a queen! The burden of her lofty
position pressed upon her always; and, if now and then she sought to
adorn her head with roses, her crown pressed their thorns with deeper
pain into her brow.

Unfortunate queen! Even the circle of friends she had gathered round her
person only urged her on more and more into the circle which politics
had traced around her. In her innocency and thoughtlessness of heart she
imagined that, to a queen as to any other woman, it might be allowed
to have about her friends and confidants, to enjoy the pleasures of
society, and to amuse one another! But now she had to learn that a queen
dare not have confidants, friends, or social circles!

Her friends, in whose disinterestedness she had trusted, approached
her with demands, with prayers; they claimed power, influence, and
distinctions; they all wanted to rule through the queen; they all wanted
through her to impose laws to king and state; they wanted to name and
to depose ministers; they wanted their friendship to be rewarded with
embassies, ministerial offices, decorations, and titles.

And when Marie Antoinette refused compliance with their wishes, her
beautiful friends, the Duchesses de Polignac, wept, and her friends,
Messieurs Vesenval, Vaudreuil, Coigny, and Polignac, dared be angry and
murmur at her.

But when Marie Antoinette consented--when she used her influence with
the king, to satisfy the wishes of her friends, and to make ministers of
her facon--then the queen’s enemies, with loud, mad-dog cry, lifted up
the voice and complained and clamored that it was no more the king but
the queen who reigned; that she was the one who precipitated the nation
into wretchedness and want; that she gave millions to her friends,
whilst the people were perishing with hunger; that she sent millions to
her brother, the Emperor of Austria, whilst the country was only able
to pay the interest of her enormous debt; that she, in unrestrained
appetite and licentiousness, lived only for pleasure and festivities,
whilst France was depressed under misery and want.

And the queen’s enemies were mightier, more numerous, and more loyal one
to another than the queen’s friends, who were ever ready to pass into
the camp of her foes as soon as Marie Antoinette gratified not their
wishes and would not satisfy their political claims.

At the head of these enemies was the king’s brother, the Count de
Provence, who never forgave the queen for being an Austrian princess;
there were also the king’s aunts, who could never forgive her that the
king loved her, that by means of this love to his wife they should lose
the influence which these aunts, and especially Madame Adelaide, had
before exercised over him; there was the Duke d’Orleans, who had to
revenge himself for the disgust and dislike which Marie Antoinette
publicly expressed against this vicious and wild prince; there was the
Cardinal Prince de Rohan, whose criminal passion the queen had repelled
with contemptuous disgust, and who had paid for this passion one million
francs, with imprisonment, shame, and ridicule. For this passion for the
queen had blinded the cardinal, and made him believe in the possibility
of a return. In his blindness he had placed confidence in the
whisperings and false promises of the insidious intriguer Madame de
la Motte-Valois, who, in the queen’s name, asked from him a loan of a
million for the purchase of a jewelled ornament which highly pleased
the queen, and which she, notwithstanding her exhausted coffers, was
resolved to possess.

Yes, love had blinded Cardinal de Rohan, and with blind eyes he had
accepted as letters from the queen those which Madame de la Motte
brought him; and he could not see that the person who gave him a
rendezvous in the gardens of Versailles was not the queen, but only a
common, vicious woman, who had been clothed in the queen’s garments.

The queen had been travestied into a wench, and the highest
ecclesiastical dignitary of the land was the one who took this wench for
his queen, was the one who, with a rendezvous, a kiss on the hand, and
a rose, was rewarded for the million he had given to the jeweller for a
necklace of diamonds!

It is true, the deception was discovered; it is true, it was Marie
Antoinette herself who asked for a strict investigation, who with tears
of anger required from her consort that this horrible intrigue which had
been woven round her person should be investigated and judged publicly
before the Parliament; that the Cardinal de Rohan should be punished for
the criminal insult offered by him to the queen, since he thought her
capable of granting him a rendezvous, of exchanging with him letters of
tender passion, and of accepting gifts from him!

But the Parliament, which recognized the guilt of Madame de la Motte,
which ordered her to be whipped, branded, and driven out of the country
as an impostor and a thief, the Parliament declared the Cardinal de
Rohan innocent; all punishments were removed from him, and he was
re-established in all his dignities and rights. And the people, who in
enormous masses had besieged the Parliament buildings, welcomed this
decision of the judges with loud demonstrations and shouts of joy, and
carried the cardinal in triumph through the streets, and honored and
glorified him as a martyr and a saint.

This triumph of the cardinal was an affecting defeat to the queen; it
was the first awful testimony, spoken loudly and openly, by the popular
sentiment.

