Little Journeys to the Homes of Famous Women — Empress Josephine, Part 1

EMPRESS JOSEPHINE

You have met General Bonaparte in my house.

Well--he it is who would supply a father's place to the orphans of Alexander de Beauharnais, and a husband's to his widow.

I admire the General's courage, the extent of his information, for on all subjects he talks equally well, and the quickness of his judgment, which enables him to seize the thoughts of others almost before they are expressed; but, I confess it, I shrink from the despotism he seems desirous of exercising over all who approach him.

His searching glance has something singular and inexplicable, which imposes even on our Directors; judge if it may not intimidate a woman.

Even--what ought to please me--the force of a passion, described with an energy that leaves not a doubt of his sincerity, is precisely the cause which arrests the consent I am often on the point of pronouncing.

--_Letters of Josephine_ [Illustration: EMPRESS JOSEPHINE] It was a great life, dearie, a great life!

Charles Lamb used to study mathematics to subdue his genius, and I'll have to tinge truth with gray in order to keep this little sketch from appearing like a red Ruritania romance.

Josephine was born on an island in the Caribbean Sea, a long way from France.

The Little Man was an islander, too.

They started for France about the same time, from different directions--each, of course, totally unaware that the other lived.

They started on the order of that joker, Fate, in order to scramble Continental politics, and make omelet of the world's pretensions.

Josephine's father was Captain Tascher.

Do you know who Captain Tascher was?

Very well, there is satisfaction then in knowing that no one else does either.

He seems to have had no ancestors; and he left no successor save Josephine.

We know a little less of Josephine's mother than we do of her father.

She was the daughter of a Frenchman whom the world had plucked of both money and courage, and he moved to the West Indies to vegetate and brood on the vanity of earthly ambitions.

Young Captain Tascher married the planter's daughter in the year Seventeen Hundred Sixty-two.

The next year a daughter was born, and they called her name Josephine.

Not long after her birth, Captain Tascher thought to mend his prospects by moving to one of the neighboring islands.

His wife went with him, but they left the baby girl in the hands of a good old aunt, until they could corral fortune and make things secure, for this world at least.

They never came back, for they died and were buried.

Josephine never had any recollection of her parents.

But the aunt was gentle and kindly, and life was simple and cheap.

There was plenty to eat, and no clothing to speak of was required, for the Equator was only a stone's throw away; in fact, it was in sight of the house, as Josephine herself has said.

There was a Catholic church near, but no school.

Yet Josephine learned to read and write.

She sang with the negroes and danced and swam and played leap-frog.

When she was nine years old, her aunt told her she must not play leap-frog any more, but she should learn to embroider and to play the harp and read poetry.

Then she would grow up and be a fine lady.

And Josephine thought it a bit hard, but said she would try.

She was tall and slender, but not very handsome.

Her complexion was rather yellow, her hands bony.

But the years brought grace, and even if her features were not pretty she had one thing that was better, a gentle voice.

So far as I know, no one ever gave her lessons in voice culture either.

Perhaps the voice is the true index of the soul.

Josephine's voice was low, sweet, and so finely modulated that when she spoke others would pause to listen--not to the words, just to the voice.

Occasionally, visitors came to the island and were received at the old rambling mansion where Josephine's aunt lived.

From them the girl learned about the great, outside world with its politics and society and strife and rivalry; and when the visitor went away Josephine had gotten from him all he knew.

So the young woman became wise without school and learned without books.

A year after the memorable year of Seventeen Hundred Seventy-six, there came to the island, Vicomte Alexander Beauharnais.

He had come direct from America, where he had fought on the side of the Colonies against the British.

He was full of Republican principles.

Paradoxically, he was also rich and idle and somewhat of an adventurer.

He called at the old aunt's, Madame Renaudin's, and called often.

He fell violently in love with Josephine.

I say violently, for that was the kind of man he was.

He was thirty, she was fifteen.

His voice was rough and guttural, so I do not think he had much inward grace.

Josephine's fine instincts rebelled at thought of accepting his proffered affection.

She explained that she was betrothed to another, a neighboring youth of about her own age, whose thoughts and feelings matched hers.

Beauharnais said that was nothing to him, and appealed to the old folks, displaying his title, submitting an inventory of his estate; and the old folks agreed to look into the matter.

They did so and explained to Josephine that she should not longer hold out against the wishes of those who had done so much for her.

And so Josephine relented and they were married, although it can not truthfully be said that they lived happily ever afterward.

They started for France, on their wedding-tour.

In six weeks they arrived in Paris.