Hitherto her enemies had worked against her quietly, and in the darkness
of night; but now, in open day, they dared launch against her their
terrible accusations, and represent her imprudence as a crime, her
errors as shameful and premeditated wickedness. No one believed in the
queen’s innocency in this necklace transaction; and whereas Cardinal
de Rohan had been made a martyr, whereas Parliament had declared him
innocent, the queen consequently must be the guilty one, to whose
cupidity the cardinal and the unfortunate Madame de la Motte and also
the beautiful D’Olivia, who in this horrible farce had played the part
of the queen, had been sacrificed.

The name, the character, the reputation of the queen, had been trodden
down in the dust, and the Count de Provence, who himself composed
sarcastic songs and pasquinades against his royal sister-in-law, and
had copies of them circulated through the court, reflected not that in
calumniating the queen and exposing her to the scorn and ridicule of
the world he thereby shook the throne itself, and imperilled the awe and
respect which the people should have had for the monarchy. And all the
other mighty dignitaries and foes of Marie Antoinette did not calculate
that in exciting the storm of calumny against the Queen of France, they
also attacked the king and the aristocracy, and tore down the barrier
which hitherto had stood between the people and the nobility.

Hitherto pamphlets and sarcastic songs only had been directed against
the queen; but now, in the year 1787, all France was to re-echo a
pamphlet launched against the nobility and the whole aristocracy.

This pamphlet was “The Wedding of Figaro,” by Beaumarchais. The habits
of the aristocracy, of the higher classes, were in this drama castigated
and thrown to the scorn, ridicule, and laughter of all France. Every
thing which the people hitherto had held sacred, was laughed at in this
drama; all the laws of manners, of rank, of morality, were scorned
at, hissed at; and, under this hissing, appeared in full view and with
fearful veracity the rotten and poisoned condition of the so-called
upper classes of society.

It was in vain that the censor declared the publication illegal, and
prohibited the representation of “The Wedding of Figaro.” The opposition
took advantage of this measure, and since it could not be published,
hundreds of copies were circulated; and, if it could not be represented,
its reading was listened to. It soon became fashionable to attend at the
readings of “Figaro’s Wedding” and to possess a copy of the drama.
Even in the queen’s social circle, in the circle of the Polignacs, this
dangerous drama was patronized, and even the queen was requested to use
her influence upon the king for its representation.

This general clamor, this tempest of the public opinion, excited
even the king’s curiosity; and as everybody attended the readings of
Beaumarchais’ drama, the crowned heads had also to bow to the fashion.
Madame de Campan had to read before the king and the queen this renowned
“Wedding of Figaro,” so that the king might give his decision. The
good-natured countenance of the king darkened more and more, and during
Figaro’s monologue, in which the different institutions of the state
are ridiculed, especially when, with words full of poison and scorn, the
author alludes to state-prisons, the king rose angrily from his seat.

“It is a contemptible thing,” cried he, vehemently. “The Bastile must be
destroyed before the representation of this piece would not appear as a
dangerous inconsequence. This man ridicules every thing which in a state
ought to be esteemed and respected.”

“This piece will not then be represented?” asked Marie Antoinette, at
the close of the reading.

“No, certainly not!” exclaimed Louis, “you can be convinced of it; this
piece will not be represented.”

But the clamor, the longings for this representation were more and more
loudly expressed, and more and more pressing. It was in vain that the
king by his decree forbade its already-announced representation in the
theatre of the menus plaisirs. Beaumarchais cried aloud to the murmuring
audience, who complained very loudly against this tyranny, against
this oppression of the king, the consoling words: “Well, sirs, the king
desires that my drama be not represented here, but I swear that it will
be represented, perhaps even in the chancel of Notre Dame.”

It was soon apparent that Beaumarchais’ words and the wishes of the
public opinion were stronger than the words and the wishes of the king
and of his highest officers. The king himself felt it and acknowledged
it soon; he shrugged his shoulders compassionately when the chancellor
of the seal, adhering still to his opposition, would by no means consent
to the performance of the drama.

“You will see,” said Louis, with his own soft, good-natured smile--“you
will see that Beaumarchais’ credit is better than that of the great-seal
bearer.” [Footnote: “Memoires de Madame de Campan,” vol. i., p. 279.]

The king’s prophecy was correct--Beaumarchais had more credit than the
chancellor! His powerful patrons in high places, and all those who
made opposition to the king and queen, and at their head the Count de
Provence, banded together to have this piece publicly represented. The
king’s consent was elicited from him by the assurance made public
that Beaumarchais had stricken out of his drama all the offensive and
captious parts, and that it was now a mere innocent and somewhat tedious
piece.

The king gave his consent, and “The Wedding of Figaro” was represented
at the Theatre Francais.

The effect of this drama on the public was a thing unheard of; so
enthusiastic that Beaumarchais himself laughingly said: “There
is something yet more foolhardy than my piece, and that is, its
result”--that the renowned actress Sophie Arnold, in allusion to this,
that the opponents of this drama had prophesied that it would fall
through, exclaimed: “The piece will fall through to-day more than fifty
times one after another!”

But even this prophecy of the actress did not reach the full result,
and the sixtieth representation was as crowded as the first. All Paris
wanted to see it, so as to hiss the government, the nobility, clergy,
morality. There was a rush from the provinces to Paris for the sake of
attending the representation of “Figaro’s Wedding;” and even those who
hitherto had opposed the performance, pressed forward to see it.

One day Beaumarchais received a letter from the Duke de Villequier,
asking of him as a favor to give up for that evening his trellised
box in behalf of some ladies of the court, who desired to see “Figaro”
 without being seen.

Beaumarchais answered: “My lord duke, I have no respect for ladies who
desire to see a performance which they consider improper, and who wish
to see it under cover. I cannot stoop to such fancies. I have given my
piece to the public to amuse and not to instruct them, not to procure to
tamed wenches (begueules mitigees) the satisfaction of thinking well of
the piece in a small trellised box, and then to say all manner of evil
against it in public. The pleasure of vice and the honors of
virtue, that is what the prudery of our age demands. My piece is not
double-faced. It must be accepted or repelled. I salute you, my lord
duke, and keep my box.” [Footnote: “Correspondance de Diderot et Grimm
avec un Souverain.”]

All Paris chuckled over this letter, which was circulated in hundreds
of copies, as the drama itself had circulated at first. Every one was
convinced that it was the queen who wanted to attend the representation
of “Figaro” in the trellised box; for it, was well known that the
queen, angry at monsieur for having been present with all his suite at
a representation in the box reserved for the court, had openly declared:
“Could she come to the conclusion of seeing this drama, she would only
see it through a small trellised box, and that without any ceremony.”

In laughing at the letter of Beaumarchais, the ridicule was directed
against the queen, who had been refused in so shameful a manner. But
Marie Antoinette did not wish to be laughed at. She still hoped to
overcome her enemies, and to win the public sentiment. She requested an
investigation, she insisted that the Duke de Villequier should openly
acknowledge for whom among the ladies of the court he had asked for the
box; that Beaumarchais should publicly confess that he had not dared
suppose his words were directed against the queen.

The whole matter was brought to an end by an arbitrary decree.
Beaumarchais was compelled publicly to acknowledge that his famous
letter was directed neither to a duke nor to a peer, but to one of his
friends, whose strange request he had thus answered in the first flush
of anger. But it is evident no one believed in this explanation, and
every one felt pleasure in referring to the queen the expression of
“begueule mitigee.”

Paris, which for a whole winter had laughed at a theatrical piece, and
was satiated with it, was now to assist at the first scene of a drama
whose tragical power and force were to tear France asunder, and whose
continuance was to be marked by blood and tears.

This important drama, whose opening followed closely Beaumarchais’
drama, exhibited its first scene at Versailles at the opening of the
States-General on the 5th of May, 1789. All Paris, all France watched
this event as the rise of a new sun, of a new era which was to break
upon France and bring her happiness, salvation, and strength. A new, an
unsuspected power entered with it upon the scene, the Tiers Etat;
the third class was, at the opening of the States-General, solemnly
recognized as a third power, alongside of the nobility and clergy.
With the third class, the people and the yeomen entered into the king’s
palace; one-half of the people were to make the laws instead of having
to submit to them.

It was Marie Antoinette who had endeavored with all her influence on the
king that the third class, hitherto barely recognized, barely
tolerated, should appear in a two-fold stronger representation at the
States-General; it was the queen also who had requested Necker’s recall.
Unfortunate woman, who bowed both pride and will to the wishes of public
opinion, who yet hoped to succeed in winning again the people’s love,
since she endeavored to meet the wishes of the people!

But this love had turned away from her forever; and whatever Marie
Antoinette might now do to exhibit her candid wishes, her devotedness
was not trusted in by the people, who looked upon her as an enemy, no
longer Queen of France, but simply an Austrian.

Even on this day of universal joy, on the day of the opening of the
States-General, there was no desire to hide from the queen the hatred
felt against her, but there was the resolve to show her that France,
even in her hour of happiness, ceased not to make opposition to her.

The opening of the States-General was to be preceded in Versailles
by divine service. In solemn procession the deputies arrived; and the
people who had streamed from Paris and from the whole region round
about, and who in compact masses filled the immense square in front of
the palace, and the whole street leading to the Church of St. Louis,
received the deputies with loud, unbroken shouts, and met the princes
and the king with applause. But no sooner was the queen in sight, than
the people remained dumb; and then, after this appalling pause, which
petrified the heart of the queen, the women with their true instinct of
hatred began to cry out, “Long live the Duke d’Orleans! Long live the
people’s friend, the good Duke d’Orleans!”

The name of the duke thus derisively thrown in the face of the
queen--for it was well known that she hated him, that she had forbidden
him to enter into her apartments--this name at this hour, thrown at
her by the people, struck the queen’s heart as the blow of a dagger;
a deathly pallor overspread her cheeks, and nearly fainting she h

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