Returned soldiers and famed travelers are eagerly welcomed by society;

especially is this so when the traveler brings a Creole wife from the Equator.

The couple supplied a new thrill, and society in Paris is always eager for a new thrill.

Vicomte Beauharnais and his wife became quite the rage.

It was expected that the Creole lady would be beautiful but dull; instead, she was not so very beautiful, but very clever.

She dropped into all the graceful ways of polite society intuitively.

In a year, domestic life slightly interfered with society's claims--a son was born.

They called his name Eugene.

Two more years and a daughter was born.

They called her name Hortense.

Josephine was only twenty, but the tropics and social experience and maternity had given ripeness to her life.

She became thoughtful and inclined rather to stay at home with her babies than chase fashion's butterflies.

Beauharnais chased fashion's butterflies, and caught them, too, for he came home late and quarreled with his wife--a sure sign.

He drank a little, gamed more, sought excitement, and talked politics needlessly loud in underground cafes.

Men who are woefully lax in their marriage relations are very apt to regard their wives with suspicion.

If Beauharnais had been weighed in the balances he would have been found wanton.

He instituted proceedings against Josephine for divorce.

And Josephine packed up a few scanty effects and taking her two children started for her old home in the West Indies.

It took all the money she had to pay passage.

It was the old, old story--a few years of gay life in the great city, then cruelty too great for endurance, tears, shut white lips, a firm resolve--and back to the old farm where homely, loyal hearts await, and outstretched arms welcome the sorrowful, yet glad return.

Beauharnais failed to get his divorce.

The court said "no cause for action."

He awoke, stared stupidly about, felt the need of sympathy in his hour of undoing, and looked for--Josephine.

She was gone.

He tried absinthe, gambling, hot dissipation; but he could not forget.

He had sent away his granary and storehouse; his wand of wealth and heart's desire.

Two ways opened for peace, only two: a loaded pistol--or get her back.

First he would try to get her back, and the pistol should be held in reserve in case of failure.

Josephine forgave and came back; for a good woman forgives to seventy times seven.

Beauharnais met her with all the tenderness a lover could command.

The ceremony of marriage was again sacredly solemnized.

They retired to the country and with their two children lived three of the happiest months Josephine ever knew; at least Josephine said so, and the fact that she made the same remark about several other occasions is no reason for doubting her sincerity.

Then they moved back to Paris.

Beauharnais sobered his ambitions, and kept good hours.

He was a soldier in the employ of the king, but his sympathies were with the people.

He was a Republican with a Royalist bias, but some said he was a Royalist with a Republican bias.

Josephine looked after her household, educated her children, did much charitable work, and knew what was going on in the State.

But those were troublous times.

Murder was in the air and revolution was rife.

That mob of a hundred thousand women had tramped out to Versailles and brought the king back to Paris.

He had been beheaded, and Marie Antoinette had followed him.

The people were in power and Beauharnais had labored to temper their wrath with reason.

He had even been Chairman of the Third Convention.

He called himself Citizen.

But the fact that he was of noble birth was remembered, and in September of Seventeen Hundred Ninety-three, three men called at his house.

When Josephine looked out of the window, she saw by the wan light of the moon a file of soldiers standing stiff and motionless.

She knew the time had come.

They marched Citizen Beauharnais to the Luxembourg.

In a few feverish months, they came back for his wife.

Her they placed in the nunnery of the Carmelites--that prison where, but a few months before, a mob relieved the keepers of their vigils by killing all their charges.

Robespierre was supreme.

Now, Robespierre had come into power by undoing Danton.

Danton had helped lug in the Revolution, but when he touched a match to the hay he did not really mean to start a conflagration, only a bonfire.

He tried to dampen the blaze, and Robespierre said he was a traitor and led him to the guillotine.

Robespierre worked the guillotine until the bearings grew hot.

Still, the people who rode in the death-tumbrel did not seem so very miserable.

Despair pushed far enough completes the circle and becomes peace--a peace like unto security.

It is the last stage: hope is gone, but the comforting thought of heroic death and an eternal sleep takes its place.

When Josephine at the nunnery of the Carmelites received from the Luxembourg prison a package containing a generous lock of her husband's hair, she knew it had been purchased from the executioner.

Now the prison of the Carmelites was unfortunately rather crowded.

In fact, it was full to the roof-tile.

Five ladies were obliged to occupy one little cell.

One of these ladies in the cell with Josephine was Madame Fontenay.

Now Madame Fontenay was fondly loved by Citizen Tallien, who was a member of the Assembly over which Citizen Robespierre presided.

Citizen Tallien did not explain his love for Madame to the public, because Madame chanced to be the wife of another.

So how could Robespierre know that when he imprisoned Madame he was touching the tenderest tie that bound his friend Tallien to earth?

Robespierre sent word to the prison of the Carmelites that Madame Fontenay and Madame Beauharnais should prepare for death--they were guilty of plotting against the people.

Now, Tallien came daily to the prison of the Carmelites, not to visit of course, but to see that the prisoners were properly restrained.

A

cabbage-stalk was thrown out of a cell-window, and Tallien found in the stalk a note from his ladylove to this effect: "I am to die in two days;

to save me you must overthrow Robespierre."

The next day there was trouble when the Convention met.

Tallien got the platform and denounced Robespierre in a Cassius voice as a traitor--the arch-enemy of the people--a plotter for self.

To emphasize his remarks he brandished a glittering dagger.

Other orations followed in like vein.

All orders that Robespierre had given out were abrogated by acclamation.

Two days and Robespierre was made to take a dose of the medicine he had so often prescribed for others.

He was beheaded by Samson, his own servant, July Fifteenth, Seventeen Hundred Ninety-four.

Immediately all "suspects" imprisoned on his instigation were released.

Madame Fontenay and the widow Beauharnais were free.

Soon after this Madame Fontenay became Madame Tallien.

Josephine got her children back from the country, but her property was gone and she was in sore straits.

But she had friends, yet none so loyal and helpful as Citizen Tallien and his wife.

Their home was hers.

And it was there she met a man by the name of Barras, and there too she met a man who was a friend of Barras; by name, Bonaparte--Napoleon Bonaparte.

Bonaparte was twenty-six.

He was five feet two inches high and weighed one hundred twenty pounds.

He was beardless and looked like a boy, and at that time his face was illumined by an eruption.

Out of employment and waiting for something to turn up, he yet had a very self-satisfied manner.

His peculiar way of listening to conversation--absorbing everything and giving nothing out--made one uncomfortable.

Josephine, seven years his senior, did not like the youth.

She had had a wider experience and been better brought up than he, and she let him know it, but he did not seem especially abashed.

* * * * * Exactly what the French Revolution was, no one has yet told us.

Read "Carlyle" backward or forward and it is grand: it puts your head in a whirl of heroic intoxication, but it does not explain the Revolution.

Suspicion, hate, tyranny, fear, mawkish sentimentality, mad desire, were in the air.

One leader was deposed because he did nothing, and his successor was carried to the guillotine because he did too much.

Convention after convention was dissolved and re-formed.

On the Fourth of October, Seventeen Hundred Ninety-five, there was a howl and a roar and a shriek from forty thousand citizens of Paris.

No one knew just what they wanted--the forty thousand did not explain.

Perhaps it was nothing--only the leaders who wanted power.

They demanded that the Convention should be dissolved: certain men must be put out and others put in.

The Convention convened and all the members felt to see if their heads were in proper place--tomorrow they might not be.

The room was crowded to suffocation.

Spectators filled the windows, perched on the gallery-railing, climbed and clung on the projecting parts of columns.

High up on one of these columns sat the young man Bonaparte, silent, unmoved, still waiting for something to turn up.

The Convention must protect itself, and the call was for Barras.

Barras had once successfully parleyed with insurrection--he must do so again.

Barras turned bluish-white, for he knew that to deal with this mob successfully a man must be blind and deaf to pity.

He struggled to his feet--he looked about helplessly--the Convention silently waited to catch the words of its savior.

High up on a column Barras spied the lithe form of the artillery major, whom he had seen, with face of bronze, deal out grape and canister at Toulon.

Barras raised his hand and pointing to the young officer cried, "There, there is the man who can save you!"

The Convention nominated the little man by acclamation as commander of the city's forces.

He slid down from his perch, took half an hour to ascertain whether the soldiers were on the side of the mob or against it--for it was usually a toss-up--and decided to accept the command.

Next day the mob surrounded the Tuileries in the name of Liberty, Fraternity and Equality.

The Terrorists entreated the soldiers to throw down their arms, then they reviled and cajoled and cursed and sang, and the women as usual were in the vanguard.

Paris recognized the divine right of insurrection.

Who dare shoot into such a throng!

The young artillery major dare.

He gave the word and red death mowed wide swaths, and the balls spat against the walls and sang through the windows of the Church of Saint Roche where the mob was centered.

Again and again he fired.

It began at four by the clock, and at six all good people, and bad, had retired to their homes, and Paris was law-abiding.

The Convention named Napoleon, General of the Interior, and the French Revolution became from that moment a thing that was.